The View from the Hogan 7               107 Days till the final solution

Notes from Big Mountain  (for the discerning reader)

Ya'a'tee
    First off, a point of terminology. I have been instructed to avoid using
the word"HPL" in my writing. The words HPL, JUA, Navajo Reservation, etc etc
are deeply painful and offensive. These words refer to lines drawn on maps
and in the minds of those in Washington ( and their followers). They are not
real, they divide that which is whole. I will refer to the land where these
words are being written as The Altar. The reasoning is this: Within the four
sacred mountains that encompass Navajo land, is the hogan for the Dineh
people. When a hogan is built to live in, it is a model of this Macrocosmic
Hogan. This is why Ceremonies must take place inside a Hogan. This is also
why bulldozing of Hogans is such an abominable and sacreligious crime. Within
the Ceremonial Hogans is a space used for an altar. Within the Macrocosmic
Hogan this space correlates to the Big Mountain area.

    We hear of many events and prayer vigils taking place in the first week
of October at U.S. Embassies abroad in support of the people here and against
the continued genocide. To all of you who have worked hard at setting up
these events, we send our prayers and thanks, as well as to all those who
give of their precious time to attend these events. Let us hope that the
hearts of those in Washington will be touched. As Sitting Bull said "As
individual fingers we can easily be broken, but all together we make a mighty
fist."

    There is a good letter circulating on the Net from "the people of the
land known as America" to the clowns in Washington. contact Beth at
isco@efn.org and ask her to send you a copy. If you like what it says, then
you just send Beth your name and address and it will get appended.

    The Men In Black continue to visit Paulines land on a daily basis. They
recently stopped at the site of this past summers Education/Witness camp, and
-horror of horrors- they discovered a piece of soggy cardboard approximatley
one foot square, and a small brown bottle that at one point contained ginger
beer. Barely able to contain their outrage, many photographs were taken of
the offending material, and they rushed back to HQ as fast as possible.
Imagine the scene, the BIA War room,... a group of Very Important People
cluster around the photos trying to decide what action to take against this
latest outrage. Smart young men and women stride across the room with the
latest satelite images. Presidential candidate McPain wants the Nuclear
Option,... he's just about fed up with these inconvenient Indians, Wayne
Tulip, The Hopi Tribal Chairman tries deperately to talk him out of it,...
he's worried what a nuclear explosion will do to the grazing for his friends
cows. In a corner, Fedora Lewis, the Hopi Goebbels, is not so sure,... she
sees a way to incorporate the nuclear motif into the Casino she so
desperatley wants to build in Hopiland. In the end they settle on an armed
convoy composed of Hopi Rangers, BIA police, US marshalls, County Sherrifs,
FBI and ATF, with a couple of National Guard Helicopter Gunships for back-up.
Maybe I'm exaggerating SLIGHTLY, but what continues to take place here is a
farce on a hugely criminal level, and sometimes I find humor to be my only
defense against absurdity.

    Meanwhile, the real criminals, the BIA impoundment squads, continue to
snatch the peoples animals even though there is more grass than could be
consumed by flocks ten times as large. Of course we knew they were coming
because the roads were graded. Normally the roads we travel are so bad they
couldn't be classified as jeep trails, only last week I had to rush a woman
to hospital in the middle of the night. A 75 mile journey took 2 and a half
hours, each bump, rut and pot hole slowing us down and causing pain to my
passenger. But when the BIA need to come in on a lightning raid to take the
peoples animals, out come the dozers and graders to give them a nice smooth,
fast ride. Your tax dollars hard at work. What may not be at all clear to
y'all out there is that this is all executed as military operations, these
are para-military, multi-agency "squads" whose only aim is to cause fear and
hardship. Loaded down with weapons and all the hi-tech toys money can by,
elders who are alone are targetted. The following is a quote from Big
Mountain Newsletter.

