Red Rock: The Dakota Sacred Boulder on the Mississippi
Near Minneapolis St Paul, Minnesota
The Dakota people called this massive boulder Eyah Shah, meaning Red Rock, and considered it sacred. It sat on the limestone bank of the Mississippi River here, an enormous glacial erratic that seemed to have no earthly explanation for how it arrived. The Dakota painted it red in ceremony and gathered near it.
When European settlers moved in during the eighteen hundreds, they built a town and named it Red Rock after the landmark. The boulder itself was moved by a church missionary to nearby Newport, Minnesota, where it sits in front of a church. Church leaders have agreed to return it to the Dakota.
A rock that survived glaciers and colonial disruption alike, still carrying its original name.
