It has been unusually quiet. Already Tuesday and no livestock
impoundment or other action against the Dine' on the land, at least
that we have heard about. Usually, when I come to work on Monday
morning I can count on having to deal with something serious. The
Bedonie family decided to pay the impoundment fees themselves last
week. Lorenzo Bedonie, a family member who is also the Council
delegate for Hardrock Chapter and a Land Commission member,
assisted in paying the impound fees.
HOPI ELECTIONS
The Hopi elections are coming up tomorrow. Former Chairman
Ivan Sidney is running against Ferrell Secakuku, owner of the big
Second Mesa store, for Chairman. Philip Quochwytewa is running
against Arnold Taylor for Vice Chairman.
Mr. Sidney and Mr. Quochwytewa are both former policemen, and
I believe are both actually Tewa, not Hopi. The Tewa were brought
to First Mesa a couple hundred years ago, supposedly to help the
Hopis fight against the Spanish, Utes and Dine'. They have a
different language from Hopi and some of them feel they are treated
as second-class citizens by the Hopi. A lot of them are in tribal
government, especially police work.
Mr. Taylor and Mr. Quochwytewa were both on the Hopi Tribe's
mediation team, which was allowed by the mediator to call itself
the "Hopi Relocation Task Team." Mr. Taylor was there as Vernon
Masayesva's Chief of Staff, Mr. Quochwytewa as a council member.
The candidates have all refrained from using mediation and the
Navajo-Hopi issue in their campaigns, partly because they are all
in agreement. Their basic position, is that the Dine' have to go
whether it is now or at some later time. I have heard reports,
which I cannot verify, that in going before the villages to report
during mediation, Relocation Task Team members told people that the
Agreement in Principle and proposed Lease would allow them to evict
most of the Dine' "troublemakers."
During mediation the Hopi Tribe was honest in stating that its
goal was a "Navajo-free HPL." Those were the words they used,
talking about the Dine' the you might talk about some kind of
insect pest in your house. The mediator did not call them on that
statement. I believe the reason there is no renewal provision in
the Hopi-proposed lease is that the Hopi Tribe has no intention of
renewing it after 75 years. The Hopi people have minds that work
different - one big difference is they don't see time the same way.
75 years is nothing to people who use the present tense when they
talk people who were killed at Awatobi 190-some years ago. If the
Hopi say something they REALLY mean it. So I think it is a mistake
for the mediator and the U.S. government not to take them at their
word.
Wednesday, Jan. 26, there was a candidate forum at Flagstaff.
"An audience member asked (Wayne) Taylor how he would stand on the
land issues since he has been married to a Navajo and his children
are half-Navajo. Taylor said that he is Hopi and firmly believed
the=at Hopis are on ancestral land. 'I will not sway from that
position,' he said. 'I believe this is Hopi land and I will fight
for it.' Congress needs to enforce the law relocating Navajos from
Hopi land he said." (Reported in Gallup, NM, INDEPENDENT, Jan. 31,
1993. p.2)
The audience member who asked was Cindy Taylor, Mr. Taylor's
Dine' wife who was sitting in the audience with their daughter.
She came in to see me yesterday with a copy of the INDEPENDENT
article cited above. She was pretty upset, she does not understand
how after all the years together as man and wife, after all that
Mr. Taylor could have so little respect for the Dine'. It is not
just Mr. Taylor, really. Chairman Masayesva is married to a Dine',
his daughter is married to Roberta Blackgoat's grandson even. But
all through this, these same Hopi Tribal officials can still say
things like wanting a "Navajo-free HPL."
Jon Norstog