A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 1

Semiotics of the Sioux

A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising

Annina M. Wells

“We [Lakota] are not opposed to economic development and industry; what we are opposed
to is threatening our land and threatening our water. Do this somewhere else. You did it to
us for over 200 years and you continue to do it. We are taking a stand and saying: ‘Enough
is enough.’”
- Dave Archambault II

1
Endnotes
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 2

Abstract

Over 300 federally-recognized indigenous nations have now gathered at North Dakota’s

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (Hunkpapa Lakota Nation) to combat the birth of the “black

snake”, an underground oil pipeline in construction less than a mile from the Lakota’s

treaty-lands. At Standing Rock, the Sioux water-protectors2 are attempting to end an echo

that has reverberated throughout American history: one of violence, of restricted resources,

of gutted treaties, genocide, eminent domain, and varnished promises. As the Lakota fight to

end these historical injustices, old archetypal constructions of the Native American have

reemerged in popular media. The American national identity was formed through the

framing of Native Americans as the savage “other” and as we continue to use this fabricated

concept of the “native” we perpetuate the great Anglo-American mythology. Through-out

this paper I will attempt to unmask these coded mythologies lingering within our collective

cultural memory as well as highlight the rich semiotic language used by the Sioux people I

encountered during my time at Standing Rock. Through this process it is hoped a

clarification of the Sioux resistance, as well as of our own implicit biases and myth-making,

This photo was taken by Michael Stevenson on Thanksgiving, November, 24 th 2016, at the Oceti Sakowin
camp of Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Emerging out of the flat plains to the left of the photo is
Turtle Island, a sacred burial site that was once considered tribal land that is now a contested construction
site for Energy Transfer Partner’s Bakken Pipeline, popularly known as DAPL or Dakota Access Pipeline. It was
on this day that the high-elevated peak of Turtle Island was dotted by law enforcement and militarized tanks
who surveyed the water protector's camp below and commented on a possible raid over megaphone. To the
right of the van are horses belonging to the peoples of Crow Feet and in the center of the photo, demanding
attention, is a mobile home raising an upside-down American flag: a well-known signal of dire distress and
extreme danger.
2
The members of the Standing Rock community have explicitly asked the movement and its activists to be
freed of the label “protest” and “protestor” as these words implicitly paint the uprising as angry, rash, and
violent. These negative stereotypes feed into pre-existing ideas pertaining to Native Americans as brutal and
ferocious savages. Instead of protestor, the term “water-protector” is the preferred term to signify those
involved in ending the DAPL construction as these words convey more compassionate and humane
archetypal features.
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 3

is achieved. To ensure full disclosure I am a non-native, Caucasian and do not speak on

behalf of the Lakota or any native group.

Introduction

With a deadline of January 1st 2017, the Dakota Access, LLC, a company owned by

Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.3, began the $3.78 billion-dollar project of constructing the

Bakken Pipeline, an 1,886-kilometer-long underground pipeline that would transport oil

from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to the pipelines in Illinois4. As of December 1st,

the pipeline had been installed in all four states with the exception of a small track of land at

Lake Oahe; and yet, it is here that construction has come to a halt. Initially planned to run

just North of Bismarck, the pipeline was rerouted after many in the city voiced concerns

over the pipeline’s risk of contaminating Bismarck’s water supply; the US Army Corp of

Engineers revoked the Dakota Access, LLC.’s permits to drill near the town and, shortly

after, approved the renegotiated route near Standing Rock. The city of Bismarck is 92.4%

3
Dakota Access Pipeline funders include Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, PNB Paribas, The Bank of Tokyo, ICBC
London, Citibank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Morgan Stanley, the Royal Bank of Canada, Goldman Sachs,
Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase
4
If the Bakken pipeline is completed, its 1,172-mile-long track will be the third longest pipeline in the United
States following the Rockies Express Pipeline (Colorado to Ohio - 1,678 miles) and the Transcontinental
Pipeline (Texas to New York – 1,671 miles
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 4

Caucasian5, leading many to believe the USACE’s actions were driven by racial inequality,

unjust enrichment, and spared injustice6. Dave Archambault II, the tribal Chairman of the

Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, noted the environmental racism inherent

in the USACE’s approval for the pipeline’s redirected course, “This pipeline was rerouted

towards our tribal nations when other citizens of North Dakota rightfully rejected it in the

interests of protecting their communities and water. We seek the same consideration as those

citizens.".

