Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

[On the 14th April, 1999, Roberta Blackgoat made the following
statement. Roberta is an 82 year old Navajo Elder and is one of
the resisters at Black Mesa under threat of imminent eviction.]

My name is Roberta Blackgoat, I am speaking to you from Thin Rock Mesa, the place where I live, the place where I've been born, and raised, and been taught how to live in this area. For twenty-five years I've been dealing with the government trying to move me off my ancestral lands. My great, great ancestors have been born here, and they've been buried in this area,.... around here there is a lot of my ancestors graveyard sites.

My grandfather had taught me how to care for life on the land in the sacred ways, with the sacred prayers and the sacred songs, and he told me how in the very beginning the world was created and how the Great Spirit has surveyed it for the Dine people in this area, between the Sacred Mountains, Mount Blanca in Colorado, Mount Taylor in New Mexico, San Francisco peaks in Arizona, and Mount Hesperus in Colorado. Between these four Sacred Mountains is a room for the Dine people, where it has been made like a church, and way out on the west side, by the San Francisco Peaks, inside the room is our altar.

And this is the main point, ... that we are being told to move off the land. This is our altar that we can't give up. We can't sell it, we can't buy it, we just have to take care of it and have people live in this area. And now we're being told to move off from our altar. This is why I really need it to be understood. ...That the government ... what they want this land for is what the Mother earth is living on. She is supposed to have a liver, and lungs, and a heart, and all these things are what we are sitting on. Just like our bodies, the Mother Earth has internal organs, ... these are the precious and valuable minerals that she needs, and so, all the equipment and things we make, all our food, even ourselves is made out of the Mother Earth,... and even money is a part of her body that has been turned into money. And now the greed is always working against our Mother Earth, and Mother Earth is suffering.

We've been hearing a lot about tornadoes, ... and earthquakes, ... a lot of these warnings have been going on, ... That's Her breath, because She is suffering and her breath is giving us warnings. These are the main things that we need to have understood. ... That the people need to be allowed to live in the way that they have been all their lives.

PLEASE, I am wanting to have this understood ... by writing letters to the Congressional leaders, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and all these people to know we have a pain feeling for our Mother Earth. She's getting more surgery, and no patch to it. It's just when a human being has surgery, and something is patched, but I don't believe Mother earth has any patches, they just keep on killing her more and more. I believe more understanding is needed in this way. I am just needing for this to be heard. I am not begging for money or anything, but I'm really hanging on to the world for my Dine people and every living thing.

There is a great loss on the mountains, ... the wildlife people are living there, and the people that fly, they live on the trees, and they all are losing their homes and, and the food of the wildlife four-legged people, ... And even the water, ... the people that live in the water are struggling with all the pollution, and the sickness in the spirit of the water, and also all the human beings, ... us Indians, .. all the different tribes, ... they are all facing the same struggles with their land and their food,... they are suffering also, not just the Navajos are suffering, it's all Indians living in this Indian Country are suffering. I do hope to be having a great help from all you people who are aware, by having you write to President Clinton, and Also Senator McLain (McCain), and Bruce Babbitt. Please let them have their hearts to be touched.

I have heard of the Whiteman's story, ... how the Creator made the first man, ... and He saw that he was lonely and so He created a woman for him, ... and He told them that all the things they could see were for them, BUT they must not eat the apple on the tree, ... so it is for us Dine people, ... the Creator has told us we MUST look after the land in between the four sacred mountains, so write to the politicians and tell them that if they want us Dine people to move off our sacred land they should SUE THE CREATOR. I think this will be all. Thank you.

For more information please communicate directly with the people on the land ...

Roberta Blackgoat
P.O. Box 349
Kykotsmovi, AZ 86039
e-mail: UNCLEJAKE74@aol.com

           This is Roberta Blackgoat, and I've been traveling for my people for all these years, over twenty years now.

           Now is my time to give you some of my presentation to be sent out to those people who are aware of my struggling on this land where I was born and been raised.

           We are being told that we have to move off, but we are struggling for over twenty years now,and I'm tired of it, traveling and talking and all these things make me so that sometimes I get sick and I get angry and all that. And so then I am making a comparison with the old stories, that how we are walking now is similar to to the Long Walk of last century.

           My own Grandparents used to tell me about the Long Walk. The Long Walk was made in 1864 and all those people had been gathered and herded over to New Mexico, this Fort Sumner. Among the walk I had only one of my Great Great Grandmothers, and she had seen what went on, and this is what I have been told.

