Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

June 14, 2023

Lithium Americas and United States -- Partners in Crime -- Prohibiting Access to Paiute Shoshone Sacred Place

Courtesy photo Paiute Shoshone defender of the sacred

The Lithium Lie: The Promotion of Lithium Mining as Clean Energy is the Current Hoax: It is Profit for a Foreign Mining Company, Violating Federal Laws 

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News


OROVADA, Nevada -- Lithium Americas and the United States government -- Biden, Interior Sec. Deb Haaland and the BLM -- are violating federal laws that protect Native American religious sites and burial places. Access to Peez'uh, known as Sentinel Rock and Nipple Rock, is now blocked with a metal fence and "No Trespassing" sign, as Lithium Americas tears into the burial place of Paiute massacred here by U.S. soldiers in 1865.


Lithium Americas, a foreign company based in Vancouver, Canada, is now in the process of serving Paiute and Shoshone who have been defending the Paiute burial places with a federal complaint. The lawsuit was filed in federal court, in the U.S. District Court in Winnemucca, Nevada, by the corporate subsidiary Lithium Nevada Corporation.

"They are silencing us one by one, to not be a voice, they are silencing our right to be sovereign, but as long as our ancestors lay upon the ground, we will protect them!" said one of the Paiute Shoshone defenders.

Ox Sam Camp said, "Lithium Nevada is telling Paiute and Shoshone people they are trespassing in their own land. Peez’uh (Nipple Rock / Sentinel Butte) is an ancient sacred site of the Paiute and Shoshone."

"They have inviolable rights to hold ceremony here. Paiute and Shoshone people have suffered two massacres here. This is hallowed ground."

During the raid on Ox Sam Camp, a young Dine' (Navajo) woman was terrorized in transport when she was transferred on the highway into a pitch-black box in the back of a pickup truck.

Lithium Americas violated federal laws by confiscating Eagle Feather and the Ceremonial Staff at Ox Sam Camp.

Paiute Shoshone defenders said Lithium America jammed Ceremonial Items into garbage bags.

Grandma Josephine, Vice Chair of the Native American Church retrieved these after days of Lithium Americas security avoiding her.

Lithium Americas desecrated the Sacred Staff by sticking it upside down along with the feathers at the top of it.

"The Humboldt County Sheriffs Department, Private Security Company Allied Universal, Bureau of Land Management and Lithium Americas collusion orchestrated this prolonged retrieval of her items to ensure the fortification of the campsite, while expediting construction in the area," Paiute Shoshone said.


Photo by Jarrette Werk: The pickup shown is Allied Universal, the security firm for Lithium Americas that confiscated the Ceremonial Staff and Eagle Feathers in violation of federal laws. Allied disrespected the Staff and Feathers by placing it upside down in a garbage bag in its security building, before it was retrieved.

Urging all to come together to fight this injustice, and protect sacred lands, Paiute Shoshone said the lithium promise of "green energy" is a lithium lie.

"Lithium lies promise clean energy when it’s just the most profitable way for the fossil fuel companies to profit, and eat away at our Mother Earth."

"Stand with Grandma, Support Ox Sam, Protect Sentinel Rock. We apologize for the intensity of this video and the grandmas will be meeting to pray over and cedar and conduct proper protocols for the prayer instruments and each other and this land, that holds the bones of those who passed in 1865 Thacker Pass Massacre."


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