Nuvamsa outlines Mount Taylor’s importance to Hopi

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

PUEBLO OF ACOMA — Just a few days after the committee took its hearing to Cibola County to list Mount Taylor in the State Register of Cultural Properties for one year, tribal leaders commented on the Cultural Properties Review Committee’s reaffirmed vote.

Leaders from all five of the tribes nominating the mountain for listing, landowners, outdoorsmen, mining interests and others spoke to the committee on their home grounds in the Grants High School Gymnasium on June 16.

On June 19, speakers from Hopi, Zuni, Laguna, Acoma, and the Navajo Nation addressed media and other interested parties about what motivated the nomination and to express their appreciation to the committee in a news conference at the Sky City Hotel.

Hopi Tribal Chairman Benajmin H. Nuvamsa, of the Hopi Bear Clan, said it was his responsibility to speak for the tribal government and the Hopi’sinmuy, or Hopi people, in expressing appreciation to the committee. He added that the Hopi Tribe has long recommended that Mount Taylor, or Tsiiplya, be considered important as a natural and cultural part of the human environment.

Like other speakers, Nuvamsa indicated that the tribes, of their own accord, began the move to list the mountain. Referring to the speakers at the June 16 hearing, he said,

“Anyone who opened their ears to hear what the tribal people were saying would have learned that this initiative belongs to the tribes, is real and is important.”

Nuvamsa took the issue of old laws and outdated attitudes head on, saying, “The archaic laws used to ‘discover,’ ‘claim,’ and ‘take’ Native Americans’ lands continue today as a policy of disregard and disrespect toward the beliefs and sacred ties that Hopi and other Native people have with the Earth. The legacy of unimpeded development has devastated the people and the land, and these laws and policies without tribal consultation or public participation continue to destroy the land and lives of Hopi’sinom, Native Americans and American citizens alike.”

The Hopi chairman explained that the lands on the mountain are part of the tribe’s ancestral lands and are a traditional cultural property. Hopi people were part of what is now called the American Southwest before there was an Arizona or a New Mexico and have lived in Aztec, Chaco, Santa Fe and thousands of other settlements over time.

“These lands contain the testimony of our ancestors’ stewardship through thousands of years, manifested in the prehistoric ruins, the rock ‘art’ and artifacts, and the human remains of our ancestors, Hisat’sinom, People of Long Ago, who continue to inhabit them,” he said. Nuvamsa added that the Hopi have returned to Tsiipiya on pilgrimages since time immemorial and continue to do so today because the mountain and the people are inseparable.

Like other tribal leaders, Nuvamsa stressed that much of the underlying concern behind nominating the mountain for cultural protection was based in environmental as well as religious concerns.

“At the hearing, some people said they thought this nomination was about uranium. This nomination is about ground disturbing activities that have the potential to cause direct and indirect adverse effects to archaeological sites and traditional cultural properties significant to the Hope tribe, including matters of view shed (sic), and air and noise pollution. And ultimately, this nomination is about water and life,” he said.

The Hopi leader explained for the media, “Therefore, I am here today at this news conference to reassure the public that the Committee’s decision is the right decision, and regardless of any misunderstanding of what this listing means.” He added that he looks forward to working with the tribes in the Mount Taylor area to continue the effort to protect and preserve the mountain for future generations of Hopi, Americans and all the people and living things of the Earth.