Citing religious rites and a prophecy of a ‘‘terrible black snake’’ that will bring harm to its people, a Sioux Indian tribe returned to court Tuesday in a late push to keep the Dakota Access pipeline from carrying its first crude oil.

The Washington, D.C. hearing was held just days after the consortium building the conduit — Dakota Access led by Energy Transfer Partners — told the court the 1,172-mile pipeline could be complete any time after March 6. All that remains to be done is a span under a North Dakota lake.

Energy Transfer’s $3.8 billion project has been a flash point for Native Americans and environmentalists on one side and the oil industry on the other. The industry has been bolstered by President Trump’s reversal of Obama administration commitments to reconsider the pipeline route.

‘‘The Lakota people believe that the pipeline correlates with a terrible Black Snake prophesied to come into the Lakota homeland and cause destruction,’’ tribe lawyers said in court papers this month.

US District Judge James E. Boasberg aims to rule by March 7 and ordered the company to give him at least 48-hours’ notice before the pipeline is operational.

BloomberG News