           Along the walk a lot of these people,... a lot of the ladies were pregnant, and some were disabled, and still they had to walk, and some got tired and they just fell to their knees on the ground, and then they were beaten or bayoneted to death,... a lot of these people were beaten to death along the walk to Fort Sumner.

           And when they were in Fort Sumner, the concentration camp, a lot of them have also died there, with the Flu and other kinds of sickness, and some of them died of hunger, and some tried to escape and then were shot to death, so a lot of people were killed in different ways.

           The relatives of the prisoners in Fort Sumner, the people who hid out and didn't get taken, conducted many ceremonies, and the people in the concentration camp too, they conducted ceremonies also, and eventually the hearts of the people in Washington were touched, and they said they could return to their homes.

           So after four years the people left Fort Sumner, but much fewer than went there, and yet my Great Great Grandmother returned with a lot of scars on her face from the measles or something that caused all those scars, and she returned to this place where I live,... the prayers were still there when she returned. And this is what her story is.

           And now for over twenty years we've been struggling with this Relocation Act that has been forcing my people to leave,.... and along these years since the Long Walk was made, it seems like we're walking in the same way. A lot of people,... Elders,... even the young ones, a lot of them have been relocated and moved out to a place they are calling New Lands, but this is a place I call a concentration camp,... that's where they are now, and a lot of them lose their lives there,... under alcoholism,... and a lot of them have worries,... loneliness,... this causes them to lose their lives, because they are not used to that land. And this is why I compare the Long Walk to the struggling we are having now.

           I want to have PL93-531 (the Relocation Act) repealed, like it happened in 1868, ... and this is what I'm trying to have the Congressional leader to think of all of this ... the Treaty was signed after the Long Walk... we miss all the treaties that have been promised, ... and now I need to have my people return to their birth place, and then live the way they've been living, with their sacred prayers and sacred songs on the altar again.

           I do hope that a lot of you people are aware from my speaking and presentations everywhere I go,... and please do help us any way you can,... writing letters, calling to the Congressional leaders, Senator McCain, Bruce Babbitt.

           I really have a heart to face them and talk to them, ... they won't allow me to visit them.

           If the Congressional leaders and all these officials, ... If they don't do anything ... keep on warning us and suing us and all this evicting us, then I really need them to sue the Great Spirit who has set us here and surveyed it for us at this place. And I really need to have them sue The Creator so they can do whatever it is they wish to do with us.

           This is one main important idea that I have.

           They can put this idea into their hearts and think on what they're doing.

           They are wanting to take our sheep away from us, ... and then we'll stay here and have nothing to eat ... that's the way they want us ... to starve us, ... this is what I do think. They are taking our animals, ... our transportation is the horse, and they are wanting to get rid of them, ... and sit here and freeze to death, ... hungry to death. This is what I've been looking on to and saying, ... what in the world are they going to do with us?

           In another word,... if I end up dying here, they come around saying the bodies not going to be buried here,... you have to go somewhere way out. This is something I can't believe. Why? This is our altar, we can't step off and be away from it.

           This is the main thing that I can't set my mind on, ... I want to have this understood what our religious act is,... to take care of this land because when we have a Medicine Man, we need to have him to do an offering, ... we offer to a tree, or even to a tree that's been struck by lightning, or a rock, or a spring, or a mountain, ... all these things, it's not only to one place. We offer to a certain place for the rain or either for a Beauty Way, ... and all these things, that's what has been given us by the Holy People and the Great Spirit ... we are strong enough to hold this room which he has surveyed for us, ... and our Home Song, and this Mountain Song, ... and now this is not being respected at all. I need to have this be known, and have all these wildlife people to get back to where they belong, ... even people living in the water, ... they can change everything, ... in clearing the water, ... people that live in the water, ... He's the only one that can do all these things, ... and if anything comes in any better way again, ... they understand,... if they keep on being greedy for money I don't believe it will never ever change, ... BUT the only one person that's going to change everything,... is what is coming close, ... is what I would say, ... it's more important that our ways of being, having a prayer still going, ... and its still sacred for us, ... the way.

           I had a dream, .... I dreamed that I was talking to these people, the wildlife people, Tigers and Bears and Lion, ... they were listening to me, lying down, and they were looking at me and I was talking to them in my prayer, ... I was still talking when I woke up, ... and so I think it's still a way of our sacred ways, so I do need to warn, or teach, our leaders, ... so the policemen wouldn't handle us here, ... having us, ... throwing us around, ... dragging us, out here on our own ancestral land. This is mighty hard, ... spoiling our sacred ways, ... especially our sacred bundles. We have sacred bundles that shouldn't be bounced, ... they should be taken care of real easy, ... have a song for it, ... a prayer for it, ... with the animals, ... it holds the animals, and it holds the humans, in this, the whole Indian country.

