"This tree is a prophecy. That's what the Hopi Rangers don't understand. This tree is the fulfillment of a prophecy. This is the end of the 4th world in Hopi prophecy. The name of the 5th world is the World of Glittering Trees."
-- Joe Chasing Horse of the Lakota Nation, Sun Dance Chief
Perhaps officials of the federally mandated Hopi tribal government took heart from the cancellation of last year's Sun Dance ceremony on the Hopi Partitioned Lands at Big Mountain, AZ. Certainly they've tightened their grip on the inhabitants, legally their tenants, by pouncing on livestock which exceed arbitrary quotas, by capping wells in the midst of a drought and falling water tables, and by their arrogant trampling over the ancestral homelands of the local population, and the arbitrary enforcement of capricious laws by Hopi Range Monitors.
Perhaps the re-emergence of the Sun Dance ceremony this year, the first of a four year cycle, took the Hopi Tribal Council by surprise. Perhaps their hold on the ill-gotten lands isn't as firm as they had hoped. Maybe, despite a shameful lack of support by the Navajo tribal government, and despite hardship, attrition, and death, the roots of the resistance remain strong; and maybe, too, despite an absence of balanced reporting on the issue (if any), support for the resistance from Indians and non-Indians alike remains committed to protecting their native rights to live inviolate and sovereign on their ancestral lands.
Eager to trumpet its title to the land as a fait accompli, the tactics of the Hopi government vis a vis its Navajo tenants on the Hopi Partitioned Lands have always been crude. However, the response to the July 2001 Sun Dance revealed a new, desperate energy, one which has the potential for exposing ongoing crimes against the human rights of a landed people whom the U.S. Congress, at the behest of Peabody Coal Co., have turned into tenants.
The Sun Dance itself was brought to resistance Camp Ana Mae at Big Mountain in 1987. It is one of two Sun Dances brought to Big Mountain by Lakota religious leaders to support the resistance to relocation. Yearly, these ceremonies inspire and re-invigorate people from the threatened communities. The Sun Dance at Camp Ana Mae is the only one on the still-contested Hopi Partitioned Lands.
On tree day, July 11, the day before the four-day ceremony was to begin, Hopi Rangers and Bureau of Indian Affairs police quickly appeared at the entrance to Camp Ana Mae (Hopi Range Unit 262) following the departure of half the Sun Dance camp to gather the sacred cottonwood tree, center of the dance. They announced they wanted to speak to the "man in charge" of the Sun Dance. Various people came down to speak with them, and all were informed that a permit would be required for the Sun Dance to be performed.
By the time the caravan returned with the tree securely fastened to a cattle trailer, the number of police cars had swelled to six and the entrance road was blocked, provoking alarm and heated exchanges with police.
Finally Chief Hopi Ranger Marvin Yoyetewa persuaded five local women to travel to Kykotsmovi for a permit, a mere formality. The tree would wait at the entrance to the camp until the women returned. Their decision to go to Kykotsmovi was motivated by the hope of relieving tension around the roadblock.
Trusting Yoyetewa's words, the three grandmothers and two younger women were carried in two police cars to Kykotsmovi, where no one was found waiting to speak with them.
Instead, they were placed under arrest and taken to Keams Canyon and jailed. Arrested were Louise Benally, Joella Ashike, Ruth Benally, Elvira Horseherder, and Pauline Whitesinger. They were stripped and given jail suits. "I was a woman, but now I'm a man," proclaimed Pauline Whitesinger, who has never worn pants in her 80-plus years, before stripping a sheet from the bed and wrapping it around her waist like a skirt.
All five women had to share a mattress on the middle of the floor between four cots already occupied by six other women (most were Hopis jailed for alcohol-related offenses, and most were supportive of the resisters: "Give 'em hell!" they encouraged their Navajo sisters.)
One of those who returned with the tree to find the road blocked by police was John Benally, lifelong resident. Seeing his ancestral lands invaded and his people threatened, face to face with an armed force attempting to derail a sacred ceremony on the land of his birth, an angry Benally told Yoyetewa that "we will stop anyone who tries to interfere with the Sun Dance".
That evening on the TV news in Flagstaff, Yoyetewa was telling reporters that Benally had threatened to shoot Hopi Rangers. This was repeated by at least two morning papers (Gallup Independent and Arizona Daily Sun).
Yoyetewa's assertion was as far from the truth as was his offer of a permit. Yoyetewa and his men were the only ones with guns. By his words, and by the press' docile repetition of them, Yoyetewa is setting up John Benally. Make no mistake. It is the Hopi Rangers that have made a threat against John Benally, not the other way around.
Late that night, supporters who had gone to Kykotsmovi in the false hope of bailing out the five arrestees returned to find the tree sitting at the entrance to the camp, and no police. Quickly the tree was driven up to the arbor --- morning had not yet broken --- and everyone in camp was roused to help place it in the ground.
In the dark, perhaps a hundred people lifted the huge 35 foot tree onto the ground next to the hole, while others climbed over it attaching prayer ties, prayer flags, and ropes which would be used to hoist the tree and later to tear out the cherrywood from the pierced flesh of those making offerings. All were tied so quickly and skillfully by the dancers, as if they were just tying their shoes, that in no time at all they had scrambled down and, as the first light of morning appeared in the sky, a sweating, grunting mob lovingly hoisted the tree into its place in the center of the arbor and firmly fixed it there.
