Navajos sue Hopis on religious grounds

Tucson Citizen, 7/16/03

Navajos sue Hopis on religious grounds

The lawsuit filed Friday is based on an ongoing land dispute between the two tribes.

The Associated Press July 16, 2003

PHOENIX - Navajo women living on Hopi land filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming they were illegally arrested for practicing a sacred
ceremony.

The lawsuit, based on a decades-old land dispute between the Navajos and Hopi, reopens allegations of religious interference by tribal members.

Eight women are asking the U.S. District Court in Phoenix for damages against various Hopi officials and for an injunction protecting their American Indian religious practices.

A group of Navajos conducted a Sundance ceremony at Camp Ana Mae for at least a decade.

In July 2001, the lawsuit says, Hopi leaders and police bulldozed the sweat lodge on sacred ground and jailed five Navajo women on trespassing charges that were later dropped.

Hopi tribal officials say they tried to negotiate with those involved in the dispute, but to no avail.

They say the Sundance ceremony is not a Navajo rite but one derived from Lakota Sioux by protesters who continue to resist the division of Navajo-Hopi lands enacted in the 1970s. They also say the Sundance site has no sacred significance to the Navajo religion.

The civil complaint, filed Friday, alleges unlawful arrest and violations of religious freedom protections.