> From Late April 1991 issue of News From Indian Country, Rte. 2
> Box 2900-A, Hayward, WI 54843.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> (Arizona)
>
> Navajo woman vows jail rather than break her link to the land
>
> (AP) - Grace Smith, Navajo, vows to go to jail rather
> than submit to a U.S. policy that she said would mean the death
> of many members of her tribe. Her crime: She refuses to leave her
> home in Teesto, AZ.
> Smith lives in an area near Big Mountain in northeast
> Arizona that was given to the Hopi by the U.S. government in
> 1986. As many as 10,000 Dine'h (Navajo for The People) live in
> the area.
Ms. Smith needs to do a little more research into her heritage.
If she is indeed Dine'h, she is Athabaskan, and is (along with
her so-called "Apache" relatives) a fairly recent immigrant to
the southwest.
Big Mountain cannot have been the, "traditional homeland of the
Dine'h for thousands of years." At most, they have been here for
1000 years. Most estimates say that they arrived about 1100 A.D.
Some say 1500 A.D. But, hell, I've only been here for 35 years,
so what do I know?
The Hopi, who really have been here for thousands of years, and
the Dine'h have been in conflict with one another off and on
since the Dine'h arrived.
I sincerely hope that they can settle their dispute amicably, and
without the intrusive efforts of my people, Europeans, who have
pretty much botched the job when they have stepped in to try to
"solve" it.
I hope they can, but, considering history, I will not hold my
breath.
Personally, I think that the Hopi have a good prior claim. I
also think that their land use practices are far more sustainable
than those of the Dine'h graziers, and are certainly better than
ours. They will outlast us all--if they can keep Peabody from
sucking the rest of their springs dry, that is.
I would hope that the Dine'h could grant their surrounded Hopi
neighbors a larger area, but, again, what do I (or federal
judges) know?
Good luck, Ms. Smith, to you and yours, and to the Hopi--and the
Tewa, too.
[ I tried finding a name to go with the user-ID "sjones" on the IGC
system, but found none recorded. However, I did find that sjones
lives in Cave Creek, Arizona. --Gary ]