Once Upon A Time in Big Mountain, A world as We've not known

Support Occupy Big Mountain

2011-11-07T14:59:00.005-07:00

Dineh Resistance Since 1978
Written by Nephew Jake, October 2011

During the last month I have followed “Occupy Together” and its extended family from reading newspapers and internet sources. I understand this is not the best way to be informed about a popular social movement, which would be more informative if i was on the ground, inside the multiple encampments growing all over the United States.

However i am not as naïve as I sound. For the past several years I have been a seasonal sheepherder on Big Mountain. I worked and lived with Dineh elders and their relatives, who have maintained an occupation of their own for last 33 years in defiance of the genocide policies of relocation and mining expansion. The people of Big Mountain, Black Mesa, AZ continue to occupy their ancestral homelands with a diversity of tactics and a strategy that is deeply rooted in their cultural and spiritual heritage. Alike the “Occupy Together” they too are fighting multinational corporations and corrupt governments. Yet, the Dineh resistance on Big Mountain adds the vital rights to the water, clean air, land, and animals. Therefore the welfare of the Mother Earth is never separated from their struggle. This part is tragically missing from the occupy movement.
So far I have gathered “Occupy Together” has strong grievances against corporate greed, governmental collusion in corporate profiteering, neo-liberalism, and economic warfare on the non-owner, working class. i wholeheartedly support their choice to camp out in parks and streets; visible to financial districts in which to express these grievances, and create an evolving public forum. May their resolve continue and grow to disrupt commercial progress.

Although I am not directly connected to an occupied urban area I feel the messages the I have received represent dominant voices and do not challenge racist colonial patriarchy enough. Some evidence I have received say people from marginalized communities are being silenced by organizers and facilitators who are mostly white or male. For every white, straight male that takes control or positions himself in the center, distances women, people of color, First Nations, and LGBTQ folks from the movement. This is not about creating divisions with identity politics; it is about acknowledging privilege, and widening the circle to hear the views of those who are most often held silent.

I realize this is not happening everywhere. I am encouraged by a letter of solidarity with the people on hunger strike inside Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit by “Occupy Oakland:”

“Your daily struggle, as victims of the prison-industrial complex, is a critical component of our ongoing occupation of public space.”

I was impressed when “Occupy Boston” passed a resolution on Indigenous Peoples day recognizing their occupation stood on Massachuset land. The group also acknowledged the continuous resistance of indigenous people to “violent oppression and exploitation of the colonizers” and invited First Nations peoples to join the movement. I also support “Un-Occupy Albuquerque” who recently changed their name after persistent native input to decolonize the uprising there.
My strongest critique of the popular occupy movement is the absence of will to protect the earth. In an age when it’s cool to be green and be an “environmentalist” one would think environmental concerns would be well founded within the principles of “Occupy Together.” However I find half measures like:

“As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality, that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth.”

This does not realize extraction of fossil fuels, uranium, gold, copper, etc needs to stop. It does not realize the burning of fossil fuels is causing climate change and threatens life on this planet. It does not realize the need to protect potable water sources for all life not just humans. Even if corporations and governments came together accepted their guilt in extortion, corruption, and forgave all the debts they would still be able to rape the Earth. If the message is to stop corporate greed but save the middle class and somehow promote social justice, how would the treatment of the Earth change? Think About It.

Resistance on Big Mountain, Black Mesa is an example of on-going occupation with a vast horizon towards economic rights, human rights, religious freedom, AND the rights of Mother Earth. The Dineh leadership there has shown me what hardships one must hurdle to live as a human being on planet Earth. These hardships and hurdles I carry with me on a daily basis that keeps my heart strong so that I can continue to walk for freedom. So when deep snows fill your camps and the heavy rains fall remember the Dineh on Black Mesa, who are hauling water, chopping wood, living without electricity, and face police harassment and fear genocide on a daily basis.
Dineh elders have always stated, all are welcome to herd sheep, chop wood, and haul water and gain some perspective on Big Mountain, Black Mesa.

Any additional questions can be addressed directly to: Nephew Jake, goatalin@yahoo.com

For More Info checkout, http://blackmesais.org/or contact Black Mesa Indigenous Support:

blackmesais@gmail.com

Black Mesa Indigenous Support, P.O. Box 23501, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002
Voicemail: 928-773-8086

Sources:
Letter to the Occupy Together Movement
http://www.racialicious.com/2011/10/15/a-letter-to-the-occupy-together-movement/

RESOLUTION: Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples http://www.occupyboston.org/general-assembly/passed-resolutions/
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/

A Visit With One of the Last Traditional-Sovereign Hopi Elder

2011-08-16T10:41:00.010-07:00

[Author’s Note: During what seemed to be an unending dry spell with daily winds on Black Mesa, I finally had that longing opportunity to see my Hopi relatives and this being made possible by a friend who is also a writer herself. Driving toward the village of Hotevilla, I could noticed along the paved highway how there were less corn, squash and beans in the now wind-swept fields. Some fields were empty but the planted fields showed thirst and whatever life left in them continued to cling on to existence. But the village was alive with a few folks walking along the narrow sandy driveways and cars or pickup trucks parked randomly alongside. Grandfather Martin was not home because he has gotten older and so, he was in the care of his daughter. We woke him up from his sitting-position nap on a little bench which was right next to his makeshift bed. His eyes opened like a cat waking from its quiet nap and instantly, there is a big smile with a greeting, “Hi!” Earlier a younger Hopi lad informed us that Grandpa is very hard of hearing and that he cannot talk or tell stories like he used to. Just so we know, we might “get very little out him.” His English is understandable but mostly broken up, and we had no choice because no one volunteered to translate. I had done my best to convey his words. –byk]

GRAND FATHER MARTIN (HOPI), JULY 2011

There is no dignity in Hopi because of many things that changed the life:
I am not a Chief or a Kykmongi. Actually there are no more Chiefs among the Hopis because (they) are not honored or held in high regards as wise leaders. There are certain selected men who have been recognized as to have religious and village authority, but they are not perceived in that sense by the Hopis. Now, the federal and state governments are recognized as to have all the authorities and they even have authorities over the Hopi tribal government.

There are no more teachings among the Hopi families. Only a few families try to teach their children, but the children are not interested because there are many things out there that the children want to learn, like the TV. Some maybe learning about the dances but I am not sure about that either.

There are no more dances and yes, there are dances in the Villages but it is not the pure ways like in the past.

The importance of corn to the Hopi way is no longer practiced. No one wants to grow corn. Some but mostly older folks try to grow corn or have fields and they only grow a little bit. Me, I am too old to plant corn and take care of it.
I do not think Hopis have pride anymore. I mean pride in terms of being Hopi people. Maybe in some places people might try to show pride but they only show-it-off for a short time.

Dignity:

The dignity that I think Hopis should remember is about how we survived under these small trees and bushes right here on this site. Everyone only had small blankets to keep themselves warm, women and children. There was not enough water for everybody and they had to wait overnight for the jugs to get full. That amount of water was then used to drink and cook with so it was very hard for those that had to live here. Men got together to dig at the spring below here so that the water can form into a bigger pond.

The army tried to kill only the Chief but he never was killed. He told the people that is was better to just settle here, Hotevilla (Place of Upward Line of Junipers). So the village was established. Today we still have the sacred Stone Tablets from back then. We still wait for the fulfillment of the missing pieces to be returned. Then the prophecy can be interpreted and we, all of humanity, will know what to do when the “End” come.

Times of hope and pride:

In the old times, one would be chosen to be responsible for the preparations of seasonal rituals. I use to walk down to the extra pond down at the spring in the early mornings when there was very little light. I would then break the ice and make a hole big enough for myself to get inside. I take my clothes off and get into the pond and squat down with just my head sticking out. It was meditation. I would get out when there was a little more light. I would stand in the freezing cold air for just a little while as my body is completely covered with rising steam. After I dried myself and got dressed, I would start singing the Songs of the People and this, I would sing until I have completely walked around the entire village. Then men would gather at the Kiva.

I had to do this again one time when I had gotten older but life had changed in the village that, some people were saying that I was singing “evil” songs. So, I just decided to skip that part of singing around the village. I still dipped myself in the pond, however.
Future outlook:
I do not exactly know what is going to happen to Hopi. I just know what the prophecy say and now, we are all at a point where our roots do not reach into the earth. You see like the Mayan hieroglyphs? (Spread opens colored copies taped together.) It is the same as Hopi. See all the different signs or events that already took place (reading right to left) and you see how our roots are getting shorter? Hopi have tried to explain and tell the world for many years. We are now here and we have no roots or if we do have it, it is above the ground. On the Sacred Stone Tablets (unwraps three square pieces of incised ceramics), we are here, too, where this symbol matches the eye over the pyramid insignia on the one dollar bill. This, on the Stone Tablet, means we will be under its control as its eye has been watching us. (He informs that the squares are only replicas of the actual village tablets.) We are now bounded and without roots as the “Sargent of Arms,” right here, is ready to cut-off our heads. That will be the “End” and from then on, they will own our heads.

Then it will be up to the Star People, but they will have to also decide if it is better to “save us” or maybe not “save” us.

Question: ‘Grandfather Martin, who are the Star People?”

I do not know. I have never met one of them nor am I one of them. (Laughs.)
© Transcribed and slightly edited by Bahe Y. Katenay, 2011.

- - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * ^^^^ + ^^^^ * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FROM: “Techqua Ikachi” ☼ – Guardians of Land and Life
(An old village publication by the Hotevilla Independent Hopi and editor, the late James Koots.)

Following are excerpts from messages by Hopi Elder Dan Katchongva, Sun Clan, (1865-1972).Grandfather Katchongva is widely and fondly remembered as one of the wisest traditional elders.He was the son of Yukioma, the leader of the Traditionals who were forced out of the village of Oraibi by the “Progressives” in 1906. As Kikmongi (traditional religious leader) of Hotevilla, Grandfather Katchongva was an important leader of the few remaining fully, traditional Hopi.
INTRODUCTION

In 1970, Dan told the story of the People of Peace (Hopi), from the dawn of time to the attacks which led to the founding of Hotevilla in 1906, the school, money, and police systems which threaten to end the Hopi Way within this generation; and the consequences for America and the world. In addition to the prophecies fulfilled during his lifetime, Dan was told by his father that he would live to see the beginning of the final event of this era, the Great Day of Purification. Dan Katchongva died in 1972.

THE FAITHFUL HOPI EVICTED FROM ORAIBI

This was when Lololma’s successor, Tawaquaptewa, became chief of Oraibi. It was under his leadership that the sad event, the eviction of the faithful Hopi from Oraibi, was touched off. Since we ‘Hostiles,’ as we were called by the missionaries and Government workers, refused to follow his wishes and accept the White man’s way of life, he decided to evict us bodily. He figured that without our interference he would be able to take advantage of the good things offered by Bahanna (white man).

On September 7, 1906, his followers, commanded by Chief Tewaquaptewa himself, entered the house where we were discussing prophecies and threw us out. We did not resist until rifles and other weapons were shown and they began beating us. Then we resisted only to the extent of defending ourselves from injury. I was “killed,” and bleeding, my blood flowed into Mother Earth, a prophetic sign that the Purifier was coming in seven days and that we should move out of Oraibi. When I came back to life, all my people were gathered to go. My father, Yukioma, was selected to be the leader. The women and children, with a few belongings on their backs, a little food, and no shoes, were prepared to leave. Some tried to go back to their houses to get their valuables and some extra food, but they were turned back. (In ‘Book of the Hopi’ it is said we were allowed to go back and get some belongings, but this is not true. That book is not accurate.) After we had left we learned that our houses had been looted and that horses had been turned loose in our fields and had eaten our crops, which were just ready for harvest.

Thus we had to migrate once again to find a new home, leaving behind a corrupt world of confusion. We sought to start a new life, carry on our ceremonial cycles, and preserve our way of life without interference, but now we know that this was a dead dream, for the interference has continued right up to the present day.

THE FOUNDING OF HOTEVILLA VILLAGE

The village of Hotevilla was settled for one purpose, to stand firmly on the Great Spirit’s instructions and fulfill the prophecies to the end. It was established by good people, one-hearted people who were actually living these instructions. Water was plentiful, and so was wood, from which we built temporary shelters in which we were to survive the cold winter with very few blankets. Food was scarce, but we managed to live from the land by hunting game and picking greens. We were united into oneness, but it would again be split into two due to extreme pressure from the outside.

Hardly had our footprints faded away in Oraibi, when early one morning we found ourselves surrounded by Government troops. All the people, including the children, were ordered to march six miles to a place below Oraibi. From there all the men were marched over forty miles to the U.S. Government agency at Keams Canyon, where they were imprisoned for about a year and one half for not accepting the generous offer of education for our children, among other things.
DISRUPTION BY AMERICAN COLONIZATION MAY HAVE NOW ALTERED THE HOPI

At the present time we face the danger that we might lose our land entirely. Through the influence of the
United States government, some people of Hopi ancestry have organized what they call the Hopi Tribal Council, patterned according to a plan devised by the government, for the purpose of negotiating directly with the government and with private businesses. They claim to act in the interests of the Hopi people, despite the fact that they ignore the existing traditional leaders, and represent only a small minority of the People of Hopi blood. Large areas of our land have been leased, and this group is now accepting compensation from the Indian Claims Commission for the use of 44,000,000 acres of Hopi land. We have protested all these moves, but to no avail.

Now this Tribal Council was formed illegally, even according to white man’s laws. We traditional leaders have disapproved and protested form the start. In spite of this they have been organized and recognized by the United States government for the purpose of disguising its wrong-doings to the outside world. We do not have representatives in this organization, nor are we legally subject to their regulations and programs. We Hopi are an independent sovereign nation, by the law of the Great Spirit, but the United States government does not want to recognize the aboriginal leaders of this land. Instead, he recognizes only what he himself has created out of today’s children in order to carry out his scheme to claim all of our land.

Because of this, we now face the great threat of all, the actual loss of our cornfields and gardens, our animals and wild game, and our natural water supply, which would put an end to the Hopi way of life. At the urging of the Department of the Interior of the United States, the Tribal Council has signed several leases with an outside private enterprise, the Peabody Coal Company, allowing them to explore our land for coal deposits, and to strip-mine the sacred mesas, selling the coal to several large power plants. This is part of a project intended to bring heavy industry into our area against our wishes. We know that this will pollute the fields and grazing lands and drive out the wildlife. Great quantities of water will be pumped from beneath our desert land and used to push coal through a pipe to a power plant in another state (Nevada). The loss of this water will affect our farms as well as the grazing areas of the animals. It also threatens our sacred spring&, our only natural source of water, which we have depended upon for centuries.

We Hopi knew all this would come about, because this is the Universal Plan. It was planned by the Great Spirit and the Creator that when the white man came he would offer us many things. If we were to accept those offers from his government, that would be the doom of the Hopi nation. Hopi is the bloodline of this continent, as others are the bloodline of other continents. So if Hopi is doomed, the whole world will be destroyed. This we know, because this same thing happened in the other world. So if we want to survive, we should go back to the way we lived in the beginning, the peaceful way, and accept everything the Creator has provided for us to follow. White man’s laws are many, but mine is one.

White man’s laws are all stacked up. So many people have made the rules, and many of them are made every day. But my law is only the Creator’s, just one. And no man-made law must I follow, because it is ever-changing, and will doom my people.

We know that when the time comes, the Hopi will be reduced to maybe one person, two person, and three persons. If he can withstand the pressure from the people who are against the tradition, the world might survive from destruction We are at the stage where I must stand alone, free from impure elements. I must continue to lead my people on the road the Great Spirit made for us to travel. I do not disregard anyone. All who are faithful and confident in the Great Spirit’s way are at liberty to follow the same road. We will meet many obstacles along the way. The peaceful way of life can be accomplished only by people with strong courage, and by the purification of all living things.
©1991 “Techqua Ikachi” ☼ – Guardians of Land and Life

Rez plagued by 'poverty pimps'

2011-07-28T11:04:00.001-07:00

There is a problem plaguing Diné people in the reservation. My arguments are based in real life experiences with nonprofit organizations that monopolize on our miseries while creating a comfortable lifestyle for themselves.

The four "poverty pimps" I'd like to talk about are: Developing Innovations in Navajo Education, Inc. (Kyril Calsoyas, Flagstaff), Forgotten People (Marsha Monestersky, Tuba City), Purpose Focused (Joann Armenta, Whittier, Calif.) and Tolani Lake Enterprises, Inc. (Ron White).

While trying to understand the different personalities, behaviors and the politics involved we see that these selfish actors mirror the actions of ethnic frauds like Ward Churchill, Thom Alcoze (Northern Arizona University) and Ray Pierotti (University of Kansas).

In this discussion you will see that this is by design with regard to neo-colonized behaviors, that there are direct relationships between these two examples. While all of these non-profits intentionally marginalize participants in their play, one in particular (Forgotten People) goes beyond all this in destruction of relationships and dire manipulation of cultural mores within this structure.

All four nonprofits have transparency issues, have a Navajo face (board of directors), use Robert's Rule of Order (stops the traditional grassroots voice), are gatekeepers, use the media for their personal gain, hire from the outside or hire their friends exclusively, and always, always leave an empty legacy.

Kyril Calsoyas in December 1992 completed his doctoral dissertation, "The Soul of Education: A Navajo Perspective" (NAU). Alcoze approved this move by design. Oddly, three of the four nonprofits all hail from the education field.

We see this happening today. Isabella Walker, an important highly visible member of many political Navajo tribal administrations (chairman to president eras) is married to Calsoyas. This gives him exclusive insight into our tribal affairs and beyond this, Calsoyas is the elitist poverty pimp, a title he is quite proud to bear.

Those of you he gave laptops to as a gift should know that he knows where you go, what sites you visit and he can see your email exchanges. Power is key to him.

Tolani Lake Enterprises in many respects is defunct but leaves behind the biggest empty legacy that is in my backyard. Ron White built Tolani Lake Elementary School Academy, the beautifully completed domes (originally teacher housing) that sat unused for many years, a senior citizen's home that sits completely finished and ready to use but the monies to operate this facility do not exist.

I was a founding member of Naataanii Community Services Inc., that was an umbrella nonprofit with TLE and I managed to bring in a $3 million NAHASDA grant to rebuild in the Bennett Freeze. These dreams fell through as White absconded with the planning monies ($300K). Today, Bill Edwards bravely heads up this company and is trying his best to address these issues.

More recently, Purpose Focused came onto the landscape to help people in the former Bennett Freeze. To jumpstart her vision, Armenta proposed an earth day festival to be held in two places: Service to All Relations School (STAR School) and the Naataanii area community were selected.

Many of us worked with her, even putting up with her mental and verbal abuse. Toward the end I fired her for these actions. She left (with all the money) after putting on the event at the STAR School. We had to scramble to meet our concert obligations in Naataanii.

It was at this time I discovered that she made deals with white New Age performers to come into the reservation and she would pay them outlandish fees. She pressed me to bring in Native performers at no cost to the event. This was further personified by the building of a stage. She hired one man from Oregon and another from Texas paying their round-trip airfare, lodging and food.

In my community (as in many Navajo communities) we have very talented, experienced carpenters that would have taken care of building a better stage than that constructed. This stage sits empty and unused because it's not safe and beyond this, all the players at the STAR School event were also paid for their time, lodging, airfare and the like.

If you Google "Navajo uranium contamination" you will get about 165,000 results. Google "Forgotten People' you will get about 38,600,000 results. The Forgotten People within the Navajo lens is an organization managed by Marsha Monestersky (from New York City), an affirmed communist and a consummate Zionist trained in the art of war (these are her words).

The board she directs also drives her about and serves as her interpreter. A grassroots establishment that prides itself in its get-in-your-face militant persona is one that capriciously files lawsuits while sadly milking its membership to pay attorney salary (Jim Zion).

Monestersky promotes infighting among Navajo families and dividing reservation communities along the Window Rock versus grassroots entity storyline. Her actions go against tribal cultural norms and values. She came to us by way of Big Mountain where they ousted her but the residents of Big Mountain will not give reason for their actions. Within this, the Hopi Tribe has an exclusion order against her and she openly laughs about this legal sovereign action.

Monestersky's words are heavily ingrained with the media-at-large and she is fluent in the use of the Internet. This is usually dangerous when it involves tribes and intellectual property as it relates to marketing culture without tribal permission to publish or produce videos and the like on the net.

To prove my point, if you attend an EPA conference where the Forgotten are presenting you will see her taking credit for creating perception into this narrative. She will hog the presentation time as well but beyond this, she takes credit (online) for bestowing this story to the world.

While researching my allegations, I came across an EPA workshop where she presented with Dr. Lee Greer (La Sierra University, Riverside, Calif.) in Tuba City a position paper, "Forgotten People-Building Capacity Decolonizing the Navajo Nation-Using Grassroots Driven Development and Activism to Secure Environmental Justice."

How is it that a couple of invaders can present on subject matter foreign to them?

Further, on Feb. 15, 2011, I met with Greer at his campus and specifically told him to follow protocols with references to publishing a DNA health study that he is currently working on with Monestersky.

The Navajo Nation government's role today has been negatively impacted by a transparency civil lawsuit filed by Monestersky. The Navajo Hopi Land Commission as a result cannot do its job in service delivery. Civil lawsuits in Navajo take on the average 11 years to resolve.

Within this, recent activities in human safe water delivery into Black Falls have been sabotaged by her and she has been evicted from water meetings held in Window Rock for creating disturbances and disruptions.

I conclude this letter with an appeal to my Diné people: Let us get together and work toward a brighter future grounded in the words of my late aunt Stella who spoke of respect and k'é.

I ask your support to get behind Mr. Raymond Maxx, our executive director with the Navajo Hopi Land Commission, and his staff to transform the conflict that Monestersky has imposed on us and to rid her of our conscious. In the physical realm, I ask that her removal from our reservation happen immediately.

Robert Redsteer
Naataanii Peacebuilders Alliance
Leupp, Ariz.

[Courtesy of Navajo Times, July 28, 2011, Letters to the Editor]

Traditional Resisters’ Last Stand Against Growing American Domination

2011-07-13T12:16:00.017-07:00

(Photos by Demitra Tsioulos, 2008) Blackrock's grandkids & Where Lizard Dipped Its Hand in Water Sheep Camp.

Elder Resisters, Mary Lou & Clarence Blackrock, Call for Need for Crucial Awareness About A Dying Culture at Big Mountain
Translation by Bahe Y. Katenay

July 2011, Cactus Valley – Big Mountain, Arizona – Mary Lou and Clarence did this interview at their sheep camp near Little Spring of One With Blackhorse. The interviewer was Christophe Cousin from the France TV CanalPlus’s The New Explorer show. These programs are series of short discovery documentary about “off-the-mainstream, beaten paths” where people’s culture is based on pastoral or farming livestyles and whose cultural ways may now face the challenges of change and modernism.]

Mary Lou: Where I was born was right across this canyon (pointing westward) near where Red Willow Spring Canyon empties into Blue Canyon. It was said that I was born in a traditional shade shelter and so it was in the late summer time when I was born. The families stayed together and they moved about in this particular area and sometime they moved over on the eastside of the Upper Big Mountain range. Growing up then, I remember life seemed pure because you really never heard of different diseases or devastating sicknesses. I think my mother utilized a lot of the medicinal plants to cure our minor ailments and most of our foods came from these lands as well. Sheep was always a part of life and so were the crop fields, too.

How life has changed since then? I would have to say the forcible taking of my children. My children are not on the lands with me, and this is contrary to me growing into adulthood around my mother and the extended family. This change I feel has been the greatest pain and hardship that Washington (U.S. government) has inflicted upon me. As dedicated mothers especially in Dineh (Navajo) society, we begin to think about our new born of how we would raise them and the expectations for their future on these ancestral lands, and just as I was raised.

Well, the most memorable joyful moments that I remember in my younger days began when I hid from my mother so that, she will end up herding the sheep herself. I had a couple of colts corralled and I lasso one. I fought with it a bit and then when it settled down, I tried to put the saddle on. This I tried for a couple of days, but finally I secured the saddle and cautiously climbed into the saddle, and it kicked and bucked for a little bit but it began to be tamed.

(Inset photo by Demitra Tsioulos) Mary Lou with weaving & rough ridin' days according to Her story.

One time also, there was this bigger younger pony but I led it to a distance neighbor where I asked the riders to help me. We began to subdue this big pony and eventually we saddled it. I climbed into the saddle but the men were trying to discourage me. The gentleman holding the head and ears of the pony asked me, “Now what?” I told him to release the ears and pull off the blindfolds. The pony immediately bolted and began galloping so fast and I hung on. I was riding across the canyon near Where the Line of Trees Come Out and toward the distance canyon walls and giant boulders. I noticed some of the men were on horseback trying to catch up. (Laughs.) I and the big strong pony reached the scattered boulders when it suddenly turned around and back down into the valley. I could see the other riders still trying to catch up and the large trail of dust rising into the air like we were having a great stampede. My strong pony began trotting and I eventually rode it calmly, the entire way home.

Life was all about having our hogans and moving around with our herds during the summer time. There were plenty of sheep and goats, some cattle and then horses. I eventually acquired my own herds and horses. There was much happiness or exuberance that came with herding and caring for the sheep, cattle and horses. Then there were the crop fields where we planted and harvested. Certainly, all these are hard work but in the end, the results were what was rewarding and living this way led to loving your country very deeply.

For these reasons and when the Washington came to me years back, I told them that I will not accept their relocation laws. I told them, “I reject your offers and I shall remain among these lands and home sites. This place is where I conduct my daily business for Life and for my Life!” So, this is the only culture, language and ways of subsistence I know and I know no other. (They) took some of us on a field trip to the New Lands where we would be relocated if we accepted the offer. It is true that those lands had beautiful settings, but I looked at the ground and I did not recognized the vegetation. I begin to wonder “how could (they) expect me to train myself to learn about that strange vegetation?” (They) even told us that they will allow us plenty of animals more than what we have on our original lands. I took that as a lie immediately.

My children have already accepted that urban life styles. They all have gone into that so deeply that if I ever was given back the authority to decide the future of these lands and ways of life, the children will care less about making their homes around here. I truly feel that I am near the end of it all, I am not as agile as I once was, my eyes cannot see the weavings that I work on, and now I am someone that does not cook for herself anymore. I cannot provide a room or space for my children to sleep or live while they visit us. The government tells them “No!” They are not allowed to build anything. A few have accepted the relocation offer and they live elsewhere these days.

The country is now empty. Only the BIA tribal authority and police drive about occasionally to “monitor” us but I do not speak English so I do not know why they keep checking on us. I just have a guess that they probably are keeping vigil for that time when we have exhausted all our existence and soon after we would be gone. Then they probably will take upon themselves to do whatever they had wished to do with these lands. I have declared to my family that “when that time comes when ‘something’ takes me away that, everyone makes sure that I am cremated and my ashes be scattered among these lands, here.” At least, my ashes will give little smudges of colour throughout.

(Photos by Demitra Tsioulos, 2008) clockwise: Well near Cottonwood Springs, Blackrock's herds in rock shelter corral, outside summer cooking stove when non-Native supporters helped at sheep camp.

Clarence: The BIA cops and rangers had tore down this hogan and they had stacked all the logs out there near that road. My children, the men, decided to rebuild it because our sheep camp is still here. The federal tribal authorities also tore down other structures around here like the one on the slope of this north mesa point. Those hogans and corrals were situated nicely and they dismantled it and you can only see stacked logs there now.

Our histories [1860-1868], here, about the wars with the U. S. and the escape by some from capture of its Army should be very important to us and to the next generations, as well. Unfortunately, it seems that the new generation does not care about these histories. This history is part of the foundation that defines our resistance to relocation here at Cactus Valley, Red Willow Springs, Thin Rock Mesa, and Big Mountain. Even some of these sheep herds are descendants from those that were issued during the release from Fort Sumner and from those that escaped the Army’s slaughtering.

It does not matter if we lived on the so-called “Hopi Partitioned Lands,” the Navajo Nation still expects us to participate in the electoral processes. But we do not see the results of our Votes which were to be “change.” Mary Lou and I live in a house that is falling apart. All we hear about is corruption and that leadership in Window Rock has taken bribes or stole out of certain funds. It definitely seems like the root of these behaviors comes from Washington because the same stories are heard about the leadership at the federal level.

How should it be? I do not know. Our own community should restart its grassroots councils.

© Sheep Dog Nation Media, 2011

For more on this genocide and the struggles for survival, and how you can help: http://blackmesais.org/take_action/

Non-Native & Natives Take Action to Stop Desecration of the Sacred San Francisco Mtns.

2011-06-17T09:42:00.008-07:00

Photographs courtesy of Kyle Boggs The Noise and Beth Lavely.

Defenders of San Francisco Peaks statement:

Today, we take direct action to stop further desecration and destruction of the Holy San Francisco Peaks. We stand with our ancestors, with allies and with those who also choose to embrace diverse tactics to safeguard Indigenous People’s cultural survival, our community’s health, and this sensitive mountain ecosystem.

On May 25th 2011, sanctioned by the US Forest Service, owners of Arizona Snowbowl began further destruction and desecration of the Holy San Francisco Peaks. Snowbowl’s hired work crews have laid over a mile and a half of the planned 14.8 mile wastewater pipeline. They have cut a six foot wide and six foot deep gash into the Holy Mountain.

Although a current legal battle is under appeal, Snowbowl owners have chosen to undermine judicial process by rushing to construct the pipeline. Not only do they disregard culture, environment, and our children’s health, they have proven that they are criminals beyond reproach.

Four weeks of desecration has already occurred. Too much has already been taken. Today, tomorrow and for a healthy future, we say “enough!”

As we take action, we look to the East and see Bear Butte facing desecration, Mt. Taylor facing further uranium mining; to the South, Mt.

Graham desecrated, South Mountain threatened, the US/Mexico border severing Indigenous communities from sacred places; to the West, inspiring resistance at Sogorea Te, Moana Keya facing desecration; to the North, Mt. Tenabo, Grand Canyon, Black Mesa, and so many more… our homelands and our culture under assault.

We thought that the USDA, heads of the Forest Service, had meant it when they initiated nationwide listening sessions to protect sacred places. If the process was meaningful, we would not have to take action today.

More than 13 Indigenous Nations hold the Peaks Holy. The question has been asked yet we hear no response, “what part of sacred don’t you understand?”

For hundreds of years resistance to colonialism, slavery, and destruction of Mother Earth has existed and continues here in what we now call Arizona.

The United States recently moved to join the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, evidently the US has not currently observed and acted upon this declaration, otherwise we would not be taking action today. This document informs our action, we also assert that UNDRIP supports the basis for our action.

Article 11, 1: Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature.

“Article 11, 2: States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.”

“Article 12, 1: Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains.”

“Article 25: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard."

For nearly 4 decades, resistance to desecration and destruction of the Peaks has been sustained. Prayer vigils, petitions, lobbying, protests, and many diverse tactics have been embraced. Historic court battles have been fought.

We continue today resisting Snowbowl’s plan to spray millions of gallons of wastewater snow, which is filled with cancer causing and other harmful contaminants, as well as clear-cut over 30,000 trees. The Peaks are a pristine and beautiful place, a fragile ecosystem, and home to rare and endangered species of plants and animals.

Our action is a prayer.