    The people of Big Mountain and the Joint Use Area say they are being
terrorized.
    They cite jet airplanes flying so low that the pilot is visible, BIA
trucks cruising the Survival Camp and the peoples hogans, helicopters, and
the apparent sabotage of wells and windmills, and so on.
    The government has answers for most of the charges, saying for instance
that the jet flights are "routine" training patterns, the helicopters are
"surveying" and the trucks are "conducting a census". The government says the
people are being "over dramatic" in their reactions. In the 1960's these same
people said that they were attacked with poisonous gases from airplanes,
killing their livestock. It wasn't until years later, when the white
citizenry of Globe, Arizona, received a similar attack, that the U.S.
admitted it had been using 2,4,5-T, an incredibly toxic pesticide, for "brush
control" without proper safeguards.
    Even if the latest actions are in fact "routine", the question remains
why all of these activities should suddenly escalate in the few months just
prior to the July deadline for Navajo removal.
    The governments position on the jet flights is typical: the Air Force
insists it is just running a normal training pattern which happens to pass
directly over Big Mountain. Challenged at a recent hearing as to why the
flights were necessary, and whether similar flights were scheduled over
non-indian communities, the Air Force declined to explain. Spokespersons
noted that it would not change the flights just to please the indians,
regardless of ceremonies or other problems with the flights.
    Parents claimed the flights terrified their young children at school and
literally knocked the elderly out of bed. Religious ceremonies are also
disrupted and the livestock are scattered by the flights. The Air Force
admits that it flies as low as 400 feet.
    Bottom line is that these Indian people are being subjected to procedures
which the government wouldn't think of directing towards white communities.
In this case the people under attack are the traditional Navajo and Hopi
people of the Joint Use Area, already under incredible pressure due to 12
years of implementation of the Relocation Act. The result is terror.

    That was written 14 years ago, and nothings changed..... its been going
on the whole time since, and the view from the Hogan is inescapable that this
is war, low-intensity  maybe, but war nonetheless.
    One thing I am sure of, is that both the people who plan this campaign of
harassment and those that carry it out, watch waaay too much TV.

    How is it that a war against Indians has been and is still being fought
on this continent for the past 30 years, and most people are only just
finding out about it now?

    So, we are hurtling towards two big dates. January 1st, 2000 and February
1st, 2000.
     I find it hard to get excited about the Millenium, some Roman dude, way
back when, decides to change his peoples calendar and start time from a new
date, how is that real? ......And anyway, don't most people know that the
year begins on November 1st?

    When I think of Y2K, my first reaction is, how utterly terrifying it must
be, to live in a world that is so unstable that a couple of digits on a
silicon chip has the potential to bring it all tumbling down. My second
thought is how absurd it is, that here on the Altar, are people who have the
knowledge, skills, and most importantly, the wisdom, to live without an
infantile dependence on the Technostructure, and yet the dominant society is
hell-bent on rubbing out these people rather than listening to them and
learning from them. If, in a worst case scenario (barring Nuclear Winter),
the technostructure does collapse, then we here on the Altar will have to
make a few minor adjustments to our lifestyle ( though as I am now a cyber
-slut, I'd surely miss conversing with all you good folks out there), but
overall the benefits would be enormous. The mine will close down. The sky
will be free of huge, noisy, chunks of metal hurtling towards La La Land with
Very Important People on board, and the Men in Black will cease harassing us
as the coal will be worthless. It would be my guess that many of you who have
not been here cannot truly imagine what it is like to live outside of the
Technostructure, without electricity, without plumbing, with the closest
small store 20 miles away, asphalt road 30 miles away, telephone 36miles
away, post office 40+ miles away, supermarket 74 miles away. The people here
have never had these "amenities",... in what I consider a dumb move, the U.S.
made it illegal for the people to "develop", hoping to encourage the people
to leave, but what its caused is that the people continued with a way of life
that has changed little for generations, and life is lived in a good way,
depending on those most basic resources, brains and bodies, something most of
us have, life is generous. There is an often voiced belief "out there" that
everybody in the world is so desperate to achieve the "American way of life",
but I must tell you, it just ain't so. A little story may show this.
    Some years ago, when I was living with my Grandma and Grandpa, I figured
that the price of a simple solar power system was low enough for me to be
able to raise the funds, so I asked my Grandma what she would use electricity
for if I could supply it. I needed to figure what size system to work on. Her
eyes immediately lit up, "an electric light,".... for the hogan in winter, so
she could weave. Like many elderly people, her eyesight was not as sharp as
it used to be, and with a keresone lamp the colors of the yarns were hard to
see, so on the long winter nights she wasn't able to weave. " What else would
you like" I asked. She thought for a while, and then said " an iron, to iron
the rugs after they are finished". "Anything else" I asked. She thought, and
thought....." how about a microwave oven? refrigerator? TV?. She laughed.
That was all she could think of to do with electricity, make it so she could
spend even more hours sittin at the loom. Around this time I sat down and
figured out how much these elderly women were getting paid to weave these
beautiful rugs. Figuring in the time it takes to raise the sheep, shear,
wash, clean, card, spin, dye the wool, set up the loom, and then do the
weaving, I reckoned they were lucky if they were getting 2 bucks an hour. So
any of you in the market for a genuine navajo rug, please bear in mind what a
deal you're getting.

    On the subject of rugs, for those of you in the neighbourhood of
Missoula, Montana, there is an exhibition of approximately 50 rugs from the
resisters here at the Art Gallery, in the University. These are the real
things, and the show runs till Oct 31st. I saw some of the rugs on their way
up there, and there is some beautiful work. I would be out of line to have a
favorite, but Fanny Goys rugs are particularly fine. Roberta Blackgoat will
be in town for a reception on Saturday the 30th, so that would certainly be
worth attending.