           It's more important, but now it's not being respected, ... we have them here, ... I have two, .. and I mean its really important to me, and I'm holding on, ... I won't give up. I pray for the animals and every human being. There's a lot of meaning in the songs, ... and the prayers. This is what I think, ... to get back into the safe way again, ... it's half destroyed already, the way I figure because the mine is going, ... uranium mine, ... coal mine, ... and oil drilling, and other mining has been going on in our room, between the four sacred mountains,... so that is what I always used to say, ... the mice are digging in the room, ... and here and there there are lots of mice making holes in the room, I need to have a better room again, that's what I do think, .. and have a peace fire, .. have our sacred medicines, ... the sacred Sage burning, ... I need to have everything to be sacred again, .. this is what I do pray for. Not only for myself, ... for all my people in this whole country here, .. no matter what tribe they are, ... they are brothers and sisters all over the whole universe, ... no matter how painful she is, I do pray for him or her to be healed, ... with the medicine that grows in the universe, ... and their food needs to be enough for them, ... and the people that fly, ... they're homeless, ... I'm wanting them to be enjoying their home again, ... like our four Sacred Mountains, on the west side the San Francisco Peaks has a big scar on its back, ... they call it "Snow Bowl", ... we need to have our Sacred Mountains sit the way she is normally with her prayer, ... she's praying sitting to the east, ... that's the way its been set We all pray for all these sacred mountains according to the songs and the prayers.

Thank you.

For more information please communicate directly with the people on the land.

Roberta Blackgoat
PO Box 349
Kykotsmovi, AZ 86039
e-mail: unclejake@hotmail.com

What can you do? Well, what can you do? You tell us. But in the meantime, here's a few suggestions.

GET EDUCATED. The more you find out about what has happened, and is happening here, the clearer the issues become, the more you will realize what is at stake here.

The best introduction is the Oscar winning documentary 'BROKEN RAINBOW". Though it is now 15 years old, the facts haven't changed. Good video stores, libraries and universities should have a copy.

CRY SACRED GROUND. Big Mountain U.S.A. by Anita Parlow, published by Christic Institute, also comes from this time, and is an in-depth, thoroughly researched book, primarily of testimony of the people involved. Unfortunately its out of print and hard to get hold of, but most University Libraries should have a copy. Well worth hunting for.

A recent article by Judith Nies, THE BLACK MESA SYNDROME: Indian Lands, Black gold, in the summer 98 issue of Orion magazine is one of the best articles we've read on this issue. Clear and concise, she exposes the connections between the big players. Available by, phone: (413) 528 4422 or e-mail: orion@orionsociety.org URL: http://www.orionsociety.org/

Books on this issue are:

THE SECOND LONG WALK. by Jerry Kammer
THE WIND WON'T KNOW ME. by Emily Benedek
THE NAVAJO/HOPI LAND DISPUTE. by David Brugge
Once you've read them, pass them on.

LISTEN TO THE ELDERS ON THE LAND.

COMMUNICATE. Talk with your family, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and especially any media contacts you have. Whether your concerns are with Native Issues, Religious Freedom, Human Rights, Racism, Environmental Destruction, Corporate Power, or Governmental Abuse, what is going on here is of concern to all of us. Decide among yourselves what you want or can do.

TALK DIRECTLY WITH THE ELDERS ON THE LAND.

ACT. Write to your Congressman and those listed below. Standard form-letters distributed by organizations do not have as much impact as a personal letter written from the heart. You may not feel like a few letters will make much difference, but you will feel better for having done it. As American citizens, what is being done here is done in your name, with your tax dollars.

President Clinton
1600 Pennsylvania ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Senator Nighthorse-Campbell
6950 E. Belleview Ave
Greenwood, CO 80112

Senator McClain
Room 111, Russel Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

There are a number of Support Groups and events around the country. Let us know what resources or services you wish to offer, and we will connect you with a support group that can help you.

VISIT THE LAND. People who spend some time here leave with a much clearer picture of what is going on and what is at stake, and a personal connection with people here. Many of the elders need help with chores such as sheepherding, hauling water, planting corn, fixing things etc. Also the presence of outsiders with cameras and tape-recorders tends to limit the opportunities for harassment and threats. HOWEVER, you should not just turn up here. Physically and culturally it is probably very different here than what you are used to. To be here respectfully involves arrangements and preparations. TALK TO US.