We invite those of you who could not join us today and who believe in the protection of culture, the environment and community health to resist destruction and desecration of the Peaks:

- Join us and others in physically stopping all Snowbowl development!
- Honor and defend Indigenous Peoples’ inherent right to protect Sacred Places
- Resist colonialism and capitalism! Embrace diverse tactics to end Snowbowl’s and all corporate greed
- Demand USDA end Snowbowl’s Special Use Permit
- Demand that the City of Flagstaff Mayor and Council find a way out of their contract to sell wastewater to Snowbowl
- Demand that Arizona Department of Environmental Quality change its permission allowing wastewater to be used for snowmaking.

http://www.indigenousaction.org/

Black Mesa, NE Arizona, from space, June 2011

2011-06-08T16:16:00.007-07:00

The expanding coal mines operated by Peabody Energy can be seen from space
By Bahe Y. Katenay, SheepDogNation Media

Big Mountain Dineh bi' Keyah, Black Mesa - June 2011 It all began in 1906 when U.S. Geological Survey reported coal seams within these 125 to 30 million year old sandstone and clay formations of Black Mesa. Black Mesa coal field as it became known as covers about 60 miles by 80 miles and is ancestral homelands to both the Dineh (Navajos) and Hopis.

Like it was a "gold" discovery, utility companies in the 1950s began their desperate effort to stake out claims once they realized cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles will eventually grow tremendously. These prospectors ran into a brick wall which was that, this "largest chuck of coal" was all Indian reservation, and only some slick, top-notch corporate lawyers might be able to establish "legal" access. The other roadblock for the prospectors was that the Hopis did not have a "U.S. Federally-recognized" tribal authority. The Hopis were still a sovereign nation in that they still had Village Chief authority nor did they ever signed a treaty with the U.S. of A.

Sleazy attorneys also specialized in corporate law converged on this isolated, forgotten world of the Navajos and the Hopis. It took a Salt Lake City attorney, John S. Boyden, to utilize the Indian Land Claims Commission's proceedings to coerced a small group of Hopis to call themselves The Hopi Tribal Council. The traditional Village Chiefs protested these colonial underminings. By 1962, the Hopi council was legal and immediately Peabody Coal Company was awarded the nearly 70,000 acres to start mining.

Today, those scarred lands have been "reclaimed" by the coal company with alien scrubs and grass. Thousand of acres of ancient juniper and pinon pine forests will probably never come back due to today's climate changed weather. But Peabody still want their new leases approved so that they can expand into the Dineh's sacred regions of Big Mountain. In 1974, the U.S. Congress also "settled" the rest of this real estate distribution by passing legislation to displace and relocate nearly 22,000 Dineh and about 600 Hopis. Peabody in 1964 stated, "this mining of Black Mesa will go beyond 100 years and this mining operations will facilitate the removal of the local human population."

Futhermore, this very complex Executive mandate and its false interpretations of reasoning have severely impacted this particular human culture and their environment which they interacted with sustainably. The Dineh especially those that associated their home areas and cultural areas with the Big Mountain summits have withstood over 30 years of harassment, threats, arrests, and trial by court, but unfortunately their human rights are continued to be violated. American popular media also are an accessory to these injustices by reiterating that 'false reasonings' and headlining it as the "Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute" to contradict the obvious corporate mineral interests.

The future of a once pristine and unique traditions of the Dineh of Big Mountain is uncertain, the numbers of homesites have decreased, the ritual cultural world has been silenced, most younger generation lack any connections to their ancestry, and threat of fossil-fuel addicted America still looms over these Dineh traditionals. A handful of Non-Native supporters try to continue in providing physical and network support on behalf of elder resisters and their families. However, there is still a great chance for the hope of survival that can still be justified and be saved but it will take much greater awareness and acceptance to maintaining sacred sites by helping to create them as living (sacred) communities.

Truth can no longer be feared but instead each individuals must promote and advocate for awareness about truth in order to secure the futures politically, economically and socially. There is also a lot that can be learnt from Dineh way of life at Big Mountain even though it may not be considerated as great influencial statespersons or political figures, but in actuality the Elder resisters are just that.

Here is an extra resource about networking: http://blackmesais.org/take_action/

SDNrocks, 2011

Big Mtn. Dineh Elder Resister's Message from the Stronghold of her Ancestral Lands

2011-05-13T14:42:00.011-07:00

Statement from Dineh Elder/Matriarch Resister Pauline Whitsinger, Sweet Water Stronghold, Big Mountain (Navajo Indian reservation, northeast Arizona)

Volunteers helping relocation resisters

2010-11-30T09:47:00.003-07:00

Support Thanksgiving Caravan prepare mutton stew. The volunteers will stay with elders on Big Mountain until Saturday, helping them prepare for winter.

By Cindy Yurth
Tséyi' Bureau - Navajo Times

The third, and possibly final, Black Mesa Indigenous Support Thanksgiving Caravan arrived on Big Mountain Saturday, bearing a welcome cargo of food, hay, firewood, and plenty of enthusiastic young muscle.

They will help a handful of Navajo families who resisted relocation, and are still living on a peninsula of Hopi Partitioned Land on Big Mountain, to get through the winter.

For 120 people from across the country and into Canada, it will be a different sort of Thanksgiving.
Instead of feasting on turkey with their family, they'll be sharing mutton stew with Navajo elders, some of whom don't speak a word of English.
Instead of taking a holiday, they'll be working, hard - herding sheep, splitting firewood and building corrals.
And, they're grateful for the opportunity.
The third, and possibly final, Black Mesa Indigenous Support Thanksgiving Caravan arrived on Big Mountain Saturday, bearing welcome cargo of food, hay, firewood, and plenty of enthusiastic young muscle.
Sponsored by Black Mesa Indigenous Support, the caravan was conceived to help the handful of Navajo families who resisted relocation, and are still living on a peninsula of Hopi Partitioned Land on Big Mountain, to get through the winter.
"We think one of the best ways we can express solidarity with them is just to help them continue their traditional way of life," explained Theresa "Tree" Gigante, one of the caravan's organizers, who has been working with the Big Mountain resisters for 15 years.
The volunteers were divided into groups of two or three, each to live with a Navajo elder for five days and help him or her prepare for the winter - which, with no running water or electricity, on a slippery dirt road a half-hour from the nearest trading post, can be awfully long.

7 'awaiting relocation'

As if on cue, wind-whipped snow started to pelt Big Mountain Sunday as the caravan's opening ceremonies commenced, with the elders expressing appreciation for the help and detailing their plight as people who resisted being relocated to New Lands in the 1970s and 80s.
Forty-nine of the 56 home-site lease holders who remained on the HPL after relocation signed an accommodation agreement in 1996, giving them a 75-year lease but severely restricting the number of animals they can graze. The remaining seven are still considered by the government to be "awaiting relocation," although that's certainly not how they see it.
"If we're just one animal over (our limit), the Hopi rangers will come and take it," complained one woman.
Another worried that she won't be able to leave her home site to her children, but her daughter said she plans to stay there anyway.
"This is still America," she said. "They can't just chase people off their land."
The volunteers, crowded into a prefabricated geodesic dome that had been set up as a space for talking and learning, also heard speakers on the physical and spiritual aspects of coal mining on nearby Black Mesa.
The Hopi and Navajo used to share the land in peace, the elders said, until the Black Mesa mine was opened in the 1960s, necessitating the partitioning of the land and the relocation of 6,500 Navajos and about 30 Hopis in the 1970s and 80s.
In addition to leveling home sites, the elders said, the mine has encroached on burial grounds and cultural sites, and dust from the operation has created respiratory problems in the nearby populations.
The Black Mesa Mine was closed in 2005, but mining continues at the Kayenta Mine on the north side of Black Mesa.
The volunteers also learned that the Diné regard Black Mesa as a living female entity, and the coal seam as her liver, and that mining is foreign to the traditional Navajo worldview.

Water another worry

The Northeast Arizona Water Settlement recently approved by the Navajo Nation Council is another concern of the elders.
"They signed away the coal, and now they've signed away our water," said one, speaking in Navajo. "We have no leaders these days. Just people who betray us for money."
Evelyn Samuelson said she's concerned not just that the Diné will have enough water in the future, but whether the long legal document will have some kind of power over the water's spirit.
"The water rights are all tangled up like a spider web," she said, illustrating by crossing her gnarled fingers over each other. "They've mixed up the male and female water. I don't know how Mother Nature's going to react."
Danny Blackgoat, son of Big Mountain resister Roberta Blackgoat, who passed away in 2002, advised the volunteers to build little catchments wherever they saw water collecting, so the elders' livestock would have enough to drink.
"We should be doing that all over the Navajo Nation," he said.
Most of the volunteers are in their 20s, much too young to remember the relocation. Every one interviewed seemed to have learned about it in a different way: in a college class, at a human rights panel, from an environmental group, Googling around on the Internet.
Becky White, a young singer-songwriter from the Bay area who is now working on her master's at Berklee College of Music, learned about the relocation 11 years ago while attending Prescott College. She's been making periodic trips to Big Mountain ever since, lending a hand on elders' ranches.
"As a Californian, I was shocked to learn that the (electrical) power in my state comes from stolen coal," she said. "This is a human rights issue the whole country should know about."

Growing awareness

Thanks to the efforts of BMIS - and much earlier speaking tours by Blackgoat, Katherine Smith and other resisters - a growing number of people do. The caravan had to turn away volunteers, limiting the number to 120 in order to have a manageable group and avoid too big an impact on the land.
But many volunteers end up coming back for a month or two to help their assigned families, White said.
"They need help all year round, not just five days in the fall," she declared.
Gigante, who now lives in Virginia, spends about five months a year on Big Mountain. She has learned Navajo and is teaching it to her children.
She said this might be the last year she organizes the caravan, although BMIS will continue to facilitate volunteer work on Big Mountain.
"There's only about five of us core people who organize this," she said. "It takes a lot to coordinate all this."
Some of the elders and organizers were concerned the volunteers would be hassled for trespassing on Hopi land, but Clayton Honyumptewa, acting manager of the Hopi Tribe's Department of Natural Resources, said his department was aware of the caravan and not out to bust it.
"We do wish they'd go through the proper channels to get permission," he said. "I'll probably send somebody over there to monitor the situation. We aren't going to arrest people for doing humanitarian work."
"I don't see any Hopis out here helping me herd my sheep and chop my wood," quipped Jack Woody, one of the elders who had invited the volunteers to assist him in preparing for the winter. "I don't see my Council delegate. If these non-Indians want to help me, I'm not going to chase them away."

Learning the issues

Actually, there are a few Indians in the bunch. Alex Morrison said she made the trip as a service learning project for an English class at Salt Lake Community College.
"It hit close to home, because I'm half Navajo," said the 19-year-old, who looks Native except for her startling hazel eyes. "When I heard about it, I knew I wanted to do it."
Craig Luther, 21, is from a family that was relocated from Big Mountain to Nahata Dzil, but he was raised in Sanders, Ariz.
"To tell the truth, I really don't know that much about the issues out here," he confessed. "That's why I'm here."
While she appreciates all the volunteers, it's the Navajo youngsters like Morrison and Luther who give Marie Smith hope. The daughter of resister Katherine Smith, she's working on a master's in sustainable communities at Northern Arizona University. She envisions Big Mountain as a network of sustainable farms where Navajos can return to the land and once again live in peace.
She sees greenhouses, a community center, and maybe even their own chapter, so they could accept grants and funding from the Navajo Nation and other entities.
"People say, 'You can't go back to the old ways,' but that's not what I'm talking about," she said. "You can have your computer and your cell phone, and still say the proper prayers when you butcher a sheep. We need to re-value the way of life we once had. What our ancestors had was a proven way to live sustainably on the land."
She and her sister, Mary Katherine, both live on a hill overlooking their mom's old place. Mary Katherine prefers to work in the background, helping the elders to survive on the land and organizing occasional health clinics, one of which will be held this week. They are among just a handful of second-generation resisters who were raised with the struggle always the backdrop of their lives, and yet chose to stay.
Most of their generation has moved to Flagstaff or Phoenix or other places, and rarely returns to the mountain. But their children - the ones Morrison's and Luther's age - might be another story.
"I'm seeing a lot of interest among younger Navajos to come out here and experience this lifestyle," Marie Smith said. "There is a movement among young people across the Navajo Nation who are recognizing the value of a life lived with respect for the earth. Because of our elders who have managed to remain here, we'll have a place for them to come. We'll have something to offer them."

[Navajo Times ON-LINE COMMENTS]:

C said: Attention NN Government, newly elected. PLEASE READ comments made by Big mtn elderlies "They signed away the coal, and now they've signed away our water," said one, speaking in Navajo. "We have no leaders these days. Just people who betray us for money." one of the elders who had invited the volunteers to assist him in preparing for the winter. "I don't see my Council delegate. If these non-Indians want to help me, I'm not going to chase them away." Its sad and ashame to read articles like this, what now Navajo Nation.....! Big Mountain is on reserved land.

Zoie Wilde said: It Can be a near perfect world...If we try!

Nan said: We are appreciative of such wonderful gestures and thankful non-Navajos see us for our generousity and hardships. They will be rewarded for their positive actions on Navajo land and many blessings bestowed upon them. Our Elders are prescious to us, they have struggled to bring us where we are and they have endored many hardships. Their strength has been passsed on to us and now we must lead for future generations to come. Thank you volunteers, grandparents and all those who give selflessly. Happy gatherings during the holidays!

Malcolm said: Big Mountain is a place, a respite, where I've seen people from all over the world return year after year. Their ethos of living in balance with the land and habitats was there long before Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. The way the media appropriates who says what about the Earth today, still marginalizes those who live closest to respecting the land and its resources. With some help from the media, the growing support has grown for Big Mountain. I'm really glad for this article.

Frankie Carr Jr said: thank you very much for caring! does it really have to be bilaganaas that have to help them! why cant the navajo nation or the hopi tribe help one another at resolving these problems! and help our elderlys! respect our mother earth and respect our elders! this is a cruel world!

- 1Sheepherder's reply to Carr Jr: the bilaganaas and the people of Big Mountain learn about that thing call COMMUNICATION. all the EDUCATED people are so afraid of COMMUNICATION. I like trying to COMMUNICATE with them, sometimes it become very funny, ha ,ha specially the fat ONES...... "You notice everything is about HOW not COMMUNICATE"... Cindy thank you for the article. " grandma knows about THE COMMUNIATION"...

(Yours Truly, Chief Loner) 'Haastin' 1st Posted a Comment: Oh yeah, if this was a story about the U.S. military's native veterans or service personnel, you "Navajos" would have some comments to make. You should be honoring "your own" true Elder Warriors of Big Mountain and too bad, it is reality that Peabody Coal Company and the U.S. military-state has invaded your country and destroyed more of the little culture and FREEDOM that was left . This is the real Thanksgiving: volunteers giving thanks to Indigenous elder warriors who are trying to stop global warming and the rape of mother earth.

- R3dcloud13's reply to 'Haastin': Sir, you seem to not know what you are talking about. My first language is Dine' and I try to stick with traditional teachings and I talk with my Grandparents about the old days as much as I can. I do live off the Res but I try to return and help. I grew up in the lifestyle of no electricity or water. I haul water, wood, coal, and hay in my truck for my elders. I honor them everyday and think of them everyday. I also have relatives who serve actively in the military and am proud to be in a military family way back. There is no way I can express the many thanks I have for their service. So don't patronize me from over there because it's so easy to judge when you're hiding behind your weak view of how us Dine' are supposed to feel or act. I do more than you can imagine for my Chei and Masani, I've been in the trenches I felt the hard times. You need to go think hard about what you are doing and walk the walk. Haash Doone'e' Nili? ...and all that.

-- 'Haastin's' reply to R3dcloud13: I am of the great Near the Water people, people of the rivers who crossed over the mountains from the Chama & Rio Grande valleys hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years before the Europeans. My clan, Tabahaa of the Standing Tree and Meadow Bands, joined the Dineh because we made the best arrow & bow quivers and the tall red moccasins. Just cuz Im un-patriotic to the U.S. I don't know what I am talking about: dude, I know about aggression, genocide, greed, and injustice?! My particular clan were relocated (along with many other clans) from Dinetah due the Spanish invasions, then relocated from Canyon de Chelly due to the American military invasions, and now my elders and I are being forced off Big Mountain in the name of coal and electricity, AND I have walked the walk, talk the teachings and Lived the FREEDOM of the ancient ways at Big Mountain. My traditional parents raised me well and now, I am a volunteer for the peoples.

Memories fo you and i said: "Euphonious, First of all, Thank you very much,for helping my people,Black Mesa indigenous Support group." I think it's an great idea,Instead of feasting on turkey,they'll be sharing mutton stew/frybread. Also, I agree with the elder women,that stated; ""This is still America, They can't just chase people off their land." Guess it was all about greediness for Peter Macdonald to partial his own people.

Blowfly86 said: The children of the Earth and rivers is no longer, Respect has been out the window from day one,The old measureable indian character remains done now to fast moving , everything,Enter nets as it picks up more speedly, the rest is a free fall to dome human exist as we know it. Spiritually, I ask you do not eat the turkey it gets no repect,Indain wise.next Even Coal was not to be use as household heater, it gaves of dangerous gas. I guess trying to be native american doesn't work also I met way to many that were also native american, born and rasied in American. so, there. Thank you for your support and kindness

^^^ **** ^^^

(Story is courtesy of the Navajo Times, November 24, 2010)

Non-Native Sheepherder, A Direct Action to Defend Human Rights at Big Mountain

2010-10-29T14:36:00.054-07:00

An Interview with a Sheepherder: Volunteered Stay from December 2009 to April 2010 at Big Mountain

By Jen-E Johnson, September 2010, A Sheepherder's Almanac-Zine (ASAZ)

ASAZ: Where do you stay and with whom?

SheepHerder: I go to the Hopi Partioned Land (HPL) part of the Hopi reservation in the northeast corner of Arizona (see map). I stay with a Dineh (Navajo) grandmother who is resisting Public Law 95-351 a relocation law that was passed in 1974 by the US government. This law was the last to finalize the redrawing of reservation lines between the Hopi and Dineh and it just so happened that many Dineh ended up on the wrong side of the fence. The law was passed due to a so-called land dispute between the tribes associated with mineral rights and leasing of tribal lands to energy corporations. I encourage those who would like to know more about the history of Black Mesa to read articles on the Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) website http://blackmesais.org/ and to view the documentary “Broken Rainbow.”

ASAZ: What is it that initially drew you there?

SheepHerder: I heard about it at Antioch College my first year when some friends were doing a speaking tour from the east coast to Black Mesa for the Fall Caravan in 2006. I ended up driving them to their next destinations because their bus broke down and by the time I’d heard the third presentation my interest was peaked. My friend was organizing a caravan for the winter of 2007 and I was a part of that. I think my original interest was purely curiosity and concern in terms of what my friends had shared with me and wanting to experience it myself. When I got there it showed me a lot of things I didn’t know to expect in terms of a work ethic and the extreme state of nature that was not mediated in any way, there’s not even power lines in a lot of places. It was very different from what I’d ever experienced and I was welcoming that at the time.

ASAZ: You stayed a week the first and second times you went, stayed for five months this past winter, and you’re planning your fourth time for another winter. What draws you to go back now?

SheepHerder: I go because of health, work, learning, solidarity, and community.

Health; because I’m a clearer person with less distractions from technology, like cars, power lines, and white noises (pun not necessarily intended).

Work; because it’s healing for me to use my body in a very active way and it’s healing a lot of the biases and prejudices that I was taught to believe about myself as woman in this culture. Such as I can’t fix things, move heavy things, or take responsibility for things other than the household. I am given those responsibilities and my help in this way is greatly appreciated.

Learning; because it teaches me skills like how to chop wood, how to have my own animals, and how to haul water. Everything I do while out there is a learning experience for me. I want to learn how to survive post-industrial collapse because fossil fuel dependency in our culture is unsustainable and fossil fuels will either run out or the Earth will collapse because of all of the pollution. I want to start learning these ways as soon as possible before it’s too late!

I am not stealing their ways because I am assisting them. I am living and fighting with them thus learning from them rather than asking really aggressive and obtrusive questions as a way of obtaining knowledge. That is one thing that is very different about their culture and ours is we ask a lot of questions. On Black Mesa it’s different in that one doesn’t ask questions rather one observes over time to learn something. Especially if one doesn’t know Dineh bi'zaad' [Navajo language] then how can one ask a question?

There’s a phrase that I’ve heard some people from BMIS say that going to Black Mesa is solidarity work not charity work. The difference is giving somebody a check and staying for a day, versus staying with them day to day and feeling the pain that they feel in terms of government harassment, economic strangulation, and cultural genocide.

As far as humans there’s my partner and grandma, the people who bring us food and check on us, as well as BMIS. There is also a community created by sitting with the sheep and making friends with the juniper trees, sand, rocks, the little bit of water that is there, cows, coyotes, jack rabbits, and lizards. It’s getting to know all of these things that make it a community.

What is one day in your life while on Black Mesa?

We wake up at the crack of dawn or with the sun which in the winter is around 7 AM. We stand up from the ground which we sleep on, roll our bed up, get dressed, start the fire, make coffee or tea, start making breakfast, turn the radio on, get wood from the pile if needed, and feed the dogs. We eat breakfast at about 8 and take out the sheep at 9. One of us would go with the sheep until about 4 PM, come back to the hogan, and the other person who stayed there would have food made. The sheepherder would relax if possible because it’s a long day for them. We’d eat dinner at about 5 or 6 in the winter, keep the fire going, and get ready for bed at about 8 PM.

The person who would “stay home” would do all the chores. I’d either get wood by chopping down trees/limbs or go with the truck and chainsaw, then split or chop the wood, and fill the box in our hogan. I also filled up the five gallon water bucket by siphoning with a hose out of a 55 gallon barrel. In the winter we were melting snow for dish water so I’d scoop up some snow in a pot and put it on the stove to melt and then start some food for later. I would shovel snow, repair the hogan with mud, shovel snow out of the sheep corral or fix the sheep corral. Then I’d go to grandma’s which is a few minute walk up the hill and I’d do all these same chores for her. Chop her wood, organize her wood pile, start a fire, bring wood inside, fill up the water, maybe cook for her, although she’s pretty picky about how she likes to cook. I would give her massages sometimes and keep her company by listening although that was harder for me because I don’t know Dineh bi'zaad'.

ASAZ: Where did you stay?

SheepHerder: We stayed in the sheepherder’s hogan, an eight sided octagon shaped dwelling with big juniper posts about the width of your body. There are eight posts vertically and posts that go along the top that overlap each other and between that is mud and juniper tree bark which helps it stick together and is an insulator. It’s very small and cozy, about the size of a large bathroom, and it has a low ceiling so you can hit your head on the posts if you’re not careful.

ASAZ: Did you keep warm in the hogan with it being so cold outside?

SheepHerder: This past winter it was very windy and cold with lots of snow and rain. It can get down to 0 degrees or colder at night and during the day it can be about 20- 30 degrees.

The heat that is created in the hogan with the wood stove is very different from the heat that comes from a furnace. The first time I went out there I realized how comforting it was because I worked really hard and the sound of the wood cracking in the stove lulled me to sleep. I was like, “What more could I ask for right now?”

ASAZ: How do you bathe yourself?

SheepHerder: I bathed very infrequently. I already limit myself to how many showers I take when I’m not on Black Mesa because I understand how precious water is. It’s not possible for me to go to Black Mesa and live the way I once did because the awareness and consciousness that I now have is hard to be careless with. It is quite an ordeal to bathe because we have to retrieve water from grandma’s where on her modern house she has a roof with gutters that drain into rain barrels that we scoop out and carry down to the hogan in plastic containers. I think I would rationalize the need to bathe in terms of how dirty I knew I would soon get.

ASAZ: Do you think you are making a difference in grandma’s life?

SheepHerder: I do feel like I’m helping. Many resistors are elders in their 80s or 90s whose families are in the cities far away and can’t come visit that often therefore they have all the responsibilities that a whole family would usually take care of. Some elders will get sick in the winter or slip on ice and have to go to the hospital so it’s very helpful to have young, able bodied people to move things and help them walk or shovel snow. Grandma can do all these things but it’s probably not good for her because she’s getting weak. Being an on land supporter and living with a family has a very direct effect in terms of keeping them company and by assisting with all the daily chores that are very strenuous and overwhelming. She shows appreciation by saying thank you to me in Dineh bi'zaad', "Aahxe'he'!" I knew she was very grateful, she didn’t have to speak it although it was mostly communicated with body language and eye contact.

ASAZ: Do you think the farm work you do is harder than the work on Black Mesa?

SheepHerder: I think the farm work may have been harder for me but it was the difference in what I was bringing to the two experiences. I didn’t need to do my hobbies on Black Mesa because I wanted to be fully immersed in the experience, but on the farm it was different because the environment offered me more personal space, the convenience of electricity, and socializing opportunities.Some of the tiredness on the farm came from social stimulation, even though I really liked that, it’s nice to have a break to enjoy nature. I think this is harder in our civilized culture which says, “I’m bored, I need music, I need stimulation, or conversation.” I find myself wanting these things and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that but there’s also nothing wrong with experimenting without it. That’s what Black Mesa is for an outsider, one big experiment without modern forms of stimulation. I did get a little numb and quiet from lack of these things, not necessarily in a negative way. There simply is a different work ethic on Black Mesa than most other places I have ever been. Since the work I am doing on Black Mesa is rooted in traditional and ancient wisdom I get the sense that wholeness is preserved over all else. The emphasis on structuring one’s day to provide time for rest and regeneration is refreshing. I think we need to work harder on this in our modern culture and it’s beliefs and cultural practices that follow us everywhere, even to the country on an organic farm.On Black Mesa I was learning, absorbing enough energy, and was enriched by the sky and the trees, the sheep, grandma, and the peace and quiet of the experience. All of these things kept my energy levels up and my spirit going. I would mostly get emotionally frustrated on Black Mesa; I’d cry and yell at the sheep sometimes.

ASAZ: Why did you do that?

SheepHerder: Because there are many different ways of herding the sheep and I don’t think any grandmother or family wants to tell you how to do it because they probably feel it’s something you have to learn on your own. There’s a lot of paranoia around supporters coming in and losing the sheep, it’s the story the family tells, “Some lazy sheepherder came in and lost the sheep and they were going to get eaten by coyotes!” They tell you that because they don’t want you to do that and it worked because I had a lot of fear of being with the sheep at first. There’s a lot of ways that control plays out when herding sheep, but all you are really doing is staying with them to make sure they don’t get eaten by a predator, stuck somewhere, or separated. They often don’t separate except upon very dire situations such as this past winter when they weren’t doing well with two feet of snow. They couldn’t walk and everything was covered in snow so there wasn’t much to eat and they were wandering all around. It was really stressful to manage all on my own in a place where only two other people were that could help me. There’s a lot of personal responsibility for the sheep and what they symbolize in terms of food and as spiritual beings.

ASAZ: Your main source of interaction with humans was grandma and your partner so what did that do to your relationship?

SheepHerder: We didn’t have much energy to be together in a way that wasn’t just as friends. I think it’s good for us independently of each other to be on Black Mesa together. I feel like I grew so much from my time there last winter in terms of confidence in my ability to do things on my own and in connecting really strongly with the land, the elements and myself. The reason I wanted to be with him is I knew it would be too much for me to handle on my own. He was there the year prior by himself and I asked him how he did it all on his own and he said he didn’t know and that it was so much better having another person to help. We’re going together this year again because we thought it worked out really well, that grandma really appreciated it, and because I think there are things that we can do better this time.

ASAZ: What kind of qualities and behaviors does someone have to have if they are considering going to Black Mesa because it’s not a quick return if they change their mind?

SheepHerder: A lot of supporters who come to Black Mesa overestimate themselves in terms of how long they want to stay. I think its fine to go for a week to begin with, that’s what I did two years in a row and then decided I wanted to stay longer. I didn’t want to get involved in something that I was unsure about, especially knowing that the people on Black Mesa want strong commitments from supporters. It is good to feel the waters out and see if you want to stay longer rather than just saying, “I’m ready!”

ASAZ: How long do most supporters stay?

SheepHerder: People come and go, some staying a couple months others come for a month, a week here and there, or three days and some people do it consistently if they live nearby enough. A lot of the people who come to the caravan are from across the country, like me from the Midwest, and it would make sense to stay for a longer period of time rather than using all the gas and money to get out there every November. The major problem with this struggle is that people can’t deviate from their lives, it’s very hard for them to commit to staying a month or longer, and that’s why a lot of people are attracted to the caravan.

ASAZ: Do they get any help from the government when they move into the city?

SheepHerder: Yes, they get meager relocation benefits but also have to pay bills that come with home ownership which many did not have to deal with before relocating. I hear stories about poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, depression, and poor health once they have relocated. I think a lot of these things were apparent right after the relocation law was passed and probably a lot of those elders are gone by now. It’s now the second generation of relocates who didn’t get to know their grandparents, don’t have their sacred land base anymore, and may not even know their language.

ASAZ: For the people who live there now have they ever bought that land and have they always lived there?

SheepHerder: Why would they buy it, they are indigenous! It goes back generations to generations! Like white people are from England or Scotland, that’s our ancestry, that’s where our ancestors lived for 20 generations. That’s what their relationship is to that land. White people in this modern day and age have a very hard time comprehending the fact that indigenous people could have rights to their own land before any kind of official papers or money was involved and I find this extremely problematic. It means that we don’t realize whose land we are on and what the consequences of that are on the native people who were here before us! We all need to educate ourselves on our local and global indigenous history that we never learned in history class at school.

ASAZ: What would you do for entertainment?

SheepHerder: We didn’t have entertainment, we just went to bed. Is there anything wrong with that? Why would we need entertainment, to digress from the hard day’s work? Maybe in this culture we work a hard day and then come home, sit on the couch, and watch the TV to zone out. So did we zone out? Neither the work nor the person is separated from the life and this is healing coming from a culture where the only work we are taught to value is the kind we get paid for and often times could care less about. Herding sheep is very entertaining because they’re funny, cute, and each have their own personalities just like people and become your friends and teachers very quickly. I want to go back to see more baby goats because they are so adorable! They make the cutest bah-ing noise, are so soft, have so much energy, and have a really intimate relationship with their mothers. Herding sheep is fun because you can look at the clouds or draw in the sand while you sit on a hill looking at the San Francisco Peaks in the background.

But for the most part our entertainment was the radio. I can honestly say one of the greatest things about being on Black Mesa was it forced me to listen to the news every day and I grew so much more educated about the world and how ridiculous it all is! We made a lot of jokes about things people said on the radio, like when the Senate was trying to pass the Universal Health Care Bill last winter, they had some guy on and he said, “Trying to pass this bill is like trying to get a bowling ball through a straw!” It made me wonder why so many newscasters use these stupid analogies. It must be what the public understands.

We also made fun of commercials and the songs we heard over and over again because many of the radio stations are so tight on funds that they play the same soundtrack every week. We listened to Prairie Home Companion on Saturdays which gave us a lot of good laughs. We also made a lot of jokes about things that we thought we were really funny, like sweat pants. We’d give each other massages or soak our feet sometimes. We’d read, write, or play cards but usually at this time of night I was too tired to do these things. We had a kerosene lamp, imagine trying to read by one when you are already really tired, you’re going to fall asleep! And we’d play Uno by the lamp but we couldn’t tell which color was which in the dim light!

ASAZ: The Thanksgiving Fall Caravan of Support is November 20-27th, 2010 how do you get people to come on board?

