Navajo holds her ground

[Okwes]

Navajo holds her ground
Leaving land means losing a part of herself, she says

By Sean Reily
Originally published February 5, 2006
www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.navajo05feb05,0,6160630.story

HOPI RESERVATION, Ariz. // A rifle hangs under Pauline Whitesinger's
mud-packed timber ceiling. It's placed within easy reach so she can
scare off the coyotes that threaten her sheep. But there have been
times when she's imagined other uses.

"Maybe we should have set up firearms at our doorways so we could
defend our homes," she said in her native Navajo language, as
translated by her nephew Danny Blackgoat.

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Whitesinger lives like her ancestors did, in an eight-sided, juniper
hogan - without electricity or running water - in the reaches of Big
Mountain, Ariz.

Whitesinger is one of the last Navajo remaining on this land after the
largest forced migration in the U.S. since the Japanese-American
internment during World War II.

In 1974, Congress drew a boundary through what had been a
1.8-million-acre joint-use area between the Navajo and Hopi tribes.
While an estimated 100 Hopi were told to move from what had become the
Navajo side of the boundary, more than 12,000 Navajo were ordered off
the Hopi side.

Sponsors of the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974 stated its
purpose at the time as a return to the Hopi Tribe of ancestral land
that was occupied by the Navajo more than a century before.

Critics said it was no coincidence that beneath the land lay some of
the largest untouched coal deposits in North America, and that the
Navajo needed to be moved to allow the mining.

In traditional Navajo belief, land cannot belong to a person. Instead,
persons belong to the land on which they were born. If Navajo stray
too far from that land, they lose themselves and their sense of
purpose and direction.

So when a representative from the then-created Office of Navajo and
Hopi Indian Relocation "came to ask me to sign up for the relocation
benefits and move," recalled Whitesinger, "I didn't bother with that
person at all."

Many Navajo called the relocation the "Second Long Walk," comparing it
to the infamous Long Walk in 1864, when the U.S government rounded up
the tribe and marched them to Fort Sumner in New Mexico, a trail on
which many died.

Whitesinger and the other Navajo who refused to move became known as
"resistors." All construction, including repairs to existing
structures, was forbidden.

Reductions were placed on livestock, often limiting their numbers to
fewer than it would take to support a family. Regulations limited the
collection of firewood. Water wells were capped, and blades were
removed from the windmills that pumped the water.

Today, where there once had been more than 12,000 Navajo, only eight
"resistor" families remain, with 22 adults.

But for three decades, Whitesinger has kept powerful forces at bay.

"I know where I belong," she said in her native Navajo. "I know if I
relocate I will die of loneliness."

No coal has been mined here. No more than a handful of Hopi have tried
moving here. And the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation is
planning to close in the next couple of years.

[Okwes]

Her Life Belongs to the Land

For 32 years, Navajo Pauline Whitesinger has resisted U.S. efforts to
force her off what it says is Hopi land. For her, home is who she is.

By Sean Reily
LATimes Staff Writer
February 4, 2006
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-whitesinger4feb04,0,1084701,full.story


[foto] NOT LEAVING: Pauline Whitesinger is one of the last Navajo
remaining on this land after Congress drew a boundary through a 1.8
million acre area between the Hopi and Navajo tribe in 1974.
(Gail Fisher / LAT) Copyright © 2006, The Los Angeles Times


HOPI RESERVATION, Ariz. -- A rifle hangs under Pauline Whitesinger's
mud-packed timber ceiling. It's placed within easy reach so she can
scare off the coyotes that threaten her sheep. But there have been times
when she's imagined other uses.

"Maybe we should have set up firearms at our doorways so we could defend
our homes," she said in her native Navajo language, as translated by her
nephew Danny Blackgoat.

Whitesinger lives like her ancestors did, in an eight-sided juniper
hogan in the reaches of Big Mountain, Ariz. Miles from the nearest paved
road, she is without electricity or running water. She sleeps on a cot
over a dirt floor next to a wood fire built within an overturned,
sawed-off barrel. She wakes each morning before dawn, and her first
action is to make a small white-corn pollen offering and to pray in the
direction of the rising sun.

