This week’s CAIRNS Etanhan Wotanin column is the second of our weekly “dispatches” relating to the 1874 reconnaissance expedition into the Black Hills. The expedition continued on to a sacred cave that it finally reached on July 11. Most members of the expedition were disappointed in the size of the cave as well as the “writings” on its walls. The cave recalls another called Washun Niya which is where Lakotan ancestors emerged onto this world. It is also where Taopi Gli, a young Lakotan man, was enticed into the earth where he married a woman whose people were the keepers and breeders of all game animals. The image above is a detail from the 2014 painting "Vignette 11” by Arthur Amiotte that he created for the Lakota Emergence exhibition. The column, “Washun,” can be read now by clicking here, or later this week in the Lakota Times newspaper.