Mt. Taylor now a cultural property
Meeting has people arguing on both sides

Laguna citizens, left to right, Beck Touchui, Anne Oandason, Kim
Young, an unidentified man and Alfred, unfurl their banners in the
parking lot outside Grants High School Gymnasium Saturday on the way to
the Cultural Properties Review Committee meeting. [photo by Helen Davis / Independent]

Four Cibola County men who identified themselves only as "angry citizens" displayed their sentiments at the Grants High School Gymnasium Saturday before the Cultural Properties Review Committee meeting began.

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — A rough guess from one crowd watcher put the number of people at the Grants High School gymnasium for the Cultural Properties Review Committee meeting Saturday at around 700.

After approximately five hours of testimony, the committee voted to list Mount Taylor above 8,000 feet and the top of Horace Mesa in the State Register of Cultural Properties for one year. After one year, the nominating tribes must demonstrate that the area is qualified to a permanent listing in the register. Should they fail, the mountain cannot be nominated again for at least five years.

The five tribes — Navajo Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, Pueblo of Acoma, Laguna Pueblo and the Hopi Pueblo — who nominated the area for listing in the register all sent representatives. Mining interests, the general public, landowners within TCP area, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jon Williams, speakers from the New Mexico Mining and Mineral Division and the Department of Game and Fish all spoke to the review committee before a new vote was taken on the listing.

The listing of Mount Taylor in the register without due process and clear and legal notification has been the cause of anger and fear in Cibola County since the listing decision was announced Feb. 23. If anything, with the time lapsed between the decision and the repeated meeting, suspicion and anger has grown with each attempt by the press, local spokesmen, the cultural review committee and the U.S. Forest Service to clarify the meaning of the listing.

People entering the GHS gym were greeted by signs saying, “Mount Taylor is Public Land, not Reservation.”

Three Laguna citizens, Kim Young, Beck Touchui and Anne Oandason, held signs saying, “Water is Life,” and “Save our Sacred Mountain.” The group said that Laguna people were not included in the permitting process discussions and that is all they really wanted for the TCP listing.

Predicting the words of many of the speakers in the meeting later, one of the groups said, “It is not only for Native People; it is our job to protect the mountain.”

The division in perspective was heightened by the unfortunate fact that the high school gym has bleachers arranged as for opposing team; those of like mind naturally gravitated to the same set of bleachers, with an eerie sense of cowboys and Indians facing off pervading the room because many Native observers wore traditional clothing and cowboy hats dominated head gear in the stands across the gym.

Both sides wore the same big green badge saying “It’s our mountain, too,” and shared many of the same sentiments: The mountain should be sacred and should be accessible to everyone but reserved different ideas of what that meant or what the designation meant.

Many came to the meeting believing that the Traditional Cultural Property designation would mean someone could seize private property. Others thought that only Native Americans would be able to use the designated part of the mountain.

“It’s gonna affect private property,” Jim Elkins, a property owner on the mountain said. He added, “Anything we do, we will have to ask the Indians.”

After hours of testimony from people with information to add and people with concerns to air, much of the same sense misunderstand remained in the room. Committee Chairman Estevan Rael-Gálvez said, “There has been some division from misinformation.”

Another committee member, who voted “no” on the listing because there were new concerns to address, said more strongly that the community was deeply divided and he did not know how to fix that or who could work with Cibola County to establish communications.

Many speakers addressed the issue of communication and division, but Clemente Sanchez, lifelong Cibola County resident and leader, may have said it best, “The division in the community bothers me. Maybe doing nothing would be better than doing something.”

Local artist and mountain homeowner Kabu said, “Straighten this thing out, ’cause it is gonna get worse.”