Whitesinger is one of the last Navajos remaining on this land after the
largest forced migration in the U.S. since the internment of Japanese
Americans during World War II. In 1974, Congress drew a boundary through
what had been a 1.8-million-acre joint-use area between the Navajo and
Hopi tribes. While an estimated 100 Hopis were told to move from what
had become the Navajo side of the boundary, about 12,000 Navajos were
ordered off the Hopi side.

Sponsors of the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act said its purpose was to
return to the Hopi Tribe ancestral land that had been occupied by the
Navajos for more than a century. Critics said it was no coincidence that
beneath the land lay some of the largest untouched coal deposits in
North America, and that the Navajos needed to be moved to allow the mining.

Either way, Whitesinger said, "it was like a big wind that flew into our
vicinity and said, 'This is it; you have to abide by what had passed in
Congress. You are going to have to relocate.' "

In traditional Navajo belief, land cannot belong to a person. Instead, a
person belongs to the land on which they were born. If Navajos stray too
far from that land, they lose themselves and their sense of purpose and
direction.

So when a representative from the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian
Relocation "came to ask me to sign up for the relocation benefits and
move," Whitesinger recalled, "I didn't bother with that person at all.
But all of a sudden, it was like a sieve. Where we were a thousand
points of light within this area, there are only a few of us now -- a
few flickers of light."

Many Navajos called the relocation the "Second Long Walk," comparing it
to the infamous Long Walk in 1864, when the U.S. government rounded up
the tribal members and marched them to Ft. Sumner in New Mexico -- a
trail on which many died. In this new transplantation, the Navajos were
given promises of the so-called New Lands, mostly government-built
housing on the reservation's border towns.

A rural people who earned their living off the land, they were
undereducated and ill-equipped to compete for the few jobs on a
reservation where unemployment hovers near 50%. Most of the elders and
many of the adults didn't speak English. Many of the stories that
followed were of tragedy, grief and depression. Of the first groups that
relocated, 25% were dead within four years.

"I had a lot of my relatives relocate to the New Lands," Whitesinger
said. "If they had sheep, it was three sheep in a corral the size of my
hogan. They might have nice homes, but that isn't the way I was brought
up. That is why I stayed."

Whitesinger and the other Navajos who refused to move became known as
"resisters." And the federal government and Hopi Tribe set out to make
life difficult for them.

All construction, including repairs to existing structures, was
forbidden. Reductions were placed on livestock, often limiting their
numbers to fewer than it would take to support a family. Grazing permits
were canceled. Free-roaming livestock that crossed newly created
boundary lines were impounded. Regulations limited the collection of
firewood. Water wells were capped and blades were removed from the
windmills that pumped the water. Even the prairie dogs that the poorer
Navajos ate were poisoned in a pest-eradication program.

As Whitesinger watched one resister family after another wear down and
succumb to the relocation, she saw "the Hopi come with their bulldozers
and level their home sites, leaving no trace of their lives there," she
said.

When a work crew arrived in the late 1970s to place a fence across the
grazing land for her sheep in the relocation's first move against her,
Whitesinger borrowed her son's truck and drove close to the workers in
an attempt to scare them off.

Each time the crew members returned, they would find their previous
day's work dismantled and discarded. Eventually they gave up.

Whitesinger said it was a Hopi ranger who came next. The ranger read the
mandate for her to leave in English -- with her daughter translating --
while Whitesinger whittled the end of a long stick. When the ranger
demanded Whitesinger's acceptance and answer, her daughter said to him
that he could see her answer.

"She is making a stick right now. A fire poker. To poke you with,"
Whitesinger said, recalling her daughter's words. "She told him if he
stayed around I might even fix a blade to the end of the stick."

For three decades, Whitesinger has kept powerful forces at bay.

"I don't know how old I am," she said. "It is like floating down a
river. Each year passes by, and it's just another season of winter, and
time goes on."

But, she added, speaking in Navajo, "I know where I belong. I know if I
relocate, I will die of loneliness."

*

Threats of Armed Conflict

Before the settlement act was approved, the Navajo and Hopi governments
signed a pact to share equally in all royalties from minerals mined from
beneath the joint-use land, regardless of who controlled its surface.

Whitesinger believes that's why "through this all, any kind of needs
that we had, any kind of requests that we made to Window Rock [the seat
of the Navajo government], they say we can't do it because this is all
under Hopi jurisdiction."

