WEBVTT

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 switch and you just test if it's working if the counter is going down um

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you don't have to use this if you
don't want to. But right now it's really

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just a matter of like if you hear
yourself then you know what whether or

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not it's coming out. Um if you ever
want to posit that use that red pause

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and then stop on top. So I think it's
and you'll be here in case we run

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into some definitely I'll be here if I
think technical happens, I can call

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up matt. Okay, good deal. So it's
ready. It's ready to go now. Yes, it's

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counting down now. So if you want to
pause it you can pause it. That's

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okay. I think we're ready to go. So

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understand what

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yes

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says record here. I said let's

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hold on but not parts remember this.
Yeah.

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You want me to test this? I can't hear
it. Yeah, I can't hear it. Okay,

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well then I guess we're ready to go.
Okay. Okay. Um this is Peter Iversen

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, I'm speaking with Peterson zah on
several topics today. This is the

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What day is that? I can't remember. Um
anyway, in roughly mid October 2008

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and doctors are one of the things we
wanted to talk about it. A little

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more detail was the issue of the
disagreements and conflicts with the Hopi

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nation and recognizing that it's not,
it's more complicated story than

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most people realize. But you come from
that part of Navajo country. Uh huh

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be glad to hear more about your
perceptions about how this evolved and the

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difficulties that the two nations
found in trying to resolve or at least

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make the, you know, be able to
continue with things.

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Okay. Maybe prior to that, I can talk
a little about the earth, sky and

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people that, okay, that's the right
order. Sure. Okay, okay. Uh

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earth sky and people, one of the
things that the Navajo people traditional

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people really believe in is that we
are uh individuals that respect the

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earth and you always have to be
thankful for what the earth has to offer

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to people. And in our situation living
back in low mountain that there was

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no difference between what the other
traditional Navajo people have taught

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the young ones and their sibling and
that is that one thing that the earth

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has to offer is food to ourselves, to
our animals and all the living

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things out there that the earth
provides and therefore you have to respect

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the mother earth. And that means that
when it rains particularly during

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the female rain uh season, you have to
sit down, you have to pay attention

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to what the great spirit is trying to
tell us. And by these natural forces

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such as rain and snow. The great
spirit is talking to us through some of

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those kinds of events and some of
those movements that happen only by the

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great, by the force of the great
spirit and so early on you, you learned

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that and in my situation, uh, that was
something that I was taught, you

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know, by my grandparents and that is
respect for all of the living things.

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And it's something that one individual
living out there has to really,

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really appreciate. And I guess because
at those kinds of teaching, I

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carried that on later on in life where
you know, I respected everybody, I

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respected things. I respected uh the
woman population what they brought

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and, and I guess because of those
kinds of feelings, I were closely with

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uh anyone, Nika and I made her as my
advisor because she was able to bring

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on different perspective uh, into my
administration and something that you

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, you hardly ever hear. Uh, the people
say she would be one of those

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individuals that gave those uh love
and advice. And I know that when she's

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talking to you, uh, she has this uh
motherly instinct uh, when she talks

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to people and you can't help but just
listen to her. And uh, and maybe

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it's because of those kinds of early
on uh things that I learned uh, that

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I was able to, to respect people like
like her. And it's something that I

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think every individual whether they're
Navajo or not they have to practice

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is the respect that they have for uh,
the living things out there,

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including uh the earth because the
earth is alive and it's something that

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uh great spirit only the great spirit
can do and then you uh have certain

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beliefs, Everybody has certain
beliefs. Mine was the neighborhood

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traditional belief and people go to
church, they have their own religious

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belief. And with me, I didn't really
pay all that much attention to all of

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the other religion because I knew I
was at dinner and I was brought up to

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believe that concept uh, that there is
a great spirit watching over each

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and every one of us. And uh, and that
was the neighborhood teachers that I

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got from my grandparents and from my
parents. And as a result, I end up

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believing uh, traditional Navajo
religious belief and I practiced that

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throughout my life. I may not go to
every ceremony and participate

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intimately uh, during the rose
ceremony, but my beliefs were there. He was

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just unfortunate that I can't go to,
you know, every uh, religious events