SheepHerder: I usually reach out to whatever community I am living in at the time. The ideal communities to organize in are those that are open to hearing about what is happening on Black Mesa and in which there are people who don’t have too many commitments in their lives if they wanted to come. What I really want to do is become rooted in a community so I don’t have to keep moving around and reaching out to people who barely know me. Another thing I want to do is reach out to certain communities of people like farmers, outdoor types (travelers, bikers), those studying primitive living skills, and activists who care about human rights issues, environmental justice, and native rights.

ASAZ: How much money does it cost one do this for a week or if it’s an extended stay?

SheepHerder: If you are fortunate enough to be involved with a group of people who want to go you can do fundraising, like hold benefit concerts, have a raffle, ask for money at your local co-op/small business/ grocery store, or apply for a grant at a local college or university. It takes money for the travel expenses, food and supplies while you are there. I do think that one could go there with very little money and be fine; it’s just a matter of personal preference. I find it important for me to have the right kinds of food to eat while I am expending so much of my energy every day. Money is important in providing for yourself so that you are prepared for your stay. I don’t think many people that go to Black Mesa are prepared even if they read the twenty page Cultural Sensitivity and Preparedness Guide on the BMIS website, because the life on Black Mesa is so drastically different from the life many of us are accustomed to these days.

A lot of people have been telling me lately that it is a very privileged thing to be able to go to Black Mesa because not everyone can afford to leave their job/kids/school/etc. Being of assistance on Black Mesa takes a certain level of personal sacrifice and relinquishing of privilege and material comforts that I wish more Americans would be willing to consider. A certain level of sacrifice is a necessity for something to be actually done in any of the struggles to protect Mother Earth. Our culture needs to start looking at what deep lifestyle changes we can do to help situations in which people are being sacrificed for profit and energy extraction. One example is decreasing your energy dependency which many people don’t know how to do beyond little tips given in green guidebooks. There needs to be a more radical shift, by first asking the question why do we need electricity to begin with?

I think a huge solution to these problems is if we all had our own gardens or a garden for each community. If you have a garden then you’re not going to the grocery store where the food comes from Mexican workers in Florida who were paid only .20 cents an hour to pick tomatoes. Nor are you dependent on GMO corn, large scale industrial farming, and on all this food that is shipped an average of 1,500 miles from farm to plate! Shipping is dependent upon gasoline, which is a fossil fuel, as is coal which is a major reason why all this is happening on Black Mesa.

It’s true that there is a privilege to be able to go to Black Mesa but it’s also not a joy ride! It’s very clear to me that I’m there to work! I don’t goof around for five months, I become very serious. Some people may think of Black Mesa as a vacation, well it’s not!

Comments & Questions to this article can directly be addressed to: sheepherders@riseup.net

Posted by Sheep Dog Nation Media, 2010

Letter from Leonard Peltier, Please Read

2010-07-02T15:56:00.003-07:00

June 26, 2010

Greetings,

I want to first say thank you--thank you for taking the time and making the commitment to come to this place--but thank you mostly for remembering. Sometimes I sit in this cage and I find myself wondering if anyone really remembers. Many days, remembering is all my mind allows me to do. So, again, thank you. Thank you for bearing witness and being a part of a living memory.

But maybe the most important thing I'd like to say is don't forget. Not ever.

You must be the historians who keep this lesson alive because this story isn't about one day, one event, one person, or even one lifetime. This is a story that goes all the way back to the day a misguided fool, whose name I won't even mention, led his troops in an attack on innocent people at the Greasy Grass, and in the process got himself and over two hundred of his troopers killed. And while the victors on that day had no choice but to defend themselves, we have been the victims of a genocidal revenge that continues until this very moment. So don't forget. Not ever.

It is vengeance that preoccupies the mind of the colonizer. It is this fervor to show us who is boss that led to the massacre at Wounded Knee, the theft of the Black Hills, the establishment of boarding schools, and the criminalization of our languages and traditional ways. It is vengeance that armed the GOON squads, killed our leaders, and surrounded our people at Wounded Knee again in 1973. Revenge is why they today prosecute Indian people for the crimes they know the government committed during their murderous campaigns of the last generation. Vengeance is what killed JoeStuntz, Anna Mae Aquash, Buddy Lamont and so many others. Getting even is what keeps me in prison. So don't forget. Not ever.

All of these events are bound together, interrelated and interdependent. And quite clearly the lesson they intend for us to learn is don't defend yourselves. Don't stand up for what is right. Don't think for yourselves. Don't choose to be who you are. Don't remember your ancestors. Don't live in defense of the Earth. Don't you do it! Don't even think about it. If you do, this government--this mindset of control--will unleash an attack so vast it will even seek to destroy our genetic memories. So don't forget. Not ever.

In days past, some among our people were induced to become "scouts". For whatever reasons, these individuals made possible the treacherous campaigns that resulted in the deaths of countless innocent people. These days--sadly--there are still these types amongst us. The government preys on the weaknesses of these people, inducing them to turn against the rest of us. The government uses this treachery to cover up state sanctioned murder and terrorism. They do this and then tell us that what we remember didn't really happen at all, as though memory or truth is something to be shaped and molded to fit a preconceived outcome. So don't forget. Not ever.

We gather today after decades and generations of blood and trauma. We gather in defiance.

And we remember.

We remember not just one day or one event, because remembering what occurred on June 25 or June 26--or any particular date--is important, but not as important as an understanding of the ongoing campaign of colonization. This is a continuing human drama of slaughter and uncontrollable blood lust and we're still here, engaged in our running defense; praying for balance, peace and justice; and trying to make some sense of it all. Perhaps, in the face of such a menace, the most important thing we can do is remember. So teach your children. Pass this knowledge. Don't forget. Not ever.

Remembering is resisting and, if we remember, then we'll be free one day. Free of their mindset. Free of their theft. Free of their guns and their bombs. Free of their cages. Free to be who we are.

And free of their fear. That's the truest freedom of all and true freedom is what this is really all about, not the illusion of freedom they offer us.

So don't forget. Not ever.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,

Leonard Peltier

[A repost from AIM West, San Francisco AIM Chapter: http://aimwest.info/ ]

Acculturated Native Americans Losing Understanding

2010-06-16T13:59:00.003-07:00

Modern Indians Influenced by Militarized and Corporate America are Deeper into Loss of Identity
By Bahe Y. Katenay, Sheep Dog Nation Media

Dineh bi Keyah, Northern Arizona, June 16th 2010 - Navajo Country, the largest Indian reservation in the U.S., can be my model to use as an example of how most modern "Native Americans" or indigenous peoples of Turtle Island have turned into White Americans. I had an interesting discussion with my sons who have been on a cultural learning trip that was actually a river trip down the San Juan River. Prior to that, I went with them to the ancient holy lands of Dinetah (northewestern New Mexico) where we all made prayer pilgrimages to the birthplace of Dineh rituals and cultural ingredients.

My son told me that certain Dineh (Navajo) “cultural advisors” that are on state salary and are working in the urban areas are confused about the creation stories and especially ‘which rivers are actually Female and Male?’ Their confusion begins with the San Juan River which cuts through the Four Corners region. These elder “cultural advisors” question why the San Juan is referred to as the Female River when the Little Colorado River is Female, already. The (once) mighty Colorado River is normally referred to as the Male River and the San Juan empties into the Colorado as well as the Little Colorado does similarly later on downstream on the Colorado. To confuse things more, eastern Dineh refer to the Rio Grande in New Mexico as the Female, too.

Modern and educated Dineh are, today, so out of touch with their histories. For example, they probably do not realize that the Holy Lands exist or that there is such a thing. Modern Indians like the Dineh are way more aware of who the President of the United States is, or who is the U.S. Speaker of the House or the U.S. Secretary of State. Basically all the popular news outlets in Indian country are nothing but convey mentalities that are: “hurray, U-S-A! Support ‘our’ soldiers, fly the ‘stars bangle banner.’” They are forgetting their ancient creation stories of how the earth was formed and how the waters of its surface receded. They have completely lost the traditional concepts of understanding and how to preserve the rich qualities of those traditions. American egos, trends and greed have become more meaningful across the Reservations.

Going way back into that ancient time of creation when the world was what we are not able to imagine, it was a very long-distanced time ago. The culturally confused, modern Dineh are thinking in terms of a Dineh-beginning which was designated by the great wise White archaeologist and these westernized thoughts have published only theories that the Dineh arrived into the Four Corners region around 1400 or 1500 AD. Let’s give this a taste of Indian humor: ‘at least we beat Cortez and Coronado by a few decades even though we walked across the Bering Strait, and they spend hundreds of years trying to invent the best ship that can cross the Atlantic.’

The traditional telling of the Dineh creation has always made clarification that the time that it refers to was a time before human beings were around, and it was a time of magnificent forces and beings. But then the poor Indian or the Dineh cannot seem to comprehend this and instead they will comprehend what is ‘illegal’ according to the white man, or that ‘voting is a guaranteed right,’ and they will think it is okay to wear baseball cap with a snake figure or t-shirts with human skull designs. Perhaps, the wise geologist can explain to them if I cannot convince my own confused Dineh.

Rivers are ancient and they have changed form and shape throughout millions of years. The ancestor of the San Juan was once mighty, powerful like the Female Spirit, and geologist have found river stones along the Arizona-Utah border and these rocks originated in the San Juan Mountains. The ancestors of the Colorado and the Green River might have once flowed south and southeast and they created a huge sea, Bidahochi, that spanned from Tuba City, AZ to Gallup, NM. The Rio Grande today flows south in the Gulf of Mexico but it also has been that Female Spirit. Not only was she been pampered by earth’s surface separating which became a trough that influenced her present path and as she built up lands with over two mile deep sediments.

Today, the Little Colorado River, as unimportant as it may seem and so dry as it is, is still the Female River Deity to the Dineh ritual beliefs. The San Juan with its short path but maintains its year-round flow may not be as mighty as the Mississippi but geologist are starting to perhaps understand its great ancient history. Recent evidences found begin to uncovered the possibility that around 6-plus million years ago the ancestral San Juan might have took a course through present day eastern Chaco Canyon area, Gallup, New Mexico and onto to the Little Colorado. She could have been so mighty that she deposited San Juan Mountain rocks far north of present day Grand Canyon. This also answers my own curiosity about why in the Dineh prayer chants they call the Little Colorado River, the Very Long-Endless Bodied Water. Before the rifting of the Rio Grande valley, it is possible for the ancestral Rio Grande to have associated with the Male in the west via the Little Colorado and the ancestral San Juan.

Dineh creation tells about a great deity came to free the land from the waters and with its great stone blade, he gouged out a range of land which eventually created the Grand Canyon. Geology with all its expertise cannot, to this day, define how and when the Grand Canyon formed. Ancestral Grand Canyon supposedly opened completely as an official river gorge just after 5 million years ago. The Colorado perhaps became Male because the ladies, the Green, San Juan and the Little Colorado nurtured for his evolution. The mysteries will always continue but there should never be any confusion and this only happens when the human minds are influenced by artificial interpretations. The Indians that have the guts must begin to accept the creation stories and almost like books of western science, more and clearer information exist within the healing and prayer chants of the endangered traditional medicine peoples.

© SheepDogNation Media, 2010

A Test for New Agers & Patronizing Indian Supporters

2010-06-09T12:32:00.007-07:00

Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island Twinkie Test

We, indigenous peoples of north America, dislike 'New Age Crystal & Turkey Feather Waving Twinkie-Twinkies' who shamelessly appropriate, distort, misuse and disrespect our culture. If you want to be among Native Peoples and shared human knowledge, it is wise to avoid being a Twinkie. So, we interrupt your web browsing to bring this very important test. This test will determine if you're a Twinkie:
1..you think 'twinkie' is a name brand of golden sponge cake.
2..you're a Shaman, and all your friends are Shamans too.
3..your Indian Spirit Guide only speaks English.
4..you have a plastic Indian headdress hanging from your rear view mirror.
5..you don't drive a 'rez rocket'.
6..you think "Apples" are fruits you eat.
7..you gave all your dogs authentic Native American names.
8...your great grandmother was a Cherokee “princess”.
9..your great grandfather was a Cherokee prince, too.
10..you own collector plates featuring men with rippling muscles, feathers, and prostrate maidens.
11..you've never been to a Fourty Nine.
12..you've never woken up with a houseful strangers fixing themselves breakfast, eating your bacon, and calling you 'cousin'.
13..you think "Dances with Wolves" is a great movie.
14..you don't know who Leonard Peltier is.
15..you've read books on Native American spirituality and you feel ready to guide people on an expensive, vision-quest excursion.

Chief Looking Horse: Urgent Message to World Spiritual Leaders

2010-05-28T12:25:00.003-07:00

[Moderator's note: There is this very strange vibe throughout the U.S. "political activitism" world especially among those 'well-funded' environmental organizations. They and everyone else are in complete silence like they are guilty of something. Of course, they should feel guilty! They all should be in up roar in Washington, D.C. and telling corporate America, "it is time to listen, stop the American car-petro-culture, go Green, and Stop Raping Mother Earth & Great Mother Water!" Or this might be just an example of what is to come: 'an environmental disaster at an unimaginable magnitude and no one cannot comprehend it or do not know what to do except live-for-the-moment-and-indulge.' "Why not it does not affect me? Those animals and plants are not my family..." Think again, America, and do not just sit back while a few Indians are trying to speak and pray. -SDNmedia2010]

A Great Urgency: To All World Religious and Spiritual Leaders

My Relatives,

Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit of your Nations in prayer.

We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things. As I am sending this message to you, many Animal Nations are being threatened, those that swim, those that crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations, eventually all will be affect from the oil disaster in the Gulf.

The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill which looks like thebleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.

I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.

I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth.

As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc¹I Maka).

We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.

As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And that what we create can have lasting effects on all life.

So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June 21st, World Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our children¹s future and well-being, and the generations to come.

Onipikte (that we shall live),

Chief Arvol Looking Horse19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

Old Mexico, Jailed Non-Indian, the Peyote & a Humble Plea

2010-05-03T17:08:00.011-07:00

Imprisoned Friend in Mexico & An Issue about the Sacred Peyote By Bahe (Kat) Keediniihii Katenay, Sheep Dog Nation Media

Aztlan (Territories between Arizona and East Central Mexico), March 13 – 19, 2010 – My volunteer work of 35 years for the traditional Dineh (Navajos) in struggle at Big Mountain has encompassed the unimaginable to the normal encounters with non-native supporters. Certainly there are much learning involved in working with diverse communities of peoples. Individuals from varies backgrounds, social beliefs, religious involvements, and political standings. Within this arena, the words “judging” or “racist” would describe negative acts toward fellowship and/or solidarity, and it is crucial to have this kind awareness especially in the struggles for peace and freedom. However, in the movements or in the religious circles, these types of acts do surface in mere attitudes or in actual comments sometime. This article will reflect my personal accounts and it may be viewed with that awkward consideration or with much acceptability. I hope to also project some universal awareness about us, as individual humans, but do that through this story of a quest for a special supporter-friend that came to Big Mountain before and was loved by a couple of grandmothers.

In early fall of 2009, I received a message from this friend who I have not heard from for over a year, and her message was that she is “incarcerated in a Mexican prison for women in the state of San Luis Potosi.” Her plead to me was to help her as a witness to who she really is and that she was not a criminal. The circumstances around the events that she described and that led to her incarceration were to me a cause of “judgment.” First, it was a shock, it felt a bit disheartening, and knowing her, there was much anger with a lot of questions. So, why me and I have not heard from her in ages? This is not related to the Big Mountain cause, or “it could be my ‘personal’ cause.” However on my limited spare time, I immediately began to see what I can do even though I am not an expert on any legal matters –let alone my passion of hating lawyers.

Where does one start? What if she was your daughter or sister, and you have no monies? Eventually, I connected with a couple of friends / comrades that I have met through the movement and because it pertained to Mexico. I wanted suggestions from indigenous and Xicano spiritual activists. They preferred prayers for my imprisoned-friend, look into the legal dynamics of Mexico’s judicial process, and most of all ‘check on her in person.’ Because of the limited free time I had, the internet became my tool to research, find contacts like the U.S. Consultant, see about travel options, and network with old friends and new friends. I talked by phone with my jailed-friend’s mother who lived in the Midwest and whose health would prevent her from travel. The mom is too heartbroken, on limited pensions and came to Turtle Island years ago to raise a family. Her approval for me to help the family further made me consider going to Mexico, finding the prison where my friend is, and hopefully get myself a Mexican court audience.

The new friends in Mexico, some who have been to Dineh country, knew about Big Mountain through the Sun Dance. People that I never met came forth to my calling for guidance about traveling in Mexico. I did not speak Española nor Mexican, I did not have monies like some lucky Yankee-tourist, and I did not know what to expect because this was not tourism but a quest. Friends in Mexico began to learn about my friend’s situation and the greatest thing is that they did not “judge” or express any type of “racist” thought. My (long-lost) friend, Fatima, is of middle-eastern descent from Lebanon. Fatima came to Big Mountain numerous times where she helped and stayed among the grandmothers. I have never seen a grandmother laugh so much with a supporter even though there was a huge language barrier. This former supporter and friend, who wanted to return to Big Mountain someday, was now in big trouble in a foreign place. This was not her to be stupid, but somebody misled or misguided her so horribly that her moral intelligence was somewhat absence. She was not the friend I knew. How can another human being take advantage of someone’s kindness, compassion and humbleness, and then inflict them with evil means of false spirituality?

New friends in Mexico were instant family for me even though we have not all embrace, yet. Like great problem solvers they had presented me with the easiest and cheapest way to travel from northern Arizona to San Luis Potosi and back. It was a go! My Hermosillo contact did blessings for me at her prayer lodge altar and the next day I flew to Monterrey, Coahuila. Two Sun Dance brothers of Mexico and the translator greeted me at the airport in the late evening. It was a six hour drive to the city of San Luis Potosi and half way there, I ask we stop in sight of Sierra de Catorce –where my friend lost her freedom. In the early morning darkness, a prayer was offered to the lands of the Divined Mother Peyote and that she give us guidance and protection. We had at least two hours of sleep in Potosi and we had to go to the prison for visiting day. After a quick sip of coffee, we were off to the prison with our guide and host. The prison is an old compound with watchtowers at each four corners and its big dirt-parking lot was full of visitors’ cars and several buses.

The process to get cleared was long with unpleasant and angry prison personnel. Every visitor looked like they are very poor and some were bringing in any decent foods they could get for their imprisoned loved ones. I fitted right in. My translator was smart enough to give me some foods to take to my friend. Through check points, corridors and barren tunnels, I finally arrived with bags of food to the women’s unit and after another wait, Fatima came. She was so overwhelmed, happy, sad, lost, desperate for freedom, angry, and I have never seen her cry. She cried so much that the makeup smeared her cheeks. We tried to talk, somewhat pretend that everything is okay, share a small meal, and look each other in the eyes as much as possible because there was a strong sense that it might be a long time again. My thoughts did not wonder because I wanted to absorb all her presence, hear her voice, watch her big eyes light up or get flooded with tears. I knew the time will come to say good bye and when it did, the hugs and the touch felt so empty because the sadness of the situation and separation by distant were all too great and still unresolved.
The crew that assisted me, at this point were being referred to as ‘bandidos,’ were waiting for me outside the prison and they were prepared to let me recuperate from my happy but sad experience. That evening we attended a sweat-lodge ceremony and the site was a few hours from San Luis Potosi. Here, another phase of my quest began with a circle of people in prayer and songs. A nearby hot spring after the sweat added to the healing and reassurance. More shared ceremonies followed the next morning and finally then, I begun to embraced all my new and growing family. My education about the indigenous histories of Mexico was quick but I listened intently. Many looked towards the north for that spiritual puzzle that Turtle Island natives still had, but they showed me that they had part of their puzzle, too. Like in America the puzzles were in pieces and it all needed to be pieced back together. I learned about some Spanish histories of colonization and the silver mines to the south. My own peoples’ history in the time of the New Spain, 16th to the 18th Century, was that hundreds of Dineh were captured into slavery and were taken far south to work the silver mines. Some escaped and perhaps a few more made it back to their ancestral homelands. It was once told by the old-time Dineh that, that was how the peyote way of worship began and by survivors returning with the Divine Medicine. I strongly felt the spirits of my ancestors who centuries ago pass through those lands –the lands of the Peyote.

The Mexican court only saw the medicine peyote as nothing but a drug. This time Fatima stood behind a window of steel bars and the informal court proceedings composed of the “defense” lawyer, the government prosecutor, the judge and his secretary, and the recorder. Also present were my “fellow bandidos.” My caged friend was only seen by the court as “a drug-user.” The incident of her involvement is still surrounded by mystery, but she was caught with a bag of peyote. She continues to claim her past affiliation with Native American guidance to peyote use and other indigenous prayer ways in the U.S. Possession of peyote in Mexico is a felony and carries a harsh penalty. So far, after more than eight months of Fatima’s incarceration, I was her first expert witness. The prosecutor’s questions for me were all based on views that the peyote is a “drug” and a “hallucinogenic.” I was learning a little about how Mexico’s court system was different from the U.S. courts. The U.S. is English-style with a jury as evidences are introduced and argued over. Mexico had the Latin or Roman-style with no jury but where official documents along with monies might be key to influencing judgment and the prisoner is never considered innocent.

I failed as an expert witness. Before leaving for Mexico, I tried to get official documentation from my own people who live with that privileged ‘rights’ of the Native American Church (NAC is a U.S. federally-recognized religion that can use peyote). The first question my people asked me was, “well is she an enrolled member of a federally-recognized tribe?”

My answers would be, “What?!” “No but heck, she is a human being who believes that there is a sacred way.”

Personally I feel that these indoctrinated, religious figures of Navajoland do not wish to hear about our troubles at Big Mountain, about universal-indigenous spirituality, or even about the divine medicine-way of compassion. To me, they seemed to only value that American artificial laws of privileged worship and hold the sacrament, peyote, within the confines of those “colonial” statues. Time ran out and I had to leave for Mexico without any attestation from religious peyote Roadmen.

Throughout my five day trip to Mexico, I got to only see Fatima for four hours. But what she gave me, besides all the headaches of planning, was a new world of kind and humble peoples. She brought to me a new perspective about life and histories of Mexico, and what might have been Aztlan, or still is. So strangely is that she made it so that, it was meant for me to see this part of Aztlan and to set foot in its peyote gardens. During our sad departing moment in prison, Fatima said to me, “go see Real de Catorce, you’ll like it there…”

I have called this travel a quest because it was something unpredictable but there was a goal to be accomplished or attempted. This journey like many of my travels was totally un-touristy because there were no sites to see, no scheduled places to chill-out at, or places to indulge on the finest of foods or festivities. My first consultant before my trip, Ray, gave me a lot of insights about how to act and what to expect. He told me something that I did not understand until I was there, “Remember to pay attention to the Spirits, and pray when it is necessary…”

As a traveler from Big Mountain Dineh country, I view new places through the eyes of a Dineh whose self identity is his land-base culture and microcosm religion. I see people in terms of who they really are and for Fatima, her ancestry goes back to the Middle East. The world’s unrest of today is dependent on using more racism and hatred to cope with everyday living. One can praise Dr. Martin Luther King or Mahatma Ghandi’s words of universal harmony and peace, but they will sift through society by color, gender, economic, or nationality statuses. On the other hand, I have been blessed that many have worked alongside me and many have backed me at Big Mountain and abroad. But I, too, do a very limited amount of ‘sifting’ but I do it wisely and not foolishly. I do not claim to have attained the highest of sage-hood, but I must try to see the heart and feel out that soul while being in the best state of humbleness.

An eerie kind of sadness overcame me while leaving a relative behind in San Luis Potosi. Then I realize that I am probably not the first Dineh to leave a relative behind who was still in captivity, down there. It was another all-night drive but my fellow ‘bandidos’ knew how important it was to me to go out into the garden and pay homage to the Divine Medicine. Our new guide near Sierra de Catorce helped us to a garden and it was around midnight –dark and cold. The surroundings of tall cactus and yucca trees painted dark silhouettes of themselves against the starry night sky like spirits observing us and wearing feathered hats. The main Peyote Chiefs were a large cluster of about twelve as three elder Chiefs were in the middle. The Great Grandmother Fire Altar was built east of the Chiefs. After the ceremony, we left this garden of Real de Catorce at around 2 AM.

I continue to make more attempts for NAC officials to understand international rights of indigenous peoples and universal human rights and in hopes that, they make an official statement in support of my friend’s release. My Peyote Road will continue and it has been a special gift for the Road to have taken me to the gardens.

The Peyote Road again beckons me and I may have to return to Mexico to check on the status of my friend’s case. Anyone else interested or willing to assist me in this endeavor will greatly be appreciated and accepted. The efforts for human rights and rights of indigenous peoples’ to appropriately use medicine is expensive on personal income while well-funded organizations fail to assist. Please make a comment to this Blog and we can connect.
© Sheep Dog Nation Media 2010

Farewell to My Auntie & Elder Matriarch: Sarah Begay

2010-04-19T12:34:00.005-07:00

UPDATE: For those of you who are in-tuned with the struggles for peace and harmony, & resistance to American corporate racism: TODAY, I SALUTE & BID FAREWELL TO ONE OF MY ELDER MATRIARCH, SARAH BEGAY OF TIIC YA TOH. She called me Son, she was true to the histories of the Peoples, she honored sovereignty & the sacred ways, she was a Sun Dancer from the first four years at Big Mountain.

As a member of one of the last traditional, culturally-intact and landbased community at Big Mountain Dineh territories, I am beginning to see the hopes of an "Indian Future" looking more threatened. The legacies of our traditional Dineh elders were not learned and none of the children have declared to preserve the sacred stories.

Sarah always talked about survival of the Dineh culture and its ancient ritual ways because her mom was a very great Medicine Woman. Sarah always wanted to maintain our Dineh identity and that that identity included our ancient intertribal-ship with the Hopi Nation. Her strong wishes were expressed in the representations she brought to the world: "our lands must never be occupied by Peabody Coal Company and that our ancient cultural-ties with our Hopi relatives should never be severed."

I and my friends in solidarity will continue to hear your words and try our best to live up to your humble advices and guidance. Aho, To All Our Relations! -Kat Bahe (aka Chief Loner & Sheep Dog Nation Media)

Support Traditional Dineh Resistance at Big Mountain!

2010-03-29T14:06:00.011-07:00

"A Big Mountian summer sunset" Photo by Raphaelle Allix, 2009

Support Crucially Needed: "families still remain --resisting the Kayenta Mine and forced relocation..."

At the end of an exceptionally hard winter of National Emergency status, and the beginning of a muddy spring, the Dine' (Navajo) families of Big Mountain, and surrounding communities on Black Mesa continue to stand strong on their ancestral homelands! For nearly four decades the communities have faced the devastation of the U.S government and multinational coal mining corporations exploiting their homelands and violently fracturing their communities. Although the permit for the Black Mesa Mine expansion didn't pass, and hopefully never will, families remain--resisting the Kayenta Mine and forced relocation.

"The Big Mountain Dine' elders have endured so much since the 1970s and at the same time, they have defended and preserved that human dignity of natural survival, subsistence and religious values. They have resisted the U.S. government's genocide policies to vacate lands that Peabody Coal Company recognized as the Black Mesa coal fields. The Big Mountain matriarchal leaders always believed that resisting forced relocation will eventually benefit all ecological systems, including the human race. Continued residency by families throughout the Big Mountain region has a significant role in the intervention to Peabody Coal’s future plan for Black Mesa coal to be the major source of electrical energy, increasing everyone's dependency on fossil fuel and contributing to global warming. We will continue to fight to defend our homelands.” --Bahe Keediniihii, Dineh organizer and translator.

Supporting these communities, whose very presence stands in the way of large-scale coal mining, is one way to work on the front lines for climate justice and against a future of climate chaos. There are also opportunities for long-term, committed supporters and organizers. Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is looking for Regional Coordinators to organize year-round support and work towards movement building, which would maintain and enhance communication channels between the Big Mountain resistance communities and networks that are being established to support the Big Mountain resistance as well as other local forms of indigenous resistance, while building shared analysis, vision and movements for the liberation of all peoples and our planet. Please contact us for more information if you are interested.

The families are encouraging people to come to Black Mesa now! Support is requested all year long!

BMIS is a grassroots, all-volunteer run collective dedicated to working with and supporting the indigenous peoples of Black Mesa in their Struggle for Life and Land who are targeted by and resisting unjust mountaintop removal coal mining operations and forced relocation policies of the U.S government. One of the primary ways that we do this is to honor the direct requests of these families to extend their invitation to all people interested in supporting their resistance, to come to Black Mesa, to their threatened ancestral homelands, walk with their sheep, haul water and wood, whatever they ask of us. By coming to The Land, we can assist the elders and their families in daily chores, which helps us to engage with the story that they are telling as well as to claim a more personal stake against environmental degradation, climate change, and continued legacies of colonialism and genocide. We can support by being there so they can go to meetings, organize, weave rugs, visit family members who have been hospitalized, rest after a difficult winter and regain strength for the upcoming spring. With spring comes planting crops,shearing sheep, and lambing. COME FOR A MONTH! Or Longer!

The elders on the land are very thankful for the support of their resistance over the last three decades. We at BMIS are asking those who have come before to continue the work you have started by coming back. And for those of you who have never come to the land, we encourage you to start. Deep thanks to all who made the November Caravan happen: let us continue the support through the year.

BMIS can assist you in the process of being self-sufficient on the land, which is vital. We are happy to speak with you over the phone or email and we offer important online resources like the Cultural Sensitivity and Preparedness Guidebook found on our website. Volunteers must read the guidebook and register with BMIS to ensure your safety and be accountable to the families. There are also plenty of great documents about the current and background information found on our website--one of the only on-line resources documenting this resistance.

"This land is being taken away because they've got power in Washington. Wewere put here with our Four Sacred Mountains ~ and we were created to livehere. We know the names of the mountains and we know the names of theother sacred places. That is our power. That is how we pray and thisprayer has never changed." ~Katherine Smith, Big Mountain Matriarch

To Send Support Contact: blackmesais@gmail.com - PO Box 23501 Flagstaff, AZ 86002 - 928-773-8086 BMIS can send letters/packages to families, however we encourage you to be in direct communication with the families. Also visit: http://www.blackmesais.org/

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND PRAYERS!

Testimony from a Sheepherder:
By Theresa "Tree" Gigante, BMIS volunteer and volunteer coordinator

I have just left after a four month stay on the Land. This was my 14th winter staying with Dine' families residing on the so-called HPL and resisting the relocation laws by continuing to live on the land of their grandparents of generations back. It has been an intense winter. The big snowstorm was a sight to see, and reminded the elders of storms 40 and 80 years past, when there were many more families out there, and most of the elders didn’t live alone. And yes, the National Guard and US Army did come out to the families. I wondered at the irony of the hay, water, and other supplies, thinking how the families have lived under the threat of the Guard coming in to take them from their homes.

The OSM Life of Mine permit getting denied was a pleasant surprise. I had been looking at the hills, meadows and rocks that I have come to know, as becoming ‘reclaimed’ land through the mine expansion, and thinking of the long, hard fight to come. A second generation Black Mesa miner, and “HPL” resident stated that he was glad about the permit, and ready to see a change back to the old ways of living and away from mining.

The Supporter caravan at thanksgiving was a fast and festive, and abundant time. About 120 supporters for the week, but by the end of January there were only a few supporters on the land, and a list of families asking for a sheepherder. We were desperately calling out for people to come, and a few did, but only a few. And I thought, this is where the real support is needed- in the long haul, the deep snow.

