I
n
the tradition of resistance to relocation, a Spring Survival Gathering
to honor the late Roberta Blackgoat, resistance leader and traditional
matriarch, was held on her ancestral land at Big Mountain, just
a few miles south of the Peabody Black Mesa coal mine in northeast
Arizona.
Driving
over 26 miles of dirt road, up and down steep canyons, across sandy
washes, through a green desert bright with flowers and swept by
spring winds, it’s easy to forget that water is in crisis throughout
the Southwest. Many wells at Big Mountain and in nearby Hopi villages
have run dry, which people of both the Navajo (or Dineh) and Hopi
believe is due to the depletion of the Navajo aquifer that underlies
Black Mesa, a depletion caused by coal slurry lines draining five
million gallons of water a day from the aquifer.
The
nearby Colorado River has been taxed to the limit by demands from
such burgeoning cities as Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, and
uncontrolled growth spurred by investors and developers supported
in part by coal mined from the Black Mesa. The result threatens
millions of people with drought and other consequences of non-viability.
The
Gathering was treated with hostility by the Hopi tribal government
and visited daily by armed Hopi Rangers, accompanied on one occasion
by the FBI. In addition, non-signers of the Accommodation Agreement
still living on Hopi Partitioned Lands (HPL) were visited at their
homes by Hopi Field Monitors and questioned about the gathering.
This hostile police presence is a fact of life on the HPL, part
of a strategy to drive traditional Dineh (Navajo) from lands awarded
to the Hopi Tribe under a 1974 law (PL 93-531), passed by an ill-informed
Congress at the behest of the Peabody Coal Company.
(“Hopi
Tribe” here refers to a tribal government imposed by the United
States over the objections of traditional Hopi and still opposed
by many Hopis who support the Dineh facing relocation.)
People
living on the wrong side of the line, which Congress drew in 1974,
both signers and non-signers of the Accommodation Agreement, face
a bewildering array of government and bureaucratic forces. A woman
at the gathering who lives near the coal mine expressed her frustrations.
After obtaining approval from her Navajo chapter house to fund winterization
of her mother’s home, she was then told, “If we go and
fund that, we’re afraid the Hopi Tribe will come and file a
lawsuit.” Thus far, no repairs.
She
has made countless requests to the Hopi Tribe for electricity, easily
shunted from nearby coal mine wires. The same hostile tribal government
has for ten years ignored her requests to gravel her road or repair
her dams, and has arbitrarily withheld essential firewood permits.
To
gather wood from their own backyards, HPL residents must travel
50 or more miles to apply for permits and every month a new permit
is required. Permits aren’t granted automatically. Non-signers
in particular face delays and indifference. Failure to produce a
permit at the demand of Rangers or Range Monitors can result in
confiscation of firewood and/or chainsaws.
Any
new construction on the HPL must be approved by the Hopi Tribe or
is subject to removal. One resister testified at the gathering that
he was forced to abandon his house when it became unlivable after
Hopi Rangers punched through the foundation attempting to arrest
supporters who had non-violently blocked a bulldozer threatening
the house. Since his house was located near Hopi cattle grazing
land and he was the object of close police scrutiny, he despaired
of making the necessary repairs covertly or of being granted a permit.
Livestock
confiscation, based on arbitrary quotas imposed by the Hopi Tribe,
remains a constant threat to HPL residents’ survival.
T
he
Survival Gathering was small, reflective of the distances supporters
and local residents had to travel, reflecting as well a certain
weariness that has settled in many hearts since the destruction
of the Sundance arbor by Hopi bulldozers in August, 2001, and also
reflecting some disunity that has been fostered and exacerbated
by the pressures of trying to live and raise families in the harsh
conditions of an occupied territory.
At
one point in the meeting, some of the elders were having trouble
deciding on a site for the next meeting and, after banging their
heads together for a while, sisters Catherine Smith and Pauline
Whitesinger, with laughter in their eyes, pleaded with Danny Black-
goat who was hosting the gathering that they didn’t want to
be leaders anymore, that it was time for the elders to pass the
mantle of leadership onto the next generation.
That
moment, poignant and whimsical at the same time, revealed what a
crucible this gathering was. Here were gathered youth and elders
whose very existence on their ancestral lands is an act of resistance.
Supporters had traveled for a brief visit from as far away as France,
as well as those who have spent years on the land serving the resistance—some
having learned to speak the difficult Dineh language. Together we
were able to laugh and look through the clouds to distant stars,
understanding that we have no choice but to apply ourselves to our
common resistance with all the forces of our being, for the sake
of future generations.
We
laughed, prayed, ploughed the land, herded sheep, cooked, ate, and
confronted intruders together. On Thursday, Catherine Smith, who
is half deaf and wearing sunglasses after an operation for cataracts,
told us that two Hopi Rangers had come to her house that morning
to ask about the gathering. “I think they are checking every
home,” she said. “Yesterday I lost my other ear, so it’s
good that the Rangers were talking to me today because I couldn’t
hear them.”
The
next day, an FBI agent drove up accompanied by three Hopi Rangers.
He was wearing a bulletproof vest. When Danny Blackgoat refused
to talk with him privately, the agent was forced to address the
host while standing in the center of a circle of 20 or 30 people,
cameras and tape recorders buzzing.
“The
reason I’m here is because we’ve had an allegation that
a bunch of non-Indians are squatting on Hopi land,” he began.
“The reason we’re involved is because the Hopis would
have a problem evicting non-Indians.”
He
proceeded to fire off questions to our host with cavalier disrespect:
“How old are you? Do you have a house here? Do you have a census
number?” Danny Blackgoat sat with his hands folded above his
head, staring him in the eye, answering with amazing deference and
respect. “Are you Hopi? Navajo?”
“What
nationality are you?” Danny asked the agent slowly.
“I’m
pretty much Illinois redneck, a little bit of everything. Cherokee,
Irish, German, whatever happened to be there at the time,”
was the flip reply.
For
an agonizing 20 minutes, he politely fielded a volley of impertinent
questions. Finally, Pauline Whitesinger spoke up, addressing the
FBI agent. Danny Blackgoat translated: “She says you look like
a Navajo, not a Hopi. She says bring a traditional Hopi with you
if you’re going to come here again. She says you’re a
white person. None of you are Hopi leaders. If they come and tell
me this is their land, then I’ll listen to them. This land,
the Hopis don’t want it. I’ve been conversing with a Hopi
who says, ‘We don’t want this land here. It was taken
for no reason.’”
“Does
she have a question?” the agent interrupted.
After
a pause, Pauline gazed at him. “As to what you say, that there
are some non-Indians squatting here, I want to tell you that there’s
been non-Indians squatting on Native American lands since 1492.
And your rent is due. So stop harassing us. This is our land.”
Paul Bloom is
a longtime activist in support of the Big Mountain resistance.