Our Sacred Mountain Is In Danger
Jeneda Benally
The San Francisco Peaks are an oasis in the high desert of Northern Arizona, standing majestically at 12,000 feet. A home of deities and medicinal herbs, this green volcanic area is unlike any other location and is significant to 22 tribal nations—and holy to 13 of them. My people, the Navajo, rely on the San Francisco Peaks for plants that we use to treat cancers, arthritis, and many other ailments. These plants do not exist anywhere else in our traditional homeland.
That is why Thursday, February 2, 2004, was such a terrifying day. That is when we learned that the Coconino National Forest supervisor was supporting a “build out” of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort on the San Francisco Peaks. Under this plan, 74 acres would be clear-cut, and additional ski trails and lifts would be created. Fifty snowmaking guns, audible over 1.5 miles away, could operate 24 hours a day, turning up to 180 million gallons of reclaimed wastewater per season into artificial snow covering 205 acres. There would be a 3.5-acre, 10,000,000-gallon storage tank for the reclaimed water.
The San Francisco Peaks define the western boundary of the homeland that the Creator gave us, with three other mountains marking the remaining sacred boundaries. Within these mountains we have an obligation to use the land in accordance with “Hozho,” the Diné (Navajo) philosophy of beauty, harmony, and balance. As an apprentice to my father Jones Benally, a traditional Diné health practitioner, I have a personal connection to the life on these peaks. I know that the sanctity of the plants and the sacred ecosystem as a whole must be maintained to ensure that our culture survives.
It is our duty to protect our Mother Earth. We recognize that the natural world is what sustains us as a people, as a culture. It gives us everything we need to survive the often-harsh climate of the high deserts: medicine, food, and shelter. The balance of the spiritual world and the physical world is easily disrupted, and we follow daily spiritual practices to maintain the symmetry of spiritual, physical, and emotional life.
My family and other concerned citizens have created the all-volunteer Save the Peaks Coalition (www.savethepeaks.org) to strengthen the community’s voice in this debate. My brothers and I, who started playing music when our instruments were bigger than we were, tour internationally and nationally with our band BLACKFIRE. We use our music to amplify environmental and social justice issues. Many of our lyrics are about offenses that we feel need the attention of the media and the general public. If people learn about these things that are happening around them, they can no longer plead ignorance or turn a blind eye. No one can be forced to care, but they cannot pretend that they never knew of these injustices.
This is not the first time that we have seen our people threatened by land desecration. We grew up in the midst of a land dispute on Black Mesa, fueled by the federal government’s insensitivity and Peabody Coal Company’s greed for land and coal that was under our homes. Some family members left our homeland, but our family has always been active and outspoken, and many of our relatives stayed, refusing to give in to genocidal relocation.
Across the West, public lands contain sites sacred to tribes. Tribes took hope in 1978 when Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), but quickly learned that it was yet another empty promise when sites such as the Peaks were desecrated regardless of the law. Today, we are still struggling for religious freedom and human rights at numerous places, including Bear Butte in South Dakota, Mount Graham in Arizona, and Medicine Lake in California.
We realized that AIRFA did not have any teeth when it was first used in the Supreme Court to stop this ski resort from expanding in the 1970’s. Courts ruled that tribal members still had access; there was no violation of the law. But the issue is protection of the whole mountain—not just access to it. The Diné, along with five other tribes and three conservation groups, have sued the Forest Service over the San Francisco Peaks plan. Although the lower court ruled against us, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will hear the case this fall. We refuse to give up.
We are trying to channel our anger and frustration into creating something positive. Some people do not hear the cry of our Mother Earth when she is in pain from the diseases that modern ways create for her. In this critical time, as people who embrace and continue the traditional ways and who have found a balance between the modern world and the traditional, we must be her voice.
Jeneda Benally, who plays bass and sings backup vocals in the award-winning band BLACKFIRE, is involved in many environmental and cultural issues. To obtain a CD of her band’s music, go to www.blackfire.net.
