Opinion: Cowboys and Indians come together on common cause

This past summer, DC politicos and residents woke up to a surprising sight: Cowboy ranchers and Native Americans sharing an encampment on the National Mall with prayer ceremonies and offerings to each other. The occasion: a "Reject and Protect" fight against their common enemy, the Keystone XL pipeline.

"Treaty Rights supersede state rights," declared Dallas Goldtooth of IEN (Indigenous Environmental Network from the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota Nation, to reporter John Zangas of DC Media. "The treaties we signed with the U.S. Government we hold as sacred." Goldtooth believes it is important to resist as a peaceful and collective people. "There was very little prior consultation or consensus with tribes about the Keystone," said Goldtooth.

Art Tanderud, a farmer from Nebraska, joined the coalition because the proposed route of the pipeline will cut through one-third of his farm, which has been in his family for 100 years.

The roots of this alliance came out of an invitation made to a few ranchers to an event called "Protect the Sacred" on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Since this was a commemoration some 150 years ago of a treaty between the Yankton Sioux and the Pawnee to band together against the threats of homesteaders, ranchers and the U.S. Army, you might find such an invitation to non-Natives to be a bit out of character.