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that happened in your community and
even with your, with your friends and

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your relatives. But my belief was
there, the spirit is there and to this

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day I still do that and it's something
that I learned how to appreciate

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early on in life also. And it's
something that I think every Navajo

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individual I need to pay attention to
because nowadays there's so many uh

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, people out there are groups of
people that are trying to entice uh, the

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young Navajo to go their way and
they're always trying to recruit them

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into their own religion and we, as a
Navajo people, we have to weigh each

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one and try to say to ourselves which
one fits me and which one uh is uh

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something that I I that I will end up
really, really believe in. But you

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only decide that after you do your own
research and after you ask a lot of

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questions uh like the way we should
and then you make those decisions and

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that's how you decide. And so it's
something that I believe the

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neighborhood people are are so
fortunate in in heaven, is those kinds of

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belief where you, you believe in the
living things. You believe in

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everything that's alive animals and
the sky, the whole uh system of

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universe that that's out there uh that
only the great spirit can make and

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that's why on occasion when I'm
passing one of the four holy mountain,

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like the san Francisco peaks uh or you
go over to uh Durango colorado, the

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Benson, uh

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Mark Hesperus. You stop for a minute
and you are give a blessing to live

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in things out there because what it
does is that it brings to you a

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certain beauty that man cannot do. Uh
for me when I see the beauty of san

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Francisco peaks and the beauty of one
of the four holy mountains, uh we

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think to myself now we can't do that,
we can't make something like that.

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We, as people man can't do it only the
great spirit and through the great

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spirit is mine and hands, the great
spirit and uh uh the deities that live

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back then were the only ones that can
do that. They were in power uh by by

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God to do that. And they put these
things and they left these things

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behind so that we can see that and
retain our s static values, our sense

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of beauty because in today's world
sometimes we live so fast and there are

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so many things that are happening,
many, many negative things that are

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happening. You can't turn on a
television each day and expect to hear some

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good news. And so when you come by
either one of those four holy mountains

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, beautiful lake uh you you have to
stop and you had to pay uh attention.

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You had to pay respect to those places
that the great spirit has put uh

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those things before man's eyes and I
always appreciate it that way. Not

00:11:10.490 --> 00:11:16.976
necessarily do the Navajo. People pray
to the mountain, but they pray

00:11:17.009 --> 00:11:20.797
through the modern, they get to the
great spirit. And I think there's a

00:11:20.830 --> 00:11:27.106
distinction between the two and so
basically that that's that's my belief

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and it's something that sometimes or
the general public won't really

00:11:33.460 --> 00:11:39.636
understand. But when you try to
explain those using the english language,

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you lose a lot of tastes, you lose a
lot of meaning and only one can

00:11:46.740 --> 00:11:52.136
explain the full meaning what it means
in the neighborhood lander which

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and so uh neighborhood people are
blessed with. Also that kind of such a

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picturesque uh language that that we
have to describe whatever it is that

00:12:04.570 --> 00:12:10.996
we feel and see from from day to day.
So I just wanted to to say that

00:12:11.029 --> 00:12:19.029
about the earth and the people thank
you going into uh our relationship

00:12:19.899 --> 00:12:27.016
with our neighbor, the the Hopi nation
that has, that is one of the most

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complicated, the most complicated
issue. And uh the way I look at it is

00:12:34.860 --> 00:12:42.860
that going all the way back hundreds
of years ago uh when the state became

00:12:43.740 --> 00:12:50.736
uh a state here in, when Arizona
became a state here in Arizona. And uh

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and then when all these other states
were created and then when the United

00:12:55.509 --> 00:13:01.947
States government came into being here
in north America, uh much of what

00:13:01.980 --> 00:13:09.980
we face with the uh hoping nation was
something that was created by the

00:13:12.149 --> 00:13:19.636
federal government. And so it was
basically something that uh that the uh

00:13:19.669 --> 00:13:25.726
the federal government decided that
they should resolve these issues

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certain ways. And when they say that,
I always look at the other side of

00:13:31.110 --> 00:13:35.307
the coin, which is that

00:13:35.340 --> 00:13:40.087
that is something that we didn't
really create, but it was created for us

00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:46.376
by the federal government. And it was
unfortunate uh that many, many of

00:13:46.409 --> 00:13:50.396
our people didn't really think of it
that way and they just had us

00:13:50.429 --> 00:13:56.606
fighting each other for years and
years. And uh when when you really study

00:13:56.639 --> 00:14:02.707
the topic, it was something that
something that the federal government did.

