MEETINGS ON THE HOPI PARTITIONED LAND (HPL)
In order to discuss the matters brough up at the last
mediation (Flagstaff, 1/11/93, see the UPDATE for 1/13) there are
metings schedule all week long in the various HPL Dine'
communities. Meetings are scheduled for 1/16 at John Yazzie's home
(Sand Springs), 1/19 Cactus Valley (Oscar Whitehair), 1/20 Teesto
(probably the Chapter House), 1/21 at Coal Mine Mesa (Jack
Hatathlie's home), 1/22 Mosquito Springs (Mae Tso) and 1/23 Big
Mountiain (Violet Ashike). I plan on being at Teesto and Big
Mountian at least, and I will rport on them.
A LITTLE HISTORY: THE NATURE OF THE HOPI CLAIM TO THE ANCESTRAL
HOMELAND OF THE DINE'
I am writing this so that people everywhere can understand the
Hopi argument. The Hopi Tribe has been successful in pressing
claims against the Dine' people who occupy lands the Hopi Tribe has
gained through litigation, and against the Navajo Nation. I
believe it is wrongheaded to dismiss their arguments. It is better
I think to examine them and see where they are coming from. Over
the last ten years I have always tried to listen to what people
were saying to me, keep my mouth shut and my mind open.
During a mediation which took place on Jan. 11, 1994 Hopi
Chairman Vernon Masayesva said to the Dine' families of the
"disputed lands" that he was aware that they held that all lands
within the 4 sacred mountains were sacred. He then said that
"everything within ba'dawa' - the shore of the ocean - is Hopi
land." He said that this is Hopi sacred land.
This is the greater Hopi religious claim to all lands in North
and South America. It has been made in a number of forums,
including the United Nations, and as I understand it is essentially
an aboriginal title claim. Hopi people have told me that there are
shrines marking this claim, one of them supposedly in Connecticut,
one in California somewhere, one on the tip of south America, etc.
Inside the greater Hopi claim is a central area they call
Tutsqua. Like the greater claim it is also marked by shrines.
This area contains things like big shrines where people go to pray
frequently. There are sacred places belonging to various clans,
villages and religious societies, many of which are secret. There
are ruins where some of the clans say they came from and which they
visit all the time. There are places where eagles nest and the
clans that "own" those sites visit them looking for baby eagles for
their ceremonies. Some of these are very sacred to the Dine' as
well, such as the Place of Emergence in the Grand Canyon, or the
place the Anglos call Woodruff Butte, south of Holbrook. There are
also places for gathering plants, minerals, and other things used
for religious or traditional purposes.
This is the basis on which the Hopi people think about and
claim the land the Dine' have always occupied. The Hopi Tribe has
been very successful in getting people to think along these terms:
The Hopi are trying to recover the sacred lands which were taken
from them (by the Dine").
However the Navajo-Hopi "land dispute" and P.L. 93-531 are in
"fact" claims and legal solutions deriving from an executive order
signed in 1882 by President Chester Arthur. In law, the Hopi claim
to the lands where the Dine' are living in NOT an aboriginal rights
claim and it is not a religious claim. The 1882 executive order was
requested by an Indian Agent at Keams Canyon who needed authority
to eject a white man who was reportedly undermining the agent's
authority by urging the Hopi people to disobey his orders. Rather
than survey a reservation boundary, he asked that an area 1 degree
in latitude and 1 degree in longitude be set aside for the Hopi
"and such other Indians" as were occupying the land. In fact, the
area set aside lands occupied by hundreds of Dine' families and
excluded one Hopi village, Oraibi's seasonally-occupied colony at
Moenkopi.
It was bureaucratic necessity that led to the partition of the
1882 Executive Order Reservation. Both Dine' and Hopi were living
on the same land: each tribe had its own Indian Agent and support
staff. How is the bureaucrat in charge of Hopis going to fill out
his forms, if he doesn't know who the Hopis are and where the Hopi
land is? How can he register a homesite? build a fence? It was
the dominant society's need to classify, to draw clear boundaries,
that led to the need to separate the Dine' and the Hopi.