Due to the pipeline’s proximity to federally-recognized tribal land7, a grassroots

movement at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation has sprung up to combat the installation

of an oil pipeline on Native American soil. Many water-protectors argue that the Bakken

pipeline, also known as DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline), threatens the potability of nearby

water sources – a claim produced by white communities in Bismarck that was validated and

supported by governmental organizations. Unable to appeal the pipeline through the same

tactics exercised by white opponents, the people of Standing Rock began to employ social

justice strategies such as sit-ins, boycotts, and rallies, to end Bakken construction. While

arguments for ecological health and sustainability are among the reasons many are

protesting against the construction of the Bakken pipeline, the water-protector’s movement

5
According to the U.S. Census of 2010
6
“Unjust enrichment” and “spared injustice” are terms originated from Lawrence Blum’s article White
Privilege: A Mild Critic. Unjust enrichment refers to the benefits whites receive by living within a tiered social
hierarchy based off racial oppression. Spared Injustice refers to instances in which people of color experience
unjust treatment; whereas whites, committing the same act, are not reprimanded.
7
The land in question used to be reservation land as decreed by treaty; however, the treaty was later
revoked by the USACE due to the lands “unused” status. The Lakota argue that the land was unused, in terms
of agricultural or housing production, because of its unclaimed status. The water-protectors claim they are
combating the revoked treaty and reclaiming the land that was given to them. It is through this capitalist lens
of viewing the land that Stuart Banner, in How the Indians Lost their Land, states Native Americans lost their
land by not complying with market mechanisms.
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 5

is just as much a cry against the continued oppression of Native American citizens as it is a

stand against environmental destruction – though the two movements have been historically

intertwined. Standing Rock’s fight to protect native land and resources against the

encroachment of the U.S. government and corporations is eerily reminiscent of the United

States’ long-standing history of breaking treaties, as well as of its legacy of dehumanizing

and brutalizing indigenous peoples. As a historically marginalized and suppressed minority

group, the Sioux people are attempting to end this history of persecution by reclaiming

control of their land, their bodies, and their narratives through the Standing Rock uprising.

Figure 2 This map details the rejected pipeline that was to run North of Bismarck as well as the current pipeline route
running from North Dakota to Illinois. This image was retrieved from an article by Inside Climate News

The Lakȟóta Sioux: A Brief History

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, signed between the Lakota peoples and the United

States government, guaranteed the Lakota provisions of food and clothing as well as treaty

lands in South and North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska and the highly-contested
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 6

Black Hills, a sacred Native American site. These lands, reserved solely for Native

Americans, were called the Great Sioux Reservation. The treaty was then revisited in 1868

due to reoccurring tensions between settlers and the Lakota. The revised treaty excised a

large portion of land in Montana and Nebraska from Native ownership and added

stipulations in an attempt to dissolve Native American cultures and instate colonialist

structures and ideologies. The Sioux were urged to engage in capitalist society through

increased crop output and modernization - we will see these colonizing troupes of

modernization and national progress, contrasted against Native American's supposed

simplicity and lack of civility, appear throughout the conquering process. Sioux children

were also required to attend English education schools which often replaced native

narratives with outside Eurocentric accounts, erasing native culture. This stipulation is found

in article IX of the 1868 treaty:

In order to insure the civilization of the Indians entering into this treaty, the

necessity of education is admitted… it is hereby made the duty of the agent for said

Indians to see that this stipulation is strictly complied with; and the United States….

a teacher [shall be provided] to teach the branches of an English education.

Shortly after General Custard’s gold discovery within the Black Hills, however, the

U.S. government began to commander the Sioux treaty lands through military force and the

restriction of rations; an action that directly opposed the conditions of the 1868 treaty.

Though many Sioux tribes silently left their land and relocated due to colonial pressure,

others refused to allow settlers to conquer their homes. What ensued was the Great Sioux

War between the native peoples of the great plains and the U.S. One of the war’s battles was

the infamous Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, a skirmish also referred to as the Battle of
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 7

the Greasy Grass and as Custards Last Stand. The battle was a victory for the Sioux, at the

end of the fight 41 Native Americans had been killed and 268 army soldiers were killed. The

press went wild with sensationalized stories of the battle, creating caricatures of Custer as

the legendary hero who had been wrongfully murdered and the natives as ferocious and

inhuman opponents who praised sacrilegious gods of destruction and war. These depictions

only further ostracized the native community from the settlers and allowed the American

public to extinguish native communities, a supposedly sub-human species, while still

adhering to their Christian value systems. Roland Barthes, in his article Bichon and the

Blacks, sketches out this popular cultural image of white masculinity saving the bestial,

colored “other”, a characterization that has fueled colonialization around the globe against

countless ethnic groups. This mechanism of forming racial stereotypes to fulfill political

goals can be seen in an article from Chicago’s Daily Inter Ocean through the paper’s

glorification of Custer, the valiant hero who died at the hands of native barbarians:

The Yellow-haired Chief’s body was not respected by the savages, but horribly

mutilated. The death-wound was given by a chief known as Rain-in-the-Face, who,

after killing Custer, cut out his heart, elevated it on the point of his lance, and waved

it aloft while his followers executed a war-dance around him.