00:14:02.740 --> 00:14:09.457
And so basically the Navajo Hopi land
dispute is very complicated in that

00:14:09.490 --> 00:14:17.226
sense. And uh and it was also
something that has been uh ever less than it

00:14:17.259 --> 00:14:22.856
seems like, because it went through
just so many generations of Navajo

00:14:22.889 --> 00:14:28.467
people, it went through so many
leadership on both sides, Navajo Hopi. But

00:14:28.500 --> 00:14:33.386
I had one thing, I had one thing that
I believe in when I went into the

00:14:33.419 --> 00:14:40.776
chairmanship in 1983, and that is the
concept that the Hopi people aren't

00:14:40.809 --> 00:14:46.037
going anywhere. The Navajo people
aren't going anywhere either. So we

00:14:46.070 --> 00:14:51.697
might as well get along with one
another and began getting acquainted with

00:14:51.730 --> 00:14:57.856
each other, irregardless of what the
land dispute may may bring to the

00:14:57.889 --> 00:15:05.537
people uh that we have to coexist and
we have to uh live side by side in a

00:15:05.570 --> 00:15:13.570
peaceful way. That was my uh
philosophy going into uh my chairmanship my

00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:21.766
first term, and that I was to make
every effort to befriend the Hopi

00:15:21.799 --> 00:15:29.799
nation and only through friendship and
only through uh you know, something

00:15:30.669 --> 00:15:38.307
like what we were made of
understanding what we may were made of

00:15:38.340 --> 00:15:44.506
traditional way on both sides. Can we
bring about understanding and love

00:15:44.539 --> 00:15:49.476
uh for each other between our people?
Because regardless of what we

00:15:49.509 --> 00:15:56.297
thought about 11 another at the time,
our younger generation, the Hopi uh

00:15:56.330 --> 00:16:02.567
young people and the Navajo young
people, they were all inter marrying

00:16:02.600 --> 00:16:08.356
many of them were inter marrying with
with each other. So, uh that meant

00:16:08.389 --> 00:16:15.276
that we as leaders, we had to look at
those kinds of uh statistics among

00:16:15.309 --> 00:16:23.309
the young people. So therefore our job
is to is to make the the young

00:16:24.210 --> 00:16:30.396
people and older people understand
that we have that uh that that's coming

00:16:30.429 --> 00:16:36.756
into both sides of the family. So we
had to accept that. And because of

00:16:36.789 --> 00:16:43.717
that, I was very, very fortunate to be
in office for the neighborhood

00:16:43.750 --> 00:16:50.866
nation as its chairman at the same
time, that Ivan Sydney was also the

00:16:50.899 --> 00:16:57.467
chairman of the Hopi Nation. Ivan and
I went to school together at phoenix

00:16:57.500 --> 00:17:05.500
indian school, Way back in the 1950s
in the mid 1950s. And and we uh knew

00:17:07.380 --> 00:17:15.380
each other uh back back then. And uh
he was just a little youngsters uh,

00:17:16.509 --> 00:17:22.576
that always uh befriended the Navajo
people and he was just that kind of a

00:17:22.609 --> 00:17:30.609
person, very pleasant individual. And
there wasn't any kind of hatefulness

00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:37.556
inside of him. He was just a kind a
kind person. And so when you know

00:17:37.589 --> 00:17:45.589
somebody that way, you don't want to,
you don't want to uh begin working

00:17:46.019 --> 00:17:51.516
with him in such a way that you try to
create any kind of hostility

00:17:51.549 --> 00:17:56.467
between you and that particular
person. And so I I looked at Ivan that way

00:17:56.500 --> 00:18:01.117
because I saw a lot of goodness in
what could happen because of our

