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However, nowadays, few of any nation remember with clarity these
old
ways-- the conquerors have been busy trying to make us forget
what we
already remember. For a very long time. Threatened by tribal
people
and our inherent resistance to become slaves, property owned, or
power-over oppressors, colonizers throughout the centuries have
attempted destruction of woman/Earth centered life. Colonizers
destroyed libraries of woman's literature and art in ancient
Egypt's Alexandria, burned over one million women at the stake
for things like making a man sexually attracted to her, hunted
and tortured European men who practiced prayer at a forest altar
outside the confines of the "Holy Mother Church", massacred
Indians on the "Great Plains" under the guise of manifest
destiny. All of this in an attempt to deny the religion, life
and culture of land-based people.
- The Dine' struggle to keep their homeland, their
way of life, their religion, because they believe what happens
at Big Mountain happens to the entire human race.
Despite these desperate death walks, there is that rare
exception of tribal ways surviving, as can be seen through the
knowing of people like the Traditional Dine' (Navajo) who live
near Big Mountain, Arizona. They remember what many have
forgotten. Just as in old European tribal cultures, sacredness
of the land lies at the heart of Dine' life. The Dine' pray and
make offerings everyday to one of the four sacred mountains,
and this is what keeps the People,
Dine', alive. This land
is their Altar and it is said no one will survive, destruction
of life as we know it will occur, if this Altar is disturbed.
That is what the prophecies say. No one will survive. Not the
Red people, the White, Yellow or Black.
Dine' are part of a tribal people who continue to carry the
prayer and life-style of Earth based realities and are
threatened with destruction of their way of life. For those age
old ATTEMPTS to colonize and conquer "heathens" continues on
into the 21st century--in the form of corporate exploitation of
and desire to own natural resources which often lie under
Indian reservations in the United
States. For even today there are federal jurisdictions which are
interfering with Traditional Dine' way of life. Over the years
several laws have been passed which demand Traditional Dine'
move from Big Mountain and many Dine' have resisted this attempt
at forced relocation. Several years back the U.S. Supreme
Court refused to hear a lawsuit fourteen years in the making, a
Freedom of Religion petition (Manybeads vs. U.S. April 2001)
which would have allowed Traditional Dine' to stay on their
homeland and pray. This most recent decision has paved the way
for Hopi Tribal Council urged by energy
corporations to make plans for the mining of uranium and coal
from the Altar, Big Mountain, Black Mesa, a desire which has
been in the making and the courts since the mid 1950's.
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