The main thing the bothers me about the Johnson article is what I perceive
as a portrayal of the Navajo as the "wounded party" in the conflict. I
think that one sided portrayals of such important issues are very dangerous
since people (like myself, for instance) who don't have background
knnowledge in the issue may take the article at face value and assume the
one-sided portrayal is correct. In this case I do not believe the article
is complete in its discussion of the issue.
First of all, I read an implication that the Navajo are spiritual people
while the Hopi are not. Johnson says "Navajos want to be left alone to
practice their ancient cultural traditions" "Navajos regard the land as a
living, sacred being whose care was entrusted to them by the creator" "If
forced to relocate they will lose the heart of their spiritual life." In
contrast, Johnson says of the Hopi "Hopi see land as a solution to economic
need." This may very well be true but I don't believe it is the whole
truth. I think that the Hopi probably want to be left alone just as much
as the Navajo, indeed, the Hopi's survival success story (at least until
about 100 years ago) was due partly to the fact that they were (for the
most part) left alone. From what little I have studied of the Hopi, my
impression is that they are a very spritual people and that their whole
life and religion is tied to the land. In a documentary I saw recently (it
was either "Hopi, Songs of the Fourth World" or "A Matter of Chioce") a
Hopi farmer stated that farming for the Hopi wasn't work, it was part of
practicing their religion. Hopi social structure is divided into clans
which were entrusted with specific pieces of land ages ago and which cannot
be changed. The Hopi also feel strongly therefore that if they were forced
to relocate (and weren't one or two Hopi villages swallowed up by Navajo
land acquisitions?) that THEY would lose the heart of their spiritual life.
Additionally, Hopi history says that the Hopi were lead to their present
place centuries (probably more than a milenium) ago by spiritual guidance,
so when Johnson talks about Navajos being entrusted with the land and
feeling that they will lose the heart of their spiritual life if they are
forced to relocate, he does the Hopi an injustice by failing to mention
that they hold similar and equally strong beliefs.
This brings up my main question. A major argument that the Hopi use to
support their right to the land over that of the Navajo is that they were
led to this land ages ago while the Navajo were a nomadic people who came
to the area only a few centuries ago. The Hopi also claim that the Navajo
proabaly would not have settled where they did had their presence in the
area not coincided with the settling of indigenous peoples by the US
regime. My question therefore is: why do the Navajo believe that this
particular land was given to them by the creator? What do the Navajo
believe was the reason they settle where they did? And a correlary: if
Navajo spiritual and cultural traditions are dependent on THIS PARTICULAR
land, how did they practice their spiritual and cultural traditions while
they were still a nomadic people? I think it is entirely possible that the
Navajo have strong spritual reasons for being tied to this particular land,
and if so I would like to know what they are. If this is indeed the case,
then perhaps the question of "who go here first" may not be as relevant,
since the timing of someone's spiritual vision should not effect its
validity.
As a final note I would like to add that much of my information about the
Hopi is from a lecture here at Indiana University given by a Hopi woman (I
apologize for not remembering her name) so it is entirely possible I have
displayed the type of bias I am criticizing.
I think this is a very relelvant topic and would enjoy further discussion
of it. I would be grateful for any responses to my questions and points
and I would also appreciate corrections of any inacuracies.
Duane-Michael De Luca (ddeluca@ucs.indiana.edu)