Forgotten People
P.O. Box 1661
Tuba City (Navajo Nation), AZ 86045
(928) 401-0472
Consultation with The
Honorable Mr. James Anaya, United Nations Special Rapporteur
on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, Tucson, AZ, April 26-27, 2012
Topic: Self Government
I
wish to address failures of the United States to
remediate conditions in the Hopi Partition Land (HPL) where I
live. When I was young, I was forced to leave my land and go to boarding
school. I tried to support myself and my children until I returned home
disabled as a result of an accident.
The
US government manufactured a Navajo Hopi Land dispute and spent over 2.5
billion dollars to forcibly relocate over 12,000 head of households (and their
families) to resolve title of a former Joint Use Area to clear the region for
massive coal mining and water depletion. Navajos resisting relocation were
forced to sign a 75-year lease (Accommodation Agreement AA) or be called
trespassers on our ancestral lands, without housing, water, civil, and human
rights.
When
the US government began relocating people, I refused to relocate when I found
out my children were not entitled to anything and they only recognized head of
households. Now my children are grown
and have families of their own and we still get no help from the
government. My children and my
grandchildren are told they are not entitled to scholarships. One of my son’s
joined the marines so he could get the money to go to school. And there are no
jobs in the area so my children and grandchildren are displaced and the fabric
of my family torn.
The
US government, the Navajo Nation and the Hopi tribal governments never helped
me, will not recognize me. They told me I will never get a home because I
relinquished my signature on the AA when I was lied to by a lawyer that told me
he would help me get my land back. I have
gone to many lawyers trying to get help but I am a nobody to my government. The
woman that owns the home where I am living in has threatened me, beat me up and
threw me out of the house but I have nowhere else to go.
All
I see is how our government uses us as bait so they can get federal funds to
build and rehabilitate homes for HPL AA signers and resisters they mis-use to
spend on land acquisitions and to build casinos. Our council men never ask us
before they spent our money.
I
think the only hope we have is to show you what we are going through as signers
and non-signers of the 75-year lease and relocation resisters. Relocation
should never have happened. We have oral
teachings like the white people have the Ten Commandments. The Holy People are to us what guardian
angels are to Christians. We are from here.
Our origin stories and our clans are from here.
We have been here since the time our people walked with the dinosaurs. DNA studies support a Navajo-Anasazi X haplogroup.
We
have prayers and songs for our livestock given to us by the Holy People. Our
oral tradition, passed down from generation to generation instructs us to hold
on to and take care of our livestock. Spider Woman taught us how to weave rugs.
Our designs tell woven stories. It sustains us and provides a livelihood.
My
family has been here since before the Long Walk. My great grandmother Yellow
Woman went on the Long Walk to Fort Sumner to find her children. When she found the soldiers she turned
herself over to them. When the people
got weak the soldiers shot and killed them. Three of her children died on the
Walk. She caught up with the other 2
children, a boy and a girl. They were treated like slaves. My great grandmother
Yellow Woman was starving to death when she was laid down on the road.
A
rabbit came over to her and gave birth where my great grandmother laid. The rabbit stayed long enough to nurse her
baby then left. My great grandmother
squeezed the baby rabbit’s milk into her mouth. If my great grandmother did not
get the milk she would have starved to death. She later ate the rabbit and it
nourished her. After 4 years she was
given 2 sheep and came home. She told me the rabbit is how I came to be
born. Her life inspired me to hold onto
my livestock to this day and practice self-government, self-rule of the
Matriarchs.
Recommendations:
·
We have
a traditional justice system based on a holistic philosophy. Law is a way of
life, and justice is a part of our life process.
·
Diyin
Bits'áádé Beehaz'áanii (Diné Traditional
Law) was given to us by the Holy
People to help us preserve, respect and
honor Diné elders and medicine people and their contributions to traditional
values and principles of our life
way.
·
Our oral
tradition and key concepts in Diyin Bits'áádé Beehaz'áanii (Traditional Navajo
Law) like Hózhó (harmony), K'é (peacefulness and solidarity), and K'éí
(kinship) help us solve community problems, and control our own futures.
·
Our tradition of tribal self-governance and tradition and custom are in rules of evidence
and are recognized as a legitimate form of law.
·
The US government Department of the Interior
should give indigenous peoples the title to our lands so we can govern our own
internal affairs, assume greater responsibility and control over decision
making that affects our communities, and work in partnership with other governments
and the private sector to promote economic development and improve social
conditions.
FP prays for your intervention and the
application of emergency measures to ensure the protection of our rights under
the Declaration so we can exercise home rule and self-government rights.
Respectfully
submitted.
Ahe’hee
(Thank you)
Leta
O’Daniel, Member
Forgotten
People
Navajo
Nation, AZ
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