Home > Anna Mae Sundance

Big Mountain journal

By Brenda Norrell

BIG MOUNTAIN, Ariz. -- Dust flies as Louise Benally drives down the dirt road to her brother's hogan one week after Camp Anna Mae Sundance grounds were bulldozed. In the road at dusk, one-half the rutted road suddenly disappears, already taken away by a flash flood.

"The BIA could spend their money fixing these roads instead of paying police to come out and
destroy the Sun Dance grounds," Benally says.

When darkness falls there is uneasiness. Like ravens, all eyes search these dirt roads for
police and rangers. Everyone is prepared for citations, handcuffed arrests and nights in jail.
There are knots in everyone's stomachs.

Turning onto the dirt road to Benally’s hogan, the first sight is the broken stub of the Sun
Dance sign. It once warned: No weapons, alcohol or drugs allowed. The busted wooden post is a
sign of the destruction ahead.

At night, Big Mountain’s only light comes from the moon and stars. Benally holds in her hand a
dusty BIC cigarette lighter.

"I found this in the dirt at the Sun Dance grounds. One of those men dropped it and ran over
it with the grader.

“I thought, 'The fire is still here.'"

It is now seven days after Hopi Tribal officials, in the company of tribal, county and BIA police,
cut up the Sun Dance Tree with a chain saw and bulldozed the Sun Dance arbor and sweatlodge.

On this night, there are no police at Benally’s hogan. But there is a two-foot rattlesnake coiled
on the dark footpath to the outhouse. It is quickly chopped up with a shovel.

At midnight, still there is the uneasiness of not knowing what could arrive in the dark. There is
no telephone or cell phone service.

In morning’s first light, children peep from beneath blankets. Soon, there is the sound of
rakes and cleaning.

The president is coming.

John Benally, Elvria Horseherder and her mother Ruth Benally are the first to arrive. There is
little food here and elsewhere on Big Mountain.

Horseherder, Ruth Benally, Louise Benally, Joella Ashike and Pauline Whitesinger were arrested as
they brought in the Sun Dance Tree on Tree day in mid-July.

John Benally talks of the desperation of Indian people in Mexico and oppression everywhere.

"They destroy you when they conquer you. The only thing that saved me, coming back from boarding
school, was my language," says John.

His truck was towed away by Hopi police as the Sun Dance grounds were destroyed. It remains
impounded.

John Benally recalls that when the Native American Church first came to Navajoland, people
were prosecuted for its practice and were jailed in the 1960s.

“My father would go to jail, get out in the morning and go right back to the Native American
Church meeting that night.”

Horseherder remembers the arrests and how roughly her elderly mother was handled as she was
shoved into the officer's car and later in jail.

"They grabbed my mom on her scar where she had surgery."

Ruth Benally and Whitesinger told jailers they are traditional women and never wear pants.
Still, they were forced into jail pants.

"Those two elderly women just sat there in jail all night. They said, 'Why is this happening to
us?'"

But Horseherder said it does not matter how many times they are arrested, how many times they tear
down the Sun Dance Tree or how many times they bulldoze their sacred places.

They will never leave. And they will bring back the Sun Dance.

"We have been doing this every year for 15 years. We are supposed to pray every year for our mind,
heart and strength. This is what it is all about.

"I was really angry about this for a while. I didn't feel good. I didn't care to eat. My
daughter talked to me and said, 'You should pray.
That is the only way you can escape.'"

The women’s sweatlodge, where they gathered for sweats and prayers, is now a bulldozed pile on
the hill.

"We need our sweat. We always pray and sing. We haven't prayed for a month now," says
Horseherder, one of the few Big Mountain women who speaks English.

Horseherder said all prayers, sweats and offerings are one in the traditional way.

"I don't see why the Sun Dance is torn down by the government. We can't stop our traditional
ways."

On the hill above is the reminder of one week earlier, piles of scattered arbor logs and
bulldozed rocks from the sweatlodge remain in the Sun Dance grounds.

Cedar, sage, prayer ties and flesh offerings are mangled in destroyed arbor logs.

Elderly Navajo women and sundancers walk to the Sun Dance grounds, stand very still and cry.

Joella Ashike, arrested for bringing in the Tree, recalls August 17, the day police officers
returned for the destruction of the Sun Dance grounds.

“I was herding sheep and I have a scanner. I heard they were going to shut it down.”

Halted by police at the entrance to the Sun Dance grounds, she watched the twisted and crushed
juniper branches of the arbor leave in a BIA livestock impoundment trailer.

“It was ugly. I said, ‘A lot of people come here to pray. How can it hurt someone? People come
here to pray for the health of nature. I sundanced before and I thought the police did
something terrible.”

Ashike said if she committed an act this horrible she would fear the consequences of the Creator.
“If I did that, I would start praying and go to South Dakota and look for a medicine man.”

When she is asked what would make the situation better, she says, “The only thing I depend on is
my prayers.

“It is hard, but we still have our hope.”

When nightfalls – after a long, hot day with Navajo Nation officials, sharing the misery of
forced relocation and the heartbreak of the bulldozing of the Sun Dance grounds -- there is
soft conversation in the dark of the night beneath the shade.

Navajo musician Klee Benally is among the young people trying to make sense of the destruction of
the Sun Dance grounds.

“No one owns this land. In both tribes, traditional people have no concept of land ownership.

“We are stewards; there is no concept of domination over nature. We believe in the Beauty Way.

“We are not about domination. Once you start dominating, you are out of balance. I was talking
with my grandmother Roberta Blackgoat and she said this ceremony was brought for healing.”

By the light of the moon, the shapes of juniper and rolling hills are the body of Big Mountain,
the Mother Mountain representing reproduction and life.

Horseherder says, "The Earth is our mother. We love everything around Big Mountain. Here are the
trees, our plants and our livestock.

"We can't run away, no matter what happens. We know the names of our plants and animals here.

"They know our names."

Over camp coffee and an open fire the next morning, Louise Benally remembers that Sara Begay’s chain saw and ax were confiscated two years ago. She has no way to chop wood for winter.

Louise says she is proud of her son, arrested as he attempted to document the destruction of the
Sun Dance grounds by photographing the desecration.

Echoing the comments of her brother Leonard, she says, ‘Of course the Sun Dance Tree will be
brought in again.’

“We will always have the Sun Dance.”

Black Mesa Indigenous Support P.O. Box 23501, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002  Message Voice Mail: 928.773.8086 Email: blackmesais@yahoo.com