Back in 1997, and again in 2000 the families were living under a threatening “deadline”, and there were literally hundreds of supporters on the land for months. I am grateful that there is no deadline as such now, but I do wonder what keeps us supporters from committing to coming out, or coming back. I have personally placed several hundred supporters in the last 12 years, and I marvel at how much we struggle to ‘get the word out’ and ‘get support to the Land.'

I am so honored and humbled by the loving hospitality I receive from the families. My sons are treated as family, and are growing up knowing the elders, kids and supporters, and about fighting for and supporting what is right. I have been raised out there myself in many ways. The Dineh people have been my teachers and mentors, my inspiration. I believe in doing all that I can to honor their request and invitation to come into the home, the land and the lives of the people indigenous to the land -what that means and what they are fighting for and against. I believe it is at the heart of the most important work today.

And I am writing this to remind us, you, that their door is open and there is a job to do- something that we are needing to understand, a connection that needs to be made and honored. It is time to come. It is time to come back. Its time to give back. Please help us do this.

....Come join us for Sheep shearing in May.

Any concerns about the content should be addressed directly to Tree at sequoiadendronn@riseup.net.

Non-native Sheepherder at Big Mountain: Call to Herders

2010-03-02T16:46:00.004-07:00

What is it about herding sheep on Black Mesa?
By Owen Johnson, Irish-American volunteer herder for Dine’

Cactus Valley, Black Mesa, February 2010 - Herding sheep and goats on Black Mesa makes a lot of sense. Enough sense that people have been tending herds of small livestock there forever. There’s room for them, and just enough water. But you have to make sure they drink, keep them eating the right plants, and help the dogs scare off the predators. It can get exhausting. Old people can do it, especially if they are used to the herd and its used to them. But even if they are able, they enjoy to have a break now and then. Many of these primary herders are also weavers and they can use time off to focus on their cultural art. It makes sense to keep the sheep and the lifeways on Black Mesa because they’ve been there forever, and they could very well last forever.

It’s been mostly Dine’, or Navajo people that have been herding sheep on Black Mesa forever. But other folks have come in and helped out. Some have been integrated on a more permanent basis: Mexicans, Apaches, and Hopis, for example. Euro-Americans, Europeans, and Japanese primarily have been coming to herd sheep and help out for about 40 years. This is mainly because of widespread invitation by traditional Dine’ matriarchs, who have traveled the world since the 70’s speaking of their struggle against relocation and the Peabody coal mine. Many are still living on Black Mesa and continue their interest to have “helpers” come and stay. Some get “adopted”, some marry in to families. But actually, in the last 40 years only a handful of non-navajos have made any long term connection with the community. And really, they have not done very much of the work that it takes to keep the struggle going or contributed the resources that sustain it. It is really the people living on the land and their extended blood relatives, many of whom have accepted relocation benefits and found a place in the ‘outside’ world.

So ‘support’ or ‘herding sheep’ is not really ‘all that’ but it is something, and it has potential. It needs to be done right; and then, more. A person does not need to come out to Black Mesa with judgements, or with a vision about how people out here could do what they do better (‘you know, if they would just be a vegetarian...”, or something). Two times in the ten years I have been around here I have heard of family members from the cities not wanting to come home to visit their elders because “sheepherder” is unpleasant to be around. This was a disgrace. I mention it as an example of the type of risks we face in attempting to “support”. We need to be vigilant and uncompromising with ourselves and each other in order to keep such scenarios from happening.

The pressures of what Danny Blackgoat calls “the dominant society” are increasing—even if the mine is forestalled for the moment. Entering the Navajo universe as a herder is a means of acknowledging the responsibilities of yourself and your relations in the acceleration of these pressures--and a significant step in counteracting the encroachments of white culture on this vital and still vibrant community of traditionals. If you are a non-native, this is an opportunity to accede to and integrate into your life the wished and interests of traditional native people as to what to do and what not to do with your time and energy—how to do it and how not to do it. Maybe this is what is called “decolonization”.

Many people in the counter-culture, being “resisters” themselves of some sort, “rebels”, or what have you, have come to admire the people of Black Mesa/Big Mountain for defying Washington and their tribal government's orders to leave their homeland, even to the point of arming themselves. As it should be. Let’s transform the admiration into day-to day, year-to-year support for their ongoing struggle—not only to avoid eviction, but to keep the homesite running smoothly, to stop impoundments and harassment, to keep the herd strong, and to co-exist well with each other. As Rena Babbitt Lane said to me last year, “the time has come for us to stop ignoring each other,” referring to traditional natives and the surrounding world. We all have much to gain from each other.

So sheepherders, I’m talking to you as a fellow (non-native) sheepherder. How can you set aside some more time? Can we support each other directly to do this? Are you in touch with other sheepherders when you are on and off the land? Lets build or re-build the collective consciousness about keeping the herd covered, or keeping Grandma soandso taken care of. Are you in touch with the family when you are not there herding? Do they know how and where to contact you? Are you keeping up on current events on the rez?

Don’t rely on BMIS for this—support BMIS on this!

There are strategic times to come out. First week of October, it was recently pointed out to me, has always been impoundment season. There’s times in the spring too. Let’s get to know these as our rythms. The impoundments at T’iisyaato last fall could well have been forestalled by the presence of supporters. Lets not let that happen again. Impoundments are a big financial burden for the family—to recover the animals costs hundreds of dollars, and it does permanent damage to the animals. They come back scarred and scared. The families did everything they could to stop it. Did you?

Right now, as we prepare to leave for our other camp on the east coast there are almost no ‘supporters’ here. We have pending requests from 9 of every 10 families that we work with for on-land, live-in support. That means you. So get healthy, get sober, pull your connections—get creative. There’s a lot at stake! We thank you in advance.

***The preceding sentiments do not represent Black Mesa Indigenous Support and the organization is not to be held accountable. Any concerns about the content should be addressed directly to owen at stubx@yahoo.com

[Moderator's Note: The article refers to supporting Dineh and other indigenous resisters against relocation policies and coal mining expansions. There are many forms of radical resistance, globally, but to support by physical action of herding sheep, may be new to you. This however this kind of action does help 'sustain' an ancient, land-base community. So yeah, "pull your connections together" and your outdoor gear. You'll never be so radically, enlightened. -SDNrocks]

Chief Loner Comment was Censored at "Censored News!"

2010-03-01T09:08:00.002-07:00

Chief Loner's comment at Censored News was "censored!" This Blog basically promotes indigenous issues involving environment, sacred sites and human rights in Indian country. I believe I was "censored" because I have always spoken out on behalf of the traditional, land-based and sovereign resistance at Big Mountain. I made a comment about: how Urban Indian organizations deliberally exclude THEIR own traditional elders on the land, at the frontlines, in order to glorify their urban movements against WHITEMAN-made policies. The political movement world has changed, and it does not care about the real sacred ways of sovereign survivals so, the real indigenous representation does not belong anywhere in this modern convienent world....

An article was written about the resurgents of uranium mining and thousands of pending mine claims on the far northwestern side of the Grand Canyon. The article was of good intention and was only informative about historical data and events of the past Four Corners region mining and millings. The article lack very much the future potential impacts to ecology as well as indigenous communities that included the Dineh (Navajo) lands. Indigenous Action Media just like the Black Mesa Water Coalition are of urban origin based out of Flagstaff, and it is no surprised that they again excluded their peoples' uncertain future of radiation contamination. This article had no real intention except to regurgitate the 1950s thru 1980s events of uranium mining in Dineh and Pueblo country.

My comment basically asked why this article failed to provide more about how the uranium ore was to be transported to southeastern Utah from Grand Canyon north. Thousands of Dineh would be impacted again, but Indigenous Action Media only projected old information which obliviously shows an intention of self-promotion.

Read article for yourself: CENSORED NEWS: Uranium Mining Begins at Grand Canyon

Specialized Volunteers Urgently Needed for Threatened Big Mtn. Culture

2010-01-31T14:47:00.006-07:00

America’s Fossil Fuel Addiction & Advanced Technology Trends Facilitate Extinction of Land Based Cultural-Spirituality on Big Mountain
By Bahe (Kat) Katenay Keediniihii, Sheep Dog Nation Media

February 1, 2010 Big Mountain, Black Mesa – There is nearly three feet of semi-packed snow that blankets the juniper and pinon woodlands, a country where a few and scattered hardcore Dineh (Navajo) resisters live. It is their ancestral lands and it has been their choice to maintain residency as an only option to resist U.S. government laws to vacate. Out here, there are no electrical lines nor do waterlines something which 99 percent of Americans would not believe exist. You, as an American living most of your daily life with the modern conveniences, probably do not know what to do if your water or electricity suddenly goes off. Try to image also what if your old grandparents lived in a remote place where climate become extreme and there is no phone, no electricity or running water, and finally, would you worry about them as they age year by year and all agency services are denied of them?

Maybe America does not care, or why should they care? These 20 plus home sites, each with traditional elders who maintain culture with the intention of preserving some long-outdated tradition, would be of no importance in comparison to the millions of Americans that subsist on petroleum products. Most caring Americans only look up when thousands of people are impacted elsewhere by disaster, but the undying story of a few hundred souls on Big Mountain on the Navajo-Hopi Indian reservation does not touch hearts deep enough.

Modern society’s desire for petroleum-carbon products like handy-tech-gadgets, food and drink containers, entertainment supplies, and the necessities of transportation far outweighs this Big Mountain human crisis. Furthermore, the official mass media assures the world that ‘government backed Hopis trying to kick out a few dozen lawless Navajos is insignificant.’ Even the corporate controlled Indian newspaper and major television networks have their standard approaches by refuting and downplaying any claims made by these Dineh resisters about how Peabody Energy has a major role in this real estate scheme and relocation law of the 1974.

Everyone is aware that all the so-called, Native Americans, have pickup trucks, carry around cell phones and watch plasma screen TVs at home. That being observed can instantly make the conclusion that, there is no threat of extinction of the indigenous cultural-spirituality. Fortunately, there are still some intelligence human thoughts out there that know that this has always been the American attitude.

Lets invade their country because they are a danger to us and dangerous to themselves. This must be the course and it is all in the name of peace and democracy! They need to be assimilated and be pacified. And when the smoke from the total destruction of their lands and villages has settled, they will be far better off as civilized people, and we will help them to rebuild their economy and make them independent, again…”

These familiar words that were only spoken through military rifles, just a little over a hundred years ago in 1977, still ring in the memories of Dineh elder resisters at Big Mountain. That is why they have chosen to return to the battle and defy the United States Indian Policies of human removal and natural resource exploration. In 2010, these few matriarch and patriarchs try their best, mentality, to rely on the limited physical capabilities to: walk their ancestral land, smell the wood burning from their stove, smell the distance sheep corrals, breathe the little fresh air that earth can still offer, look up at the clouds move across, watch the trees move in the breeze, and to look about their country to only imagine that thriving culture and spirituality of the past.

Extinction is a word commonly associated with vegetation or certain species of animal, but the homosapien equation is always not a factor in this scenario of thinking. With all the intellect of western science, culture can never defined nor can spirituality ever be properly interpreted. America cannot even formulate a list of what ‘their culture is or could be.’ At Big Mountain, the Dineh knew many ways of starting a fire like how fine do you make the juniper bark, or where can you find dry fire starters on a rainy or snowy day? What does one do when the glare of the snow starts to blind them? What wild plant that is in your immediate vicinity is edible, medicinal or is a cure for thirst? How many kinds of foods can be derived from corn –in the Indian way, not in the industrialized American-food-processing way? What kind of clouds tells you if it will snow and when? Which snowfall is unhealthy to ingest? Why are the little blades of water crystals that cover the top of snow in the mornings sacred to the Dineh? Why was it prohibited for the Dineh to say the name of the bear, the sun, the thunder, or the buffalo? What do you do when you see tracks of a snake, when you kill a grasshopper or lizard?

What can happen if humans do wrong? How should the human repent and make restitution in order to keep the harmony and their relationship with nature?

There is world at Big Mountain that wants to survive, but not with the temporary comforts of technology which are also derivatives of the mineral and water exploitation or ‘the rape of mother earth.’ This has to be seen as our problem and that we can be the solution. This cannot be changed through your votes or your advocacy for Constitutional Rights because these few Dineh elders have lost all rights when that relocation law was passed in 1974. Public Law 93-531 was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the President of the United States, and that is known as an Executive Order just like a declaration of war.

An effective solution is to volunteer your time and commit yourself to a challenging environment by assisting these matriarch and patriarch, and work with them to manage the many aspects of human culture in sustainable practices. Natural harmony and balance may only be revived through something similar to volunteer enforcement of a humanistic controlled democracy. It is well understood that contrary to this corporate controlled democracy is only sustained through fear and in the name of maximized profits.

The peoples of Big Mountain have fought long and hard. They have symbolized that natural human pride but which is now diminishing by their old age and confinement to constant hospitalization. This is causing them to abandon those sheep herds, the unfinished weaving looms, the home sites, cornfields, and the living histories of antiquity and ancestry. Help them. Help us. A cultural and spiritual place must not be vacated to allow fossil fuel extraction which will be followed by commercial beef industries.

Our destinies are so inter-related whether we ignore it or not, but seeing beyond the synthetic technical upgrades of our human moment, are we so certain that the information and digital age will be suitable for our great grandchildren?

* * * To find out more about how you can get involved, email:
blackmesais@riseup.net or leave a detailed voice message at (928) 773-8086 * * * * Or write to:

Black Mesa Indigenous Support
P.O. Box 23501
Flagstaff, AZ 86002

<+===================++<<<<<=

Wha' izit dat U all don't get about the Big Mtn. Struggle?!

2010-01-06T12:35:00.007-07:00

Field sketches by Ira Moskowitz of the southwest in the 1940s.

What is it that You all don’t get about the Big Mountain Struggle?

Written by B.Y. "Kat" Keediniihii - Katenay

January 5, 2010 Big Mountain Dineh Resistance Territory, Black Mesa – Because of that irresistible American culture of Wal-Mart, hotdogs, freedomfries, Opry Winfrey, American Idol, and CNN, the human minds on Turtle Island have been saturated with more materialism, artificial-lie-zation, ignorance with self-reality, and a quick fix for cheap comforts. I have had much conversation with individuals who are sympathetic to the elders at Big Mountain, the Dineh elders who have been suffering under the U.S.-Peabody colonial aggressions. Almost all who know about this issue continue to be influenced by books or by authors that think they can use “rational” facts to interpret what the causes of relocation are. The first ugly words I hear from their mouths is “the land dispute” between Hopis and Dineh, but they do not know who the real parties are that are involved in this real estate fraud or scheme, or was it really a fair justice by the U.S. Congress of 1974?

These rational fact seekers and ignorant Indian “activist” still prefer to believe that Big Mountain is about politics. Let’s correct that first : political activism has to do with an attempt, based on “falsely” guaranteed rights, to influence politicians or corporate CEOs to change legislation or existing policies. That is politics, and politics deals with man and woman-made laws.

The original Big Mountain resistance was about a spiritual way of human existence that (tried to) maintain the unique ways of co-existence with the Universe and Nature. They were ways maintained since from a far distance time by indigenous peoples even before “civilization” emerged. Big Mountain and all other land-based indigenous societies deal with universal and natural orders and as human beings; we do not dare to ask the divine powers to change certain orders of life functions. (I use the word humans rather than saying Hopis or Dineh in particular.) The wise elders who are today incapable of physically leading this fight at Big Mountain were rationally correct when they declared, ‘the fight at Big Mountain is for all children of mother earth’ meaning all races of peoples.

It now has been forty years of intense events of force change caused by mineral exploration interest and that, being confronted with physical, spiritual and sovereign resistance. Forty years ago the last of the old time Dineh took their horse-driven wagons into the canyonlands to forever disappear. Today, the few traditional elders who sit in silence alone can only day dream of the past when a visitor on horseback might show up or that they receive some news about a large winter ceremonial event. That kind of visit or news would make their day exciting and would have some expectations that they can discuss with their family.

Big Mountain country is still pristine and in its past, a culture thrived with the Yei bi Cheii and the Mountain Chant Fire Dances in the winter. In summer, there were the Great Gathering Ceremony (a.k.a “Squaw” Dance) and other clan and family rituals. The force changes and the relocation of hundreds of our community members have now silenced the sounds of gourds, drums and the choir of singers. The many campfires and ceremonial fires are no longer present as the land is in darkness and is empty of a living culture.

My father, who is of the great Yei society, recently recalled his elders’ teaching that, the Dineh must always maintain the ceremonies because if the ceremonies die out the moisture and precipitation will also die out. Another matriarch and a resistance leader recalled, too, of a teaching about outside fires for cooking or for ceremonial gatherings that served special purposes in communicating with the night time heavenly lights. One traditional elder man who is also resisting relocation recalled of a teaching: ‘when we Dineh no longer make ceremonial prayer offerings to all the sacred places around Big Mountain, all the Star Chiefs up in the Universe will gather to discuss the final judgment for us…’

The Indian reservation life across Turtle Island (North America) have rapidly transformed despite the last great Indian uprising of the American Indian Movement era. Cell phones and satellite broadcasted, Direct TV have capsulated our Indian world to only an individual realm like all “Americans.” We have either given in or that we do not realize we have been forced into that American culture. All the cheap comforts of altered and synthetic foods and drinks are within short reaches of coffee tables or a couple of steps to the refrigerator. The ceremonies are modified privately with the assumption that the divine powers probably do not care or that they are not watching. The ceremonies are fitted to our adapted life styles of America and so, ceremonies are conducted basically as short cuts almost like the short cuts on your desktop.

The wider community based thought which was once the gateway to universal thinking is no more. Land struggle issues are mostly or overall ignored by the Indian, and they are also determined by legitimacy in terms of influencing politics or legally intervening. Unfortunately, Big Mountain does not meet these requirements because of its illegal approaches of a humanly and earthly stances. To the federally and state regulated environmentalism, the wise notion about supernatural influences on global atmospheric weather and climate are too irrational, but instead the textbook nerd-scientists and lawyers are the real experts in air pollution, hydrology and meteorology. Individual activism is now the impostor of a community and that is why a community like Big Mountain and Black Mesa has disintegrated. I represent a thought that I call “the original resistance” while other former constituent of the original movement individually represent other thoughts. The central fires do not communicate with the center fire. The U.S. government and its corporate entities dominate the communications.

Understand now the difference or what “was” Big Mountain. What was Big Mountain will always be my sole efforts. However, I have only seen those outsiders, the non-natives, who have the dignity and the honor to live with and help these Dineh elder resisters. They were willing to escape America to do something “illegal” to protect a small aspect of universal and natural order. They were somehow educated by the right books to realize that physical on-land, direct action is the only way to confront coal mining giant, Peabody Western. These dedicated and well-committed non-natives are a community and they may not have a way of worship, but they come out by the few and leave enrich with non-text book knowledge, and that required sacrifice. At Big Mountain, we still wait for the Indians to return and be willing to sacrifice that American cheap comfort and desires. There may still be a chance for all clear minded activist and Indians that seek real change toward rebuilding communities by coming out to the great lands of Big Mountain and work with the Dineh, The Peoples.

ALERT: Helpers Needed at Big Mtn. to Keep Dineh Resistance Spirit Alive

2009-12-16T14:15:00.005-07:00

"Winter in Navajoland" by Marjorie Reed, 1982

SheepDog Nation Rocks "wants to inform that besides efforts to hand signed papers to world leaders in Copenhagen which unfortunately corporate warlords won't see, aging Dineh resisters at Big Mtn's frontline to stop global warming are in direr need of physical support on their harsh freezing and remote but sacred lands. Sheepherders and elder care givers NEEDED! Email: blackmesais@gmail.com or phone 928-773-8086"

Big Mountain, Black Mesa December 16, 2009 - Once upon a time they all stood strong to protect the human race as they themselves put it. The Big Mountain Dineh Elders have endured so much since the 1970s and at the same time, they have defended and perserved that human dignity of natural survival, subsistence and religious values. They have resisted the U.S. government's genocide policies to vacate lands that Peabody Coal Company recognized as the Black Mesa coal fields. In the name of America's greedy electricity needs, the Justice Department through the Interior Department's B.I.A. have kept these resisters in isolation and away from all media attention.

Now these once brave elders are unable to endure the freezing temperatures of winter, to walk outside to chopped wood, to cook a warm meal for themselves, and to keep their ancient livelihoods like herding sheep alive.

Where are their children or grandchildren you might asked? That is not the issue because you can just look outside your window and see what America has turned ordinary humans into.

The issue is come out ASAP to give a little of your time, to sacrifice that Americanized (sacred) holidays, and lend lots of helping muscles and bones to comfort and honor these weaken resisters.

Thank you for your time.

-SheepDog, Chief Loner

SheepDog's Report on Caravan 2009 to Big Mtn.

2009-12-02T20:28:00.009-07:00

Photos by Jessica Kettler

Support Caravan to Big Mountain Resistance Communities, November 2009

By NaaBaahii “Kat” Keedinihii
Sheep Dog Nation Media

[Author’s Note: It is very necessary that I must “try” to make another of the hundreds of clarification that I have made in the past about Identity, Loyalty, Allegiance, Sovereignty, Aboriginality, Great (Big) Mountain, and Resistance. This past Caravan of Support has shown me much inspiration and hope that as human communities we are committed to global balance and survival. The other small aspect of disruption and distraction is that of labeling “who is the real resister” and who is where in terms of a government demarcation boundary. Again, the policy makers of the colonial state are being allowed to have control over how we think and how we decide: who is who, who is what, who is how. These small numbers of individuals who have been influenced by the colonial terminology of status have not questioned the human aspect of resistance and survival, or more importantly contribution to the roles of resistance. Thus, Yours Truly, is questioned or is falsely labeled as a non-resister and non-resident, but that is based on the U.S. government’s official words and on a few disgruntle residents that love dwelling on petty issues of dissensions. You readers must now learn more about the role of Yours Truly: review the long list of resume of physical coordination of resistance actions since 1977 and the endless list of the contribution to consultation of sovereign enforcements that were based on the original, traditional Big Mountain elder council’s proclamations. Now look at any resumes, if any exist, of those making the accusations, complaints and loud-mouthing in the midst of a good-spirited action like the Fall 2009 Support Caravan. Always seek the truth especially during a crucial revolutionary movement because much harm and huge setbacks can result from such rumors and accusations. –Kat of SDN Rocks.]

December 2, 2009 – Big Mountain, Black Mesa (northeastern Arizona) Awesome human beings of all ages but mostly young came from Tejas, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Ohio, New Mexico, southern Arizona, and even from a few foreign countries. All 120 plus individuals were able to come to Big Mountain, a regional territory, where the main brunt of the resistance to force relocation and Peabody’s coal mining expansion is taking place. These well equipped and wonderful inspired, non-Native citizens came to honor Dineh resisters by providing assistance like everything from cleaning around one’s residents to hauling and chopping cords of firewood. Some were able to find out what herding sheep and goats was all about like what to feed the sheepdogs, to graze certain vegetation in a designated area, when to water the animals, what time to head back and put them in the corral, and how to secure the corral gate.

Besides the tons of firewood hauling, there were a lot of repair and building work. The U.S. government through its Department of the Interior and the Justice Department has used the B.I.A. to enforce a freeze on any kinds of repair or improvements. However, every human being has universal rights to happiness and welfare, and any humanitarian aid should not be denied from them –especially in the US of A because the U.S. is supposed to be the leader in honoring human rights.

The well-coordinated and distributed volunteer-support, worker groups were pretty aware that these types of humanitarian aid were crucial to the Dineh elder resisters and their families. They all knew that they must, for one week, give up that “great” American privilege like Thanksgiving Holiday. And instead go out to remote and (somewhat) hospitable resistance communities to make many indigenous families’ lives better. Many of these volunteers are actively involved in their communities’ efforts for justice and peace, and they not only brought their skills but to immerse themselves in a new and alternative experience. All the good hopes and intentions of the local Dineh that collaborated with these outside supporters was such an uplifting and empowering event that took place for one whole week. You have seen people march in the streets but perhaps you have never seen support crews covering nearly 450,000 acres to work as hard as they can to accomplish great tasks within seven days. It was just power and much healing.

The power of a united force is a ritual in its own and if geared towards the positive, that momentum can set its own forecast and outcomes. Family members came to the central coordination camp or base camp and they transported or guided the adequate number of crews to their homes. Volunteers took with them their own foods to eat and share, tools to use and leave with the family, and their camping gear to cope with the unpredictable Black Mesa climate.

The late November, high altitude climate gave noticed to who is in charge, nature. Morning pre-dawn temperatures dipped down to 20F degrees, but the daytime temps made it a comfortable, sunny 60F degree. The below freezing early morning temps greeted the crews each day as they kept up with the elders’ early rise. Far from the thermostat-control environments, supporters manage to cook hot meals for breakfast as they fought off the shivering bites of the nippy air. The sun’s warmth brought a relax calm among the work forces as they carried out the physically demanding tasks which involved nothing but manual labor. Many probably never used an axe or a pick as much as they did before, or have never thought of ever stacking that much cut and split firewood before. Others probably have never realized what it took for the Dineh in remote parts of the reservation to acquire drinking water. The long drives to the well or having to pull buckets of water out of a rock-walled tank, and how important it was to conserve or honor that water. The tonnage of dirt dug and moved, of wood hauled and cut, and of the gallons of water transported were certainly immense and immeasurable.

Two days of road repair used at least 20 hard working individuals, and a two and half mile road was attempted to be fixed but only a mile and half was completed. This dirt and unmaintained road is an essential corridor for the communities that are divided by the low-lying but rugged range of the Big Mountain ridge. The BIA patrols know about this deteriorating road but only the patrol routes are maintained. Also when the resistance outpost once known as the Big Mountain Survival Camp (1980 – 1992) existed, this road was manually maintained by the Camp’s supporter and security personnel. Years of weathering have turned this ridge overpass road into a washed out jeep trail. The Support Caravan 2009 and Black Mesa Indigenous Support finally were able to gather the resources to initiate this road repair project. The crew learned about natural methods of erosion control by using local scrubs and dead tree limbs and by moving large heavy rocks to build a barrier across a large wash. Some large rocks required two to three heavy steel bars and eight pairs of hands to carry it and put in place. Workers instantly learned to coordinate between positioning bars, placing rock spacers and when to have the hands in order to lift or push. All work had some level of learning and experience but most of all, there was a sense of satisfaction.

The struggles within a community or society do however has its down-side as well as its upside. We are only humans no matter if we come from some great indigenous society and more so today because of the fast moving pace of acculturation and assimilation. That American mentality does still take away our normal humanness and there will be those out for personal desire or a quick fix that is unrelated to the potentials for victory of a struggle. There has to be always be this kind of learning and awareness in order to cope and be on alert. A struggle or cause can unfortunately pose the unexpected of individuals that should be recognized for a struggle or cause. These should not let us down if we are smart, alert and wise, and if we are true patriot and fighters for the peoples and nature. We must continue to share the positive and purposeful intentions of winning over the corporate and institutional aggression.

Black Mesa Indigenous Support wishes to collaborate more efficiently with all regional networks that includes the Clan Dyken support caravan. The victories across the resistance territories have been inscribed with stacks of wood fuel, renovated shelters for people and animals, repaired vehicles and water wells, and a main road brought back to life. Imagine if the Caravan 2010 was to be bigger and better.

One week after the Caravan arrived there was the closing circle. Many resisting families and their neighbors came to the huge circle to bid farewell and say thanks to the volunteer crews. As the good voices were said, nature brought clouds and some sprinkles of rain and small soft hail. It was a blessing. Mother earth and father sky must have been content and they also must be bidding a farewell and thanks, too.

Give Thanks this November to the Dineh Resisters’ Victories since 1977

2009-10-20T09:02:00.003-07:00

“I am told that I am of no account because I will not pay rent to Washington (U.S. Government)…. But I have been paying my ‘rent’ all along. I pay my ‘rent’ to the Holy Beings every morning with my Sacred Corn Pollen offerings, and that is all the ‘rent’ that I need to pay…”
--Pauline Whitesinger, Dineh resister and Matriarch, June 2009 (Photo by Demitra Tsioulos)

Join the Caravan to Big Mountain, Black Mesa: November 21 – 28, 2009
By A BMIS On-Land Volunteer

Dineh (Navajos) on Black Mesa have been fighting to keep their land and lifeways in opposition to the law mandating that they ‘relocate’ for 30 years. Minor concessions by government and coal interests in recent years have not rectified the situation. These families have (spiritual and aboriginal) rights to remain on Black Mesa as they have for generations and be free of the threat of eviction or other excessive burdens exacted in order to run them off, in order to exploit their lands. And yet, the Office of Surface Mining has granted an extension in December 2008 for Peabody Coal’s strip mine on Black Mesa to expand and continue through 2026.

Supporters from around the globe will be convening on Black Mesa around the Thanksgiving Holiday for work parties and to establish new connections with this community that has suffered the very worst of U.S. economic gluttony and yet, exemplifies a valiant resistance to it. Consider this educational opportunity and come prepared to listen –not to preach. If you are coming, bring something to offer like: labor help, goods, winter supplies, foods, skills. Expect to leave enriched and to return.

Please contact the Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) for more details on coordination and do visit and get familiarized with the BMIS website: http://www.blackmesais.org/, also check out some Big Mountain Dineh writings at http://sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/ Please note that, Elders in Resistance are requesting long-term volunteers to herd sheep and assist with daily manual chores. So, consider setting aside a long stretch of time if possible. Are you willing to organize a crew from your community? If so, and/or have any other inquiries about supporting the Big Mountain resistance to coal mining and cultural extermination contact: BMIS at 928-773-8086 or email: blackmesais@gmail.com

Environmentalist Banned from the Hopi-Navajo Rez

2009-10-09T16:53:00.006-07:00

Environmentalist Banned from the Hopi-Navajo Rez:
How will that take place? Will the Rez councils be scapegoat for law-suits so Peabody Coal Company can do its thing?

Sheep Dog Nation Media, October 9, 2009
By Bahe (Kat) Keediniihii (Katenay)

Big Mountain Territories, Black Mesa (northeastern Arizona) – In the drought stricken dusty high desert of Black Mesa, capitalistic domination and the resurgent of repression is the only thing starting to take root and bloom. All other natural life forms and natural ways of cultivation are barely getting by with thirst and breathing plenty of wind-blown sand and smoke-hazed air.

There are several fronts by special interest groups, including Dineh residents of Big Mountain, who are fighting to stop Peabody’s rape of Mother Earth. All these fronts are composed of traditional elder communities, several small reclusive groups, and the well-funded organizations like Black Mesa Water Coalition, Black Mesa Trust, and the Grand Canyon region Sierra Club. Sadly, these fronts are within their own reclusiveness as well all because of the great American illusions of “civil rights,” Native American “Freedom” of Religion Act, “constitutional ‘guaranteed’ rights,” and the situation of desperate lawyer-clients scenarios.

Now, all these organizations except for the residing family residents of the area will soon be banned from the Hopi reservation as the Navajo Nation government joined up with Hopi. (One piece of note is that the families in resistance’s invited non-Indian supporters are already banned but are still active out there.) The environmentalists will now be policed and perhaps be prohibited from holding meetings, having headquarters and be stopped just because of their ‘green’ bumper stickers. The tribes’ justification is that these orgs are taking away tribal economic jobs and revenues by opposing Peabody and Desert Rock’s expansion. Certainly, there are more information and news on this entire new political shift in Indian country in regards to “protecting the sacred” versus “protecting the (capitalist) economy.” Here is a couple of links if you wish to read about it.

