Indian walk crosses Nevada, nation
By Matt Farley, Reno-Gazette Journal,
FEBRUARY 18, 2008
In the 30 years since the first Longest
Walk march flooded Capitol Hill with activists fighting
for American Indian rights, thousands of places sacred
to American Indians continue to be desecrated and developed,
an official of the International Indian Treaty Council
said Monday.
Jimbo Simmons and other supporters of
American Indian sovereignty launched the Longest Walk
2, a re-creation of the 1978 walk, that stopped Monday
at an informal pow wow at the Carson Colony gymnasium.
“It’s more successful (than the original)
in terms of outreach to the public,” Simmons said. “We’re
reaching out to as many people as possible.
“If we get 2 million people walking
into Washington, D.C., on the same day, that will draw
some attention. And at this point, I believe that’s
possible.”
About 40 people have committed to walk
3,600 miles from San Francisco to the Capitol to draw
attention to the damage being done to sacred places
and Earth, Simmons said.
A larger party walking through the South
is expected to join the group in Washington to stage
a re-creation of the original event, organized to protest
a slate of legislative bills supporters believed would
undercut American Indian sovereignty. That effort, which
drew the support of celebrities such as Marlon Brando
and Muhammad Ali, was eventually successful, Simmons
said.
Since marchers left the Bay Area on
Feb. 11, spending nights at public facilities and Indian
reservations, their numbers have grown and diversified,
he said.
Brandt Larsen, a California native who
drove to Carson City to join the march, said he planned
to remain with the group until it reaches Washington
on July 11.
“My grandmother was Sioux, but I was
never looked at as (American Indian),” he said. “I never
asked to be looked at that way, but this is something
I really feel like I should do. The whole country is
sacred, but nobody treats it that way.”
Simmons said he often has trouble articulating
American Indians’ concerns about the environment to
people from other belief systems.
“We don’t have to go to a building or
a church to pray,” he said. “We can pray anywhere. All
land is sacred. Sometimes that’s hard to understand.”
The group’s worship service near Cave
Rock at Lake Tahoe was interrupted by a group of boaters
who insisted they move away from the water’s edge, Simmons
said.
“They were saying, ‘We deserve to be
here because we paid’,” he said. “But, you know, we
were there first. We feel like the human family has
one commonality, and that’s Mother Earth. We were trying
to protect that (during the first march) and we still
continue to.”
The walk took on a festive air when
Oakland residents Calvin Magpie, 25, and Estela Sophia
Cuevas, 24, announced they would be married Monday night
in a ceremony ending with them being wrapped together
in buckskins and a single blanket, Magpie said.
“We were planning to do it in July,
but we’re going to be walking during the whole time
we (should be) planning,” he said. “This way, it will
be something we can always remember and tell our children.”
He laughed and shrugged.
“Plus, you know, it’s kind of a spiritual
thing. Like, the two of us walking on this Earth together.”
Read about the journey on the blog at
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
THE JOURNEY
The Longest Walk 2 is scheduled to trace the following
route through Nevada on its way across the country.
Most of the walk will follow U.S. 50.
Tuesday: Carson City to Silver Springs
Wednesday: Silver Springs to Fallon
Thursday and Friday: Rest days
Saturday through Monday: Fallon to Austin
Feb. 26 and 27: Visit to Mt. Tenabo
Feb. 28: Austin to Eureka
Feb. 29: Eureka to Ely
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