With an enormous sense of joy and relief the crowd circled the tree for a prayer, then dispersed, leaving the dancers to prepare for their first rounds. This was a victory, but at the cost of five arrests.
Nor was this the first illegal Sun Dance. Christians, missionaries, and bureaucrats whose job it was to superintend the lives of the surviving Plains Indians on their reservations took offense at the Sun Dance and had it declared illegal in the 1880's. It wasn't until 1934 when U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier issued a circular on Indian Religious Freedom that it was resumed legally. (This was the same John Collier who supervised the devastating reductions of Navajo livestock in the 1930's).
The next day the five were released on their own recognizance, charged with "criminal trespass" (all were born on the land), and assigned to a hearing at Keams Canyon on July 30, since continued. They returned to camp joyfully to find the tree safely in the arbor surrounded by dancers, the drums beating, singers lifting their voices to the sky.
As the Sun Dance progressed, police began to block the roads as they had in 1999, warning drivers and passengers that they faced fines of $500 doubling every day they stayed (Quick: How many days would it take for the fine to reach a million dollars? Answer: 12 days). In fact, the notices Hopi police were handing drivers were dated July 9, 1999. In copying them, they hadn't even bothered to change the date.
Citations began to be issued, though inconsistently. Some people were stopped by BIA police at the wash, then by Navajo police on the NPL side of the fence, then issued citations by Hopi police if they crossed the line. Those who were darker and obviously native received tickets to Hopi Tribal Court, where non-Indians may not be tried. Others, not obviously Indians, were ordered to Navajo County, State of Arizona Court. Most were charged with criminal trespass; on some citations the box for civil trespass was checked. Most of those cited came from out of state. As part of the harassment, everyone was assigned different court dates.
People leaving the Sun Dance, including local residents, were stopped and warned that they would be cited if they returned. Some citations weren't signed, reflecting, many believe, a distaste for their task by the rank and file. Many described personal encounters in which police embarrassment was palpable.
The roadblocks intensified, and the next day were set up on back roads as well. A truck with portapotties and a truck with water for the camp were turned away, as was a doctor bringing medicine for a diabetic Sun Dancer.
Interestingly, in a purportedly unrelated (?) incident, the water tank at Rocky Ridge School had been locked by persons unknown, denying access to hundreds of local residents who rely on it since wells are dry.
As an aside, it is taken for granted (and self-evident) that people's wells are dry because of the coal slurry line, the only one of its kind in the world, which takes more than a billion gallons of water a year from the desert aquifer underlying Black Mesa to slurry ground coal through a pipeline almost three hundred miles to a Laughlin, Nevada power plant where the coal is fired to generate power for Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, hungry mega-cities which squat on the desert floor like huge parasites.
One grandmother, whose land in the Red Lake/Tonalea area is crossed by the slurry line, told of having had ponds and groves of fruit trees her whole life, ponds now dry, fruit trees dead.
From a letter dated July 1 to the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Dep't of Interior, signed by that same grandmother, Rena Babbitt Lane, and her beloved husband, John Lane: "We are suffering greatly because in the last 2 or 3 months the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) capped off and dismantled 4 of the windmills near where we live on both Hopi Partitioned Land (HPL) and Navajo Partitioned Land (NPL). In one case, the pump was disassembled or welded off at the water shaft. A child we know tells of a Hopi government man that shut off a windmill on Navajo Partitioned Land (NPL) just 2 weeks agoŠNow the only place we can get water is from 27 miles away, each wayŠJust to get to the highway we have to travel 17 miles on rough dirt roads."
8 days later, on July 9, a great and gentle man, John Lane died from the excessive stress brought on by this siege. He was forced to work himself to death to bring desperately needed water to his livestock, his gardens, and his family. The prayers of everyone at the Sun Dance were offered to a heartbroken Rena Babbit Lane, married since her teens. The U.S. government must be held accountable for this tragedy.
On July 12, John Lane was buried on the family's ancestral land without permission of the Hopi Tribal Council or the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The next night the back roads were clear of police, and water was brought into camp.
As the Sun Dance went on, some people received tickets, some were stopped and information taken from their driver's licenses, and some were just watched by police as they drove in.
And some turned around and didn't try the blockade. We will never know how many people traveled what distances to share the Sun Dance prayers, and perhaps be healed, only to find their way blocked and to have to return home, disappointed.
One person heard Rangers bragging that 2 out of 3 cars were turned back by this show of force, but who can believe them?
The Sun Dance took its own time, and set its own pace, and proceeded magnificently to a conclusion on Sunday, July 15. Throughout the four days, countless thunderclouds had drifted by, monsoonlike, sometimes floating over the Sun Dance itself, dropping rain and flashing electric charges and booming, sometimes just lighting up the horizon, or sending a charge into some distant brush.
That final Sun Dance afternoon we watched the tree and its colorful prayer flags, newly washed by a thunderstorm, glittering in the last light of the day.
