There are many attempts by colonizers to define sacred sites in legal, anthropological, and sociological terms, but their nature remains elusive and unintelligible to Western understandings. This illiteracy of the sacred is not for lack of equivalent references or study, it is in the cosmological dissonance that is of a way of unbeing of materialism that is rooted in domination, control, and exploitation.

While Indigenous Peoples can say the whole Earth and existence is sacred because there is a spiritual relationship with creation, we can also identify specific locations or areas (mountains, waterways, burials, features, etc.) that are places of spiritual distinction.

While Indigenous contexts are diverse regarding what constitutes a sacred place, most specifically they are places (a region including viewscapes) or specific sites of emergence, home of deities, offering site(s), a place where herbs are gathered that can't be gathered elsewhere, home or origin to certain species, and much more. They are places that figure centrally in the relationships that Indigenous Peoples have with creation. Most often they are places of healing, guidance, and renewal.

The defense of lands held holy by Indigenous Peoples are the frontlines in the struggles for our existence. If we desire to exist, we must continue to defend the sacred and liberate Mother Earth. Defending the sacred means fighting back to protect Mother Earth, which is to say existence itself.

— No Spiritual Surrender by Klee Benally (Page 40 - 41)