One year after the Battle of Little Bighorn, a mere twenty-six years after the creation

of the Great Sioux Reservations, the Black Hills were reclaimed as federal property. Ten

years later, the Dawes act of 1887, continued to fracture the Sioux Reservation by removing

communal land rights and replacing them with individual land ownership. In this process,

over ninety-million acres of tribal land was lost. And after the United States V. 2,005.32

Acres of Land, Etc., the USACE built the Oahe Dam on the Standing Rock treaty land. The
 A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 8

construction of the dam was explicitly opposed the provisions of the 1868 treaty in which,

"no purchase, grant, lease, or other conveyance of lands… from any Indian nation…shall be

of any validity unless the same be made by treaty.”

Figure 3: These two map images were retrieved from the Seattle Times where they were compiled using U.S. census
information and historical documents:

These persistent infractions against the initial treaty between the Sioux and the U.S.

government has fractured Native American lands and peoples. The two images above detail

the shrinking of Sioux land overtime. The map to the left outlines the original treaty land

Sioux Land: 1851 Sioux Land: 2016

boundaries as detailed in the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851, in which the reservation stretches

across five states. The photo to the left is what is remaining of the reservations today, a

handful of isolated communities in North and South Dakota. After enduring centuries of

mistreatment, genocide, and land eviction, Native communities have congregated together at

Standing Rock to prevent history from repeating itself and to end a legacy of displacement
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 9

and oppression. The water-protector’s motto ‘water is life’8 is also an age-old declaration

against the dispossession of native lands and waters for corporate and political gain.

Confronting Capitalism and the Image of the Savage

Despite the ceremonious actions of the water-protectors, Bismarck law enforcement

has repeatedly labeled the Standing Rock activists as rash and aggressive rioters. Over

Thanksgiving weekend, a highly symbolic holiday, the North Dakota police department sent

text messages and emails to the state’s citizens declaring a code red alert, alerting the public

“to be on alert to any suspicious activity.… Rioters in the area are intent on creating an

unsafe environment for the public.”9. The enforcement agency went so far as to call the

8
‘Water is Life’ is the English translation of the Lakota phrase ‘Mni Wiconi’ which was popularized in the late
1990’s when the Lakota fought to gain reservation access to South Dakota’s rural water system.
9
Having signed up with the North Dakota police agency to receive these alerts, I was notified via text
message on 11/22/16 of these “suspicious” and “unsafe” activities practiced by Standing Rock activists. I was
at Oceti Sakowin at the time I received this code red alert and did not observe violent activities occurring at
any of the camps prior to the message nor after.

Bibliography

Banner, S. (2005). How the Indians lost their land: law and power on the frontier. Cambridge, MA: Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press.

Barthes, R., & Lavers, A. (1972). Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang.

Blum, L. "`White privilege': A mild critique" Theory and Research in Education 6.3 (2008): 309-21. Web.

Clabaugh, E. K. (2015). The Evolution of a Massacre in Newspaper Depictions of the Sioux Indians at Wounded
Knee, 1876 - 1891. Atlanta Review of Journalism History, 12(1), 38-64. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 10

protectors “terrorists”. Two days after Thanksgiving over 1,000 people from Bismarck and

Mandan, two predominately white populations, gathered near Standing Rock to show their

support and solidarity for the police fighting against DAPL-activist. Though the water-

protectors claim to adhere to non-violent tactics, something I personally observed during my

time there, local police departments have repeatedly used divisive language that depicts the

movement as anything but non-violent.

The law enforcement’s critiques against the Native-led movement are reminiscent of

age-old misrepresentations of Native communities as violent peoples that directly harm

Dakota Access, LCC. North Dakota Public Service Commission Combined Application for Certificate of Corridor
Compatibility and Route Permit. Dakota Access, LCC, Dec. 2014. Web. Dec. 2016.
<http://www.psc.nd.gov/database/documents/14-0842/001-030.pdf>.

"Dakota Access Pipeline." Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer Partners, L.P., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2016.
<http://www.daplpipelinefats.com/>.

Garrett, J. J. (2016). Future Visions: A Sustainable and Healthy Local Food Production System. Rangelands,
38(1), 42-46. doi:10.1016/j.rala.2015.12.001

Geisler, C. (2013). Disowned by the Ownership Society: How Native Americans Lost Their Land. Rural
Sociology, 79(1), 56-78. doi:10.1111/ruso.12028

Genosko, G. (2012). Remodelling communication: from WWII to the WWW. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.

