Our first task in approaching
another people, another culture,
another religion, is to take off
our shoes, for the place we are
approaching is holy. Else we may
find ourselves treading on men's
dreams. More serious still we
may forget that God was there
before our arrival.

The Primal Vision
by John V. Taylor

Introduction

Big Mountain is a community of Navajo people scheduled to relocate elsewhere because their ancestral lands are ceded to others through legislation and court decisions resulting from the United States Government's involvement in the "Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute". They continue to endure, in spite of almost ten years of not being able to build new homes or improve old ones, of five years of devastating livestock reduction and fencing, and many years of wondering what the future holds for their children and grandchildren. They continue to endure because their source of strength, their religion, gives them the necessary determination and resolution.

Religion at Big Mountain is the same as life, the land, and well-being. The land and the Mountain are Holy, and Big Mountain people are their caretakers. If they are forced to leave the land, they will be forced to leave their religion.

Many times Big Mountain people have tried to explain their attachment to and responsibility for their land and the Mountain, and it seems that hardly anyone listens. The Navajo and Hopf Indian kelocation Commission, the body that is charged with carrying out relocation under Public Law 93-531, listened in late 1978 and early 1979. They conducted on-site interviews and visits, and contracted with anthropologists, John J. Wood and Walter M. Vannette, to conduct further interviews and to assess the significance of sacred places at Big Mountain (Wood and Vannette 1979). The Relocation Commission's intention was to try to get the Big Mountain area set aside as a sacred area, following a favorable court decision regarding a boundary question. The court decision was unfavorable and the matter was dropped by the Commission.

Late in 1979, John J. Wood sent a letter and a copy of the assessment to the Task Force charged with reporting to Congress as required by tion 2 of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (Publ Law 9 1) explaining that relocation might be a violation of civil rights, that the Task Force should inquire further about the question of treational religious leaders. Nothing further was done, to our knowledge, other than a note of receipt of the letter and assessment in the Task Force's final report to Congress.

In January of 1981, Wood was asked by members of the Big Mountain Community to further investigate the relationships among land and religion through on-site visits and interviews, and to write a report to members of Congress explaining why it is essential that the Big Mountain area be set aside as a sacred area, not to be disturbed by relocating its caretakers, by mining or any other disruptive activity.

As professional anthropologists, we think that the evidence shows clearly that the Big Mountain area and its people are unique. The largest part of this report is our attempt to convey that uniqueness in words as close to the words of the Big Mountain people as we are able. Much of the information in this report is not usually given to "just anyone", particularly to non-Navajos: it represents the identity of the Big Mountain people, and it is their desire and our wish that it be treated with respect.

The People

a

The Big Mountain community, an isolated region of about 150 square miles of northwestern Black Mesa, is located between Blue Canyon and Dinnebito Wash, focused on Big Mountain. Elevations ranges from little over 7000 feet at Big Mountain to about 6500 feet on its east and west slopes, to nearly 5500 feet on the flats toward Blue Canyon. Vegetation is very diverse on Big Mountain, and dominated by pinon and juniper. The slopes to the east and west carry stands of pinon and juniper mixed with grasses. The transition to open grassland is virtually complete at Blue Canyon. It is very difficult to get into or out of the area in bad weather, due to poor road conditions.

No one knows for certain how long the ancestors of the present community members have lived in the area. By their own testimony, Big Mountain got its name three generations before Fort Sumner, which would place the event in the late 18th century. Three generations before Fort Sumner there was a war in the vicinity and a young warrior crawled to the top of the mountain to make an offering and to pray for his recovery. It took him two days and two nights to reach the top. When he returned to his family, in better health, he told them how long it had taken to get to the top, and they exclaimed: Dził Ntsaa! (Big Mountain!).

There is no accurate census, but we estimate that there are several hundred people related by marriage and descent who constitute the Big Mountain community today. Most of the members live on Hopi-partitioned lands. The Big Mountain "community" crystalized among those persons who oppose relocation and fencing because of what they know will happen to their way of life. But the community crystalized along relationships and interactions that existed long before the Land Dispute legislation.

Navajo social identity is defined first by membership in mother's clan (a matrilineal clan); then by father's matrilineal clan, which must be different from mother's. One's identity may also be defined, especially among older people, by maternal and paternal grandfathers' matrilineal ns. Navajo social relationships and roles are largely kinship rela ships and roles, and kin terms are extended beyond the immediate fa hence, a person's clans give direction to patterns of mutual af interaction.

At Bigmountain, as in other rural areas of the Reservation, people live in camps or homesteads spaced from one-quarter up-to one mile or so apart. Land is not privately owned. Use rights are inherited, usually at the camp level. A camp typically includes at least one traditional, octagonally-shaped, hogan, and perhaps several other rectangular frame or stone dwellings; a ranada or shade; a sheep pen; a wood pile; and an outhouse. There is no #lectricity, running water, or indoor plumbing. People usually heat and cook with wood or coal.

A camp may house a married couple with young children, a widowed elderly person, and extended family or many other combinations of relatives. Married couples tend to establish their own camps when they get on their feet, almost always in the traditional use area of their parents, most often the woman's mother's use area. If this process continues over time, a "land use community" evolves with a core matrilineal clan. There are five of these "land use communities", tied together by marriage, that define the Big Mountain community; so that everyone is related by marriage or descent.

Livelihood at Big Mountain since stock reduction is precarious at best. Virtually everyone had stock and depended upon them for meat, wood, cash, and credit. People also farm, since the land is rich in this region. Many people, age forty and older, are unskilled and uneducated except in these pursuits.

Some older people worked for the railroad in their youth, and they receive small social security and retirement checks. Because of the building freeze and the lack of local economic development, younger, formally educated people live and work off-reservation in border towns or reservation communities like Page, Tuba City, and Kayenta. Young people visit home frequently, often every weekend, and contribute financially and emotionally to family well-being.

The thread running throughout Navajo culture that defines well-being, indeed life itself, is "...a religious system which has for years enabled the Navajo to retain their identity in a rapidly changing world (Reichard 1974:xxxiii)."

Religion

A religion is"...a system of beliefs about the nature of the force(s) ultimately shaping man's destiny, and the practices associated therewith, shared by members of a group" (Lenski 1961:331). A religion synthesizes, through its legends, symbols, and rituals, the ethos or world view of a people; and religion as lived in a community is an important means of existential problem solving. It is not surprising, therefore, that all peoples have a religion.

on

All peoples have a religion, and all religions meet the same basic needs, but all religions do not start from the same assumptions. In this country we pride ourselves in our constitutional right to practice the religion of our choice. Yet our statements about and our policies concerning other religions are almost always based on the assumptions, philosophy, and logic of the Judeo-Christian tradition, exclusively. These ethnocentric statements and policies are surely due to ignorance rather than malice. At least this was the position taken by fr of Public Law 95-341, the Joint Resolution American In Religious Freedom. The Jot Resolution on American Indian Religious Freedom stuter: "That neeforth it shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditical religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, ́use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites."