There are no mountains on the North American continent older than our Black Hills range. The ancient origin of the Hills was documented by analysis of a granite outcropping found north of Nemo. Test results revealed the Black Hills to be 2.5 billion years old! Through the eons these primordial Hills were worn down to a nearly level surface. Then new uplifts, beginning 600 million years ago created the present-day peaks.
The Sioux Indians called these Black Hills Paha Sapa. They might be known today as the Black Mountains but for a curious feature of the Sioux language. The Hills were sighted by the westward-moving Oglala Sioux around the year 1776. It was then that the slopes were named for their dark appearance when viewed from afar. Sapa is the Lakota word for "Black." But that language then used the single word Paha for any height, be it mountain or hill.
In the early 1800s Paha Sapa was translated as "Black Mountains." But by the time of the gold rush this area was most frequently called the Black Hills.
A popular ballad of that period ends as follows:
On their backs are no clothes, in their pockets no bills, Each day they keep starting for the dreary Black Hills.
10/01/03