The federal election voter guide is now available in the four most commonly spoken Native American/Alaska Native languages: Cherokee, Dakota, Navajo and Yup'ik. These languages are spoken by about 220,500 Americans.
At the time of creation the Diné (often called Navajo) were instructed by the Creator that they must live within the boundaries of four sacred mountains (San Francisco Peaks, Mount Taylor, Blanca Peak, and Mount Hesperus) and two sacred rivers (San Juan and Little Colorado). Dinétah, the Navajo sacred homeland, spreads across the Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. While the Creator gave the Diné instructions on where to live, the United States government disagreed with these instructions, and in 1863 the Navajo were ordered to move off their sacred land.
During the twentieth century, economic progress in the United States was symbolized by dams. Great dams which tamed the wild waters of the western rivers were seen as a way of providing economic development throughout the region. Supporters often touted the advantages which the electrical power and water storage would bring. Often lost in the cheerleading for dams were the voices of American Indians. Little concern was given to any potential spiritual value of the water and the land. "Dam, baby, dam" seemed to be the mantra echoed by the government.
In this diary, I'm going to look at the damming of the Colorado River and the Indian nations of the Colorado Plateau area.
Many Indian cultures accepted - and in fact, celebrated - the fact the some people could fill both male and female roles in their society. One such individual was Hosteen Klah (also spelled Hastiin Klah) who became well-known as a Navajo weaver and as a Navajo singer (medicine man). Among the Navajo, weavers are usually female and hataalii (singers, chanters, or medicine men) are usually male. Hosteen Klah filled both of these roles.
Among the Navajo, Klah was known as a nádleeh which can be translated as "one who is changed" or "one who is transformed." There are some who feel that Klah was born as a hermaphrodite while others report that he was emasculated in a childhood accident. There are still others who simply say that he sometimes identified himself as a man and at other times as a woman.
Native American Heritage Day
Friday, the day after Thanksgiving
Most people aren't aware of this, but last June, President Obama signed into law a joint resolution of the House and Senate, sponsored by Rep. Baca of California and Sen. Inouye of Hawaii, naming the Friday after Thanksgiving Native American Heritage Day, "to honor the achievements and contributions of Native Americans to the United States."
The general truth, that we little understand the implications of what we celebrate, and that we should become more aware of our history and how others view it, is very appropriate to carry in our thoughts on this supposedly contemplative occasion.
On the morning of July 16, 1979, Church Rock (just east of Gallup, NM and north of I-40) was a small sun baked community of mainly Navajo (Dine') people, herding sheep or growing a little corn amidst red dirt and sagebrush. Clusters of traditional hogans (eight sided cabins) and mobile homes can be seen from the roads throughout the region, marking family land allotments.
Behind an earthen pond dam, ninety million gallons of liquid radioactive waste, and eleven hundred tons of solid mill wastes were sitting in a pond waiting for evaporation to leave behind solids. Suddenly, the dam gave way and the waters burst through, flowing out across the red land, and down the washes to permanently contaminate the Rio Puerco, known to traditional Dine' as To' Nizhoni (beautiful water.) This may look like a large dry wash to people passing over it at 80 miles an hour on the interstate. There is water mostly when there are thunderstorms in the watershed or when the winter snow melts up in the mountains. There are not a lot of people living out here. You can see a long way when the interstate tops a rise, and you can see a great empty distance with long train tracks. When the freight trains come through, they bear logos like MAERSK, China Shipping, Costco. Consumer goods bound for the big box stores elsewhere.
Vine Deloria Jr. in God Is Red uses the self explanatory phrases, "spiritual owners of the land" and "political owners of the land." Now, it is the "political owners of the land" who have taken tribal lands by conquest and yet distort the historical record.
Three members from the Hopi Tribe arrived to give their testimonies as show support for their neighbors, The Dine. Their presence dispelled the public relations myth that the traditional Hopi and the Dine are involved in a Range War."
"Springtime" continues, as "BIA Hopi Agency Police and Rangers are patrolling this region (Big Mountain) where a few traditional elders continue to live and also resist federal mandates to relocate."