00:18:01.150 --> 00:18:06.687
position. Him being the Hopi leader
elected leader and my being the Navajo

00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:12.756
Hopi elected leader. And I thought
that this was a perfect opportunity to

00:18:12.789 --> 00:18:18.207
bring the two tribes back together.
But one of the most difficult time

00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:26.240
during that period Uh when I got
elected in 1960, uh 1919 80 82 and 83,

00:18:31.460 --> 00:18:35.107
when I took office in 1983,

00:18:35.140 --> 00:18:43.140
it was uh very, very difficult for for
both of us because on both sides,

00:18:43.539 --> 00:18:51.539
on both sides of the issue, our
people, we're not really accepting what we

00:18:54.230 --> 00:18:59.796
were trying to do put in the two
tribes together because uh in the past

00:18:59.829 --> 00:19:07.687
they got polarized politically on the
issue of the land ownership and it

00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:13.496
was almost impossible to immediately
put the two tribes back together. But

00:19:13.529 --> 00:19:20.417
we knew that in the long run, if we
can give it a try and if we can uh

00:19:20.450 --> 00:19:28.450
began to put people uh back on direct
or the right track of a friendly

00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:34.927
coexistence that in the long run is
going to work out and people are going

00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:41.187
to cooperate and people are going to
work together for one common good of

00:19:41.220 --> 00:19:49.220
both. Uh uh both tribes, individuals
from both tribes. We we knew that and

00:19:49.250 --> 00:19:56.377
so, but it was a big heavy political
risk on both sides for us to do that.

00:19:56.410 --> 00:20:02.326
But uh my friend, Ivan Sydney was one
of these individuals, that was

00:20:02.359 --> 00:20:10.359
tenacious and he just had the right
attitude. Uh he had a lot of courage

00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:17.447
to do what he did. And I was just
extremely lucky to become the chairman

00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:21.887
of the neighborhood nation at the same
time, he was the chairman of the

00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:29.127
Hopi Nation. And uh and as a result of
our two positions, we then began

00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:36.407
the long, long road to the healing
process and to this day, something like

00:20:36.440 --> 00:20:44.387
uh 30 years passed and we still have
uh you know, a lot of work to do to

00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:52.420
have a complete uh cooperation among
all of the people that live on the

00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:57.707
Hopi as well as on the on the
neighborhood side. But what really makes me

00:20:57.740 --> 00:21:04.407
happy is to see the progress that's
taken place to see how the two tribes

00:21:04.440 --> 00:21:09.526
are beginning to work together with
the new generations of Navajo and Hopi

00:21:09.559 --> 00:21:13.927
people coming in to enter into these
different agreements that they now

00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:21.536
have where they recognize each other
as as a sovereign nation and that

00:21:21.569 --> 00:21:25.917
there are some problems that exist
between the two, but they agree to

00:21:25.950 --> 00:21:31.506
disagree when there is a disagreement,
but doing it in a friendly way,

00:21:31.539 --> 00:21:36.887
doing it with integrity, doing it with
a lot of respect. Uh that's

00:21:36.920 --> 00:21:43.917
different than uh the way the Navajo
nation and the Hopi Nation, We're uh

00:21:43.950 --> 00:21:51.717
going after each other way back in the
early 19 uh seventies and even

00:21:51.750 --> 00:21:59.750
further back into 1960. And so we kind
of changed the whole complexion of

00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:07.447
the Navajo Hopi land dispute. And here
I am, 30 years later, I'm just glad

00:22:07.480 --> 00:22:13.586
that we did what we did and because it
just had to be done, uh, there was

00:22:13.619 --> 00:22:19.576
just too many uh, resources being
spent from both sides to fight one

00:22:19.609 --> 00:22:27.609
another that it was bitter to come
together and where we have to disagree

00:22:28.269 --> 00:22:35.256
with respect and dignity and, but
knowing that in the long run, the goal

00:22:35.289 --> 00:22:41.167
is to have the two tribes come
together and become friends uh, like they

00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:47.177
have been in the past and, and uh and
and and begin making, you know, some