    On the subject of Robertas travels, she will be in Washington DC during
the second week of November. I don't have any locations or dates for her
appearances there, but for sure she will be at the concert where Blackfire
are playing.

Presuming of course we survive Y2K, we then come to February 1st, 2000. Who
knows what is going to happen? The Feds and the HTC know, but they ain't
saying. There have been deadlines before, and a pattern has emerged. Threats
of forced evictions are broadcast, support is mobilized, the media takes an
interest, the deadline arrives, nothing happens, the media lose interest,
support wanes, and back to the daily grind of low-intensity warfare and siege
tactics. Maybe that will happen again, but maybe not. Warmaker is not known
for making rational decisions, so it's best to plan for all eventualities.

    Back in the real world, the weather has changed. It hasn't rained for
some weeks now. Back to the usual intense blue dome above. The sun is much
lower in the sky, the shadows are larger, the colors richer, and the days
shorter. The Dineh name for this moon is "back to back", where the two
seasons touch. The corn's all harvested, primary chore now is to bring in,
cut, and chop firewood for the coming winter. There is already a nip in the
night air, a killing frost took out my squash and tomato plant a few weeks
ago. Like most life-sustaining activities round here, cutting firewood is
illegal according to the Feds and the HTC. I know for a fact that sons of two
of the Grandmas went into Hopi Tribal Offices to get a woodcutting permit and
left without one, so even though no-ones been arrested in a while for cutting
wood, it is one more stress and worry on the people. I've been too busy with
the flock and the firewood to take advantage of the other bumper harvest this
year, Pinyon nuts, a much favored delicacy. Travelling across the Altar one
sees people out, under the trees, collecting as much as possible before the 4
legged and winged get their share. The sight of people collecting free food
always feels festive to me. I stopped by Robertas place late one afternoon
after she had been out picking all day. We sat in front of her house and
watched her sheepherder bring home the flock. Behind us, on her door, was a
simple sign that reads:

Entering Sovereign Dineh Nation
Thin Rock Mesa
All are welcome who repect the land, life, and law of the Dineh
Warning!
Federal, state, and tribal personnel, your jurisdiction does not apply here
Your actions will be counter-acted.

    Similar signs are re-appearing around the Altar.
    As we sat, a huge strange looking object flew slowly over us. grabbing
the binoculars I saw that it was the Space Shuttle, piggy-backed on a big jet
transport. I explained to Roberta what the space shuttle was, and how it put
all the satellites up in the sky, and how some of those satellites can take
pictures of us here on the ground. Her eyes immediately lit up, "we should
write SUE THE CREATOR out there" she said, pointing to the land out in front
of the house, Sooo there is now a message being laid out on the ground in
front of her place, so if you happen to be an owner or operator of a spy
satellite, point it to:

36 degrees 14 minutes 79 seconds N
110 degrees 38 minutes 62 seconds W

Also if you are a pilot or photographer who wants to take some pictures of
this message, you're welcome.

    One final thought on Y2K, we hear of big bucks being made by supplying
Y2K survival information, so, I make the following offer; for a mere fifty
bucks a day, you are invited to the BOPEEP Y2K SURVIVAL SCHOOL, topics
covered will include: How to avaoid freezing by using an axe. How to avoid
thirst by walking to a spring with a bucket. How to avoid starvation by
grubbing around in dirt and blood and guts. How to repair just about anything
with baling wire. 1001 things to do when your television doesn't work. etc
etc.

    We human beings are an incredible species. Our brains and bodies are
perfectly capable of doing all thats necesesary to keep life going in a good
way, but more than that, we are capable of profoundly beautiful acts of love,
kindness, and generosity. Yet we are taught to feel powerless and to fear
each other and to fear life itself. Why? (I am reliably informed that that is
a rhetorical question)

    But then, what the hell do I know,........ I'm just a sheepherder.

            "We need to be kinder to each other"

            Your prayers, support, and correspondence are invited.

            I thank you for your time that you have given me by reading this.

            For all my relations

                Bo Peep

                reachable via unclejake74@hotmail.com

P.S. To all those who have written to me, please be aware that owing to the
pressing needs of the flock, the firewood, and the Grandmas, the office is
sometimes left unattended for days at a time. It may take as long as a half
moon between when you write, and when you hear back from me. Around here the
information superhighway is a muddy jeep trail. Please be patient, you will
hear from me.

If you have received this update as a forward, but want to sure of getting
them in the future, please let me know and I will add you to the list. Also
if there are any  "back issues" you don't have, again, let me know.

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