Navajo Nation Council approves Sacred Site Legislation at Confluence

Navajo Nation Council approves Sacred Site Legislation at Confluence

by Halne'e | Aug 24, 2026 | News

The Navajo Nation Council agreed, in a 18 yes and none opposed vote, an area inside the Grand Canyon be designated a sacred site Monday during a special session.

The area near “The Confluence,” the point where the Colorado River and Little Colorado River meet, abuts Grand Canyon National Park, on the Western Navajo Nation near Bodaway/Gap Chapter. Locals call the area Tóahidíídlih, “Where the rivers meet,” in the Navajo language.

“Navajo people and medicine people go there to offer prayers,” said Curtis Yanito, Mexican Water, Tó’łi’kaan, Teesnospos, Aneth, Red Mesa council delegate. Yanito, a medicine man, sponsored the sacred site legislation.

“Fewer people believe the classic Navajo faith,” said Yanito adding the power of sacred-banded rock provides safety for the people and it stopped the destruction of The Confluence when developers wanted to build a tourist resort in 2017.

Yanito remembers how Navajo Nation Council rejected the Grand Canyon Escalade on Halloween 2017, a development project that would have dropped a gondola to floor of the Confluence with a tourist center high above the rim.

“Prayers are still out there,” Yanito said.

Delores Wilson Aguirre, who grew up in the 1960s-1990s in a large extended family of Navajo shepherds in an area called “Sagebrush”, joined Save the Confluence Families, an advocacy group. This group launched the sacred site legislation after the council rejected the Escalade on Halloween.

The failed Escalade project, if constructed, could have disrupted holy grounds where several Arizona tribes practice their earth-based religion, including the Navajo people.

Wilson Aguirre, who is in Window Rock today to watch the vote, was not available to witness the Escalade project fail on the council floor. She was on a work-related trip off the reservation and when she heard the good news, she jumped and pumped her fist in the air in celebration.

“This time, I (wish I) could jump up in Sagebrush,” Aguirre said. “Many people, who understand my jump, are gone. They’ve returned to the earth. My heart, instead, would be happy and I would have a silent celebration.”

She remembers her elders, medicine people who specialized in the Water Way, the Enemy Way, the Night Way, Blackening Way, and the Blessing Way–a ceremony that is tied to the blessing of a rite of passage for young Navajo girls. The Sacred Site legislation protects one site of these ceremonies, stating the “Confluence is central to the Blessing Way, which is the foundation of the Navajo ceremonial life, and to [the] numerous associated ceremonies… Diné offerings have [also been] made at the Confluence for the protection of Diné servicemembers…”

The Sacred Site legislation was passed by the Bodaway-Gap chapter in 2018, taking 8 years to reach the Navajo Nation Council. The legislation “…highlights our medicine people, who guided us with healing ceremonies and prayers using the power of the water, land and sacred-banded rock,” Wilson-Aguirre said.

If the legislation is approved by the Navajo Nation Council, the area would be recognized under the terms: “designated Sacred Site is a cultural resource and traditional Cultural Property, which is protected by the Navajo Nation Cultural Resources Protection Act,” according to the bill.

The sacred sites identified in the preliminary legislation, in addition to the confluence of the river, are the sheer-walled canyon drops. These sites are universally known as Little Colorado River and the Little Colorado River Gorge and would be designated by the Council alongside other related Cultural/Spiritual Sites as Sacred sites. A comprehensive map of the areas for designation is available inside the legislation packet and on Save the Confluence website, savetheconfluence.com.

“It’s all below the canyon and not above the rim,” said an STC spokesperson.

Published with permission at Censored News