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/10/masayesva-attorney-crosses-line.html
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/10/klee-benally-democracy-unwelcome-on.html

The characterization that SDN Media draws from all these environmentalists’ freak-out is stated rhetorically here by yours truly, Chief Loner:

“I cannot believe this stuff. These stories are so amazingly saturated with the undertones of diversionary, political facts that seem so self-intentional by 'environmental' groups to refresh their stagnant avenues of legalities. Puppet tribal governments are of course designed to facilitate "pro" rape of mother earth and exterminate ancient indigenous thought. If It’s so bad, join the traditional Hopi and Dineh elders at Big Mtn. and at the Independent Hotevilla Pueblo. What is happening now, the U.S. imperialistic oppression, is nothing new, come on!”

Environmentalism is cool but it can also mean a government agency who promotes mining or toxic waste exposure for giant corporations. However, they all seem to rub elbows in formal hearings while trying to interpret ideas of privileged legal rights. This corporate ban on environmentalist activities in Hopi should not come as a surprise for the regional green organizations because of 9-1-1 and the Patriot Act. It should all be clear that “Freedom” is only for that small segment of American society that are capitalist parasites living off the poor and the under-privileged. The saddest part of environmentalism is when they refer to themselves as grassroots movement and they end up leaving out the real grassroots peoples. Like for example at Big Mountain and Black Mesa, the local groups do not mention “traditional elder resisters of Big Mountain” but instead the closest they get to mentioning them is saying, “the relocation that is going on up there…”

We knew eventually that we might all be thrown in together into that corporate pee-pot and be shoved back under bed that is shared among tribal councils, the BIA, and utility companies. However “freedom” does not have to be just an idea but it can be something physical that can be held high and with pride. Our ancestors have done that since 1492. So, ladies and gentlemen of the government-policy-dependent environmentalist, what options is on the table for you now? Put your grant monies towards law suits against the local puppet tribes? Do it and you will see how messed up tribal/federal jurisdiction and BIA laws are. Or if you all have the guts to be real renegades and hostiles, join the Big Mountain and Hotevilla Liberation movements.

© SheepNationRocks, 2009

The Big Mtn. Struggle Impacts You Daily: Support the Dineh

2009-08-20T15:17:00.009-07:00

[Top] Peabody and BTU (white) draglines eating up acres of Mother Earth

[Above] 250 to 300 feet (100 M) deep cut made by the BTU dragline

THE MOST CRUCIAL CAUSE: AN EMPHASIS ON CULTURAL DEFIANCE AT BIG MOUNTAIN ON BLACK MESA TO BE PRIORITIZED

Big Mountain, Black Mesa August 2009 – On the dusty and dry plateau lands of Big Mountain where the monsoon is absent almost as a prophetic gesture, there exist a calmness even though BIA Indian Police and Rangers continue their low-key surveillances of scattered pockets of traditional Dineh families. They are the left-over families from the hundreds of other families who have been (forcibly) relocated in the last 40 years under another harsh U.S. government Indian policy. Also, they are families still left to resist BIA Indian policing and the encroachment of Peabody Energy’s coal mines. This traditional-led resistance is widely known to many but its importance and how it impacts our daily lives are not understood.

Among all the peace-loving, environmentally sensible and green minded societies, there is a broader awareness about the US’s treaty violations through its corporate and military occupation of foreign lands. It seems that folks in ‘the states’ cannot comprehend that the low-scale militarism at Big Mountain, sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department and British TU’s Peabody Energy, does affect all of us more than the Afghanistan or the Iraq occupation. This federal, subversive form of occupation is happening, here, in northern Arizona, and it is happening to the last aboriginal tribal community on Turtle Island (North America).

How does it impact you, us?

This is a repeat: At Big Mountain, the 34 traditional Dineh elders that are still refusing to leave their ancestral lands are actually putting a stop to the Peabody mining expansions and the construction of a half dozen more coal-fired power plants in the western United States.

While the well-financially-fed, special interest groups like the Sierra Club of Grand Canyon and the Black Mesa Water Coalition are attempting to adjust government languages about the environment, the traditional Hopi and Dineh elders of Black Mesa have merely prayed with their corn meals and pollen. They have, for over forty years now, prayed in this way to asked the Deities of the earth and sky to preserve the homelands and that mother earth continue to nurture us despite the butchering of her body. Things are more crucial now. We as the newer generation failed to learn these ways of spiritual communication, and we fail to make the sacred white corn meals or gather the sacred pollen.

The ancient ways of these types of ritual prayers encompassed more than individuality. It encompassed reverence for community, foods, health, prosperity, clan unity, eco-system, and the future generations.

It is crucial also in that we are all part of this atmosphere of environmental and cultural devastation. So, only a few Dineh elders at Big Mountain have kept earth’s atmosphere clean so far, and you can imagine what it would have been like if half of the Black Mesa coal fields was being mined, today, and if more power plants were emitting extra tons of pollutants. Before it becomes an emergency with loss of the human connection to nature and to the spiritual realm, give a prayer of forgiveness and thanks, and start supporting the Big Mountain resistance.

Up-coming Big Mountain support agendas for Fall and Winter 2009 & 2010:

The elders still need help to maintain their cultural lifestyles of sheepherding, processing the vegetable harvests, improvements of area remote roads and most important, wood fuel gathering and hauling. These projects can only be initiated through good and humble spirited volunteering and commitments. Also this requires not only raising awareness but by providing the resources to make all this happen. Currently, the Black Mesa Indigenous Support’s volunteer collective are organizing activities and logistics to make these projects happen for November 09. We hope you will be interested, bring physical support and be inspired by resiliency of these traditional indigenous elders.

Visit http://www.blackmesais.org/ or leave a detail voice message at 928-773-8086.

Thank you for your time.

In the spirit Chief Barboncito,

Kat-the-Bahe

Corporate Racism: Radioactive Policies for Indian Country

2009-07-29T12:38:00.012-07:00

[Photo: Priscilla Bomb, Nevada Test Site. Inset Image: Dineh uranium miners near Cameron, AZ]

Our Out-of-Control Reliance on Electrical Energy Pose a Rapid Demise of the Human Era

By Naabaahii (Kat Bahe) Keediniihii, Sheep Dog Nation Media

The U.S. economy maybe down but Americans will never stop or limit their consumer spending on electrical energy, gadgets, appliance, and recreational toys and vehicles that are powered by electricity generated by fossil and nuclear fuels. At what cost do American consumers able to acquire such conveniences?

The first thing that comes to mind for people of conscience is air-water pollution and other toxic contamination. A very few conscience peoples will think about indigenous humans, plants and animals. Let me try to take you further and ask, what do think one feels when this cost of devastation is taken place in their backyard, to their peoples, and it has greatly impacted his or her spiritual state of existence?

It is a feeling of much, much sickness and suffering. Complete loneliness because you are not normal. You cannot party, have a “good time,” relax, talk about popular happy subjects, and others consider you weird and out-of-place. You feel rejected by both the “normal thinking” society and by federal states. (I) can only dig very hard to find that old ancient spirit of natural happiness, and try to “find peace in (my) endeavors and projects,” as a friend wrote to me recently.

Territories of indigenous peoples of the U.S. (so-called Native Americans) become the price for electrical power’s beginnings. These territories hold much of the natural resources and which were once considered as mother earth and that it was sacred to these aborigines. How these issues are confronted and how they are resolved are forums where free America fails. Environmental policies are finalized by the consent of powerful energy and utility companies who influence governments at every level. We only hear about environmentalist and certain Indian groups that try to collaborate “legally” to intervene or make appeals.

We, however, never hear about the real victims that are paying the price. On Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona, small land-based and traditional families at Big Mountain are holding off Peabody coal mining by resisting federal relocation policies. This has been possible only through “illegal” means by continuing the natural and ancient habitation of ancestral lands. Though this handful of resisters are not mentioned in any updates by native activists and environmentalists, they have had a great impact in keeping Peabody Energy at bay and keeping the air you breathe, today, a little cleaner. Also, the U.S. federal government has spent several billions of tax-payer dollars since 1955 to: undermine tribalism of the Dineh and Hopis, partition Black Mesa and Big Mountain for mining claims, relocate and displace thousands of indigenous people, maintain a state of fear through the U.S. Justice Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs policing.

Uranium and the Nuclear-Cycle:

Along with the black poison of extracted fossil fuels, the extraction of radioactive uranium has reemerged in northern Arizona and the four corners region. Other regions across Dineh (Navajo) country remain as “hot spots” or the presence of heavy radiation exposure. One thing governments and environmental actions collaborate on together is leaving the real radiation victims out of their agendas. Case in point is the communities of Cameron, Arizona which is next door to the Grand Canyon. The Navajo Nation has kept the citizens of Cameron, Black Falls and Shadow Mountain in silence while hundreds have died from radiation poisoning and surviving victims are forbidden to drink from local water supplies.

"We only use it for washing but our animals have to drink it, too,” the residents have stated. They only use local water to wash their dishes which they eat and drink from, and wash the clothes they wear on their bodies. Drinking water has to be hauled in from Flagstaff (50 miles) or Tuba City (30 miles). The livestock have to drink from local contaminated wells and they very often become the meat that is eaten or sold to the beef industry.

In 2001, I visited Alice Horse who lived right under a 300 Kv power lines that comes from the Four Corners and San Juan power plants, and she also lives next to three mine pits that were recently covered with extracted waste tailings. Clay Big Man at World War II artilleryman and veteran claims he is suffering from an “incurable disease” according to his doctor. His face and limited physical mobility tells of his constant suffering. Alice lives less than two miles from Clay and she briefly mentions people that have died from cancer, and she points across the river to some distance houses where she knows of a very young girl who has cancer. Alice, a traditional elder, looks strong in her old age and has a slight cheerful demeanor, but she shows much sadness as she looks at the ground to talk about the destruction that the uranium job opportunities brought.

“My husband worked the mines, and we were all happy because he can just ride his horse to work and we had money to live better. Money also brought alcohol and cancer to the men of the local area. Maybe the poison from this green dirt (lee’t’so’h) would have killed him but the alcohol took his life instead.”

Black Falls is not too far from the Wupaki National Monument, about a two hour donkey ride, and that community has made complaints to the Navajo Nation government for lack of concern for clean water and the alarming water test results. Wells were tested for radiation levels by the sole efforts of local resident, Milton Yazzie. He has tried to make it his mission to have more studies and to get the Navajo Nation to supply clean water, and to let the world know that nuclear ‘holocaust’ is not yet over in Dineh country.

The Potential Demise of Culture, Ecology and the Humans:

Along with earth’s Arctic melt down, we may melt into history with our daily ingestion of radioactive heavy metals that come from automobile exhaust, coal fired power plants and nuclear power. Certainly, I don’t want that for my grandchildren or their children, and I truly think that if everyone knew more they would now viciously and desperately, try to do the right thing to stop our fossil and nuclear fuel addictions.

But this addiction is a runaway train: computers and their servers suck up energy 24/7, the digital age increases these addiction, there is no push or mentioning of alternative green energies unless a politician feels obligated to say it, and our minds are confined to everything from the Worldwide Web to the tiny cell phone LCDs. We are only bothered if we got rained on, got too cold or got too hot, and that our little capsule world was intruded by issues of the environment, “American Indians,” freaks in the streets, and more “Native American” whining.

Meantime, let us begin the Beauty Way Ceremonies which is about helping others and as the Big Mountain medicine woman said, work together to save the ecology, the culture and wisdoms that go with them. This can only be achieved by sustaining communities that embrace unity and kinship and by not embracing corporate grants that manipulate potential, reliable organizations. The sacred ways and circles await us at Big Mountain and at other forgotten indigenous resistance territories. We’ll see you there.

© Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2009

Two links that has articles on the current status of “the nuclear madness” in the southwest USA:

30 years ago, the Church Rock Uranium Spill, http://www.navajotimes.com/news/index.php

Uranium at Grand Canyon, Red Butte,
http://grandcanyonnews.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1&articleID=8207

Words from A Big Mtn. Medicine Woman

2009-07-20T14:53:00.011-07:00

©Photo by Dan Budnik, 1978, Elders at the Partition Fence

Big Mountain Elder: “State of the Dineh and the Big Mountain Resistance”

July 19, 2009, Big Mountain, Black Mesa – A sign just outside of Flagstaff says, “Beat the Heat!” as it tries to lure people into a get together of grown-up adults that ‘play’ with model airplanes. This gathering seemed mostly of non-Indians scheming to make some money and sell more membership. 120 miles away on the reservation at Big Mountain some families still do not have electricity and the day time temperature has reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit. There are no icy refrigerators to provide a 40 ounce glass of lemonade with ice or a chilled, 32 ounce of sugar called Coca Cola. It felt like the “Heat has Beaten Us” at Big Mountain, but the U.S. Relocation Policies in the name of Peabody Energy has not beaten the Dineh, yet.

As we sip on a cup of shade or room temperature water, the traditional elder resister takes the opportunity with my visit to talk about the struggle to resist relocation. She is a medicine woman as well as being a sheep rancher in her late sixty. I wish not to disclose her name because of her status as a healer and spiritual leader.

“The Dineh, overall, have transformed their ways of doing the rituals. We here at Big Mountain, those of us resisting the harsh policies aimed at us, have tried to set examples through speaking out about strengthening our languages and our ceremonial ways. We even had hopes through the sacred, Lakota Sun Dance. The Dineh across the reservation try to conduct the great healing ways like the Great Gathering Ritual and Dance (a.k.a. “Squaw Dance”) and the Yei Bi Chei Dances. Now, these have become nothing but social gatherings where people come for the feasts and the giveaways. Once all foods and gifts have been acquired, the ceremonial grounds are suddenly deserted. The Clans of the Staff-Receivers are all gone except for lone Receiver of the Staff. The Initiator Clans of the Gathering Ritual are all gone, too, except the Patients. No one is around to sing and hold the final and very sacred dance. This great ritual of the Dineh has become a very silent conclusion ceremony which was once full of celebratory and jubilant singing and dancing.

“All this (American) greed and mannerism has taken away the ancient, traditional thoughts of the old time Dineh. ‘Taken away’ just like relocation. It has been moved away or it has been separated from us. Traditional parents and their children were separated and many elderly parents die of heart break caused by this. Every sibling within one family unit that I know of have accepted the relocation benefits, the matriarch became sick and she died, her brother tried to resist but he also died of heart break, and now, only the elder patriarch remains. He is so alone. I have never seen such a lonely person. He is surrounded by several houses and hogans but there is no one else to be expected, to come out of any of those dwellings. This elder man only has his late wife and brother in-law’s sheep and horses to look after. Why did his children decided to leave the land? This is hard for me to comprehend.

“My children have never accepted the relocation benefits. None of them accepted that and I consider them all to still be residents, here, though their attempts to build homes were stopped by the B.I.A. Police. So, how can children just leave their land and parents behind?

“Our history told us about the ‘Long Walk’ when the U.S. Army forced thousands of our peoples to march to Ft. Sumner. Many had their heads bashed-in and died on the way to the four year internment camp. So, I would understand about being forced-relocated if we were to have received the same kind of brutality. But we did not.

"What is left of our past resistance at Big Mountain is nothing but a ‘war of words on paper.’ Papers are served to our front doors and most of our Dineh take that as a threat and run. The whiteman’s paper is considered more sacred. These papers supposedly interpret the American laws. Our ancient sacred ways are no longer held with high reverence and the modern Dineh can violate those ancient ways as they wish. The Dineh have all truly become greedy and selfish and to only seek hand outs.

“Even the idea of love and freedom is used by the Americans as ‘sugar-coated’ mentality and behavioral acceptability. Love is many things but to us at Big Mountain, love was what we bestowed for our country, the land. Freedom was that same thing. We resisted and fought, physically and with papers. A couple of our local Dineh have volunteered nearly their whole life to maintain this love and freedom for us, those of us who are now very old and some who are alone. Love and freedom is the willingness to visit the elders, to learn more about our sacred places, to visit those sacred places, to communicate with non-Indians and other tribal communities that believe in harmony and sustainability, and to teach the youth about who they are and where they really belong.

“It is time, while in our last desperate attempt to save our identity, to do the Beauty Way Ceremonies. Yes, we can call it ‘a fight’ but it is that (real) love and freedom that involves helping people to withhold the sacred and support their existence on their ancestral lands despite the threats and harassment. The indigenous peoples must resort to these rituals ways immediately instead of wasting energy on designing more words on paper to send to the oppressors.”

* * *Elders and their extended families at Big Mountain traditional communities still need your support and prayers. The crop fields need tending to, the wooly sheep and goats need to be herded, and if you cannot get away, contact your local indigenous support groups and see how you can help in the coming fall or winter.

[**Learn more and contact: Black Mesa Indigenous Support at http://www.blackmesais.org/ or call BMIS Voice Mail: 928-773-8086. The BMIS Fall 2009 Caravan is tentatively being planned and continued, long-term (2 wks to two months + ) on-land stays are needed.]

Free Leonard Peltier and Free All Political Prisoners!

And remember nature always beats you and if you endure that, lessons of many blessings will come. (The foregoing statement was translated by Yours Truly, Chief Loner.) –sdnRocks, 2009

Big Mtn: Decreased Humans, Predators Increase & Nature Abounds

2009-06-02T16:52:00.009-07:00

REMOVED HUMAN POPULATION, NATURE ABOUNDS WITH FLOWERING & INCREASED PREDATORS:

The lands of Big Mountain has perhaps returned to its "once upon a time" natural state. Dineh pastoral lifestyles have been depleted and wide areas are now teaming with coyotes, foxes, wolves, deer, elk, and cougars. The diverse vegetation of this high-desert, woodlands are now free from sheep and cattle grazing --"thanks" to the U.S. government's inhumane energy policy of 1974. The lands seem very peaceful in many aspects while you immerse yourself in that month of May's time of flowering, if the winter climate was near normal.

Elder matriarch of Sweet Water Stronghold has just returned with her grandson from checking on the few cattle she still owns. She is dressed for work but not your usual ranch lady as she wears a well dirt-stained apron, scarf, sweat shirt, the traditional skirt, and good walking shoes.

"We covered a big area to see where all the cattle were," she says in the Dineh language. "One cow had a newborn calf but she is without it today so, we drove around more and only found tracks of her and her calf from days ago. My grandson said he noticed fresh cougar tracks. Maybe the mama-cow eventually lead her newborn into the 'mouth of that pedator...'

Some of the few hardcore, elder resisters to the relocation policies have lost their livestock to the these predators particularly the cougar, a skilled and daring hunter. The transformation in the last 15 years is all too real and if Big Mountain people had access to all the monies and revenues that were all stolen by Mr. Peabody, the Dineh would hire ecologist and anthropologists that can explain with much merit the effects of human removal and how nature reclaims the ecosystems. Then this being all temporary because it will all be stripped for the coal and aquifer reserves to meet America's energy needs.

It does feel that this is only temporary even though you behold the beauty of tall green grasses, the white stacks of yucca flowers, and the intense-coloured flowers shooting out of thorny cactuses. Maybe only prayers and more deep searches for understanding by current conscience individuals will help save and restore the endangered ancient lifeways at Big Mountain.

Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2009

Winter On-Land Supporter: "Resistance not Isolated & Continues at Varied Degrees"

2009-05-05T15:45:00.008-07:00

A Literature Piece on Big Mountain, Black Mesa by Nephew Jake

Ya'aat'eh,

I recently left the land, in which i had spent the winter with elder Pauline Whitesinger. This experience inspired me to write a short essay that i wish to distribute hand to hand and through magazines or websites that may wish to publish my writing. To be accountable to you and the resistance on black mesa I am sending a copy for your comments. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hagoshiin (Until Next Time), Haastiin Yazhie' (/s/nephew jake)

This winter I lived with a Dineh (Navajo) elder on the west side of Big Mountain. She was born there and continues to walk about the same land as she did when she was a child, more than 80 years ago. While at her homesite I primarily herded sheep through the rough, high desert terrain. I followed this grandma's wisdom, knowing her directions were ways of survival in the face of determined removal by the U.S Government and American Corporations. She taught me skillz in animal husbandry, wood cutting, and hogan care. It was an honor to live under her guidance and training.

I am a young person of mixed european decent. My late mother was an artist and student, my father is a vegetable farmer and a long time War Tax Resister (has widtheld all income tax from the US Govt since 1980). I am a child of activists yet I found the Dineh resistance on Black Mesa from my own journey. I first began to sort the debt I have as a white living on indian land when i came out to Black Mesa the first time a few years ago through Black Mesa Indigenous Support. But enough about me, lets get to the issue that remains; Dineh resistance to American imperialism.

Since 1978 Dineh communities n Black Mesa have resisted US relocation laws and Bureau of Indian Affairs policing strategies to remove them and their way of life. Washington has supported 'relocation' as a solution to their self-created, make-believe navajo-hopi land dispute. A closer reality seems to be American energy corporations partnered with Washington to manufacture a cultural divide that is used to sustain corporate land grabbing on Dineh sovereign territory.

The latest example of imperial landscaping was in December 2008. Despite protest from Navajo, Hopi, native, and non-native people; the Office of Surface Mining approved a Life-of-Mine permit for the Black Mesa Complex operated by Peabody Energy. This permits Peabody to continue strip mine Black Mesa coal and water. In addition Peabody has the opportunity to seize 19,000 acres of sacred land beyond the 67,000 acres already in Peabody's grasp.

I gathered from this decision that mining and burning coal, which threatens catastrophic climate change, is not a real concern to Washington. Their attitude remains war mongering towards the earth and indigenous people, which are both considered collateral damage in the wake of National Security. It appears that neither the OSM or the tribal governments intended to stop Peabody and support traditional Dineh sovereignty on Black Mesa.

Certainly the few sheep camps that are left since relocation and mining began could not be a serious threat to national security? However, in my short time on Black Mesa, grandma and myself came into contact with BIA deputized rangers on several occasions. We were confronted about the activities going on around her home. This type of harassment is not isolated and has happened over the coarse of 30 years. But resistance is also not isolated and continues each day in varied degrees. All acts on Black Mesa under traditional Dineh authorization for survival are direct actions of resistance to American imperialism. The bottom argument I wish to make is relocation = imperialism. The sheep, horses, cattle, deer, birds, elders, youth, and sheepherders all stand in the way of Mr. Peabody's coal train and American progress.

Nephew Jake

For more information to become a live-in supporter/sheepherder on Black Mesa please visit:

blackmesais.org or contact: blackmesais@gmail.com vm 928-773-8086

Big Mtn: Sustained Resistance & Ritual Hope for Resiliency

2009-05-05T13:47:00.010-07:00

Big Mountain Spring 2009: Sustained Resistance and Ritual Hope for Resiliency
Written by Bahe Katenay, Sheep Dog Nation Media
May 5, 2009

You may live in an urban setting where the night sky is obliterated by city lights and air traffic. You may live in a rural area but you hardly ventured out into a wilderness even though it is in your back yard. Perhaps, your crazy personal life allows you sometime to walk in a park or you take a brief nature hike. Imagine a real wilderness.

I’ve never been in a jungle or in the arctic tundra. I have visited and camped in some tundra zones in the mountains of the U.S. southwest. The only wilderness that I have spent so much time in is the Big Mountain range in the heart of Black Mesa. If you have been to Big Mountain, you may have been shown the summits of Big Mountain and you might have thought, “Oh, those little hills?”

I’d tell you to, “go take a hike.”

Dzil Ntsaa (misinterpreted as Big Mountain) means Great Mountain. It is a very rugged region, two summits marked its sacred areas, series of deep canyons radiate outward from these ‘little’ summits, narrow ridge lines and saddles connect isolated plateaus, the juniper and pinon forest is thick with under brushes that includes sharp spiny yucca and cactus, most of its slopes are steep and rocky, and everywhere you look there is beauty and you can feel the embrace of the sacredness.

There are no Anasazi ruins nor is there any evidence of past human habitation. However, there are thriving communities of civilized life (not ‘wild life’) like cougars, lynx, white tail deer, elks, wolves, porcupines, reptiles, hawks, many flocks of birds, owls, woodpeckers, falcons, occasional eagles, and our most ancient relatives the insect kingdom. But this experience can be disrupted when you find pieces of metallic or rubber balloons or plastic shopping bags that might have all blown in from the far distance areas of wild life (not ‘civilization’) sanctuaries of urban-dwelling.

I wondered, as I do my pilgrimage in this special and gifted place, does anyone that knows about the forced-relocation programs that is happening at Big Mountain ever think about how much the sacred is endangered? At night being on one of the summits, you see the ‘street-less,’ street lights scattered along as they outline, exactly, the boundaries of the so-called, Hopi Partitioned Lands. The bright lights from the Peabody coal mines glow into the dusty atmosphere like there is a smoggy city beyond the northern Big Mountain point. Every 15 to 25 minutes commercial airlines roar high above as their wing lights flash and you can almost feel the presence of hundreds of passengers passing through between the mega-cities of California and of the Midwest or New England.

I am alone up there but I also am lucky, too, because my two intelligent sons are with me, and we all wonder: ‘does anyone care that Peabody Western Coal Company is getting closer to this sacred and pristine place? Does the world care about the Big Mountain elders who are resisting relocation and the expanding coal mines? Do people care at all about the natural way of actually doing things like making your own bow and arrows, cooking with the campfire, collecting water from a spring, and just trying very hard to learn from nature.’

As we complete the pilgrimage, we cannot ignore the strange dusting of red color on every square-centimeter of surfaces. We are in awe as we talked about how the climate, the human beings, and earth is changing, and how an intense wind storm from April 4, 2009 can transport thousands of tons of dust and even created the pink snowfall in Colorado.

I am still not sure how I will ever fulfill even a small degree of cultural and spiritual obligations that is expected of me / us at Big Mountain by the (last) traditional elders of the Dineh. I wish the great divine forces to pity me…

My elder relatives of Big Mountain grew up in a pristine world of strong leadership and wisdom and like my late mother, these elders had hope we grow up in the same way as they have despite the rest of us being forced into the government schooling. Now, those few elders that are left still maintain defiance against the colonialist of the USA. Today, the Bureau of Indian Affairs agency police continue their patrols, intimidations and livestock-count regulations. Also today, Mr. Peabody continues to maximize its profits as it is nearing completion of mining the original lease area of 1964, and they are prepared to christen new lease areas that will include the actual Big Mountain topography.

Big Mtn. On Land Supporter: In His Own Words

2009-04-17T16:22:00.005-07:00

A LITTLE INSIGHT: On Land Supporter with Dineh Resisters: In His Own Words

Big Mountain, Black Mesa - April 2009 Yaa’at’eeh (Good Greetings). My name is Owen and my Mom’s side of grandparents were from northern Ireland, County Armaugh and Newry. Do you want to know my last name? What for? How about my social security #? She'aad diil adin! (Myself, don’t possess such item!) I was raised Catholic in New England by lower-middle class parents. They are retired teachers. I have a blood son with a much better BMIS (Black Mesa Indigenous Support) volunteer than me and two step kids: ages 6 and 8.

I have not wanted to say a lot about me/us on this web page (http://www.blackmesais.org), but this is for the purpose of what we are not as much as what we are. There are other websites out there connected to Big Mountain/Black Mesa. This organization is called, Black Mesa Indigenous Support. We know a number of (Dineh) families/individuals on/around black mesa well, and we channel support to them-mostly in the form of live-in helpers. We like to live in and help, too. And we do our best to get their stories heard by people not from there, especially the aspects of their story that are the result of ongoing genocidal laws and policies of the dominant society. Though, we get a lot of help in what we do from people that were born on Black Mesa or were born into the struggle against relocation and coal mining/resource extraction, the core of this "Black Mesa Indigenous Support" are people not born on Black Mesa or inside the fenced (partitioned) line. People who are from there have their own organizations.

As for me, anybody looking at me will consider me a white guy. So that makes me white with all the privileges and burdens that attend to it. One of those privileges and burdens is to be a sheepherder and to work for the elders of Black Mesa. Most of my work for them has been time and physical labor and listening. But I am also a second-rate organizer and propagandist. As far as my propaganda goes, it is mostly printed stuff and I try to show it around to people on the land when I can and translate for elders who can't read. They deserve to know and they have given me many good insights on how and what to put in to it or not. I think BMIS's web page is like that, too, to the credit of the volunteers who mainly have worked on it (not me).

But overall, I don't like these new technologies ‘cuz’ they are being used against us. They are reducing the possibilities that we have to choose from. And it is getting worse. So that’s all I'm ‘gonna’ say about myself, here. If you want to know more hopefully, we can meet up out on the Rez --especially if you are native or connected to this struggle in a further way than I am, I have nothing to hide from you. I prefer face to face communication. The struggle at Big Mountain has been an inspiration to me for many years, and I will continue to give it every ounce of energy that I can muster until someone can convince me to do otherwise. I have been schooled many times on aspects of how to do this by people associated with this struggle, but I have many more to go. So be it. I give thanks for the privilege of being called and called back to Black Mesa by elders of these clans: Bitter Water, Many Goats, Near Water, and Red Streak into Water. I especially encourage young and healthy folks from other nations around the world to do this support in the way as I have or better! We cannot afford not to.

My apologies for saying so much, and bottom line: I am not Red. I am White.
-Owen

American Activism too Privileged & Bogged: Europeans Maintain Efforts for Big Mountain

2009-03-23T11:52:00.004-07:00

American Activism too Privileged & Bogged: Europeans Maintain Efforts for Big Mountain

Stockholm, Sweden – March 7, 2009 Swedish Indigenous Supporter and Human Rights Observers held a protest and petition signing in support for the Dineh resisters at Big Mountain and for the indigenous resistance against Peabody coal mine expansion. The protest rally in Stockholm’s city square went well despite the heavy police surveillance. After the rally, the police escort notified the US embassy that the protest march was on their way towards the embassy. The protest organizers had originally hope to hand-deliver the petitions to the gates of the Embassy as they did in 1998’s Protest for Big Mountain.

According to one of the key organizer of the Stockholm protest, “The (stupid) American that I spoke to on the phone, who was inside the embassy, and I asked, ‘if they can have an Embassy representative meet us at the gate to deliver the signed petition?’ This U.S. Embassy official was very rude and his answer was basically, ‘in your dreams!’ I asked him, ‘what would it take?’ His arrogant answer again was, ‘well, maybe if you were the king or queen..’ The Embassy prefers the petitions to be sent via post.”

The Stockholm organizer also said people in the U.S. have expressed their solidarity and some even wanted to sign on to the Petition. One human rights organizer from France also was making much effort to collect signatures, there, and spreading the word about the Black Mesa / Big Mountain situation.

Wild Oak Meadow, the Swedish based indigenous support, further reports, “we have formed a network on the internet for Big Mountain, Black Mesa and about 800 people have signed up to receive information and updates, and we are still counting!”

“Wild Oaks is trying to connect with the Swedish network called, Climate Action, as well. We want to be in Copenhagen in December 2009, and show up with the Black Mesa banners and signs and hold a vigil outside the Climate summit.”

“We are networking as much as we can, right now.”

“Also Wild Oaks hope to join a local nature protection organization, Naturskydds-föreningen, who has been around for 100 years, this year. They are also involved in trying to stop the test drilling for uranium, on our Table Mountain (central Sweden), which is proposed this coming summer. All the so-called legal avenues are now exhausted in stopping this --so civil disobedience is the only option left.”

A through report from Sweden will soon follow, or follow link below to the Swedish indigenous support website.