A LITTLE MORE HISTORY: THE DISTRICT SIX EVICTIONS
The first separation of the Dine' and Hopi came in 1936, when
the BIA established grazing districts, reduced Indian livestock,
and declared that Grazing District Six of the 1882 Reservation was
to be an exclusive Hopi grazing district. At that time began a
series of evictions of Dine' which continued until the last group,
the Kabinto families, was evicted from Echo Canyon, out by Jeddito.
During World War II, while all the men were away fighting, hundreds
of families were forced out. John Yazzie's family used to farm in
Keams Canyon and were evicted; Roger Attakai's family used to live
out by Talahogan and were evicted; Louise Begay's family was
evicted from D-6 near Jeddito; Eugene Hasgood's family are D-6
evictees. That's what some people mean when they say they have
already been relocated once or twice and are not going to let it
happen to them again.
In 1972 the Kabinto families lost a suit and were ordered to
vacate the Echo Canyon area by the U.S. District Court. The Court
ordered the Navajo Nation to expedite the eviction - to remove its
own people. Rodger Davis, who drove one of the trucks, told me
that it was awful. they picked up all the families, their
livestock and their worldly goods. There were a couple hundred
people, elderlies, children, adults, all of them crying, and the
livestock were all scare and makin noise too. The tribal workers
finally got the caravan moving on the dirt road out. Rodger said
you could look back and see black smoke coming up where the BIA and
Hopis had gone in and torched the hogans and corrals and
sweatlodges and ramadas and everything else,so people wouldn't come
back. Just lots of black smoke and the people crying.
The U.S. government ordered the eviction and ordered the
Navajo Nation to do it. There were no provisions made for the
families. The Nation set up a tent city in the mud at the Window
Rock fairgrounds. It was a real cold wet winter and many of the
elders died. Families broke up, because there was no housing for
them. It wasn't until 1980 that the U.S. decided to make the D-6
evictees eligible for relocation homes (but only those who were
evicted in the KABINTO case; all others remain uncompensated to
this day). It is only in the last few years that a minority of
the KABINTO evictees have received housing to compensate for that
which the U.S. took from them.
There are a lot of people around who remember that
eviction, and that is why the Nation has spent tens of millions of
dollars - money the Nation really doesn't have to spare - trying to
block another forced relocation.
BACK TO THE NATURE OF THE HOPI CLAIM ON THE HOMES OF DINE' FAMILIES
Through years of skillful litigation the Hopi Tribe has
secured exclusive title to about 70% of the 1882 reservation. This
is not an aboriginal claim and it is not based on Hopi tradition or
religion. Hopi religious use of lands in this region continues as
it always has: individual Hopi come out and say their prayers,
gather the eagles, whatever. Because of all the bad feelings
stirred up by the "land dispute" and the evictions of Dine',
sometimes there are incidents.
The traditional way for these things to be done is for the
visitors to stop by and talk to local residents, explain what they
are doing, maybe trade a little. One of our office's jobs is to
help this process out if needed. Usually if there is an incident
we get an angry letter or phone call from the Hopi Tribe. We
always offer - in writing if we have time - to go out with the
group of Hopis who are having a problem and help them resolve it.
The Hopi Tribe has NEVER taken us up on our offers of assistance.
In other words, there are both traditional procedures and a
Navajo Nation agency in place to protect Hopi religious use of
lands occupied by the Dine'.
WHY AM I WRITING ALL THIS?
IF you believe that the Navajo-Hopi "land dispute" is a
dispute between two Indigenous Peoples who hold the same ground to
be sacred, then there is no way to resolve the issue. Both
peoples' claims are equivalent and you end up taking sides based on
whether you think Hopi or Dine' religion is better, purer, which
came first, whatever. The Hopi claim is total, and the Hopi claim
exclusive rights inside their lands.
My own feeling is that the Hopi and Dine' have traditional USE
RIGHTS to the "disputed lands". The Hopi right includes a lot of
land uses which are compatible with the continued exercise by the
Dine' of THEIR use rights which include the right of occupancy. It
is a mistake to translate use of land and resources by traditional
peoples into an exclusive ownership title. Exclusive titles are
for people who sell the land, rent it out, or otherwise turn it
into a commodity.
I hope that Indigenous and traditional people everywhere, as
well as their friends and advocates, take a good look at the
Navajo-Hopi "land dispute" before they try to resolve land claims
through creating exclusive land titles.
And for everyone, here is a question: What kind of religion
is it that tells you to take someone else's home away from them?