Worshippers follow traditional rights of Dakota people

Like a cathedral made without hands, the hill called Medicine Knoll - Paha Wakan to the Dakota - rises above the plain a few miles east of Pierre, just south of U.S. Highway 14 near Blunt. And on top is the evidence that Native Americans came to the site to practice what is possibly the area's oldest known religion. Near the steeper north side of the knoll is a stone effigy in the shape of a rattlesnake formed by two lines of stones. Including the contours of its body, the snake stretches a dist...