Looking at this seemingly barren landscape, it may be hard to believe that families have used
Bighorn Canyon and the surrounding area for more than 10,000 years. The site in front of you consists of
more than 140 tipi rings or stone circles and documents nearly 1,200 years of use by ancestors of the Crow,
Shoshone, and other native people. Like many sites in Bighorn Canyon, Two Eagles was used by nomadic
people who may have only camped here for a day or a week. Tipi rings, or stone circles, are remnants of
those camps. This is a place where people lived, hunted, and prayed.
The Crow country is a good country. The Great Spirit has put it
exactly in the right place; while you are in it you fare well; whenever
you go out of it, whichever way you travel, you will fare worse.
—Crow Chief Arappooish, describing the homeland of his peopl
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
When People Placed Stone Against the Lodge Cont.
There is a time in Crow oral history referred to as Biiakaashiiisshipee or
“When They Placed Stone Against the Lodge.” This is an important
time in Crow history prior to contact with European traders. The tipi
rings along this trail are important reminders of these events and of
one’s own place in that history. Please respect the history of this site by
preserving it for future generations.
Today this is a site of mulit-cultural engagement, traditional
learning, and national collaboration. The Two Eagles
Interpretive Trail is a short .62-mile (1,000 feet) walk. Please
remain on the path. Take only pictures, leave only footprints.
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
A Vision of Home
The Crow people were the most recent occupants of the Two Eagles site. Several hundred years ago, the Crow (Apsáalooke) were guided by a vision to a place where they could plant their sacred tobacco seeds, arriving in the area that is now Montana and Wyoming. They made this their
home, defending their space against other tribes. While much of the Crow’s territory was ceded to
the U.S. government in the Fort Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1868, the Crow still recognize this as
their homeland.
The tipi is an important symbol in Crow culture. In 1873, Sits in the Middle of the Land, also known as Crow Chief Blackfoot, described the Crow homeland in Montana and Wyoming this way:
When we set up our lodge poles, one reaches to the Yellowstone; the other on the White River [Milk River]; another one goes to Wind River; the other lodges on the Bridger Mountains. This is our land, so we told the commissioners at Fort Laramie.
Today, tipis are used almost exclusively for special occasions such as Crow Fair.
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
Exactly in the Right Place
Today, Crow community leaders have renewed
their relationship with the land in Bighorn
Canyon. Native students and anthropologists
worked together to document, preserve, and
protect the Two Eagles site.
Through collaboration and with your help to
preserve and protect this site, future generations
can continue to learn from and share its history.
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
Learning From the Past
Today, archeologists learn about the people who lived here by examining what they left
behind. Because, like snowflakes, each feature is unique, exact drawings capture the
character of every tipi ring. An inner ring—evidence of an insulating liner—and a
southeast-oriented doorway may indicate that the tipi was put up during a winter camp.
Radiocarbon dating of charcoal found in cooking fires shows that tipi rings at Two
Eagles and in most of Bighorn Canyon date to the last 1,000 years or so, though some
elsewhere in the recreation area are 2,000 years old.
Native archeology students documented tipi rings at this
site using flags and drawings to record individual rings.
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
Defending Cultural Heritage
The faint road scar and two-track road in the distance is an access road to the power
lines that destroyed many tipi rings in this area. Before 1966, sites like this were not
protected during construction projects and artifact collectors stole important pieces
of prehistory. Because the American public values its cultural heritage and many
culturally significant sites were similarly being destroyed, the U.S. Congress created
legislation to conserve significant archaeological and historical sites.
The Archaeological Resources Protection Act makes it a felony under federal law to
remove and/or destroy artifacts and features from archeological sites like this.
The mountains, foothills,
and valleys literally show the
moccasin footprints of the
Ancient Ones as they passed
through here, camped in
temporary rock shelters, sought
visions on the peaks, or lived
here for some time. …Here a
new breed of storytellers, the
modern archaeologists, take up
the task of telling the stories of
the Ancient Ones.
—Joseph Medicine Crow, Crow
Tribal Historian and Anthropologist
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
End of the Line
The weathered cairns (rock piles) at this site may have had uses we find
difficult to interpret today. Perhaps they were constructed as memorials
of important events or trail markers. Alternatively, they may mark a
“driveline” where hunters herded buffalo off the cliff face behind you.
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
Stone Foundations
You have perhaps noticed on the northwestern plains, circles of stones or small boulders, varying in size
from twelve to twenty and more feet in diameter. They were used to weight the lower edges of lodge skins,
to prevent the structure being blown over by a hard wind, and when the camp was moved they were simply
rolled off the leather. —J.W. Schultz, trader and trapper, 1907
Credit / Author:
NPS
Date created:
10/14/2020
Last updated: August 27, 2017
Park footer
Contact Info
Mailing Address:
Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area South District Visitor Center
20 US Hwy 14A
Lovell,
WY
82431
Phone:
307 548-5406
(307) 548-5406 is the South District in Lovell, WY.
(406) 666-9961 is the North District in Fort Smith, MT.