BROKEN PEACE

By GINIA BELLAFANTE.

As if trying to explain budget overruns on Waterworld to Hollywood reporters weren't enough, Kevin Costner has found himself on the defensive with a group of people who once called him a friend. The director and star of 1990's Dances with Wolves, which treated Native American culture so respectfully, is suddenly persona non grata among Sioux activists in South Dakota. The rift is over Costner's efforts to acquire 630 acres of federal property in the Black Hills--land the Sioux consider sacred and claim was illegally seized in 1877 by the U.S. government.

Costner and his brother Dan, who already own a casino-restaurant in Deadwood, are building a more than $100 million resort there and are ogling the parcel for the compound's planned golf course. The spiritual Sioux find this hard to comprehend. "Costner just wants to make himself more powerful, greater and bigger," claims Sidney Keith, a Lakota Sioux elder. Lakota activist Madonna Thunder Hawk protests, "It's a betrayal. Costner is making millions on our backs."

The Forest Service will decide this fall whether to let Costner procure the parcel in exchange for a 585-acre site 12 miles from Deadwood. The Costners aren't talking, but Jim Fisher, program director for the planned resort, contends that the critics represent only a vocal minority of Sioux and that the resort will improve an 85-acre site that used to be a salvage yard. "We view all land as sacred," he says. "We're going to add something environmentally." Which doubtless won't calm the ruckus over what some Sioux are calling Costner's field of green.

--By Ginia Bellafante. Reported by Elizabeth Taylor/Deadwood

With reporting by ELIZABETH TAYLOR/DEADWOOD