In the mid-1980s, representatives from the Navajo government called upon
her and her sister Roberta Blackgoat.

"There was about seven or eight that came out here to meet us, including
the Navajo tribal chairman," Whitesinger said. "My sister had come to my
house to wait for them with me. When they came, they threatened us with
armed confrontation. They told us that the U.S. Army was coming to
forcefully relocate us. They related that unless we left, they were
going to witness us being drug out of this house."

Long past being intimidated, "I said, 'Where is the Army?' " Whitesinger
recalled. "They told us they were right over the hill. So I said, 'OK,
let's get it over with. Which one of you tribal officials are going to
be the one that's going to grab me, and which is it of you that are
going to observe?' "

According to Whitesinger, none of the Navajo officials answered.

The standoff didn't last long. There was no Army unit. No one dragged
anyone out. And if they had, the officials knew they probably would have
had a media event on their hands. By then, the resisters had learned how
to get out their message. Sympathizers and volunteers from outside had
arrived to offer their help and numbers.

The growing publicity eventually caused a reevaluation in Washington,
and in 1996, Congress passed the second Hopi-Navajo settlement act, also
called the Accommodation Agreement. Sponsored by Republican Sen. John
McCain of Arizona, it permitted those few Navajos who had stayed to live
out their lives on the land if they signed leases with the Hopi
government giving up all property rights and stating that the land could
not be passed to their heirs.

A new forcible eviction date was set for late 2000.

"A lot of elders were pressured to sign the Accommodation Agreement, and
a lot moved," Whitesinger said. But she and her sister still did not
sign. To them, land could not be ceded away.

Today, where there once had been about 12,000 Navajos, only eight
resister families remain, with 22 adults.

*

A Fading History

The affected lands are now a vast, quiet and empty desert. In winter,
snow dusts the juniper trees and sage. In summer, the heat can reach
triple digits by early morning. Water is always the most precious commodity.

No coal has been mined here, as coal transportation costs, because of
the remoteness of the area, have proved prohibitive. No more than a
handful of Hopis has tried moving here despite their government's claim
that this was a return of their homeland. And the Office of Navajo and
Hopi Indian Relocation is planning to close down sometime in the next
few years.

For Pauline Whitesinger and the U.S. and Hopi governments, it's a war of
attrition now.

Whitesinger points to a post within her hogan.

"It needs to be repaired," she said. "But the Hopis won't allow me to
cut the wood to get a new post. Whatever way they can to break our
spirit, they have done that. We still experience a lot of hardship. And
now it seems like we're forgotten."

In July 2003, Roberta Blackgoat died, and with her went not only
Whitesinger's sister and closest friend, but also the primary voice of
the resisters to the outside world.

"We used to be a team," Whitesinger said. "My sister used to bring her
herd over here right before the summer heat, and we'd join our flocks
and would graze them in the coolness."

Her words fade, and she puts her hands up to her face.

"When I was in shape, I didn't feel lonely out here," Whitesinger said.
"I used to go visit my sister and my neighbors, and go herd sheep and
look after the horses and cattle. But I got hurt, and since then I am
more homebound and I feel the sense of loneliness now."

She looks out over the desert where she was born.

"It's quite obvious here [with what's happened] that we are going to
lose the essence of ourselves, our language, the sense of kinship and
who we are," Whitesinger said. "We are going to lose our connection to
what we've been taught from the early days. Ceremony will be lost -- our
prayers, our way of life. There is a lot of history that was covered up.
The essence of [our] time [here] covered up by the wind."

Every evening before darkness, as she is able, Whitesinger puts her
sheep into pens made of juniper branches, wire and broken wooden
pallets, with mattress frames stripped to their springs as gates.

She still tends to her free-roaming horses when they return for the
water that is trucked in. She still goes to her woodpile for the
branches to keep the fire going in her hogan.

And every evening, Whitesinger finishes the prayer that she starts that
morning.

"I make an offering with the yellow cornmeal to the yellow folding of
the evening," she said. "I pray to anything and everything that is holy
around here. I pray for harmony and peace and that there be compassion
and understanding by any and all about our situation here. I pray for an
end to the disharmony that is caused by man."