Roberta Blackgoat's Home Place Threatened

A Letter from Bahe Katenay
May 2004
      

To All My Relations Nym Myo Ho Ren Gey Kyo

Yaa'at'eeh (Good Greetings),

Fighting in a true revolution is difficult. That is why a few of us continue to rekindle a struggle on Big Mountain. A struggle that compose of much reality like making a stand upon actual ancestral land. It is not like making a stand on city property where the police has given a permit to protest. It is not making a stand where we claim a basic right of government privileges such as Freedom of Religion or U.S. Constitution.

We are a few because we stand for the Right of the Core of Indigenous Beliefs. At Thin Rock Mesa in west central Big Mountain, the late Roberta Blackgoat's home site still sits with the life and all the glory of the belief systems associated to the Sacred Mountain Soil Bundle of the Dineh. This is true sovereignty. That is why the U.S. Justice systems is coercing the Hopi tribal rangers to be the point in this aggression to eliminate the continuous, flickering flame of aboriginal sovereignty.

We are not activist --those of us that gathered at the late Roberta Blackgoat's land throughout May 6-9, 2004. Activist are people who argue a policy based on the principles of that policy. An activist is someone who tries to acquire rights based on existing or outlined rights of governmental privilege designs. Those of us, like the late Roberta Blackgoat, who are making a stand at the frontlines of corporate draining of the ancient aquifer are freedom fighters. Those of us who make a stand knowing that we might risk our "American" comforts, and may have no basis to protest are only enforcing Great Spirit or Creator's divine gifts of principles from ages ago. This is what freedom fighters are all about.

This very day the repercussions are taking place because of our victory to carry out Great Spirit's way by not acknowledging the false ordinances so-called, Hopi tribal jurisdiction. A stand had to made and it is urgent because we are tired of seeing our elders being driven into submission because of 'lawful' threats in the name of Peabody Western Coal expansions. "Hopi jurisdiction" will never become a reality while our ancestral land is laden with 'black gold.' Coal is the answer to our future of American comforts and to (their) American global power. "Hopi jurisdiction" does not mean the Hopi will develop these lands for their villages or cornfields. Even Hopi people are harassed if they haul firewood or attempt hold religious activity on the new lands that are supposedly "reserved for them." They need a "permit" also. There are no plans to build village complexes but there are possible long-range plans to build rail roads, dams and boom towns, and this will generate more revenues to outside corporations and a little will go to the Hopi tribal government.

The threats to, now, bulldoze or level the late Roberta Blackgoat's homestead is another attempt to "kill" the rebirth of the original Big Mountain traditional resistance. If the homestead is desecrated, it will only rekindle Dineh resistance more because those elders that had come to the gathering showed their support and are concern. This will only unite the Dineh once again. There might be a few of Us but we are here. The federal government bulldozers will only put a huge scar in our history of maintaining our aboriginal sovereignty. That scar will not go away --ever! Our future generation will be the much smarter and they will not only see that scar but they will feel it, too.

(They) wear their side arms while their semi-automatic rifles are in their vehicles and they make the threats. Our threats, if they wish to call it that, have only been the sacred hoop, the sacred fire, the sacred tobacco, the sacred cedar smoke, the sacred ancestor rocks, and the sacred sweet grass smoke.

My Hopi relatives, do not go along with the laws of the Baahanas. Return to the the original road of Masawa. Stand with your Dineh neighbors and pray for peace.

Thank you for listening.

Bahe Katenay 
Dineh of Big Mountain 
Supporter of the Blackgoat Family 

       

    


Reprinted as an historical reference document under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html