World Poles and the Wintu Tribe (in class)

While watching The Light of Reverence in class, I was thinking about how the tribes likely had their world pole forcibly shifted or even separated from them by the shrinking reservations and bulldozed mountains that were mentioned in the film. With the Lakota, their place that everything comes together seemed to be the Black Hills, and they were able to reaffirm that connection with their annual loop they run around the area. The Hopi would likely have the Mesas as their center, but the shrines that they had to bring themselves closer to it are being bulldozed, and the overall connection is likely harder to find with all the mining. Finally, the Wintu had their spring, which fulfilled the World Pole obligation of being a source of life and healing, as well as a place that they returned to center themselves. While it is not the stereotypical Canaanite mountain, the spring still brings them closer to bridging that divide between heaven and earth.

Yet, with all of these tribes, their connection is no longer what it was. It seemed that a lot of the white people in this movie were almost asking that the tribe move their world pole to somewhere more convenient, but is that even possible? We had a hard time in class placing our world pole, though it seems based on another blog post that the NYSE seems to be a good guess, but that is a single place that does not move. If the world pole is constantly moving with the shrinking reservations does it still hold that same power? I can't really answer this, but the movie definitely showed that the Native Americans seemed to think that the sacred spaces were immobile and needed to remain protected.