DINE' BIKEYA COMMITTEE MEETING AT TEESTO
I drove out to Teesto today for a regular meeting of the Dine'
Bikeya Committee. It was a pretty good turnout, President (Alvin)
Clinton & Ida Clinton, were there of course, Frances Bahe, Helen &
Dennis Lewis and four small grandchildren, Arnold and Jennie
Paddock, Cecil Miles, Phoebe Nez, Kenneth Jensen, Albert & Rose
Francis among the elders, plus a lot of the younger generation as
well, Roger Attakai, Neomi Clinton, Elmer Clark, Judy Keyonnie,
etc. Everyone was packed into the Land Commission's Teesto sub-
office, which is in an old, run-down abandoned former trading post
that some of our staff rehabbed a few years ago. It's about 400
meters west of the Chapter House.
When I got there, Elmer Clark was going over in detail the
same briefing provided by Lee Phillips last week., explaining the
current status of mediation, the 60-day extension and the various
options. Like what we could expect if mediation ends and MANYBEADS
v, U.S. goes back into court. The general drift is that if it goes
back to court it will be years before there is a decision and all
that time the U.S. and Hopi Tribe will be doing everything they can
to make people miserable, force them to move out. In other words,
the Reagan-Bush-(Bill)Clinton policy of constant harassment and
economic pressures against the HPL Dine' will resume its former
intensity.
I had to give the report from Window Rock, not much to report
as the Mediator has instructed us to quit "interfering" with the
HPL Dine' in what he thinks is their natural inclination to sign
the Agreement in Principle and the 75-year lease. The U.S.
attorneys, the Mediator and the Hopi attorney are VERY attached to
the settlement which they have developed and seem unable to
understand why the people turned down the lease. So they are
looking for someone to blame and they blame the Navajo Nation!
The Teesto people get a chuckle out of that one, it's sort of
a running joke any more. I did report on some of the proposals
which have been developed at Coal Mine Canyon and Sand Springs.
Also we had been requested to look at the PLO-Israeli Agreement in
Principle to see how that was done and if it anything we could use.
I did that, actually that agreement is pretty interesting. You can
find the whole thing in the Journal of Palestine Studies, fall 1993
issue. So now there's about 30 copies of the PLO agreement
floating around Teesto.
After that, there was discussion of 3 action items. First was
about religious sites and religion. A lot of today's discussion
centered around how the Mediator was focusing exclusively on
"traditional" religion and more or less ignoring Native American
Church. In people's lives and minds, NAC is part of the Dine'
religion and way of life; and especially is where people meet to
pray for a settlement of the so-called land dispute, to pray for
guidance, and renew themselves when they are all broken down.
The second action item was to decide whether to put together
a counterproposals to the Hopi Tribe. There was about 45 minutes
of discussion on this, and it was decided to make such a proposal.
The Dine' Bikeya Committee wants to deal with the Hopi Tribe AS A
COMMUNITY, and not (as under the current scheme) as individual
families. The vote was unanimous, so now there will have to be a
lot of group work to put the proposal together. My feeling is that
they will come up with something which will be as beautiful and
generous as the Hopi lease proposal is ugly and mean.
After the vote, Roger Attakai said that this is what he has
been prayin for all the time, it's always been in his prayers and
he knows that they will be answered. The way he said it was
exactly the voice and words like he uses when he is running a
prayer service. You could say it is his road man voice, it's good
to hear anytime. He was really sick last summer, but was healed in
an NAC service and looks healthy and strong now.
Mrs. Lewis' youngest grandchild is a boy, last time I saw him
was when there was a prayer service at Arnold Paddock's. He was in
a cradleboard then, this beautiful, big, square-headed boy. Now
he's walking, just this big, solid, happy kid with food all over
his face, who was all over the place during the meeting but ended
up asleep in his grandma's arms by the time we adjourned.
After we adjourned, I had to jam, driving fast in front of a
winter storm blowing in from the west. My wife is away for a
while, had to get my son before five, when the library in Window
Rock closes. This morning (1/28) there was about half a foot of
snow, good to see as we have not had much moisture all winter.
Jon Norstog