As we speak, there exist a state of fear and anxiety in a traditional community at Big Mountain in the heart of Black Mesa. And as we speak, the federally deputized officers of the BIA Hopi Agency Police and Rangers are patrolling this region where a few traditional elders continue to live and also resist federal mandates to relocate.
Navajos at Big Mountain resisting forced relocation view the 19th Century prison camp of Bosque Redondo and the war in Iraq as a continuum of U.S. government sponsored terror. Louise Benally of Big Mountain remembered her great-grandfather and other Navajos driven from their beloved homeland by the U.S. Army on foot for hundreds of miles while witnessing the murder, rape and starvation of their family and friends.
"I think these poor children had gone through so much, but, yet they had the will to go on and live their lives. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't be here today.
- snip -
"The U.S. military first murders your people and destroys your way of life while stealing your culture, then forces you to learn their evil ways of lying and cheating," Benally said.
Pauline: Plans and schedules were important and are made in advance. However, such disruption that we had earlier are unexpected and those kinds of events take away the time delegated for priorities and goals. But here, at Big Mountain, we live with a lot of threats from the police and guns of the United States. And unfortunately, we just saw that this morning and you yourself have seen it personally.
The Navajo are the largest tribe in the United States. Their reservation spans territory within the boundaries of three states - Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.
Utah's safe Republican. Arizona probably is, too, especially since it's McCain's home state - with at least two of his many houses located there. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr (elected) has already endorsed Barack Obama, and endorsed Barack Obama, in the New Mexico part of the reservation tomorrow - the day that early voting launches in New Mexico.
Not that long ago, the United Nations performed a Human Rights Investigation of the forced Navajo resettlement from Arizona to Nevada, under Special Rapporteur A. Amor. A law revised and submitted to Congress by Senator John McCain and others before him was determined to be the root cause of violations, which after ratification by President Clinton in 1999 during a globally publicized sit in by Songstress Julia Butterfly Hill at Big Mountain, Arizona.
Esoteric spiritual madness has accompanied me as I have watched the continuing web of land theft spreading, still, from the Arctic to across the United States.
John McCain was out of the torturous grip of the North Vietnamese for approximately one year when Congress passed Public Law 93-531 in 1974. Public Law 93-531 was called the Relocation Act, and was falsely justified by what "Peabody Coal Company's public relations and lobbying firms" falsely constructed as the "Hopi-Navajo land dispute." This "range war" was not true. What was true, was lawyer John Boyden with the assimilated Hopi Tribal Council.
Boyden formed a Hopi Tribal Council that consisted of several First Mesa Hopi who had been converted to Mormonism, based on an election in which about 10 percent of the Hopis on the reservation voted. The newly elected Tribal Council then hired Boyden as their lawyer.
John Boyden with his assimilated Hopi Tribal Council wanted Peabody Coal to strip mine Black Mesa after the natural resources had been discovered. More than 10,000 Navajo and 100 Hopi did not want Black Mesa stripped.
Former Navajo Nation President Peter MacDonald has endorsed Barack Obama.
The Navajo Nation's highest-profile Republican is crossing party lines this year, unless the McCain-Palin ticket can convince him it has Native Americans at heart.
"I think the Navajos' only choice is to go with the Democratic ticket," former Navajo Nation President Peter MacDonald said in a telephone interview.
MacDonald said he's been a Republican for years, but he doesn't see any significant changes for the Navajo Nation if Republican Presidential nominee John McCain is elected.
Just what was one method of forced removal McCain used to bring about this?
ACSA study reveals that after assembling a team of "pro-Peabody Western Coal" Indians and obtaining a false "Hopi-Navajo" Tribal Counsel designation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for these paid Tribal representatives, in the period 1974-1996, Senator McCain was able to get large bands of the Dineh-Navajo relocated off their lands, so that Peabody Western could mine the coal under their farms at nominal expense. Common Cause has suggested McCain was indirectly compensated by street name cash contributions to his Federal Election Fund during three Presidential runs, and through family business with Las Vegas Casinos who benefited from the coal driven power he supplied.
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Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights News by Brenda Norrell