Much love & solidarity from the Land of the Gethes (central Sweden),

Carina - on behalf of Wild Oak Meadow

http://www.vild-eken.se/news.php

- - - - - - - - - - - - - ^^^*^^^- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

UPDATE from Big Mountain, March 21, 2009 "Happy Spring Equinox" and:

A message from Grandma and Chief of the Big Mountain resistance movement, Pauline Whitesinger:

"The BIA Indian police are intensifying their daily presence and intimidations. They have graded the main dirt roads that allows them to be on constant patrol. They are taking pictures of sheep herds and asking elders residents about the total number of animals they have corraled or roaming about.

"I think that they will be rounding up Dineh-owned cattle and horses. It is pretty likely that there will be livestock impoundments or confiscation.

"It has been mentioned to us by local Navajo officials that these Indian police operating out of the Hopi reservation do not have any real commanding-authority, because the Hopi tribal council is in defunct and is without a tribal chairperson.

"People world wide need to still support the resistance out here. The great evil wolves (U.S.A.) are prowling closer and all around us."

SDN-Rocks, 2009

Navajo-Hopi “Land Dispute.” What Dispute?! A Revisit to the Old Hopi Voice.

2009-03-02T17:43:00.004-07:00

[Note by Sheep Dog Nation: Following are excerpts from the late, traditional Hopi elder, and I first heard about him when I attended a long meeting in Kykotsmovi in the late 1970s. The traditionals at that time were part of the Navajo-Hopi Unity Committee and were trying to stop the (modern) Hopi council from accepting a Land Claims payment. This Claim would affect the Dineh in combination with the Peabody occupation. I was there not only because Kii Shey (Big Mtn. Leader & member of the N-HUC) asked me to attend but also because a couple of the Hopi elders invited me. One elder from Hotevilla brought in a little film projector that evening and mounted on a tiny reel of film strip.

It was on a silent 8mm film that I saw Dan leading a group of mostly women who were jumping into a long ditch with pipes and machinery nearby. There were a good number of police and officials with haircuts and suits that were observing or addressing the crowd. Another scene showed Chief Dan overseeing people and mostly women again with shovels digging at tall telephone poles. A pole falls into the sandy ground and the film shows the women with big smiles and jumping in celebration. The elders later told me that that was from 1964 when the new and modern Hopi council tried to bring water, sewer lines, and electricity into Hotevilla. Also this was the first time (I hadn’t be expose too much to “civilization,” yet) that I heard the elders mention a Hopi way of resistance: non-violent and civil disobedience.

For some strange reason today in the early 21st century, we don’t hear much from the traditional Hopis. Not much about how they may feel about their neighbor Dineh being relocated and threatened. So, here are parts of Chief Dan’s message from around 1970 when he was about 105 years old. –Sheep Dog Nation, 2009]

Hopi Peoples’ History & Prophecies: (Excerpts of Dan Katchongva’s Message.)

By Dan Katchongva, Sun Clan (Ca. 1865-1972) Translated by Danaqyumptewa

THE ARRIVAL OF ANOTHER RACE FORETOLD

Time passed on, people passed on and prophecies of things to come were passed from mouth to mouth. The stone tablets and the rock writing of the life plan were often reviewed by the elders fearfully they waited as they retold the prophecy that one day another race of people would appear in their midst and claim our land as his own. He would try to change our pattern of life. He would have "sweet-tongue" or a "fork-tongue," and many good things by which we would be tempted. He would us e force in an attempt to trap us into using weapons, but we must not fall for this trick, for then we ourselves would be brought to our knees, from which we might not be able to rise. Nor must we ever raise our hand against any nation. We now call these people Bahanna.

('JUST AN EVENT OR THE FINAL EVENT OF PURIFICATION?' -sdn)

This third event will depend upon the Red Symbol, which will take command, setting the four forces of nature (Meha) in motion for the benefit of the Sun. When he sets these forces in motion the whole world will shake and turn red and turn against the people who are hindering the Hopi cultural life. To all these people Purification Day will come. Humble people will run to him in search of a new world, and the equality that has been denied them. He will come unmercifully. His people will cover the Earth like red ants. We must not go outside to watch. We must stay in our houses. He will come and gather the wicked people here first. He will be looking for someone whom recognize by his way of life or by his head (the special Hopi hair cut), or the by shape of his village and his dwellings He is the only one who will purify us.

The Purifier commanded by the Red Symbol with the help of the Sun and the Meha will weed out the wicked who have disturbed the way of life of the Hopi, the true way of life on Earth. The ills of the Earth will be cured. Mother Earth will bloom again and all people will unite into peace and harmony for a long time come.

But if this does not materialize, the Hopi traditional identity will vanish due to pressure from Bahanna. Through the whiteman's influence, his religions, and the disappearance of our sacred land, the Hopi will be doomed. This is the Universal Plan, speaking through the Great Spirit since the dawn of time.

THE FAITHFUL HOPI EVICTED FROM ORAIBI

On September 7, 1906 his followers, commanded by chief Tewaquaptewa himself, entered the house where discussing prophesies and us threw out. We did not resist until rifles and other weapons were shown and they began beating us. Then we resisted only to the extent of defending ourselves from injury. I was knocked unconscious. When I came to, all my people were gathered to go. My father, Yukiuma, was selected to be the leader. The women and children, few belongings on their backs, a little food, and no shoes, were prepared to leave. Some tried to go back to their houses to get their valuables and some extra food, but they were turned back. (In "Book of the Hopi" it is said we were allowed to go back and get some belongings, but this is not true. That book is no accurate.) After we had left we learned that our houses had been looted and that horses had been turned loose in our fields and had eaten our crops, which were just ready for harvest.

Thus we had to migrate once again to find a new home, leaving behind a corrupt world of confusion. We sought to start a new life, carry on our ceremonial cycles, and preserve our way of life without interference, but now we know that this was a dead dream, for the interference has discontinued right up to the present day.

THE FOUNDING OF HOTEVILLA VILLAGE

The village of Hotevilla was settled for one purpose, to stand firmly on the Great Spirit's instructions and fulfill the prophecies to the end. It was established by good people, one-hearted people who were actually living these instructions. Water was plentiful, and so was wood, from which we built temporary shelters in which we were to survive the cold winter with very few blankets. Food was scarce, but we managed to live from the land by hunting game and picking greens. We were united into oneness, but it would again be split into two due to extreme pressure from the outside.

THE DISRUPTION CONTINUES TODAY

At the present time we face the danger that we might lose our land entirely. Through the influence of the United States Government, some people of Hopi ancestry have organized what they call the Hopi Tribal Council, patterned according to a plan devised by the Government, for the purpose of negotiating directly with the Government and with private businesses. They claim to act in the interests of the Hopi people, despite the fact that they ignore the existing traditional leaders, and represent only a small minority of the people of Hopi blood. Large areas of our land have been leased, and this group is now accepting compensation from the Indian Claims Commission for the use of 44,000,000 acres of Hopi land. This is in error, for we laid our aboriginal claim to all of this land long before the newcomers ever set foot upon it. We do not recognize man-made boundaries. We true Hopi are obligated to the Great Spirit never to cut up our land, nor to sell it. For this reason we have never signed any treaty or other document releasing this land. We have protested all these moves, but to no avail.

Now this Tribal Council was formed illegally, even according to whiteman's laws. We traditional leaders have disapproved and protested from the start. In spite of this they have been organized and recognized by the United States Government for the purpose of disguising its wrong-doings to the outside world. We do not have representatives in this organization, nor are we legally subject to their regulations and programs. We Hopi are an independent sovereign nation, by the law of the Great Spirit, but the United States Government does not want to recognize the aboriginal leaders of this land. Instead, he recognizes only the what he himself has created out of today's children in order to carry out his scheme to claim all of our land.

Because of this, we now face the greatest threat of all, the actual loss of our cornfields and gardens, our animals and wild game, and our natural water supply, which would put an end to the Hopi way of life. At the urging of the Department of the Interior of the United States, the Tribal Council has signed several leases with an outside private enterprise, the Peabody Coal Company, allowing them to explore our land for coal deposits, and to strip-mine the sacred mesas, selling the coal to several large powerplants. This is part of a project intended to bring heavy industry into our area against our wishes. We know that this will pollute the fields and grazing lands and drive out the wildlife. Great quantities of water will be pumped from beneath our desert land and used to push coal through a pipe to a powerplant in another state (Nevada). The loss of this water will affect our farms as well as the grazing areas of the animals. It also threatens our sacred springs, our only natural source of water, which we have depended upon for centuries.

We Hopi knew all this would come about, because this is the Universal Plan. It was planned by the Great Spirit and the Creator that when the whiteman came he would offer us many things. If we were to accept those offers from his government, that would be the doom of the Hopi nation. Hopi is the bloodline of this continent, as others are the bloodline of other continents. So if Hopi is doomed, the whole world will be destroyed. This we know, because this same thing happened in the other world. So if we want to survive, we should go back to the way we lived in the beginning, the peaceful way, and accept everything the Creator has provided for us to follow.

Whiteman's laws are many, but mine is one. Whiteman's laws are all stacked up.

So many people have made the rules, and many of them are made every day. But my law is only the Creator's just one. And no manmade law must I follow, because it is ever-changing, and will doom my people.

We know that when the time comes, the Hopi will be reduced to maybe one person, two persons, three persons. If he can withstand the pressure from the people who are against the tradition, the world might survive from destruction. We are at the stage where I must continue to lead my people on the road the Great Spirit made for us to travel. I do not disregard anyone. All who are faithful and confident in the Great Spirit's way are at liberty to follow the same road. We will meet many obstacles along the way. The peaceful way of life can be accomplished only by people with strong courage, and by the purification of all living things. Mother Earth's ills must be cured.

As we say, the Hopi are the first people created. They must cure the ills of their own bloodline so everything will become peaceful naturally, by the will of the Creator. He will cure the world. But right now Hopi is being hurt. To us this is a sign that the world is in trouble. All over the world they have been fighting, and it will get worse. Only purification of the Hopi from disruptive elements will settle the problems here on this Earth. We didn't suffer all this hardship and punishment for nothing. We live by these prophecies and teachings, and no matter what happens, we will not buckle down under any pressure from anybody.

We know certain people are commissioned to bring about the Purification. It is the Universal Plan from the beginning of creation, and we are looking up to them to bring purification to us. It is in the rock writings throughout the world, on different continents. We will come together if people all over the world know about it. So we urge you to spread this word around so people will know about it, and the appointed ones will hurry up with their task, to purify the Hopi and get rid of those who are hindering our way of life.

I have spoken. I wish this message to travel to all corners of this land and across the great waters, where people of understanding may consider these words of wisdom and knowledge. This I want. For people may have different opinions about some things, but because of the nature of the beliefs upon which this Hopi life is based, I expect that at least one will agree, maybe even two. If three agree it will be worth manyfold.

I have spoken. I wish this message to travel to all corners of this land and across the great waters, where people of understanding may consider these words of wisdom and knowledge. This I want. For people may have different opinions about some things, but because of the nature of the beliefs upon which this Hopi life is based, I expect that at least one will agree, maybe even two. If three agree it will be worth manyfold.

---angelfire.com/realm/dinehinfo/dansbook

Sacred Earth Lodge of A Dineh Threaten in the Name of BIA-Peabody Expansion

2009-02-11T20:34:00.004-07:00

Dineh hogan or earthlodge represent the microcosm of the Universe, father Sky and Mother Earth. They are sacred sites still manage by traditional elders, and more like these are being desecrated daily. The old ones say is the reason why Indian people are losing identity, sovereignty and the new generation have adapted to the American lifestyle and mentality.

Protesting is not Resisting, Resistance are based on Profound Manifestos: “Ancient Big Mountain Supreme Ways Dictates Dineh Resistance, Pauline Whitesinger Continues to Defy B.I.A. Police Harassment & Threats”

By Bahe Y. Katenay, Sheep Dog Nation Rocks

Sweet Water Stronghold, Big Mountain. February 9, 2009 - Dineh elder resister of the traditional lands of Sweet Water is bundled up for the chilly winds as she takes some hay out to her sheep and goats. The herds need a little extra feed before going out to graze. The non-Indian, volunteer supporter is dressed warm and ready to follow the sheep as he chops some wood for grandma, Pauline and while the herds nibble on the scattered hay on the ground. Not many non-Indian volunteers do occasionally make themselves available from their busy lives to come out for short stays and help traditional, elder resisters. Very few traditional elder residents are now left throughout such regions affected by the harsh relocation laws of 1974.

When asked, “How is everything out here?” The well-outfitted supporter says, “Just a lot of babies, and that is why I’m carrying this!” He wears a large, hand-sewn canvas bag which he referred to is to be used in case any of the sheep or goats have “babies.” Soon the sheep and goats are done feeding and they head towards the great pristine canyon of Sweet Water, and the supporter suddenly quits all chit-chat, grabs his stick and runs off toward a herd that is disappearing into the juniper forest.

Each non-Indian supporter that make these short stays with traditional elders have unique and deep sense of passion that is more than just positive, but they have the understanding of the suffering from injustice and the presence of environmental destruction. Though these kind of ‘hardcore’ supporters are becoming rarer, they value the human connections to nature or to the eco-systems rather than connections to corporate entities and its policing/policies. They see and appreciate, more than most native Americanas, what still exist out here at Big Mountain especially where an elder like Pauline lives. Supporters like this one at Sweet Water do have ‘profound’ commitments to stay two weeks or more to learn and experience a glimpse of natural survival skills and maybe a very small bit of ancient human ritual ways. Within their profound commitments they know they may encounter at any moment the ‘terror-threats’ of the U.S. sponsored, BIA Indian Police Gestapo.

Grandma Pauline moves about slow as she closes the “hay barn” doors that are made from frames of a single-bed, and the barn’s roof is of tattered plastic tarps and the walls are of leaning juniper logs. She greets with a friendly and joyful hand shake as she adds a little sense of humor to her greeting. Grandma is still strong but age is still giving her a challenge, too. She is like a story teller as she makes numerous comments about things and about the conditions out there. She also knows that she is part of a situation which is the struggle for liberation at Big Mountain—her birth place.

A few supporters are very concerned and that is why this independent monitoring of human rights violation and religious intolerance is being carried out. The Arizona-based, Black Mesa Indigenous Support had received a phone message on behalf of Pauline in January about BIA Police personnel posing threats to demolish a traditional earth lodge. Because of the lack of resources, it took a while for the support network to finally establish contact and get the information. This situation with her re-building this sacred lodge should be a natural process but the regional BIA Hopi Agency saw it as a violation of U.S. Court decisions in the name of the federally-supported Hopi council. Grandma Pauline who still lives according to her ancestors’ ancient, cultural lifestyles completed the earth lodge and which is another, direct-action that is obviously missing in Indian country, true Native Resistance!

Grandma recalls what happened on January 20th as she also refers to a radio announcement, “It was about that time, 10 AM, when the radio said that in the east ‘the hand shall to be raised,’ when my grandson beckoned me outside because there were some visitors. It was those BIA-Hopi Police, again, and one officer got out of the vehicle followed by a female officer. I sat down on the bench against the house and they both sat on either side of us, the man who spoke Dineh sat next to me. As he said, ‘we hear you are out here sitting in the mud and we come to check on you,’ the third officer got out of the vehicle and started to walk over towards the newly rebuild lodge.

“My response to the officer next to me was, ‘I’m sitting in the mud out here? You say that as if you spoke with someone that lives with me and knows about my situation.’ Then we all noticed that the third officer was taking more pictures of the earth lodge like (they) do not have enough pictures of it by now.

“I begin to ask the officer sitting with us, why do you all need more pictures and you all should just stop these picture-taking of my home? The officers both ignored my request but the third officer came over and took a couple pictures of me and my grandchildren. The police said nothing more to us but left to return and drive by my resident again, and they drove slowly like they were still up to something. About a week ago, (they) did not come here but (they) again drove by very slowly like they were making some intense observations. I believe these (BIA) police are going to start doing as they please because the actual Hopi council is in defunct…”

The Call to Action for Support Continues

The protests in the American streets where Starbuck, Bank of American and GE own the concrete-n-steel sidewalks are hopeless! Come to the place of opportunity to show the American Police State that you support the natural humans pay homage to, not control, the Mother Earth. At Big Mountain, you will see and understand what real resistance is and experience being part of defending the profound ancient ways of life that are threaten into extinction. Come out, rough it, have patience, find that humbleness within you, and you will be in the human circle for revolution. Help, Save the Microcosm of the Universe at Big Mountain, the Whitesinger Earth Lodge!

© Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2009
>>>>---------------------------+=>

For more information about how you can help, contact: blackmesais@riseup.net or visit http://www.blackmesais.org/ and / or leave a voice message @ 928-773-8086.

Factions in Hopi Disrupt Council Functions & Mr. Peabody May Have A Role

2009-01-16T11:50:00.007-07:00

5th U.S. Cavalry in 1905 with Hopi prisoners, and (inset) Youkioma, Antelope Priest, in 1910.

Circa 1680, The Pueblo Revolt: “The Chief of Mishonguovi said, ‘I have come to kill you.’ ‘You can’t kill me,’ cried the (Spanish) Priest, ‘You have no power to kill me.’ The old Priest made a rush and grabbed his sword from the wall. The Mishonguovi Chief yelled and the (mission) doors were broken open. The Priest cut down the Chief and fought right and left but was soon overpowered… Ponderosa pine beams that were outside and that which Hopi slaves brought back from the San Francisco Mountains were erected into a tripod. They hanged the Priest on the beams, kindled a fire and burned him.” –Truth of a Hopi, 1936

Factions within the Hopi “Friendlies”: Instability of a 21st Century, Colonial-Established Tribal Government

By Bahe “Kat” Keediniihii Katenay, Sheep Dog Nation Rocks Media
January 15, 2009

Big Mountain, Dineh bi’ Ke’yah’ (a.k.a. Arizona) The Hopi “friendlies” as they were referred to once in the early 20th Century when the American military and its Indian Agent were trying to establish a ‘civilized’ tribal agency. Today, in the 21st century these ‘friendlies’ are now referred to as “progressive” Hopis by the Dineh traditional resistance movement of Big Mountain. This current and federally recognized, Hopi tribal council is in turmoil due to an out of control political faction and years of temporary, executive leadership.

Coincidently or truth, the traditional Hopi Kwimongis have prophesized that, “the complete adaptation to the ‘corrupt White Brother’s Ways’ by indigenous peoples will bring about turmoil or martial law.” The traditional Hopi ways have survived because to a limited extend village chief authority are still respected. These descendents of the Hopi “hostiles” from the early 1900s are today’s traditionals, and they still oppose the colonial-established tribal councils because such councils pledge to an American oath to uphold the laws of industrial exploitation of the natural resources.

Before the subject of political factions in Hopi is mentioned in depth, the modern Dineh (Navajos) have had their own unstable political practices of the colonial tribal governing. Navajo political upheaval in the 1980s turned violent when two factions supporting their candidates for tribal executive position clashed in front of an administration building in Window Rock, Arizona. A couple of people were killed and some were wounded when the tribal police open fire after being attacked with sticks. More recently, a dispute among a community council in New Mexico on the Navajo reservation turned violent, but only chairs were thrown and a few people got minor injuries.

There is a book which is not widely known but it is called, “Truth of a Hopi,” that was published in 1936 by the North American Society of Science & Arts, Inc. One passage mentions the fragile Peaceful Way of Being a Hopi as it puts attention to “all the ruins throughout Hopi country” can show that “Hopis have always had dissensions.” Basically, a village would break up and thus a new village would be established. However, the only documented village breakup is in 1906 when the American colonialist brought the European form of education to Hopi.

“Hostile” Chief Tawahongniwa opposed sending Hopi children off to the American school in 1906, and he had some followers from Mishonguovi and Shipaulovi. Factions throughout Hopi intensified when “friendly” Chief Lololama was in disagreement with Spiritual Leader Youkioma who advocated for the ancient Hopi Ways. Tawahongniwa and his followers had left their home-villages and while on a search for a new home, Youkioma of (Old) Oraibi welcomed these homeless Hopis with the sacred corn meal but another “friendly” Chief Tawaquoptiwa disagreed with Youkioma’s invitation. All this led to Youkioma being excommunicated and forcibly deported, along with his followers, out of (Old) Oraibi into the late winter environment. This further led to the creation of the sovereign village of Hotevilla, attempted assassination of Youkioma, and military imprisonment of Chief Youkioma. Youkioma was about 90 years old at that time.

The modern and “civilized” Hopi tribal council was successfully formed in the mid-1960s and soon after, Peabody Coal Company was awarded its Black Mesa mining lease from the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Today, the sources of this corruption are unknown and it is causing another dissension among “democratically elected,” Hopi leadership which were based on BIA designed tribal constitution. A constitution now being interpreted according to one faction’s needs to control certain aspects of judicial process and executive decisions, and the other faction that includes a recently elected tribal Chairman claim they have been deliberately removed and banned from participation. The BIA Indian Police and Hopi Tribal Rangers have only assisted by vacating the council chambers and arresting those who were unofficially banned. The police help maintain a hold and there is no functioning tribal council.

Meantime, Peabody’s Life of the Mine Permit for Black Mesa has been approved even though indigenous communities of Black Mesa and Big Mountain tried to stop the approval process, and even though this approval process caused factions in Hopi to intensify. Also, the BIA-Hopi Agency along with their tribal Rangers continues to assist in the US/Peabody, genocidal processes at Big Mountain with enforcements like monitoring and harassment of traditional Dineh elders. The traditional Dineh, whom once aligned themselves with traditional Hopis by opposing relocation policies and coal mining in the 1970s, have warned federal Hopi police: “What you do to us with all your threats of sins, you do to yourselves and your peoples! You will see.”

Ancient Ways Abandoned to Fend for Themselves at Big Mountain

2008-12-11T16:23:00.008-07:00

(Left Photo by Akilla Kojima. Inset photo is Dineh elder, Pauline Whitesinger's traditional earth lodge and still under construction that the BIA tribal authorities say is illegal because Pauline has never signed any kind of agreements with the Feds in regards to the 1974 relocation law.)

Early 21st Century: The Last Days of Traditional Indigenous Life (Was) at Big Mountain

[Author’s Note: “Free & Easy” is not your typical fashion magazine where it exploits flashy or plastic glossy and saturated colored clothing that imitates the latest Paris, or that U.S. gangster look. Instead, it is like an alternative look and presentation of fashion that remains as a traditional look, which might have survived because of its utilitarian and comfortable wear, but can still be withheld as a fashion trend. “Free & Easy,” a Japanese magazine also does featured stories not related to developing trends, but stories about cultural entities that is not of popular interest and should be reported for the benefit of addressing the human searches for reassurance and understandings.
America’s Freedom of Speech and Press has long denied stories that come out of indigenous resistance communities at Big Mountain. Then, we have a magazine that is published in the Japanese language and thousands of miles away that decided to come out to Dineh elder, Pauline Whitesinger’s home in remote Big Mountain country to hear her story about “the once upon a time (to be),” The Indian Way to Live as Human Being.]

F & E: According to your traditional way, what is Life like in a day?

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.

In the old days, a day would start when you leave your dwelling place and as you make your first step outside your doorway, your day begins. What lies ahead is not clearly predictable because you may ‘tripped.’ You need a family or community to be part of your day and within that, there is a culture. Others would be there to share with you or support you in case you ‘stumble and fall.’ It was taught to me when I was young that we should limit the use of the word, ‘no!’ We were to always be there for someone in need and have empathy because ‘you’ may need that help someday.

Today, you may ask for help like borrowing tools to mend your clothes or repair something. The method of borrowing is a test of the human ability to be considerate, and it is an expression of attitude. How you achieve in that test will ultimately determine your mental balance, if you have empathy and humbleness, and it basically determines where your ‘heart’ is at: love and kinship. Certainly, these things were expected of every new born back in the old days. For instance, the new born will give to the community or if he is a boy, he will cultivate the fields or become builder of dwellings. This is probably how my father was raised because he was always there to help build a lodge or help maintain the values of the community.

I don’t think I can define Life. It has to be how much the human mind can take. Utilizing faith is key so, that you can pray when it is difficult and never give up on that faith no matter how painful. The modern-day, human mind seem less durable and it resorts to degrading others, or alcoholism. Modern way of life has separated our children from us and they have become ‘uncivilized.’ The family units of the Indian are gone. The reliance on horses and sheep herding is the past and the automobile is now the future.

My childhood times required us to haul water by hand and I remember making the climb out of this canyon, Sweet Water. I helped with carry bundles of firewood and sometimes when we moved, I helped carry the grinding stones. A day’s job did not involve going to the grocery store to get soda pop, a dangerous form of drink which we didn’t realized, and other unknown American products.

Our time as traditional elders is a time where we are no longer honored by the youths. What has happened to their brain and hearts, I wonder? The white society is becoming unstable, too, and one example is like hearing about an eight year old shooting and killing his father. At eight years old, you are just starting to learn about your responsibility! A very joyful time! I learned about life not through punishment like the whip. When I whined as a young girl, my mom said to me, ‘your complaint cannot be accepted now because it has expired.’ My father was much kinder. You were told to listen and you did. I know about abuse and dishonor, and I knew of love and respect.

That has been the way I tried to based my Life all these years.

F & E: Tell me about the Dineh (Navajo) concept of Life after death.

Pauline: The old ways, which I still live according to, prohibited the Dineh to talk about such matters. It was prohibited when a state of Life is happy because it is not in a state of mourning. This moment we have now is in a state of enjoying each other’s company and (that) other subject matter must not be discussed.

F & E: I hate to use the word ‘myth,’ but does the Dineh have a myth about the creation of the humans?

Pauline: Big Mountain communities use to have all the descendents of the original core clans that were created in the beginning of the humans. The Dineh (The People) were created right before White Shell Woman left to live in the Pacific Ocean. She is said to have rubbed off her skin little rolls of dead skin material, oil and dust from the four different parts of her body. In a ritual manner and aided by super natural forces, the four rolls of skin material, body oil and dust became living human forms. So, my Taa’ba’ha’ clan was a group that broke off from those people who use their feet to make water seep out of a wet stream bed and gathered water but eventually were cover in mud as well. The Taa’ba’ha’ then separated into two other bands when they settled in the mountainous country and so today, there are the Hal’t’soh Dine’eh (Meadow People) and the T’sin’ii’ahaa’ (Standing Tree People) of the Taa’ba’ha’.

Nowadays, these living human branches are being altered by human manipulations and that is why there is much imbalance and aggression. The Hopi way is abused, too, because we have Hopis in uniforms and carrying guns who are telling us we need ‘permission by them’ to exist. The great ways of the deities are no longer valued and that is why, I am under attack because it has been decided that my ceremonial lodge is illegal. Where does the root of aggression come from?

F & E: I am sure your parents have taught you so many things about traditional Life, but can you tell us about one or two of which you think were the most impressive?

Pauline: Oh, like I have lived it all correctly or accordingly? (Laughs) Well, my father was a Medicine Man and my mother was a herbalist. If they were both here, today, they would noticed that Life at Big Mountain is not in accordance to the ancient ways.

Three days prior to my father’s passing he began to tell me about a vision or predictions which sounded strange to me at that time. He said that life is well then with all the goats, horses and cattle, but that era is coming to an end. ‘Someday,’ he said, ‘the Hopis will bring a police force.’
He said for us to, ‘hold on to the tails of all the animals, hold on to their legs and do not ever let go! Despite all the threats about going to jail or with their all their weapons, grab onto the roots of the trees and the longer you maintain you grips, you shall prevail!’

Do not be afraid. Here is your mother, Great Mountain. Hold on to the fringes of her dress. You and your clan relatives are the greatest of peoples. Try to make sure that your peoples, Mountain Meadow People of the Near the Water Peoples, conduct themselves according to the spiritual laws of life and ritual procedures.’

F & E: Do you ever think about ‘relocation?’

Pauline: I have no plans about that nor do I prepare for that. If such time does come upon me, (they) will have to tie me up and carry me off to where ever they want. But when I do seriously think about the relocation law, I think of its real purpose and that is to extract all the valuable minerals out of the earth. I wonder about a time when the sky will no longer be blue and when mega-machines will dominate these lands. Then somewhere far away from here the corporations responsible for the explorations will be indulging on the profits and in the meantime, the indigenous life is no more except for a small remnant of poor, disabled, and sick Indians.

F & E: If you were to ask of the U.S. government any strong desires you have, what would that be?

Pauline: The U.S. government has never made any kind considerations for the indigenous desire to live and be as Great Spirit wanted the Indians to be. Even when we told the government that, mother earth is sacred, they never listened. Now, there are only prophecies that we, the few and the last, traditional ones have to try and interpret. It has been told that ‘when the Dineh language is gone, the communication among society will be lost, too. A great fire will be ignited at the middle of the continent and which will spread outward. All Five-Fingered Race (human beings) will try to scramble away but they will either burn or drown.’

F & E: How many people were here before the relocation laws were enforced by the government?

Pauline: I cannot provide you any numbers or amounts but I can tell you that the Dineh cultural life covered all these lands around us. It was like blankets that cover the lands with daily Dineh cultural ways that include: herds of livestock and horses, cornfields, people out gathering seeds or herbs, travelers on horseback and wagons, and their seasonal homesites. However, all these are are now empty except for a few, very old ones who are still determined to live out their lives on their ancestral lands.

F & E: My final question today is, can you give me some examples about the meaning of indigenous, traditional way of life? What does ‘traditional’ mean?

Pauline: Growing your own food by having fields of crops. Having the traditional, earth lodge dwellings. There should be a Male and a Female earth lodge. One’s time of birth shall take place in one of those lodges and thus, the roots of one’s life will always be connected to that lodge. Acquiring your water from the natural springs. No visits to western doctors at the hospitals but you make attempts to heal yourself through your knowledge about herbs and the proper prayer chants, or utilizing a traditional medicine man. Utilizing your livestock for milk, meat and to carry your cargo. Use of the ‘modern’ wagon. A weaver’s loom in her home and as families still sit and sleep on sheepskins.

F & E: Thank you very much, Pauline-san, for your time and patience.

Pauline: You’re welcome. And thank you also for wanting to hear my stories. I am much honored because none of my own people, who live closer than Japan, choose to hear about the old ways.

[Translated by NBKKeediniihii, Dineh, Dzil ni’st’aa’]

Non-Registered Voter States: Does It Matter?

2008-10-29T12:41:00.005-07:00

Minority, Non-privileged, Poverty-Stricken, & Left-to-Vanish, But Still Standing

October 29, 2008 Big Mountain, Black Mesa - It is that season again for societies to commences to its every fourth-year ritual of being caught up in the politics of the ruling class and eventually, after being caught up into this false mindset, they will go out to cast their votes for the best, assumed candidate. Yours truly, Chief Loner, has unfortunately never partaken of this ritual of engaging in the political realm of thought nor have I ever casted a ballot or been a registered voter. Perhaps, I have no “right” to speak about the privilege of being an “American citizen” or having the right to vote. I am an indigenous person from the country of Big Mountain Dineh Nation, and I was raised by my Dineh communities that truly believed that they were never conquered by the U.S. military or its government.

Do my traditional elders know about the U.S. politics? They certainly do, and when one is being oppressed by a foreign government, they will know more about the oppressor’s politics because that targeted society or community would have experienced the brunt of harsh policies. Currently, the Big Mountain matriarchs made up of traditional Dineh (Navajo) elders are still defying relocation and land-partitioning policies that were passed by the U.S. Congress in 1974. This executive order, Public Law 93-531 and which has been amended several times since, has reduced the indigenous population from 20,000 to about 400 within an area of 900,000 acres. The only reason behind this 1974 Act and that which has been proven also was for the purpose of coal and profit. There were no evidences found to support the U.S. government and Peabody Coal Company’s claim that there was a “range war” taking place between the Dineh and the Hopi tribes.

