Thanksgiving on the reservation: Group provides support to Navajos and Hopis in preparation for winter

By Stephen Baxter -- Santa Cruz Sentinel, NOVEMBER 24, 2010

ROCKY RIDGE, Ariz. - More pickups rumbled along the dusty dirt roads of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Indian Reservation this week to deliver food and firewood to residents. More logs were split and stacked in front of homes, and more roofs were fixed to keep out the windblown snow of the high-desert winter.

A group of about 70 volunteers and activists from around the country participated in an annual Thanksgiving week gathering here called Black Mesa Indigenous Support, including 18 young people from Santa Cruz.

"A really solid group came together," said Cat Philips an organizer of the Santa Cruz contingent. "Everyone contributed."

The trip aimed to help the Navajos prepare for winter because many of them live without electricity and running water. Many also face relocation because of a land dispute that stems from the 1970s.

Because there is no power in many of the residents' one-room traditional homes, or ho'ogans, 70-year-old men chop wood during snowstorms to fuel their wood stoves. Elderly women herd sheep - crucial in providing wool and meat - all day in icy winds.

In this year's annual November caravan to Arizona, Santa Cruz supporters spent the week trying to make life a little bit easier for the native families - and they also showed support for the Navajos who refuse to move off what is now Hopi land.

There are about 300,000 Navajo in the Navajo Nation territory in Northern Arizona - on a piece of land roughly the size of West Virginia. Many Navajos have electricity, water and propane gas, but dozens of Navajo families who live on Hopi Partition Land have none.

When the boundaries of Hopi and Navajo land were redrawn by federal authorities in the 1970s, Navajos who lived on Hopi land were told to relocate. Many families complied; others refused.

Some Navajo resisters said the federal government divided the land to pit the two tribes against each other.

Since then, some of the Navajo resisters on Hopi land - who include men and women in their 70s and 80s - have been threatened by the Hopi rangers to relocate, supporters said.

Hopi leaders have said the relocation is justified because it is their land and they disapprove of the support event of this week.

As it stands, the traditional Navajo homes have no property boundaries. Some authorities have offered to build new houses for the people if they agree to conditions like a three-acre boundary and a limited number of sheep to herd. They also might get water or electricity in the deal.

Many people transport giant tanks of water by pickup.

"It's a luxury to be able to take a shower or have a running faucet," said Marie, a Navajo who lives on Hopi Partition Land. She asked that her last name not be used because she feared retribution.

Still, she indicated that all Navajos are not necessarily yearning for water and electricity - they simply want to practice their traditional way of life on their land and not be harassed to relocate. They want to herd as many sheep as they want and live without artificial land boundaries.

"I call it a 'land-based' lifestyle," Marie told a group of supporters.

Five Santa Cruz supporters this week helped out at the home of an elderly mother and daughter who live more than 20 miles from the paved road on top of a ridge. The group herded sheep, chopped firewood and helped move wool the family uses to make woven Navajo blankets.

Many of the supporters, and the Santa Cruz group there, stayed in a traditional ho'ogan with a wood stove in the center. Other supporters from other areas camped in below-freezing temperatures at a host site and met for gatherings every morning and evening.

Natalie Nugent, a second-year student at UC Santa Cruz, said she was grateful for the opportunity to travel to the reservation. She helped herd sheep.

Because the Navajo have had to deal with large coal mining operations nearby, Nugent said she thinks the Navajo's lack of electricity is unjust. For decades, coal from those mines have helped power cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix - yet the power does not reach many of the homes that are closest to it.

Nugent said she thinks more people would be interested in the issues Navajos face if they knew more about it, and she hoped to spread the word when she returned to Santa Cruz.

"These are real people and they are definitely affected by us," Nugent said.

At the home of Navajos Tim and Belinda Johnson, many supporters gathered and separated donations into boxes of produce and other supplies that were delivered to families this week. Cords of chopped wood and boxes of food were distributed and packed into pickups and driven to homes through a network of unmarked dirt roads.

The goods went to about 100 Navajo and Hopi families in need, regardless of whether they signed land agreements or are resisting land relocation.

Young families came from Oregon, and men and women in their 20s came from as places like Colorado, Oakland and as far as New Hampshire.

Some supporters stayed at natives' homes and made repairs, others packed food boxes or chopped dead trees and hauled wood to homes.

Many supporters have been coming for years and know the unmarked, dirt back roads, which is a good thing, because Navajo elders have frowned on making maps to homes for fear they might end up in the authorities' hands.

It is not uncommon to see a group of supporters huddled around someone drawing a map on the ground with a knife. The maps describe landmarks like distinctive trees and tires on posts and help supporters drive to remote homes.

Once everyone understood the map, they would scratch it out with their boots. Some of the supporters said they had been chased by Hopi rangers who said they were trespassing as they delivered supplies to families.

Louise Benally, another Navajo living on Hopi Partition Land, had a group of supporters from Colorado work on her roof during Thanksgiving week.

She hoped to make improvements on her ho'ogan during the week, and she wished authorities would leave her alone.

"They punish us for wanting to live like Native Americans," she said.