By Kathy Helms

WINDOW ROCK – The Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act of 1974 separated the Navajo people from their homeland, their livestock, and their way of life. Politicians say it’s history, but resisters and relocatees told the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission this week that the effects are just as real today as they were then.

The commission was in Bird Springs and Dilkon conducting a series of public hearings to assess the impact of the settlement act, which divided thousands of acres of Joint Use Area land into Hopi Partitioned Land, or HPL, and Navajo Partitioned Land, NPL. About 100 Hopis were relocated from NPL and approximately 10,000 Navajos were required to move from HPL.

Duane H. Yazzie, chair of the commission, said some Navajo Nation Council delegates tell them, “That issue is dead. Why are you bringing it back up?” But, he said, “The bottom line, and what we’re saying, is forced relocation is a human rights violation. That’s why we have the responsibility to see what we can do, even though Window Rock is saying don’t bother.”

Thousands of Dine were chased off their land and scattered to the winds, resulting in feelings of desperation, isolation, suicide, joblessness, alcohol abuse, physical abuse, and family abuse, he said. Some refused to move.

Ida Mae Clinton, 82, and her daughter Verna of Star Mountain Valley are resisters. Ida Mae would not sign the 75-year lease agreement because there were too many limitations, Verna said. “Public Law 93-531 has destroyed people who have never done anything wrong. My grandmother died saying, ‘I’ve never done anything wrong except care for my family and my sheep and my horses and pray every day.’

“That law was passed by Congress, senators, congressmen holding up the United States Constitution to kill my people,” Verna said. “It is vital that the Navajo Nation Commission of Human Rights do something with these hearings. I hope that we can see some sort of peace for the people that are refusing to sign.”

Clinton said she returned home from San Francisco in 1973 and went house to house, pleading with friends and family not to take the government’s money. “I tried to educate them on what the relocation meant and what it would be like to live in a city where they did not know how to manage their lives.”

She said her father, a medicine man known as “Dr. Clinton,” used to say, “’I will not leave my land. I will not abandon my people, the remains of my family, my relatives, my community members. It is not right.’ So we stayed, and to this day we still are there.

“We still have sheep, we still have horses. But we are surrounded by fencing. We have no rights. We are under Hopi jurisdiction and Hopi rule. We are under surveillance by the Hopi Rangers every day. They come around, they look at us through binoculars; we look at them through our binoculars. After 35 years, I’m charging the Hopi Tribe and the United States with genocide,” she said.

Despite the official lifting of the Bennett Freeze on May 8, Ida Mae said they are still unable to make repairs to their homes. “Our houses are falling apart. That’s just the way life is out here. That’s the way it’s always been.”

In addition, the Hopi Rangers keep close tabs on her livestock, she said. “I was told you can only have five sheep and one horse. I told the Hopis I have 13 grandchildren. Are they all supposed to ride this one horse?” She said the document that she was given by the Hopi, she threw in the fire, and the person that delivered the document stormed out of the house.

“I’m not afraid to share my stories, my experiences,” she said. “What took place (with relocation) was illegal. They had people approaching households asking them to put their thumbprint on documents. I witnessed all that.”

Norris Nez, a traditional medicine man from Coalmine who has been “across the ocean” to speak before the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, said attorneys have told him that it is possible to file suit against the federal government and the Hopi on the land issue.

Nez travels all over the Navajo Nation to conduct ceremonies. “I see the impact of the Dine people not knowing where to go,” he said. “Many of our children are displaced. They’re just wandering, they have no place to go, no place to stay. Many of our grandchildren have no place. They don’t know where to even get a meal.”

People are constantly coming to his home, asking him to perform a ceremony. “Our medicine men are not being produced like they used to be. We’ve left our culture behind, we’ve left our ways behind and looked into the future, to the Western ways … We need to come together, we need to be one. We need to unite, we need to get our water back, we need to get our land back. We need to get our way of life back.”

Caroline Tohannie of Red Lake, said that when she was a young girl it was told by the elders that some day the land would be an issue. “You may even be bickering over the land among yourselves,” she said. “In my old age, I realize that is what we are experiencing. I have observed that the land is tired, the land is frustrated over this bickering.

“Black Mesa is like a food basket. There are many food items there. There are many herbs and plants to cook with, but all these things are viewed as useless. It’s given no value,” she said. “That’s how I feel Washingdoon views our way of life. Some day we will have no sheep. Some day the land will not be viewed as our own to design and plan our future.”

When Tohannie attended boarding school, she experienced some abuse. “Washingdoon says you don’t abuse elderly, you don’t abuse children. It is a law that they stand by. So why then does the federal government abuse us? That’s a double standard. Why is it that they run us off our land? To me that’s a form of elderly abuse, and abuse of children and families.

“We want to go back to the way of life that we once knew – the life where we were self-sufficient, where we grew our own foods, we raised our own animals and harvested things that grew in the wild. I don’t understand why our livestock is a problem. Why do they want to eradicate our ownership of livestock?”

Chelsea Chee of Teesto said her father was relocated and because of that she feels out of balance. “Since my dad was moved from where he grew up, I’m not familiar with the land that he grew up on. I’m not very familiar with my nali’s strong side of the family.

“As a Navajo woman and a Navajo person we talk about having a male and a female balance inside of us to do things. These are some indirect effects that relocation has had on some of the people from my generation,” she said.

Her father talks about herding sheep and riding horses and having cattle, “but I never had that. I grew up with TV and video games and basketball. … I’m 25 years old now and it’s the first time I’ve ever ridden a horse. There are a lot of teachings and traditions that come along with livestock. It’s been 25 years now that I haven’t had those teachings.”

Cassandra Martinez-Allen, 37, of Cudeii said it was only recently that she came to accept that she has depression, anger, resentment. “You get angry,” she said through tears.

Now working and living in Pinon, she remembers when her grandparents thought about relocating. She went with them to Sanders to take a look. “They decided not to move there. Instead, they just came down the hill and hopped the fence. You can see their homestead. The foundation from the hogan is still there. I keep telling my dad, ‘What if I just move back, who would know?’ And he said, ‘They would throw you in jail.’

“I want to have some homestead for my children. I want to grow old as a grandmother with sheep. I want to have my own horses, I want to have my own cows. And I don’t know when that’s supposed to happen,” she said.

The Human Rights Commission will assess the testimonies and evidence presented at the relocation hearings and will offer recommendations to the Navajo Nation and other governments as well as in an international forum. The hearings will continue in mid-December at Tonalea, Piñon and Nahata Dziil chapters.