In 2006, presidential candidate Senator John McCain introduced a bill that was to be the ultimate Indian relocation program and which was to be immediately enforced at Big Mountain and other areas where small families were still resisting the relocation law of 1974. McCain mainly felt that not only was the government spending too much money on a small group of Indians that refused to move, but that the U.S. appetite for fossil-fuel consumption was being tested internationally. The elimination or limiting the dependency on foreign oil and the need for a national shift towards increase coal production within the U.S. became the trends in crafting legislation in Washington, D.C.

McCain also wishes to have the potential to rise as another legend from Arizona a state which is the most fascist and right-wing, and is a state with the most native American population. Most of the coal that the U.S. can depend on was in Arizona on Black Mesa where a handful of stubborn Indians are in the way of Peabody’s long and overdue, coal mining expansion. Senator McCain has to have his name in history like all his predecessors: Barry Goldwater, Paul Fanin, Sam Steiger, Morris Udall, and Kit Carson --all whom were haters of Indians and were Indian fighters as well.

But are we not all in this mess together even as some of us are “caught up” in these politics of our era? We can have color to our skin or that we maybe poor whites, but we may just fit into those above categories of the title of this article: minority, non-privileged, in poverty and/or forgotten. The most saddening thing about all this is that the giant, corporate votes that have all the monies will win in this election, and so it does not really matter if it is Obama or McCain. People need to seriously think of what they will be breathing, drinking and digesting in their future, and the power of the people needs to think beyond their pocket book or beyond the rights that they think they should have. 400 indigenous lives in a remote place in northeastern Arizona may be nothing compared to other larger populations at risk, but take into account these: genuine cultures of antiquity that are still intact among the Hopis and the Dineh, pristine territories still inhabited by indigenous life-ways, and the threat of massive coal mining into 2040 without a guarantee that coal will be a clean energy resource.

Some Fossil-Fuel of Thoughts in Regards to Obama:

Peabody Energy (Peabody Coal Company’s new brand name) has contributed largely and secretly to Senator Obama’s campaign. It is a race and so bets are placed for “whatever the outcome.” Obama and Peabody both share the idea and the phrase, “clean coal technologies.” What they refer to is a method of capturing greenhouse gases while burning coal but it is a method still in the beginning stage of research. Then when research is brought up in government where the corporations definitely has a stake they will decide whether such a research, that will obviously be paid by tax-payers, will maintain and enhance the market economy or will it endanger it. Furthermore, Obama supports something that will implement “pollution rights” for those countries that are the highest emitters of green house gas. This could be a new international market based on the carbon-trade and it might require other countries to purchase rights for countries like the U.S. and China to have rights to pollute. 'Spread the revenues evenly,’ huh?

Senator Obama has been active in co-sponsoring numerous coal Acts and he is no stranger to dependency on domestic coal and the profit gains from it all. He has recently supported an old idea of liquefaction of coal or coal-to-liquid (CTL) but he is also aware that this requires great demand on the environment like water, extra chemicals and electrical power to transform CTL. Finally and amongst other developing information, Senator Obama supports a public-private partnership firm called, FutureGen. It is a firm seeking to build on an illusion of a power plant that will be “coal-based” but with “near-zero-emissions.” FutureGen calls itself a ‘nonprofit’ organization that represents the world’s largest coal companies and electric companies which includes Peabody Energy.

In conclusion and if you end up voting for the Great Black Father To Be, Senator Obama as your next President of your United States, do not come crawling to Big Mountain, Black Mesa and tell the traditional Dineh resisters, “I truly didn’t realize that he would allow this! I’m so sorry!”

Chief Loner Sailed to Alcatraz Island to Re-Discover Columbus

2008-10-14T16:35:00.006-07:00

In the Spirit of Big Mountain at Alcatraz Island: “We Discovered ColumBUSH!”

October 14, 2008 When the opportunity came along for me to take time off work and go to the San Francisco Bay Area, I decided that I have to attend the Sunrise ceremony to honor the Longest Walk participants from 1978 and 2008, and join my indigenous relatives and other non-Native allies. I particularly wanted to remember and honor my mother, Zhonnie Chii Diil’ Katenay, who passed on into the spirit world eleven months ago. My mom has been on Alcatraz Island before for two “Thanksgiving holiday” events.

My dad, Jon Keediniihii, told me before I went to the Bay Area and Alcatraz that, he went once but my mom had been to Alcatraz twice: “It has been years ago that we took a boat filled with mostly Indian people and we went out to ‘a small piece of earth’ that was situated in the middle of a large bay. The people made a fire and everyone gathered in a circle around that fire, and your mom was asked to do a prayer for that special gathering of nations. Mom made a beautiful and strong prayer as she always did. After the ceremonies on ‘that little land,’ the late Arlene Hamilton told us that a family from the Berkeley hills had invited us to a feast, and so we all went up into the hills that were across from the city of San Francisco. That was how my travel went back then with Arlene and your mom. Now, it is good to hear that the Indians are still returning to ‘that little piece of land’ to do the ceremonies.”

What is happening at Big Mountain today is a traditional struggle to resist US policies of human removal and corporate occupation by Peabody Western Coal Company. First, image yourself thinking about your ancestry whether it happens to be Celtic, German, Slavic, Irish, or indigenous of Turtle Island. Think about them as they might have seen their elders and how those ancestral elders might have tried to stay on the lands, to keep the language, to continue farming, and to freely hunt game. Then at the same time a greedy empire with military-might is forcibly taking over their lands and sometime back in that history, your ancestors are witnessing the loss of sovereignty and the control of their own cultural and ritual destinies. Today, this is the very experience that is taking place at Big Mountain.

Since my childhood, I have seen the rapid changes in our indigenous lives at Big Mountain. Once upon a time, the mode of travel was mostly by horses and horse-drawn wagons even though there were occasional automobiles. The Dineh of Big Mountain were still having their large ceremonial gatherings, and communities were overseen by the authorities of the Clan Mothers. That was just over forty years ago! Today our youth do not speak the language, U.S. laws prohibit us from gathering the herbs, spring water, tobacco, and the necessary minerals for the endangered healing ceremonials that we try to conduct. The morning twilight and the evening twilight that we still pray to today at Big Mountain are tainted and obstructed by brown haze of global, industrial pollution. There is only a very few of us left on Big Mountain, and our aging elders and matriarchs are trying their best to encourage us to keep up the fight for mother earth and the future.

The U.S. official story continues to broadcast the same lies about American history like about that starving, filthy, and diseased pirate, Christopher Columbus. When are we going to wake up to the 516 years of deception that ColumBUSH was good for the new world? What Columbus did, after he was nurtured back to health by the aboriginal peoples, still continues. At Big Mountain, Peabody Western Coal Company along with John “Wayne” McCain have re-sharpen their swords to further threaten the traditional existence of the Dineh and Hopis. McCain and Peabody also have their $24 worth of glass beads to give out to the progressive, local tribal officials to sell out Dineh-Hopi ancestral lands for coal mining and aquifer extraction. The McCain Bill, Senate Bill S1003 still waits for reintroduction so that it will complete, once and for all, the relocation program of 35 traditional Dineh families off Big Mountain. Peabody also expects to have its new and Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) approved before Bush leaves the presidency. This FEIS will facilitate large-scale mine expansions on a monumental level.

The future of all humanity could be in jeopardy —big time. The last human-connection to mother earth that is left within the U.S. maybe severed at Big Mountain. Peabody and major utility companies of the western states will be emitting millions of tons of toxic pollution and greenhouse gases within the next two and half years, in addition to what is in the atmosphere already. How can (they) get away with this, you might ask? Deception, and no “free speech” or “right to vote.” The cover-up used here was that the U.S. government said “it had to settle an Indian land dispute” which was supposedly happening between the poor nations of the Hopi and Black Mesa Dineh. If that deception is so true and if you know something about American Indian Policies then, this would be the only time in the history of U.S. – Indian relation that the Indians were able to invest into the manipulation of the U.S. Congress. But remember that the Dineh and these Hopis were poor and had no means to be financially influential.

© 2008 Sheep Dog Nation Rocks

Big Mountain Elder Face Threat of Charges for Ceremonial Lodge

2008-06-02T16:01:00.011-07:00

Elder Served Notice That Rebuilding Ceremonial Lodge is Illegal

Big Mountain, Black Mesa via AZ, June 2, 2008 – On Tuesday, May 20th, key traditional elder resister to the relocation laws, Pauline Whitesinger, was served a notice to halt “new” construction of an earth lodge commonly known as a hogan, and this notice was served by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agency deputized officers, Hopi Tribal Range Technicians. In addition to this warning about “illegal” construction activity, officers attempted to get personal information from a non-Indian volunteer helper and sheepherder. The issued notice also stated that elder Whitesinger is having an “unauthorized” guest and thus, she is violating ‘laws’ of the Hopi Tribe.

Pauline Whitesinger, a traditional Dineh (Navajo) matriarch and is about 76 years old, has defied federal laws to relocate and to not practice her ancient traditional livelihood anymore. Whitesinger is one of the only few elders left in the Big Mountain area who has stood her ground to not recognize the U.S. Congressional mandate to give up the culture, her history, her peoples’ ritual ways, and to ultimately relocate. Big Mountain region is the largest area that was partitioned to a non-Dineh territory status in 1977. Along with other key elder resisters, many who are now deceased, Whitesinger has based her purpose and principles to resist these harsh, federal Indian policies on what can only be translated as aboriginal sovereignty and on the spiritual obligations to Big Mountain area’s sacredness. Today, these elders and some of their extended families are also opposed to Peabody’s coal mining operations and proposal to expand operations.

The Hopi Tribe is a ‘recently’ formed local and tribal institution (circa 1964), and it has been and is still funded and backed by the BIA under the U.S. Department of the Interior. The original Hopi sovereignty was once based on village authorities known as Kwimongis or Village Chiefs, and there are documented evidences that show how the U.S. BIA has attempted for over three decades to undermine and ousted the Kwimongi authority. It was not until the late 1950s when coal and utility companies were interested in the Black Mesa coal fields that a part time attorney for Peabody was hired to form a ‘federally recognized’ tribal council in Hopi country. This is how all modern-day tribal governments were created and they were not formed by “two-thirds of all adult male members of the tribe” as the treaties have specified. Despite evidences and equitable claims that showed how Peabody and utility companies conspired by secretly lobbying the U.S. Congress to pass the Indian Relocation Act (P.L. 93-531), the modern Hopi administrators exert a false authority to repress traditional indigenous practices and to segregate a rightful universal human association.

Conquering of the Indians: A final strife or just a resurgence of native resistance

Some Big Mountain residents celebrated their 30th anniversary for their traditional resistance in October of 2007. A few local elder resistance leaders were in attendance when, in her keynote address, Pauline Whitesinger stressed the rebuilding of the indigenous identity by facilitating cultural learning programs and that such coordinated efforts would lead to reclaiming the indigenous existence and the restoration of the ecological balances. Whitesinger had also emphasized that Big Mountain Dineh must stop the way they respond to BIA-Hopi law enforcement threats: “Do not let (them) take control of your lives and our lives by instilling fear in you. This is our country which our ancestors kept and passed down to us. This country has never belonged to Washington…”

On June 1, 2008, Pauline said that she will continue building and finishing her earth lodge which she says is a replacement for the one that recently began to collapsed due to age and government restrictions to rebuild or improve residencies unless “authorized.” Pauline has never signed any agreement with any tribal nor federal agencies because she believes in the traditional and spiritual agreements that she has with Creation since she is a carrier of the sacred mountain soil bundle. It is so obvious that the BIA-Hopi administrators will not give authorization even if Pauline requested a new structure or even if she requested for an “authorized” gathering on her land.

Pauline has taken an initiative, on her own, to request some assistance from Navajo officials responsible for the welfare of the residents living inside the partitioned lands. A local tribal official has written a letter to the Office of Hopi Lands (OHL) explaining that Whitesinger’s new earth lodge is not a “new” construction but that it is a rebuilding of an old existing ‘hogan’ that has become dangerous to live in or to have ceremonies in. New logs were added because former log-parts were unfit for structural use. Furthermore, the Whitesinger extended families are planning one of the most sacred Blessing Way ceremony, the Kinaldaa’, and that like all other ceremonies requires the circular earthen lodge.

As of this writing, there has been no reply from the OHL to the local tribal official headquarter but the notice issued to Whitesinger in May concludes, “failure to comply may result in legal proceedings to enforce ‘rights’ against you.” Pauline’s response to being asked what message she would like to be heard among those that sympathize with indigenous struggles and among her non-native friends: “I will finish my lodge. It has always been my right to maintain ritual ways like the Kinaldaa’. I must mention also that it is my right to live in a sustainable way even though we, Dineh, are accused by the BIA-Hopis that we have polluted the lands. Those pollutions we were never aware of because when Washington introduced modernization upon us they never said we were acquiring dangerous pollutants. Finally, I told that tribal ranger officer that if they try to interfere with my construction, ‘I will pick up one of those thin logs and ‘wack’ your head from behind and perhaps then, we would have a real Navajo-Hopi land dispute!’ Tell my friends and those who will understand my struggle that, what has been done to me recently is like what happens when you disturbed a napping rattle snake.”

Support the Matriarch’s Stand: you will be learning about reinforcing humanity

All over the world the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to exist with their spiritual cultures and ecologically-based aboriginal territories are under attack. These attacks are taken place in the name of maximized corporate profit. Peabody coal company is not only the world’s largest producer of coal but it also has its hands in the blood and in the suffering of indigenous population whose lands are rich in mineral and natural resources. Pauline Whitesinger is still one of those examples of indigenous leaders who are speaking out to save mother earth and speaking out on behalf of all races and cultures of the world. There are definitely consequences to altering the eco-system and now, accredited scientific studies are verifying that the root cause of climate change is fossil fuel burning industries. It must be understood that the ‘unaccredited’ wisdom of indigenous wise people like Pauline have warned societies that earth is not a commodity but a living being with greater intelligent than we might realize.

Help rebuild indigenous communities that are struggling to maintain their sovereignty. Stop the local and global madness of urban expansions that believe there will always be water and electricity. Stop the global madness of industrialize wars that believe there will be always be petroleum and the power of market economies.

For more information about how you can contribute or to learn more about the Black Mesa & Big Mountain resistance to Peabody coal mining and federal relocation policies, visit: http://www.blackmesais.org/

Send comments and/or demands regarding elder Whitesinger’s case:

Hopi means People of Peace and with this great honorable name, Hopis are to be steward of mother earth and they are to meditate and pray for all humanity and life. To dishonor this, you are no longer a Hopi. Furthermore, the so-called Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute never existed but only existed in colonial fabrication. Pauline Whitesinger whose people and nation are victims of such fabrication, and she should not be interfered with in her efforts to maintain ancient ceremonial obligations.

Address:

Mr. Clayton Honyumptewa
Office of Hopi Lands
(928) 734-2441 Ext. 207

Written letters to:

P.O. Box 123
Kykotsmovi, AZ 86039

Also you can help by informing your Congressional Representatives:

This continuous infliction of human suffering on Black Mesa and at Big Mountain needs to be address, and since the United States created Public Law 93-531, they are accountable to decades of human rights violation and religious intolerance. A Congressional Oversight Hearing is long overdue and it is immediately necessary to evaluate the outcomes of the policies mandated through the Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation Commission and P.L. 93-531, 25 U.S. Code Section 640d-1 ET SEQ. , (as amended by P.L. 96-305, 1980).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, June 2008

Where Have All the Great Traditional Voices Gone? Those Teachings about Humanity.

2008-05-21T15:11:00.006-07:00

Northern Arizona, May 2008 – Thirty years ago, during the Longest Walk 1978 (LW78) from S.F., CA to Washington, D.C., there were still many great wise indigenous elders around. Many came to the Longest Walk to show their support and some made ceremonies. This writing will reflect back on that era and the idea of the University of the Red Peoples which was a name applied to the Longest Walk of 1978. Now, 30 years after, many of us who were inspired by that spiritual and educational walk are continuing to live up to the Manifesto of LW78. However, our efforts as “aging” warriors are being limited by the over-whelming changed lifestyles and the globalized market-economy, and that which has been largely adapted by the majority of our indigenous peoples.

An Occurrence at Sand Creek

The battle and massacre ground at Sand Creek in Colorado was another one of my powerful experience in 1978 when the Longest Walk made camp there. Prior to the Walk making it to the Sand Creek site, I and a few others made our way there to camp before the Walk got there. I decided to do a fast and with that I prayed, offered cedar smoke, used Indian tobacco, and sang prayer chants. A couple of evenings into my fast and while expecting the Walkers, we all went to bed in a little spot and in the tall bushes on the hillside overlooking the area of the 1864 massacre. Our sleeping area was tight where about six of us slept side-by-side because the vibe there really felt unsettled, others have heard a drumbeat down the creek, and a couple have felt the presence of people but when they looked the air was empty.

Rarely, certain individuals would tell me that they have psychic capability or that they’ve seen visions and are able to interpret them. In all my 30 plus years of (trying) to live as a wild Indian on Big Mountain, I have never had a vision or was able to tell about the future. Actually, I remember a Sun Dance Chief instructing the dancers in Dakota country that a vision will only belong to that individual that has seen it and it should be nobody else’s business. So, now that I established my personal disclaimer, that one evening at Sand Creek we all fell asleep in that imaginary, hillside haven. Sometime after, I had awoken to nearby voices in an unfamiliar language.

I am very certain I was awake –I think, and I peeked out of my covers and noticed that the campfire light was illuminating the tall bushes. I thought to myself, “Oh, the Walkers must have arrived and some have relit our campfire.” I turned to look towards the fire and there were some men standing around the fire wearing blankets and fur hats with some feathers. They immediately looked towards me as I looked at them for a couple of seconds. Chills went up my spine as I turned away to cover my head and my heart was racing as I didn’t know what to do. I must have been frightened back to sleep because I woke up again but to the quietness of night. I peeked out of the covers as I was laying on my back now and noticed only the bright starry sky. Then I remembered what (I thought) I saw, I sat up to look toward the fireplace where not a single ember showed signs of life. There was however a feeling of calm and a sense of peace all around. I didn’t have that nightmarish type of feeling anymore about those hazy figures that visited us earlier that night.

Elders and spiritual leaders in 1978 arrived at Sand Creek and there were many ceremonies held. The Longest Walk camp of that year had a lot of joy, people looked after each other, family and tribal camps were always welcoming, and there were much singing and laughter. That was how it was at Sand Creek after all the walkers and crew arrived. My brother, Chief Laughs A Loud, recalls that Medicine people had forecasted that “particular Spirits would guide the LW78 to Sand Creek and after that, other Spirits would take over.” It did feel that way to me personally because the LW78 faced more challenges after Sand Creek like: staying united, encountering white supremacists’ threats, federal police monitoring of our rallies, and those internal ‘political’ rumors. I think as youths at the time, youths who were hungry for wisdom and ancient knowledge, we begin to pray harder, made more tobacco-ties, and fasted more.

Beyond the Great Mississippi River

I being from the arid southwest the humidity and the heat struck me as being in a constant sweat bath. The young men warriors that carried the staffs and pipes removed their shirts but they kept wearing their feathers proudly. The walk was so large that there was never time to meet everyone and our early morning circles were bigger. I have never seen such green country where there were flowing creeks and lakes everywhere. The only negative aspects of these green lust territories were there was no Indian country and big American towns linked major cities together. Endless highways and freeways crisscrossed each other in the midst of tangled networks of power lines which made me feel like I was trapped in some artificial, spider monster’s den.

We all made our way down towards Marion Penitentiary in Missouri. It was a ‘state of the art – high tech’ federal prison at that time. Prisoner of war and warrior brother, Leonard Peltier, was being held there. We held daily prayer vigils at the front entrance gate to the prison. I believe that everyone there that brought spiritual support for Leonard felt the presence of the colonial aggressors’ lair. The penitentiary facility looked like both a giant laboratory and a space colony on some far-distanced planet. We sang songs for our warrior brother, Leonard, and at the main LW78 camp, we had more ceremonies. The nations have come to visit their captured, warrior leader who has sacrificed his freedom for all the Red Nations. But the evil powers of the colonialist police state would not allow them to see one another. We just hope that somewhere inside Leonard would have been able to hear the drum and the war cries of the women and men warriors.

Will Nations Hear Those Voices Again before It Vanishes?

Again, the nations are under siege. The institutions of the dominant white culture continue to perceive us as Red Niggers. “Put up or shut up!” are the responses of the states and its judicial systems. What “rights” do we intend to put up? Those “rights” that (they) give to us on polystyrene platters from Wal-Mart? Yankton Rez is under attack. Our brothers and sisters are harassed at D.Q. University. There are the continuing stand-offs in Mohawk country and at Desert Rock and Big Mountain in Dineh (Navajo) country. The U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples has just informed the indigenous peoples of the world that “they will have to live with climate change and with more mineral resource extraction in their territories.”

Thus, what would be the meaning of “rights” according to those few, wise traditional elders that are still left? Would those of us, aging long-walkers of 1978, still remember what our traditional elders of 1978 have told us about how we belonged to Earth Mother? Those times when we sat in the big circles at the LW78 camps and when elders from many nations spoke. Chief Frank Fools Crow once said, “Red peoples must have strong hearts like the buffalos in order to maintain the generations to come.” Muskogee elder, Phillip Deere, truly believed in the efforts of the LW78 and was one of the Presidents of the University of the Red Nations. Hopi elders, David Monongye and matriarch Mina Lansa, had given decisive guidance about the future of humanity. Nellie Red Owl was one of the Lakota matriarchs at Wounded Knee 1973 and she has given many inspirations to LW78 and those inspirations must continue.

Lakota elder and wise man, Mathew King, once stated, “The struggle of the red people can only be strong if its warrior nation understands that the struggle is like the Sun Dance. Humbleness is key if you make a vow to such a Sun Dance because all the filth of divisiveness, greed and false accusation will be wiped clean on You! You will be the door mat. Why do I speak to you when you are having your rest from your Sun Dance? Well, because Tunkacula and God want you to worry just like the Sun Dance songs that are supposed to make you worry so that, you will become stronger and maintain your spirit to overcome the pain of hunger and fatigue.”

Grandfather Wallace Black Elk told the LW78 in Kansas, “Someday I hope the red peoples will make the victory to save what is left of our country, our sacred places, our ancestral burial grounds, our traditional foods and medicines, and all our relations. This kind of victory is only possible by understanding that we are all One People from South America to North America. I want you all to remember this and pray for all these things as you walk across this Turtle Island (North America).”

Artificial Political Agendas Distracts and So, Why Do We Need Wise Teachings of Turtle Island?

Why did those ghostly images appeared to my consciousness thirty years ago? I only have ‘maybe’ answers, and now you see I truly believe I am not gifted with some super power. All I can say is that those four men have always looked down upon me, and I try my best to this day to be vigilant. Real spoken words that I have heard back then has held, for me, very deep understanding about what my job is today which is reaffirming why we all need to choose the Road of Creator: the Red Road, the Corn Pollen Trail or the Path of Balance & Peace.

Thirty years after LW78 and when wise-elders gave guidance, we are now guided by the mass media even if we try to boycott FOX or CNN interpretations, or other similar media. I do appreciate and respect printed literatures of Guru Gandhi or Dr. King and what wise teachings that they have provided. Furthermore, besides how certain quotes from such leaders are used by social-green peoples’ movements, could part of the problem of failed alliances and lack of trust among movements be stemming from: not knowing about or appreciating the spiritual-sacred policies passed down by Turtle Island aborigines and that only apply to Turtle Island?

A small portion of the non-artificial, spiritual agendas are today being carried by the Longest Walk 2 and especially with the northern route walkers. They are undergoing tests brought on by the weather, the climate, the fumes from automobile traffic, the misunderstanding/uneducated/ignorance of American society, and by God, Creator / Great Spirit. Soon it will be July and then these Walk routes will join together in Washington, D.C. As people of all colors from many different origins who call Turtle Island home, it is time for us to take up the other alternative besides the voting booth, and that is to join or support this spiritual Walk that is taking place on behalf of all of Us.

Together we have to bring about sustainable lifestyles, limit our dependency on fossil fuel energy which basically causes genocide, and we must initiate true, global peace-building efforts. How does one get away from addictions? Well, certainly not by trying out some therapy that is based on books or artificial imaginations. But we need to make our hearts strong like the buffalo, re-learn prophecies related to Turtle Island, learn more about indigenous matriarchs that have stood their (ancestral) grounds, willing to be door mats of our community, become skilled in analyzing conflict (worrying) and come up with better collective approaches (overcome the pain), and when we all come to realize that we are One People then will we have better relations with All Our Relations.

To All My Relations

©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2008

Peabody Coal Pushes to Expand Occupation of Indigenous Lands

2008-04-23T17:49:00.004-07:00

DESPITE GLOBAL WARMING: Peabody Coal Pushes to Expand Occupation of Dineh & Hopi Ancestral Lands

Big Mountain, Arizona April 2008 – This news is all too familiar in that, it is that American mentality at its finest where it follows that archaic Roman notion of ‘pillage for the spoils and destroy the barbaric, indigenous inhabitants.’ Peabody Coal Company has the “illegal” and corporate upper-hand in these renewed plans where the Office of Surface Mining is intending to approve the expansion of the mine lease areas on Black Mesa in northeast Arizona. In some local communities like within the Big Mountain region, there are still traditional Dineh (Navajo) elders making attempts to instruct their younger community members to fight this new surge for coal mine expansions that will eventually intrude into the Big Mountain lands. Big Mountain peoples have also resisted federal laws of forcible relocation since the late 1970s.

Peabody’s new aggressive push to expand its occupation not only poses a genocidal threat on the regional indigenous nations, but it simply shows that the U.S. government continues to ignore all credible scientific evidence and studies that global warming is actually taking place. The traditional elders of Hopi and Dineh have endured decades of harsh U.S. Indian policies that are directed at the ancient ways of subsistence, ceremonial practices, cultural education, aboriginal land rights, and language. Now, four decades has past where federal relocation programs that are combined with Peabody exploitation of the natural resources have spent millions of tax-payers dollars to terminate the last remnants of cultural and language identity. Peabody and the federal courts have always denied the conspiracy theory that corporate interest in mineral and water resouces was the driving force behind the Indian removal Act of 1974.

What will it take for the majority of the American society to began realizing that their cultural ideas of freedom and liberty does not mean destroying other human life in order to have jobs and electricity? How can the most educated society in the world, the United States, ever accept that children of future may live in a more uncomfortable and poisonous environment due to the escalating, greenhouse gas emissions of today?

The traditional elders of Hopi and Dineh have tried to state that all the profit gains that global industries have secured for their future inheritances will be worthless when human religion and environment are completely altered or destroyed.

“When foods have become scarce, will those rich and elites begin to eat their stockpiles of cash?”

Furthermore, concerned nation and societies of the world are looking towards the U.S. to limit its burning of fossil fuel. Perhaps, American people can really bring real and true peace to the world environment by massive recalls of their dependency on unsustainable energies. Meantime, the indigenous elders of Black Mesa will continue to maintain their spiritual roles on their ancestral lands while rejecting Peabody’s alarming move to destroy the atmosphere. Conscientious organization and individuals that believe in proper and green Earth Living must began to build stronger unity and stand with the original peoples whose lands are being transform into “emissions of mass destruction.”

©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks 2008

For more information or to find out how you can help to Stop Peabody visit: http://www.blackmesais.org/

(Northern Route) Longest Walk II: Indigenous Youth Carry On the Great Ceremonials of Their Ancestors, March 2008

2008-04-05T13:09:00.002-07:00

Pueblo, CO March 2008 They carry sacred staffs some made especially for runners and others for walkers. There are no missed miles and not even missed yards because these sacred staffs carry the prayers out to the Great Spirits with every footstep made, and each lengthy prayers has to connect to each other from Alcatraz Island to Washington, D.C. Everything is like the Longest Walk 1978 and even the route is the same, but it is 30 years after and this walk is being conducted by those who were thought of as the ‘future generations’ three decades prior. They gather in a circle before breakfast is served and these youth, young men and women, are known as Warriors because they carry the staffs.

An indigenous woman participant that came down south to check-in with the southern route Walk commended the youths of this northern Walk group and who are mostly indigenous: “When I observed and met with the southern group and realized how much dissension there was among racial differences, it really brought me to tears with sadness and to have felt how much I missed you guys. I realized how strong all of you are in that you come to these circles everyday, that we pray and talk together like this, and finally to realize how all you young people show respect for the sacred ways. That I wanted to say this morning, and I am so proud and honor to be amongst you.”

Some of the youths started from Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, and more joined in Nevada from the different bands of Shoshone nations. These young people are so intelligent about their indigenous roots and they not only care so much for their immediate family but they care so much for their peoples. It is almost like they went through the first stages of education at their communities and by joining this Longest Walk II (northern route), they are students of higher learning and ready to practice the ways of their ancestors and to pray for a much needed hope for the Red Nations. They are intelligent in the sense that they have experienced and seen the suffering on their reservation or colonies, suffering caused by the American colonial-grip of poverty, diabetes and alcoholism. These youths all in their late teens or early twenties, guided by leaders like Jimbo, Becky, Maria, Willie Lone Wolf and Calvin Magpie, they still carry on a positive hope that which is powerful in terms of sacredness and most of all it is a healing experience just to spend a few days with them.

Aho! To All My Relations.

-©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2008

Pueblo, CO in 1978 with the Longest Walk

2008-03-25T16:25:00.006-07:00

[Artist's rendition of the LW78 Camp outside of Pueblo next to a reservoir. More northern nations have joined as well as Nipponzan Mihogji buddhist friends. "It felt like this region might hold places where Chief Crazy Horse or others might have traveled and / or met with Dineh or Jicarillas."]

Pueblo, CO in 1978 with the Longest Walk: Blessings from Big Mtn. Dineh delegates & Words from the LW78 Rally

Pueblo, CO March 1978 I was really crashed-out inside my makeshift tent made from my orange tarp and there was barely any light, yet, in the morning when I heard that familiar voice calling my name. At about the third call, I was awakening more when that familiar voice was my mom saying, “For what purpose are you still asleep? Rise immediately because you have visitors.” At least she wasn’t calling and telling me that the sheep are already out and that I should quickly go after them. I know my mom was glad to see me and instead of the great white people greeting hug, she simply gave me a soft, loving handshake. We walked together down the hill to the main camp area and there, I greeted our medicine man of Big Mountain who had prepared offerings for me before I left to join the Walk. It was also nice to see other relations from the land. I never asked my mom how she found my camp because those security guys always know what’s going on but I’m glad they guided her up to my camp.

As the March spring morning sun was rising, the relatives had a fire and bread doe going and someone else what preparing some mutton to grill. It was one great Indian breakfast I had missed. They had much questions about how the Walk was going and of course, I had so many stories to tell. After we all got caught, I went to where the medicine man was tooling about among the bushes and trees. He was a very joyful person and smiled a lot, plus he liked to joke around and laugh. He informed me that we should do another prayer chant ceremony to make an appreciation for the offering made to the sacred Colorado River back in Fruita, and to pray for the Walk to be successfully. Then I asked him if our Dineh ways would allow us to make a staff and carry that special one for this Walk. He explained why that would be appropriate enough and he also thought that this may be the only Dineh staff of its kind. We found a nice healthy juniper tree that had a straight branch going out towards the east direction. The ceremony was held which included the making of a special staff as the medicine man gave specific instructions as to how to handling it and care for it.

