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Navajos sue Hopis on religious grounds
the progressive movements will be rejuvenated if draw powerful parallels and links with native american struggles at home, and thus articulations to confront empire....
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.
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.
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There is some controversy over the origin of the Sun Dance. Both the Lakota and Cheyenne claim priority, but what isn't at all controversial is that the dance first appeared in the 18th century among the Native population of the Plains.
The question is to what extent the Sun Dance has been absorbed into Navajo culture and religion in the few hundered years since it originated- whether it is accepted and practiced by practicioners of the Navajo religion, or is simply a ploy by one side of a dispute attemting to take advantage of American society's tendency to view "Indians" as an amorphous mass with a single stereotyped culture instead of the vast diversity of reality.
If there is any basis to the plaintiff's claims, then they should be able to present evidence to demonstrate the history of the Sun Dance among the Navajo. If they can't or won't do this, then their claim should be seen as a mere cynical and ignorant play for power.
Better yet, the rest of us, governmental institutions and activists with romantic notions about Native cultures included, ought to stand aside and let the Hopi and Navajo find an acceptable solution to their problems according to their own lights.
The question is to what extent the Sun Dance has been absorbed into Navajo culture and religion in the few hundered years since it originated- whether it is accepted and practiced by practicioners of the Navajo religion, or is simply a ploy by one side of a dispute attemting to take advantage of American society's tendency to view "Indians" as an amorphous mass with a single stereotyped culture instead of the vast diversity of reality.
If there is any basis to the plaintiff's claims, then they should be able to present evidence to demonstrate the history of the Sun Dance among the Navajo. If they can't or won't do this, then their claim should be seen as a mere cynical and ignorant play for power.
Better yet, the rest of us, governmental institutions and activists with romantic notions about Native cultures included, ought to stand aside and let the Hopi and Navajo find an acceptable solution to their problems according to their own lights.
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