I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Members of many New Mexican tribes and pueblos were thrilled to hear Monday that the National Trust for Historic Preservation put Mt. Taylor, near Grants, New Mexico, on its highly-publicized list of the 11 most endangered historic places in America.
But some of those same Native folks say that’s only part of what’s needed to preserve Mt. Taylor, large parts of which are widely considered sacred by many Native people.
In an effort to further protect Mt. Taylor, the National Trust is also recommending that the New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee list Mt. Taylor in the state register of cultural properties in June. Mt. Taylor has been on that list on an emergency basis since last June, when tribes sought immediate protection from a growing number of companies seeking permits to mine for uranium on the mountain.
Having the state designate Mt. Taylor as a “traditional cultural property” is key, because that would give the five tribes seeking the protection — the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe and the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma and Laguna — the right to consult with state agencies before decisions are made, former Zuni Gov. Malcolm Bowekaty told me Wednesday.
Certainly, fending off companies who want to jump in and mine Mt. Taylor for uranium is a concern, Bowekaty said.
But for Native Americans who grew up in the shadow of Mt. Taylor, getting the mountain on the list is about way more than that. It’s about protecting the purity of water that tribes use for ancient rituals and about preserving species of animals and plants who figure largely in their healing and spiritual ceremonies. And it’s about tribal people having the right to say what happens to land that plays such a huge part of their past and present existence on this earth.
It’s also about time.
Bowekaty and others who’ve spent time fighting for Mt. Taylor spoke with me as part of their work with the Albuquerque-based Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality (SAGE) Council, a Native-led coalition of community organizations that represent Navajos and all 19 New Mexico pueblos in fighting for economic, cultural and environmental justice. A large part of the SAGE Council’s mission is to preserve sacred Native American sites.
Bowekaty told me about going to Mt. Taylor with his father to hunt turkeys and scrub jays and gather ceremonial items when he was a boy.
“We harvested medicinal plants or roots and used the aspen trees for some of our ceremonial articles. We also harvested obsidian to make arrowheads, not just for utilitarian purposes but also for cultural and religious significance. We harvested azurite, a turquoise blue pigment that you get from rocks, for paint for our ceremonial items. Plus we harvested the water from the springs in ceremonies to harness the rains. We would go to the highest elevations to get the water that was purest.”
Everything was taken and used with reverence, Bowekaty said.
“There are certain places where people would go to give offerings, and you would have to go through ceremonies to even go up there. And then you would honor what was harvested with ceremonial rites before taking it back to the village.”
SAGE Council’s Nadine Padilla, who is of Navajo, Isleta and Laguna descent and grew up near Grants, remembers that being close to the sacred mountain was integral to every important moment of her childhood, including her coming-of-age ceremony at age 13.
“My grandmother’s hogan opens right out to Mt. Taylor. Whenever we would say our prayers and do our ceremonies, there was always that acknowledgement of where we were at.”
SAGE Council’s Laurie Weahkee, who is Navajo, Cochiti and Zuni, said a number of tribes consider Mt. Taylor one of six sacred mountains that figure largely in their creation stories.
“The mountains represent the spiritual self. You live within the context of what these mountains represent. Strength, stability and sustenance — all those things come to bear on you,” explained Weahkee.
It was hot yesterday, but what she said gave me goosebumps.
“Other religions have prayer. For us it’s not just words. It’s how you get back to your primordial self. It’s traveling back in time to your original time and place, and from there, resetting your priorities according to the gift that each mountain brings,” Weahkee added.
Sadlly, there’s been a lot of anger and misunderstanding about what the tribes want to do.
Many people around Grants, including landowners on the mountain, have expressed fear that designating it a “traditional cultural property” would give the five tribes veto power over normal activities that take place there now, such as hunting, hiking and dirt biking.
That is absolutely not so, said Weahkee.
“The tribes have asked that landowners not be subject to encroachment from the tribes,” she said. “The rights of private landowners would be respected.”
Even if the tribes did officially object to a company’s plans to mine for uranium, they wouldn’t be able to make them to stop, Weahkee said.
But the tribes would have the right to be told — a right they have not always been accorded.
“Really all this is is allowing tribes the respect that we believe we deserve to be notified if any sort of disturbance is going to happen in our cultural landscape,” said Weahkee.
Having Mt. Taylor recognized nationally as one of the 11 most endangered sites in America is certainly a great honor and a step down the right path for those who live and breathe the mountain.
But it looks like the fight for real protection for Mt. Taylor is in the state’s court now.