-©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2008

John Trudell, AIM Spokesperson (His talk excerpts at the Pueblo LW78 Rally.):

“We are the indigenous peoples of the western Hemisphere. For a 100,000 years, we were the indigenous people, and 500 years ago some white men came here and called us, Indians. And they called us: heathens and savages, they called us hostiles and renegades, they called us ‘Red Niggers,’ communist, but they have never ever called us, The People.

“We don’t understand power anymore. The government comes in and say: ‘we have Congress, we have money, we have guns, we have laws, we have courtrooms, we have prisons, and therefore we have power!’ That is a lie! These are things that are tools for oppression. These are artificial forms of power. But because (they) take us when we are young and they take us down that artificial road. We need to take the time to understand natural power. The peoples have the potential to have natural power. And there is no government in existence on this earth, that can stop natural power. They can not stop a hurricane. That is natural power. They can not stop a tornado. That is natural power. They can not stop a blizzard. That is natural power. And so, the peoples have the potential for that natural power. But (they) want to lead us down that artificial road so that we will not recognize, as a people, our potentials for natural power.”

John Redhouse, Dineh Executive Director of National Indian Youth Council (His talk excerpts at the Pueblo LW78 Rally.):

“The earth and the peoples are of one. We all come from a common Mother Earth. We are of her and we are from her. The land and the peoples are of one, and to destroy the land is to also destroy the peoples. We have a very special and unique physical and spiritual relationship with the land and with the earth. It is the basis for our survival and our existence as a people –as a tribe, as tribe --as a people. So, we are protecting a physical and spiritual basis for our existence and for our survival as a People. That is what’s at stake and that’s what is endangered. And again, we have what the white man wants and again, we are in the way. Once again we are in the way of progress in this country.

“I am from the southwest. The southwest I believe is going to be next battle ground over which the issues of sovereignty, treaty, land, water, and natural resources were going to be fought over. One of the main reasons with this so-called ‘white backlash’ is because we have what the white man wants. We have always had what the white man wants. History shows that our people lost their lands, fought for their lands, and many died for that and so, the white dominant society has always wanted the natural resources that lie under our lands.”

AHO! –Sheep Dog Nation, 2008

Outside of Salida, CO: Walk Ceremonials Becoming Stronger

2008-03-24T10:47:00.007-07:00

LW78 Brief Rest Stop: Healing & Spirits, was the Walk Ceremonials Becoming Stronger?

March 1978 – Outside of Salida, CO The walk camps were situated on a flat hill among the Rocky Mountain’s foot hills, and the Arkansas River was down below just across the highway. The area was definitely rocky I thought as I hiked about by myself into the hills where there were abandon mines or prospect holes. Giant holes were almost everywhere on the side of these large hills. Spring was just starting and those couple of days were warm enough especially having the camp on the southern slope but the nights still brought frost. Some walkers were talking about checking out some hot springs, and I had a lucky opportunity to come along. This brother had an Indian truck rather than an “Indian car.” The forest green truck, a chevy, had a beat up camper and full of stuff including two mounted speakers. The ride took us through a short winding valley which had a little creek surrounded by a spruce pine forest. It took about a half hour before we came up on to a long flat valley where you can see far into the distances. The afternoon was warm as the breeze blew all the “wild” Indian hair about as our chauffer blasted out some Pink Floyd. The music was “okay” but I thought I’d rather be jamming out to Black Sabbath or The Ramones.

The paved road got rough as if it does not get maintained from there on, and there was a handmade sign that pointed out “Mineral Hot Spring.” The place looked like a modern day ruin with one building still standing with windows. There were low-lying, concrete walls all around and some had pools. I have never been in a hot spring but one of the brothers that was looking for a good pool told me that, “it’s like a sweatlodge.” Like a sweatlodge the ladies got the pool in the building and, us, guys will have the outside pool. One of the brothers took out some tobacco and offered it as he said a prayer for the Walk and asked Mother Earth for healing. It was my very first time to go into a hot, steaming pool and when I put my feet in, it felt it was going to burn me. I went in anyway because that is how a sweatlodge feels sometime. My sweat bath in the earth’s pool was just what I needed after being cold since I joined this Walk. We went back again the next day when an old white man met us after we were done. He lived across that rough highway and he told about how an entrepreneur once was so hot-headed that he attempted a resort there, but he abandoned it after he went broke. The old white man said, “I really believe this is holy ground, cause I heard dem spirits drums out, yonder, before. I just think that it must be the spirits of dem Indians from long ago that use to come to these springs. I gotta lot of respect for this place.”

The Arkansas River or its headwaters was the closest I’d been to a real mountain river since I come from lands with many dry washes. The moon was rising one evening and it was still bright enough that I decided to walk down to the river since I’d been down there during the day. Walking along the rushing river, something caught my eye which was across the river. First, I thought it was black horse but looking more at the huge black blob I immediately thought of a bear. It certainly wasn’t moving like a horse and why would a horse want to be wondering near a river at night? The hair on my back were standing up as I scrambled up the steep roadside slopes and hurried across the road as I tried to look back but I noticed nothing.

I returned to the camp and quietly got into that old school bus and found myself an empty seat and my sleeping bag. My mind started thinking about what that black blob was and if it was really a bear –or my imagination. Then my thoughts wondered to what the Big Mountain medicine man told me once about gathering sacred corn pollen off certain animals. One story he heard was about a powerful medicine man in the old days that went to the Chuska Mountains to seek the making of this sacred pollen. The powerful medicine man was in the mountains and found fresh bear tracks, and he made a circle from pollen with an opening and began a special ancient chant. Soon, a bear came and enter the circle just as a person would and sat down like a person would. The medicine man with power communed with this bear just like he would with another holy man. Though, I was frightened I felt great. It felt like I received much healing, here and with all that in just a couple of days. I was prepared for the remaining long journey to wake up “the great white father in lands of white buildings.” I fell asleep eventually, but those memories have never gone away.

-©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2008

Into the Backbone of Turtle Island, 1978 Longest Walk

2008-03-22T15:29:00.005-07:00

Into the Backbone of Turtle Island: Original LW78 Dineh of Big Mtn. Recalls

(Again, brothers and sisters of the Northern Route, Longest Walk II, my thoughts and prayers are for you daily.)

Mid-March 1978 It was before Delta, CO that I wanted to take a turn to walk with others whom volunteered, also. We felt that abandonment as the major part of the walkers went on to Montrose and the cold snow storm didn’t seem it was going to let up. It also seemed that we haven’t seen the sun since we left Fruita, Co and that, seemed like it was days ago even though we just left earlier that day. I remember very well that wind was out of the southwest and it battered our faces from the right side as we all took turns going east. We also knew we were in the midst of the mountain range as it became more dark grey while the sun was setting somewhere beyond the thick low clouds. Like a commander general in a quiet brown tank Max Bear called it a day from his Indian wagon, because the snow mixed with rain posed a hazard with traffic that were passing us. A sign informed us where there was a Rest Area. We turn into a stop that had three picnic ramadas with concrete tables and benches.

“Roughing it,” it was called referring to something like that evening’s supper that composed of “AIM steaks” (baloney and cheese sandwich), juice or soda, and a handful of hard candy from a big can for dessert and for midnight snack. A few of us didn’t have tents but we got our beddings and that life-saving tarp, and we tried to find whatever niches we could in the middle of this flat mountain valley. I had no choice but that concrete table under that steel canopy, and so I rolled myself up like a nice warm burrito inside that tarp and fell right to sleep. Numerous times throughout the night, the hallowing horizontal winds and its snow-blast woke me up but I stayed dry and warm. It was a good rest despite the intense weather all night, and we began the Walk after another “rugged” breakfast with one hot cup of coffee. The sun tried to peek through the stormy clouds as we greeted it while we walk towards its rising. Awhile after we began, the fresh faces of relief-walkers showed up that late morning which was another welcome sight.

I was beginning to realize that this sacred and spiritual Walk was a continuous ceremony of modern and youthful Indians trying to re-learn what our ancestors had left for us. I realized more even though I come from a culturally-rich Big Mountain land that, prayers of all that are walking, running or driving the haul was key to our accomplishments everyday.

Montrose, CO presented me my first opportunity to give a talk to an audience. I prepared my thoughts for my presentation about why we are walking and about what is happening at Big Mountain. The little, beautiful white-faces of a third grade class listened to me very attentively as I spoke. They had many interesting questions since they had their class divided into names of Indian tribes. They learned about protesting or being opposed to unfair laws, that day, even though their teacher referred it to as freedom of speech. Soon, we were in Gunnison, CO and we rested in a comfortable gymnasium at a Community College. This town was located at about 8,000 feet and the surrounding landscape was all snow-covered with the distanced, snowcapped mountain peaks and for a change, the sun finally beamed some warm energy on everything. The local radio reception warned about avalanches throughout the mountain summit regions. There were concerns and talk about that the Walk Chief might need oxygen tanks to make it over Monarch Pass. This pass, a little spot on the backbone of Turtle Island, would be the highest elevation (11,320 feet) that this spiritual Walk would “climb” over.

For some strange reason, no one was willing to drive that U-Haul kitchen truck that everyone else was prohibited from entering except the kitchen master, Johnny "U-Haul" Berns. Johnny coordinated meal preparations and he often enforced space area for kitchen staff. I happened to encounter this discussion about a need for a driver for the U-Haul rig. And again, I don’t recall how I got involved but I remembered being asked if I had a driver’s license, and the next thing I noticed was I was behind the wheel of a two axle rig full of supplies and about 20 people in the cargo space. The final stop before going over Monarch Pass was a mere, wildwest like outpost called, Sargents. It was dark already when we climbed towards the ultimate summit.

The moon was out as we took a brief stop at the summit where we were confined by twelve foot high snow banks on each side of Highway 50. I had to get the load of supplies to Salida where the walk brigades were probably expecting their beddings and foods. It would be all down “hill” from the summit but it turned out to be one of the scariest moments on my Walk experience. The load was just a bit too much for the steep highway to Salida. I tried my best to shift gears and apply the breaks but soon it seemed like I might lose control of the descent. My nearly runaway haul was like a bunch of gypsies risking it all. Someone in the back had dared to lean out and wave a flashlight which meant that this rig had to stop. Miraculously, the U-Haul truck was able to be maneuvered into a stop and the courageous passenger told me that the brakes were burning. After everything was “kooled,’ we eventually rolled into Salida where the keys for the truck were taken away as mysteriously as it was put in my hands.

-©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks 2008, NBK

My First Sight of the 1978 Longest Walk

2008-03-22T15:22:00.006-07:00

Way before cellphones and the internet, I was hungry and tired trying to locate the Walk as I started to hitch hike west from Salina, UT. A van full of Indians passby and all those Indian faces inside returned the looks but they were going the opposite direction. About an hour later, that van pulled over and one of the nice ladies asked me where I was going. Told them that I'm trying to meet with the LW. They took me to Richfield, AND AFTER Henry Dominquez and Chiska 'purified' me with sage smoke, they took me on to Scipio. It must have been around 9 o'clock in the evening when I hopped off Henry and Chiska's ride, and after being "mildly" interrogated on the way up from Richfield about me possibly having drugs. I remember mentioning to them that Dennis Banks told me, on the one and only, phone conversation I 'ever' had with him: "Yes, brother bring some strong medicine and some good tobacco!" I brought the Dineh sacred mountain tobacco blend. Well so, I hopped off still hungry as I stumbled through the darkened campground like a baby lamb being tossed into a corral of stranger lamb and kids. I found food near a U-Haul truck. The Walkers were coming around the bend and many in the campground started towards the highway to greet them. I just stood back and watched the silhouettes of the Walkers with vehicle headlights behind them. It was cold, of course, and I could see their breaths as they crossed the highway being assisted by the Walk Security Detail. They all parked themselves as the greeters surrounded them, and the sacred staffs and the pipe were appropriately given to the Keepers.

-NBK or the sheepherder on that long vacation in 1978, 2008

A Tribute to Laura Ann Villegas, 1953 - 1992:

2008-03-21T11:17:00.003-07:00

[Photos: Left image is from a 1978 newspaper clipping & right image shows Laura in 1984 with the late Big Mtn. Matriarch, Roberta Blackgoat.]

A Tribute to Laura Ann Villegas, 1953 - 1992:
“The Xicano Warrior Woman, Mother / Walker of LW78, & Sister to the Black Mesa Struggle”

Laura was born in 1953 in East Los Angeles at a time the Chicano communities were struggling to be accepted within the white dominant societies of LA’s suburbs. Her family was one of those that got caught up in abandoning their Xicano roots and assimilating into the mainstream Hispanic world. Eventually, Laura’s parents were impacted intensely from the conflicts of identity as her father, Ernesto, felt he was still an Indigena from Mexico’s province of Vera Cruz. Her mom, Carmen, came from a familia that moved to LA from the U.S. state of Tejas, and Carmen also tried to battle the American forces to change identity. In Laura’s own words in 1980, “My parents became separated because of this assimilation process of Hispanization. To be more accepted as ‘Caucasians,’ it was ideal for Xicanos back then to move to South Pasadena, and my father couldn’t accept that and he wanted to stay in the los barrios of east LA.”

Laura was attending Garfield High School in east LA when the Chicano Moratorium was taking place which was a nationwide protest to the U.S. racist and slavery policies implemented on the United Farm Workers and all others of Mexican descend. She chose at this time to believe in what is right and that was to stand with la lucha de pueblos. She became an organizer for human rights when there were “walk outs” organized in protest, being a youth volunteer and being present when Robert Kennedy was assassinated, collaborating with the Brown Berets, and eventually building solidarity between the Xicano struggle and the American Indian Movement. Laura once recalled, “Everyone that I knew in this city wanted to leave the city and live in the country, and if some of us were lucky, we would end up living with nature the way the traditional natives do like on Black Mesa. I, too, had committed myself to leave this city back then.”

A small group organized to work with and support the issues of traditional, indigenous peoples was run by Felix and Stella Montoya during the 1970s. Laura coordinated fund raising and sponsorship of mainly Hopi elders to come to testify at the Los Angeles Water & Power headquarters. Traditional Hopis were very concerned for the fate of Black Mesa’s natural pristine environment because of what their prophecy outlined and because Peabody coal company had contracted to solve southern California’s energy needs. Laura and the Montoyas finally visited Hopi country and New Mexico. These travel experiences reinforced Laura’s commitment that she must get out of the city. Her unexpected way of leaving the city came in 1979 when she helped a Big Mountain elder’s visit to LA and when she met the father-to-be of her daughter, her third and last child.

Big Mountain’s traditional Dineh (Navajo) needed a more affective coordinator and organizer, and Laura took up this major task. With in two years and with Laura’s great peaceful energy, Big Mountain elders were networking with the world and forming stronger alliances with other Indian nations. Non-Indian support groups grew and the first Lakota Sun Dance in Dineh country took place by 1983. Laura was that bright problem-solver that came among Big Mountain’s traditional matriarch society and nearly began to build a nation. Her city life beginnings became the past as she meditated and sat in the ceremonial circles of the Indigenous world. Unfortunately, the human toll still existed even far away from the city as her personal life encountered much hardship.

By 1992, she wanted to continue what she always loved to do and that was to help in organizing a spiritual Walk across the country in celebration for the 500 years of Indigenous survival to European colonialism. She was again happy and felt rejuvenated but at the same time she expressed to her former companion, “I know that Great Spirit will call on me someday. Remember that whenever that happens; don’t let (them) take me back to the city. I want You to make sure that I am laid to rest out here on these lands.” Then she began to wear sunglasses all the time saying, “This is my mask. I don’t want my face seen too much.” One afternoon while working as an organizer for the spiritual walk, her driver fell asleep as she was napping from fatigue and their car crashed head on, and Laura’s duty as a warrior, in this world, ended.

- © Sheep Dog Nations Rocks on behalf of Laura’s daughter, 2008

Dineh Matriarch Honored for Her 30 Years of Serve to the Way of the Warrior

2008-03-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

October 2007, Big Mountain – Honors are usually done in a very formal manner like being conducted before a room full of people as the Honoree receives their reward along with the proper handshake and applauses. At Big Mountain where a (unpopular) peoples resistance has been taken place for more than 30years, a elder woman warrior was honored with not a huge audience, but was properly done with valuable words and blessing from the cedar smoke. So, why is this resistance movement unpopular? Because these traditional Indians do not consider themselves as being a part of the United States, they believe they are not conquered, and they still believe they are a sovereign nation based on their treaty statuses and based on their ancient religious obligations. Also, because the rest of America and American Indians believe what the mass media has told them, which was that, “Big Mountain is involved in a ‘land-dispute’ with the Hopi tribe.” Such “land-dispute” or “tribal range war” theories have never been proven.

This warrior elder has stood for the ancient ways of the Dineh for 30 years. She has been harassed over and over, and local tribal officials have tried again and again to force her to sign away her aboriginal rights and relocate. Government officials really believe that this traditional Dineh elder does not understand “America” and its “great” laws of the land! This elder warrior knows all about the schemes of Peabody Western Coal and certain U.S. Congressmen, and how (they) pushed a relocation law through the U.S. Executive Branch in 1974. This great warrior woman was educated by her neighbors, the traditional Hopi elders, about the B.I.A. tribal lawyers and Peabody’s creation of a ‘false’ Hopi tribal council back in 1962. Oh yes, the rightfully Honored Elder Warrior knows about the “American Laws.” That is why she stood in defiance on behalf her peoples, the future generations and their ancestral territories.

-Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2008

A Dineh & Longest Walk 1978 Participant, Recalls

2008-03-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

(March 12th, 2008, I wish I was out there with you again, my brothers and sisters. I try to think and pray that I am there with all of you in spirit.)

March 1978: We left Green River, UT, and the red sandstone plateaus reminded me of Dineh country, northeastern Arizona. It was just decided that only a few Walkers & Runners were needed and so, I was one of those that volunteered to walk the rest of the day and into the evening. The rest of the walkers and crew would do set-up far ahead since this would be a long and lonesome stretch to Fruita, CO. It seemed like we have been hammered with wintery breeze and cold since we left Richfield. We walked into the night in relays, a Pipe Carrier and two Staff Carriers. Max Bear's Indian wagon, an old dark-brown dodge van, was behind the walkers that evening as the cold wind whipped against the cliffs next to the highway. We took turns until it was passed midnight and we found a flat spot off Highway 50. Those of us that slept out on the ground were lucky to not have it snowed overnight.

We all got up early and there was a fire with fresh coffee and some warmed up left over foods. The sun had not risen yet as we huddled around the fire. You begin to not feel the fatigue after a while of continuous walk even after having only slept four hours. It was a beautiful early morning with red buttes and cliffs all around as I remembered what I learned on my first morning with the 1978 Walk at Scipio. Chief Eagle Feather told the morning Sun Rise Circle at Scipio: "Continue to make strong prayers again today. Tunkacula will hear you. As you pray look about and you may see signs in the trees or in the clouds. Pray to those signs and symbols. It might be a buffalo, an eagle or a deer. Remember those visions all the time as you walk to Washington, D.C."

The sun was starting to rise over the beautiful red sandstone landscapes that displayed many images of Indian people of all ages. We made a little circle as water and some warmed-up food was set aside as offerings to the Walk Pipe. Once we prayed in the Circle it was time to continue on east along Highway 50, and most of us walked this time. As the sun got higher and as we crossed over a large mesa, we began to see the Rocky Mountain range in the far distance with their snowcapped peaks and dark forested slopes. My legs and feet were beginning to tell me if I'm going to give them a break, but then I try to go back to my prayers and think about why I have to walk. Just in time, some cars and vans showed up with fresh Walkers some of those who went ahead from Green River. I climbed into the back of a pickup truck and took a break among some fresh walkers. An older brother, John Thunder Shield, was sitting at the rear of the truck with a traffic caution flag and he joked and talked about things as he waved on approaching traffic.

Then, I had to jump off because I noticed a ravine with tall bushes up ahead. I climbed off as the truck was going slow and I said, "I gotta go to da John." Thunder Shield said to me, "Hey, that's my name! --Ee'eh!" He laughs as I ran toward the ravine. Sometimes, you have to run about a quarter of a mile if no one waits for you after you had your relief. This time a couple of us had to make a visit to this wash, and Thunder Shield and crew waited up ahead so we didn't have to run to catch up. By this time, I had long passed the "blister stage" where I didn't get blisters on my feet anymore, but my knees hurt like it might start to swell. A lot of times a swollen knee can hurt so much that it was hard to walk anymore. You had to give it at least a 24 hour rest.

Our last long rest was in Richfield which seemed like it was weeks ago as I looked forward to the next rest stop. There will be time then to prep for the next long stretch, wash the few clothes I had and especially check on the socks situation, and have plenty of good cooked food. At this point, I had went along with the innovation where you find a new can and wrap some twine around it then, form a handle onto it. Wala! I had a perfect coffee mug and it can even be attached to my belt loop.

Those of us who walked most of the night went ahead leaving the fresh walkers to take over. The Rockies looked very intimidating as I wondered that, only a bunch of Indians would attempt to march into its midst during the unstable climate of late winter.

NBK

Big Mountain Sovereign Dineh Support (Northern Route) Longest Walk II

2008-03-19T15:15:00.001-07:00

Yaa'at'eeh Sh' Dine'eh,
(Good Greetings My Relatives)

In the late 70s not long after Wounded Knee 1973 and the capture of political prisoner Leonard Peltier, Indigenous nations of Turtle Island (western hemisphere) came together to do a spiritual walk across the US from San Francisco to Washington D.C. The 1978 Longest Walk was to bring attention to eleven, anti-Indian legislation that were about to go before the US Congress. These legislations were supported by racist, white organizations and their elected representatives. Legislations were intented to carry out numerous aspects of racism and inhumanities like abolishing all Indian treaties and the sterlization of Indian women.

The traditional Dineh elders at Big Mountain in 1978 were resisting federal relocation laws being enforced in the name of Peabody coal companies. Despite their full time resistance movement at home, they decided to support the 1978 Walk. They had one local volunteer who decided to walk all the way to educate other Indian nations and to bring attention to the injustices occuring on Black Mesa. A medicine man conducted a ceremony for the 78 Walk and gave the volunteer walker a sacred bundle with instructions to offer it to the sacred (Colorado) River before the Walk crossed it.

A few elders came to Richfield, Utah to show their support and solidarity for the Walk of 1978. About a week after the first Big Mountain delegate visited to the 1978 Walk, indigenous spiritual leaders of the Walk and a few walkers came to the river's bank outside of Fruita, Colorado to offer the Dineh bundle's contents. Corn pollen were offered in prayer and the sacred stone offerings were gently dispensed on the water's edge. The Longest Walk of 1978 then proceeded across the bridge over the sacred (Colorado) River. This spiritual walk was becoming stronger with more walkers joining, more awareness that there were still Indians in the U.S., and a busload of Dineh walkers showed up soon after the Walk crossed the Colorado River. The early spring snow storms was harsh as the Walk approached the Backbone of the Turtle Island (The Rockies), and the prayers of the peoples' Walk were only getting stronger, too.

The Big Mountain delegation returned, again, with more of its community members to Pueblo, Colorado where the 78 Walk had a one week rest. The Dineh visit also brought with them their local medicine man and he gathered some Dineh youth walkers to hold a special ceremony to make a staff for the Walk. This Dineh visit also brought the much needed traditional foods like corn meals and fresh mutton. Since the Wounded Knee battle of 1973 (WK 73), the traditional Dineh's solidarity with all Red (Indian) Nations at the Pueblo, CO meeting had re-enforced the continuing alliances of WK 73.

Today and 30 years later, some remaining Dineh resisters and their relatives at Big Mountain wish to show their support again. The targeted date for joining the walkers will be when the northern route of Longest Walk II reach Pueblo, CO. There are other efforts being made to support the two Walks of 2008, southern & northern routes, but for many of you who know about the Big Mountain struggle know that we are a very poor country and that we rely on outside resources to initiate our actions. This time I wish to find possible means to make this commemorative effort possible, again.

Or if you are on the Rez and know of others wishing to visit the northern route at Pueblo, CO., feel free to contact me. My Rez List does not even exist so please forward this to the rest of our Rez families. Perhaps, we can all share resources in order to avoid the high gas prices instituted by U.S. oil companies and to share the efforts in transport. This would be so unique to accomplish such a commemoration and to give the northern route a big boost for their strength and for their prayers that will get them to D.C.

It is very crucial that we communicate and acknowledge one another as the way our ancestors have done throughout the ages. With that and together, we can let all other indigenous and non-native communities know that we are still proud of our ancient beliefs and existence. The northern route as you may know is following the original route of 1978 and as we speak, these walkers' footsteps and prayers are crossing those same rivers, same valleys, same mountain ranges and the same grasslands. The decendents of all our Relations: the Winged People, Peoples of the Water, Four Legged Peoples, Those that Crawled on the Soils, and the Ancestors' Spirits will all know, again, that We have not forgotten them nor have we forgotten our efforts to survive with our coming generations.

Contrary to the times of 1978, our environment is more polluted, our ancient sacred places are evermore desecrated, our wise chiefs and medicine people are nearly gone, our understanding of our human self has become less, and our communications with all our relationships, nature and universe, are more severed. Join the Big Mountain Dineh in bringing not only support but a message of great hope that Mother Earth and Father Sky will have pity on us, for that we will retreive our human identities and begin to recount the proper ceremonies of the human races.

The Longest Walk of 1978 has inscripted its legacies in the indigenous histories, and countless memories and wisdom were born from that era and those events. These legacies are still the driving force of many resistance movements and teachings of today's Native struggles. The Longest Walk of 1978 open the doorway for the Big Mountain traditional and sovereign movement to the world. If it weren't for the Longest Walk of 1978, Big Mountain would have never: joined the Dineh alliances for liberation, created community resource camps, formed alliances with non-Indian environmental groups, and established the seed for the Sun Dances of Dineh country.

Thank you so much for listening.

NBK

Big Mountain, a Struggle in Arizona & its Relationship with Longest Walk 1978

2008-03-17T16:22:00.014-07:00

The name, Big Mountain, was applied to a location in the middle of Black Mesa in northern Arizona by the U.S.G.S in the 1930s when it published their official map of the area. To the Dineh (Navajos) of the local region, they have known this location as Dzil'ni't'saa', and which has a summit peak of 7,000 ft. The immediate and most simple translation is, Great Mountain. It means the place of great strength and according to the old stories that were passed down through oral history, the mountain itself and its surrounding area provides healing herbs and natural spring water. Thus, this flat shield-like plateau or a giant shallow mound is 'the great strength' (Dziili') that also refers to healing place and healing power.

Today, more than 350 Dineh residents defy a U.S. Public Law to relocate and immediately accept the benefits and a new modern house elsewhere like 200 miles away in a strange land. These traditional resisters were in solidarity with the Longest Walk of 1978 because they shared the same visions that, indigenous nations must unite in order to survive with their cultures, their coming generations and their lands. The Longest Walk of 1978 generated an enormous awareness about the Red Peoples' (indigenous America) existence and struggle for survival. This spiritual educational Walk of 1978 and with the Big Mountain Elders' participation brought focus to Big Mountain about the human rights violations and religious intolerance that were committed by the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs.

How the Mountain made them stay:

Public Law 93-531 which is also known as the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974 began its enforcement of partition boundary fencing and registering traditional families to accept relocation benefits and immediately move out. The traditional matriarchs some whom were healers and along with other local traditional medicine men said that it would be a horrible idea to abandon the sacred place, Dzil'ni't'saa. They all believe that the world and all things on and around Big Mountain would go extinct if the Dineh left. If it was cleared of human beings like the Dineh the deity, Bi'gohchidii (name for the Deity associated to floras and faunas), would no longer give life to Its children and Its vegetation. Natural life would end.

Their fight which were conducted through physical resistance and often there were violent confrontations with federal and tribal police. The boundary fencing stopped, those who were wishing to relocate were intervened by the resisters to reconsider, and Navajo tribal officials tried to negotiate and mediate between the Feds and the local resistance. After the Longest Walk of 1978, some of the young Dineh Walkers went to Big Mountain to assist the traditional resistance. This began the Big Mountain Survival Camp which was an inspired idea from the AIM Survival Schools and the youths acquired this idea during the Longest Walk 1978.

John and Zonnie Katenay, an elder couple, provided their home and resources to help the youth start up the survival camp. Eventually, in 1981 and with other key elder leaders' approval like Kii Shey and Katherine Smith, the Survival Camp was built in the wooded areas in southern Big Mountain. Local coordinator, Bahe (Kat) Katenay, suggested the Camp location due to its strategic location for radio transmission, fuel resources and potential area for sinking a well. 1981 was also the year that the Feds declared that the BIA take complete jurisdiction of the partitioned areas and to restrict all homestead improvements or any types of new construction. Part of the Dineh response to this Fed strategy was to build the Survival Camp compounds.

The Big Mountain Proclamation of Independence 1979 & the Resistance Outpost:

The resistance gatherings throughout 1977 and 1979 produced a declaration signing by 65 local traditional Dineh elders. These signers declared that Big Mountain area (approx. 450,000 acres) as a sovereign country based on the Treaty of 1868 and based on the supreme holiness of the Sacred Mountain Soil Bundle. The Survival Camp would play a major role for the initiatives of the proclamation. It would be the resistance outpost to be maintained by mostly Dineh youths of the Longest Walk 1978. Its key objectives would be to disrupt federal jurisdictional activities related to relocation, fencing, livestock reduction, and surveillence. These objectives would be conducted non-violently according to Elders directives. Additional objectives were to create supporter-network systems on behalf of the elder resisters and facilitate general assemblies for meetings, schools, ceremonies, and other future complexes for elder-care. The Camp's existence (1981-1993) had one of the largest impact for this indigenous resistance to oppression and genocide.

Federal Marshals and the FBI falsely concluded that "this Camp was for militant purposes, and if there were ever to be an armed stand-off and compare that to the Wounded Knee seige of 1973, Wounded Knee would be nothing but peanuts."

Unfortunately, the Feds and the BIA Agency through manipulations and undermining assisted Navajo tribal officials to coerced a few local Dineh to disband the Survival Camp in 1991. The feds and the BIA tribe won majority of the peoples' approval by using the deception that some partitioned lands will be exchanged. Also, the underminings had created much dissension among the resistance that the Camp's merits were being questioned. Longest Walk 1978 participant and local custodian, Bahe Katenay, tried to keep the spirit of the Survival Camp alive but was soon overcome by the backlashes and he seek other alternative means to maintain the Dineh resistance. The last stand at the Survival Camp was the Sun Dance of July 1996 when again federal and Indian police disrupted the attempted re-occupation of the Survival Camp and the reinstatement of Dineh sovereignty.

©Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, 2008

WELCOME WISDOM SEEKERS, THIS IS CHIEF LONER

2008-03-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

PLEASE, HAVE PATIENCE AND SOON WE'LL BE UP AND RUNNING TO FEED YOU MANY TALES OF WISDOMS. IT IS HOPE THAT YOU WILL BE ENLIGTHEN WITH TRUTHFUL EVENTS, STORIES AND HONEST PERSPECTIVES ABOUT LIFE AND THE WORLD, AS WELL AS THE UNI-VERSE.