Indian Mounds - A Sacred Place of Burial

Overview

The landscape of Indian Mounds is a sacred place of burial. It is a cemetery built by the ancestors of living people. This place has deep significance to the Dakota, Ho-Chunk and Ioway nations. It is home to the only known remaining burial mounds within the Minneapolis-Saint Paul urban core.

Indian Mounds is situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River on the eastern side of downtown Saint Paul. The 111-acre site includes a linear group of earthen mounds positioned along the edge of the bluff. A portion of the landscape is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and it is also protected by the Field Archeology Act.

Indian Mounds is part of a broader landscape that is extremely significant to Indigenous communities, especially the Dakota. Minnesota is the homeland of the Dakota. Bdóte, the area surrounding the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, is significant to many Dakota people as a place of creation to which they have always been connected.

See the videos below to learn more about this special place.

Our work

Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi has been working collaboratively as part of a project advisory team since 2018 with the City of Saint Paul, Oyate Hotanin, Upper Sioux Community, Lower Sioux Community, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, Prairie Island Indian Community, Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, and a wide variety of stakeholders on a Cultural Landscape Study and Messaging Plan for this landscape.

In 2021, an Immediate Acknowledgement Plan was implemented which included creation of the video series above, bench, trail marker and light pole signage, and pavilion messaging.

WTA will continue to work in partnership with the city and project advisory team on future improvements called for in the messaging plan.