00:22:47.210 --> 00:22:51.836
progress that they really, really need
to to make. In other words, I will

00:22:51.869 --> 00:22:59.869
not give you two example. one of them
is the uranium tallinn had to be

00:23:00.069 --> 00:23:07.647
dealt with in tuba city area called
rare medals east of tuber city. Uh,

00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:15.006
well that uranium tailing when the
wind came uh in early spring, it blew

00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:20.847
the uranium tailing everywhere, uh, on
neighborhood land as well as on

00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:26.597
Hope Island and it landed on our
animals and it landed on the grass and it

00:23:26.630 --> 00:23:34.066
landed on people And uh, the uranium
tailing and the particles that it was

00:23:34.099 --> 00:23:40.607
blowing did not discriminate between
Navajo and Hopi. It landed uh where

00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:48.506
it may and uh, and as a result, the
doctors at indian Health Service were

00:23:48.539 --> 00:23:56.539
having to take care of many, many
patients that were getting cancer uh, to

00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:03.367
to their bodies and no one really
knows how much of that came from the

00:24:03.400 --> 00:24:08.657
uranium tail and dusk that was blown
all over the place. So I've been

00:24:08.690 --> 00:24:15.236
sitting and I had to agree from the
Navajo from the Hopi side to cooperate

00:24:15.269 --> 00:24:20.816
and bring the federal government out
there so that they can begin the

00:24:20.849 --> 00:24:24.367
process of remediating

00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:31.607
uh the uh uranium tailing. And as a
result within something like three or

00:24:31.640 --> 00:24:39.447
four years, they were able to pay for
the cost of remediation and covering

00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:44.127
the uranium tailings so that it's not
dangerous. And they had to make it

00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:51.957
so that it's safe for 1000 years. And
uh and that could only be done if

00:24:51.990 --> 00:24:56.917
you have a commitment from from both
both tribes because the land where

00:24:56.950 --> 00:25:03.566
the tailing was was right in the midst
of where Navajo Hopi line was. And

00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:07.597
so we need a permission from the Hopi
and the hope he needed permission

00:25:07.630 --> 00:25:15.630
from the neighborhood too to make that
into a an agreed upon uh resolution

00:25:16.220 --> 00:25:20.036
to the federal government. And that
was the only way that the federal

00:25:20.069 --> 00:25:25.326
government could fund the project if
the both tribes can agree. So I'm

00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:33.127
very proud to say that I've been
Chairman Sidney uh push that from his end.

00:25:33.160 --> 00:25:38.867
And I pushed that from my end. And as
a result, we had the agreement to

00:25:38.900 --> 00:25:45.746
correct that situation. That's only
one good example of what cooperation

00:25:45.779 --> 00:25:50.986
can bring the kind of progress that we
were looking for to both tribe. The

00:25:51.019 --> 00:25:58.066
second example is the uh, the roads
all weather roads and in diary need

00:25:58.099 --> 00:26:04.996
out there. Uh many of our tribal
members, they have to drive uh pickup

00:26:05.029 --> 00:26:11.647
trucks through sand and gravel and
through mud. And because they don't we

00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:16.736
don't have, we don't enjoy all kinds
of miles and miles of all weather

00:26:16.769 --> 00:26:23.707
road. So we created what we call a
turquoise trail uh that that would go

00:26:23.740 --> 00:26:30.907
from and began from the Hopi Nation as
land and then go into a Navajo. And

00:26:30.940 --> 00:26:37.066
that would be a federally funded
program. And uh they're in some areas on

00:26:37.099 --> 00:26:42.377
the Navajo and Hopi where those kinds
of roads were really, really needed

00:26:42.410 --> 00:26:49.417
, particularly in the winter time and
when it snows and rain, we need all

00:26:49.450 --> 00:26:55.746
the weather road uh, in between those
two, between the various communities

00:26:55.779 --> 00:27:01.207
out there. And so it was only through
uh intertribal agreement between the

00:27:01.240 --> 00:27:05.226
two tribes. We were able to push that.
And the late Senator Barry

00:27:05.259 --> 00:27:11.086
Goldwater really really push that uh
uh through Congress to get it