PRAY. For the people here this is primarily a spiritual issue. whatever your faith, your prayers can only help. Allow your prayers to guide your actions.

Ya'a'tee,

1999 has been a busy year so far.

On January 25th, 90-day eviction notices were given to the 5 last resisting homesites. Though many people signed the so-called Accommodation Agreement, many were coerced, and others had a member of their family sign for them, so there are many more people resisting than these five. However, these 5 are under immediate threat of physical removal.

In the eviction notice it was stated that after the 90 day period their names will be passed on to the the Hopi Tribe, the Arizona Attorney General, and the U.S Justice department "for further action".

An ex chairman of the Hopi Tribe has publicly stated that evictions will take place.

The new Navajo President has said no evictions will take place.
The U.S. Government isn't saying anything.
The 90 days have passed.

The U.S. Government is funding the Navajo-Hopi Relocation Commission till February 1st, 2000, and has stated that the "final solution" will take place before then.

In the meantime the Hopi-B.I.A. have spent the last couple of months running around "counting" the peoples livestock. The people were asked to have their animals in the corrals on specific days to be counted. Sometimes the BIA turned up, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they turned up without notice. In the letters that were sent out the people were told that if they had any animals over their permitted number (a ridiculously low number that bears no relationship to the carrying capacity of the land, but is gauged to be well below the number people need to survive) they would be impounded on the spot. A few animals have been taken and then returned. The whole effect of the operation is to keep the people worried and stressed that their animals may be taken at any time. The cost of this whole operation is enormous, especially considering the number of cops they bring with them. One supporter was arrested for politely asking why they needed to be doing this. The whole thing is absurd in the first place as the BIA always know how many animals the people have as their "monitors" are constantly photographing the flocks.

Pauline Whitesinger has just received an official livestock impoundment notice for her cattle and horses.

In the past, whenever the authorities are "cracking down" on the people here there is a marked increase in low-altitude military aircraft fly-overs. This spring is no exception. Early in the year a U.S. Army spotter plane (it was dark green with ARMY in huge white letters on its sides.) flew just above the tree tops and took a zig-zag course directly over the homesites. "out there" you may be more used to this kind of invasion of your space, but here its effect is to frighten these people. More threatening, later in the spring, 2 huge U.S.A.F C140's ( the type they push tanks and paratroopers out the back of) flew a low altitude pass in view of most of the resisters homesites.

The Navajo Nation has started erecting houses for the families that signed the Accommodation Agreement. For some reason the Relocation Commission tried to block it, but were ruled against. The Commissions raison-d'etre is to get ALL the people of this land obviously.

A few months ago the Hopi Tribal Chairman made a big splash in the local papers, invoking Tribal sovereignty to demand that the 2 power plants that are fed by Black Mesa coal be allowed to stay operating even though they are breaking Federal EPA laws (they are polluting Big Time). His logic was that basically his wages were being paid by the sale of the coal.

Last month the owners of the power plants gave a huge "Bonus royalty" to the tribe.

Could these two facts be connected?

The last possibility of legal redress for these people, the "Manybeads suit" will soon come to a conclusion. For years it has bounced back and forth in the legal system. Some believe that the physical evictions won't happen till the case is concluded.

At this moment a delegation of resisters is in Geneva, Switzerland testifying before a variety of International and Global organizations. The number of International statutes and conventions (as well as U.S. Federal laws) that are being broken here is staggering. It seems that International Law only means something to America when it complies with its own aims,

Back in the real world, it was an unusually warm and dry winter and spring. Very pleasant weather to herd sheep in, but worrisome as the spring dries up, no grass was growing for the flock, and without snow melt there would be nothing to grow the corn in. However we recently had a couple of snowstorms, and though its still way below normal, the spring has recharged, grass has grown.

The Mesa is bursting with life, ... flowers are appearing, ...
there are lots of birds around.
The sheep are being sheared.
The cornfields are being prepared.
Rugs are being woven.
Ceremonies are being held.

The largest Coal strip mine in the U.S. continues to expand. The coal slurry line continues to suck 3 million gallons of pristine, ancient aquifer water per day.

"Those who resist find peace."

Your prayers, support, and correspondence are invited.

For all my Relations, Bo Peep
e-mail: unclejake74@hotmail.com

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