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Taylor: No question of Hopi sovereignty

Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today 07/29/05
KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. - Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor Jr. said the Hopi Tribe is
struggling to maintain its ancestral lands and sacred sites and
appreciates some aspects of the recently introduced Navajo-Hopi Land
Settlement Amendments of 2005.

''The Hopi people and our ancestors have lived in the southwest United
States for more than 1,000 years,'' Taylor told Indian Country Today,
reiterating his July 21 testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs in Washington.

''We have lived on the mesas of northeastern Arizona since before 1100
A.D. The Navajo are relative newcomers. The Navajo Reservation was
established in 1868, its borders clearly within the aboriginal lands of
Hopi ancestors but outside the Hopi Reservation as established in the 1882
executive order by then-President Chester Arthur.

''The Navajo in the 1868 treaty expressly disclaimed any right to occupy
territory off their reservation. Nevertheless, increasing numbers of
Navajo settled on Hopi land. The U.S. government did nothing to evict
them.

''We have, for more than 150 years, been actively fighting Navajo
encroachment on our lands. Today, a number of our sacred and archeological
sites rest on Navajo land. Many have been desecrated. This is a tragedy.''

Taylor said there is no question that the Hopi Tribe has sovereignty over
Hopi Partitioned Lands.

''The Land Settlement Act of 1974, which divided jurisdiction over
partitioned lands, clearly intended to give Hopi sovereign, governmental
jurisdiction over Hopi Partitioned Lands.''

Taylor also responded to a request to the committee to lift the freeze on
development in the Bennett Freeze area of the Navajo Nation.

Earlier, during the testimony on Senate Bill 1003 in Washington, Navajo
President Joe Shirley Jr. urged the committee to take action to lift the
decades-old freeze on development in the area, located in the western
portion of the Navajo Nation.

Taylor told ICT there is a plan that would allow the Bennett Freeze to be
lifted. He said a proposed Hopi/Navajo compact that would provide the Hopi
Tribe access to Hopi shrines and eagle gathering sites, and has the effect
of lifting the Bennett Freeze, has been approved by the Hopi Tribal
Council. He said that unfortunately, the Navajo Nation has not acted upon
it.

Once approved by the respective tribes and Congress, this would
effectively lift the freeze, he told ICT.

During his testimony before the Senate committee, Taylor said the Hopi
welcome some aspects of S. 1003, such as closing the Office of Navajo-Hopi
Indian Relocation by 2008.

However, he said, the Hopi Tribe is concerned that the deadlines would
prejudice the rights and interests of the tribe. S. 1003 will be effective
only so long as it enables the tribe to retain complete jurisdiction over
all its reservation lands as provided in the 1974 act, he said.

Taylor said the Hopi Tribe wants all Navajos remaining on Hopi Partitioned
Lands relocated before the closure of the current relocation office in
2008.

''Eviction should be mandatory and deadlines for appeals should not
stretch the process beyond 2008,'' Taylor told the committee.

Although S. 1003 would transfer relocation duties to the Interior
Department in 2008, he questioned whether the BIA is capable of carrying
out relocation duties. He also questioned whether a breach of the federal
trust responsibility might result to both tribes.

Taylor began by telling the committee he is the ''democratically elected
chairman and CEO of the Hopi Tribe.''

The Hopi Tribe, he said, was hopeful the Senate relocation amendments
would bring to a close the long struggle by the Hopi people to both
protect their Aboriginal lands from ''encroachment and secure
jurisdictional control over those lands.''

Taylor told the committee the Hopi people have lived in their current
homeland since ancient times. ''Our original reservation of more than 2.6
million acres - established in 1882 by executive order of then-President
Chester Arthur - was only a small portion of our aboriginal homeland.

''Since that time, because of encroachment by the Navajo and action and
inaction by the United States, we have lost 40 percent of our reservation.
We are today completely surrounded by the Navajo Nation, which overlaps
three states.

''Many of our sacred and archeological sites are no longer on Hopi lands.''

The Navajo-Hopi Indian Settlement Act of 1974, he said, was intended to
resolve more than a century of land disputes between the Hopi and Navajo
nations. It partitioned disputed lands and required Hopi and Navajo to
relocate off property that belonged to one tribe or the other.

''Hopi people years ago moved off disputed Navajo land. However, more than
30 years after passage of the 1974 act, we are still waiting for Navajo to
move off Hopi land,'' he said.

Pointing out the high unemployment, inadequate housing and the lack of
economic development on the semi-arid and remote homeland, he said there
is an erosion of the culture, traditions and way of life, resulting in a
very real ''thirst for survival.''

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