Ya'a'teeIt's been a long time since I've sent anything out...
Below you will find some statements made by resisters last March (2002)
There have been a variety of reasons why I have hesitated to send out these
statements, one being that the statements are somewhat difficult to read.
They are difficult to read because english is not the first language of the
people making the statement, sometimes the grammar is incorrect, ....and
also because many events and places mentioned may not be familiar to those
who do not already have much knowledge about these people and their land.
Its also difficult to read because the things said in these statements have
been said over and over and over again, and so sometimes little bits of
information get left out in the re-telling, and sometimes there is a jump to
another train of thought that might be hard to follow.So, I guess I'm sending this out to those of you that have spent time on the
Altar, those of you that have researched the history of the so-called
"Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute", those of you that have heard these stories
before.So,... close your eyes, and cast your mind back to your time on the
land,.... remember the Elders faces in the flickering lamp-light,....
remember the smell of the Juniper,...the smell of mutton,... the smell of
the sheep.....then read...
"I wonder if you can understand what these people have been facing over all
these years. Some people lose their lives over the worrying--and so the
government is doing the reduction. The main old story always starts from
this executive order that's been drawn in 1882 up through 1960, then they
start working on this territory and gotten so many names and numbers here on
our alter. Mainly I've been thinking about the Long Walk all the way to New
Mexico and when they were over there nobody got the notice for this
executive order to be drawn. The main issue I got in mind is that they have
never been taught how the Great Spirit set the Navajo between these four
sacred mountains with the song and prayer, with all the relations, with all
living beings. So I need for people to turn around and know that this is
the Dine' room. The Hogan is between the four sacred mountains, for that
reason I've been comparing the Long Walk and the Longest Walk. The Longest
Walk was made from San Francisco to Washington D.C. A lot of elders been
along on that and because they hear about us being arrested for cutting the
fences and soon they told us we should have the Sundance here to help us out
with that. So I've been comparing these and thinking that it needs to be
renewed. Because we are still walking --we need to renew back and let
people live the way they been living before. Have them fill their hearts
and rejoice again because they're sad and worried and we're losing a lot of
elders still because of being told you've got to do, do, do. So let the
people and the land be free and our altar. This is our altar we are living
on.""I have a real powerful respect for my sacred bundle, the four sacred
mountains bundle that I'm holding onto and inside is the mountains and the
hogan--the ceremony cannot be made out in Utah or Nevada or somewhere, its
on the altar here, so our traditional way is not being respected. We have a
song and in it tells about the horses and the sheep and that's what they
wanted to destroy--our livelihood. I told these women to say, 'why do you
do this to us on our birthplace? We were just looking around here for our
belly cords.' If I was on trial that is what I'd say first. They were
trying to have these things be heard but then they been dismissed.""We need to have our mother earth to be healed. The land is the mother and even the water is the mother, I with the fishes are being fed. The peoples, the indigenous peoples need to be healed, the birds, the endangered species, are being disappeared. Every spring they are being harassed. The eagles used to make a lot of nests in the canyons and now not as many. Hopi Tribe comes in with the government vehicle and takes babies right out of the nest and back to the village, keeps them up on top of the roof tied up until they're full grown and kills it. In our way we don't kill the eagles for the feathers. In the early days I heard that some of grandfathers they knew the song and the prayers of how to bring down the eagles to get a feather if they needed it and they offer with the corn pollen and they turn them loose instead of to kill them. Today not many Dine' medicine men know about this and they order it from the Navajo government, that picks them up when they get killed by the power lines. So the medicine men they want a bone or a feather, they go and get it for free. This is even better than to take their young people to the nest, disrespect it that way. When their babies are getting taken away they just leave the area."
"To my understanding the Hopi Tribe and U.S. government are in the same boat saying the Navajo just came yesterday. They say the Hopi been living on the Mesa three thousand years, but you do the research and hear the story here from the elders and you look around at the ruins and the old structures, there is no mention of anyone here but the Dine'. There's an old story about one time there was a war with the Ute from the north there's no mention of Hopi there. There's a Ute trail; there south of Forest Lake Chapter still being used--the Ute trail they call it. This is many, many
years ago. Hopi says this is ancestral homeland, but they never showed us the evidence of where or what year they been here. There's no burial site of a Hopi grandmother. But us, we understand and know all our great grandmother's burial sites, the place of all the ceremonial water gathering springs -- we still have to respect them -- we still use them. And we notice that some of the Hopi and Navajo Tribal governments are saying that this is the United States' governments', the great white fathers have given over this land. But we don't know about the U.S. government being occupied this area way back--how do they own this land to give it away to the Hopi
Tribe? What we know is that this land has just been stolen just because of the royalties, want our grandmothers been sitting on--and they still want move lease to be looking at it to the south--Cactus Valley, Red Willow Springs, Big Mountain. And I think that this is what the Hopi Tribe is looking at and they call it the Comprehensive Land Use of the Hopi Tribe. This ancestral Homeland, they're pointing they're fingers to the Anasazi Ruins. And why if it is their homeland why did they move up to the
Mesa--they should have stayed there, live in Forest Lake or something."So this so called Hopi/Navajo land dispute is only the government interested in digging out the coal or some other royalty that they perceive. And the Grandmothers that are still with us, they have their right to stand for the land instead of digging up more coal beneath their feet, to drain the water and pump it many miles away to make power, electricity to light up a different big city. I think this is where Peabody Coal Company and both tribal governments, the Hopi and Navajos need to understand, they are making a lot of money out of this, to wear a nice shiny boots, to wear a fancy
bowtie and carry around an expensive briefcase -- running around with it. So this is the biggest problem that we have--Peabody Coal is causing a lot of problems. They are destroying the lands, the sacred sites the burial sites to contaminate it... the natural springs. They drain it away in millions and millions of gallons every 24 hours and send it with coal to Mojave generating station to contaminate the air quality from there, to
contaminate the vegetation for the livestock that used to eat it. To cause all the disappearing of all the other endangered species; spotted owl, eagle, squirrels even to move people came up from the U.S. governments. And they are the one that invented what is called a 'terrorist attack'. They did it to us many years ago--now they use our tribal governments to carry it out."The Sundance needs to be carried on the lands where it happens, the people that live there are being arrested, that is not right. We never know how thick of the bones of our ancestors that we been living on, their prayers and song and their teachings are still with us. We want to let the world know to see where the HTC is standing. We want to know that if they have no prayer or sacred songs of their own how are they going to respect the people's Sundance here? If they are Peaceful people... we've been told that they can't buy or sell the land. It's really important. The Hopi Tribe is getting overpaid on our altar, without our consent. (And then they're arresting ladies, crushing up the arbor, they got too much money, plenty of gas and don't know what to do with it I guess.)"
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I do. Simple plain-talking. Not enough of that around.
But then, what the hell do I know,... I'm just an ex-sheepherder.
"The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority."
Thanks for giving your time by reading this
Your prayers, support, and correspondence are invited
For all my relations
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