Gump, J. O. (1986). Lakota history: a critical bibliography. Chicago: Transatlantic Encounters Institute, the
Newberry Library.

Keller, J. (2013). Seeking a System of Semiotics for the Indigenous Text. California State University. Retrieved
December 12, 2016.

Lester, P. M., & Ross, S. D. (2003). Images that injure: pictorial stereotypes in the media. Westport, CT:
Praeger.

Mead, J. (n.d.). Standing Like A Rock. Retrieved December 12, 2016.

Roscigno, V. J., & Cantzler, J. M. (2015). Legitimation, State Repression, and the Sioux Massacre at Wounded
Knee. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 20(1), 17-40. Retrieved December 12, 2016.

Tolan, S. (2016, November 27). Competing groups are trying to define the Dakota Access pipeline debate. So
where does the truth lie? Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dakota-
access-pipeline-20161127-story.html
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 11

white communities. These biased portrayals, casting Native Americans as savages, were

historically used to justify white population’s extermination of Native tribes and today the

Figure 4: Two water-protectors

same tactics are utilized topraying in front of
exterminate a armed law enforcement
movement. Under the guise of these racial biases,

colonizing forces are able to morally conquer the threat of the “other”. We see this in law

enforcements use of concussion grenades, tear gas, dogs, kettling, pepper spray, and threat

of live ammunition against peaceful Standing Rock protestors whose movement poses a

threat only to oil companies and white privilege.

Coupled alongside this idea of the savage as violent is the connotation that the

savage is also simplistic and uncivilized; an enemy of capitalistic progress, material gain,

and neoliberal evolution. Inherent in this belief is the suggestion that Native populations,

being opposed to economic development and industry, prefer to live a simplistic lifestyle

devoid of modern conveniences. These arguments, often purported by members of the

A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 12

wealthy white caste, work to sustain elite economic positions through the perpetuation

Native American impoverishment. From this perspective there is no need to reform policies

concerning reservations current lack of basic human needs because those communities ‘like

living that way’. As aforementioned, a member of the Lakota tribe, Dave Archambault II,

clarified that the Native American resistance at Standing Rock is against environmental

destruction and eminent domain not modernization and technological advancement. Inspired

by the Barthes essay The Man in the Street on Strike, Gary Genosko points out in his book,

Remodelling communication: from WWII to the WWW:

In the preferred code of bourgeois maxims, print images of striking workers walking

a picket line are an affront to good sense…. Industries speak of doom and gloom and

people in the community explain how they are managing to cope with disruptions in

their everyday routines (2012:126)

In this way civil disobedience is transformed, by the bourgeois, from an act of

positive social reform to a violently disruptive and apocalyptic event. In order to end these

negative racial biases that reaffirm tiered social hierarchies, we must learn to decode the

optic languages encrypted in the cultural world around us and use this encyclopedia of

symbols to craft our own narrative. As Heüaúa Sapa, popularly known as Black Elk, said:

The power of a thing or an act is in the understanding of its meaning (Lakota translation:

Þaúu uñ wa¡aúe úiñ he woúaüniðe úiñ he eþañhañ oúaüniðaöi.)

Reclaiming the Narrative

In Erik Clabaugh’s article, The Evolution of a Massacre in Newspaper Depictions of

the Sioux Indians, the proliferation of diverse narratives is examined through the changing
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 13

portrayals of Native Americans in newspapers, in relation to the massacre, throughout time.

Initially regurgitating the dominant racial narrative, news organizations slowly began to

sympathize with the plight of native communities and eventually allowed native

communities to produce their own historical accounts of the event. Following that

evolutionary curve, today we see the boundaries between myth producer and myth consumer

as nonexistent. Due to the evolution of technology, one can now be the producer, critic, and

consumer of their own personal narrative.

Due to this dissemination of narrations, Native communities in North America are

reclaiming control over the production of their own narratives in journalism, film, visual art,

and other forms of communication rather than being assigned harmful and racist labels. We

have begun to see the impact of this in the rising of the Standing Rock Movement: as

oppressed minorities regain control over their own voices, bodies, and stories, it becomes

much more difficult for colonizing populations to continue their reign of dominance. As the

Lakota peoples began to publically retell their history in their terms, non-native Americans

began to rethink their understanding of history and the stories held within the soil they stand

upon. On December 4th, 2016 the USACE, guided by public outrage, denied the easement

that would allow the DAPL to pass under Lake Oahe. Though this is not the beginning of
A Semiological Analysis of the Standing Rock Uprising 14

changing sentiments and treatments towards Native American communities, let’s hope this

is not the end either.

Figure 6 Oceti Sakowin camp on Nov 30th, 2016, the day of the Blizzard. Photo by Michael Stevenson