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 been 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 loosing 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 alter.
This is our alter 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 alter
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 an Ute trail there south of Fo rest 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,
what our grandmothers been sitting on--and they still want move lease to be
lookingat it to the south--Cactus Valley, Red Willow Springs, Big Mountain.
AndI 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. government. 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 alter, 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.)
Voices of Thin Rock Mesa/ Cactus Valley/ Red Willow Springs
Sovereign Communities