00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:16.707
appropriated. So that's only a second
example of the kind of progress. Uh

00:27:16.740 --> 00:27:21.697
, that one could have through
cooperation. Unfortunately, when we left

00:27:21.730 --> 00:27:27.296
office, our other people, the leaders
after us really did not pick up the

00:27:27.329 --> 00:27:34.056
slack. And so it never really really
got finished to our satisfaction. But

00:27:34.089 --> 00:27:39.207
those are only two good examples of
what could happen. And I think the

00:27:39.240 --> 00:27:44.887
school is another good example, Hopi
high school, uh, you know, they need

00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:52.236
a Navajo support to build those
facilities and uh I've been sitting in my

00:27:52.269 --> 00:27:58.766
work together to uh to do that because
uh we have Children from the

00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:03.377
neighborhood side as well as Children
from the Hopi side that need that

00:28:03.410 --> 00:28:09.226
need education. They uh they were
shutting down the border in schools here

00:28:09.259 --> 00:28:16.076
in phoenix and in California and
Oklahoma and Nevada. So we needed a local

00:28:16.109 --> 00:28:23.006
school where Navajo and Hopi kids can
go and as a result, uh the creation

00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:30.607
of uh Hopi high school by the federal
government and that was only

00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:36.786
mhm possible through cooperation
between the two tribes. And so besides

00:28:36.819 --> 00:28:42.806
these three examples, you could go
into any other subject. You need those

00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:50.476
kinds of uh cooperation for the tribes
to make any kind of meaningful

00:28:50.509 --> 00:28:55.506
progress that will benefit the young
generation of the Navajo and Hopi

00:28:55.539 --> 00:29:02.867
people and the land dispute is a very
complicated issue and uh and it's

00:29:02.900 --> 00:29:10.776
been going on for over 100 years, so
it was not easy to deal with. Uh but

00:29:10.809 --> 00:29:17.066
I was very fortunate to have
leadership from the Hopi Nation that was able

00:29:17.099 --> 00:29:23.647
to buy into some of the things that we
were both promoting. So I can't I

00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:31.680
can't say that I'm completely
responsible for that. Uh it's something that

00:29:32.740 --> 00:29:38.226
uh the Hopi nation and its leaders
also had to push as well as other

00:29:38.259 --> 00:29:43.707
people that I was working within the
and it's an issue that

00:29:43.740 --> 00:29:49.207
it's an issue that you know, many,
many of the people dealt with which

00:29:49.240 --> 00:29:55.897
always didn't didn't come out right.
Uh they met well, but it just didn't

00:29:55.930 --> 00:30:02.437
come out to the satisfaction of the of
the local people. And so I was just

00:30:02.470 --> 00:30:09.667
uh very very fortunate uh in having so
many understanding people from both

00:30:09.700 --> 00:30:14.016
sides to deal with that issue. You
know, I've heard this argued in two

00:30:14.049 --> 00:30:17.506
different ways. One is that because

00:30:17.539 --> 00:30:22.066
you had the people out there, many of
the people out there were among the

00:30:22.099 --> 00:30:29.197
more traditional and more separate in
some ways people that relocation

00:30:29.230 --> 00:30:34.897
became particularly difficult for them
because you could never obviously

00:30:34.930 --> 00:30:39.377
provide a exactly identical kind of
environment. And if you moved into

00:30:39.410 --> 00:30:43.226
pina and then some of the people in
pinion had mixed emotions about it and

00:30:43.259 --> 00:30:47.677
if you had a new land and all the
rest. So but I've heard it argued also

00:30:47.710 --> 00:30:55.097
that because decreasing percentage of
Nava whose lived the sort of

00:30:55.130 --> 00:31:00.607
traditional subsistence, you know,
raising animals and so forth and so on.

00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:06.506
Because that percentage was declining
in some ways. The disputes over

00:31:06.539 --> 00:31:11.076
grazing and so forth and so on were
reduced because a smaller percentage

00:31:11.109 --> 00:31:16.776
of people were involved, you know,
culturally economically and socially

00:31:16.809 --> 00:31:20.177
sort of in the old way. But I've also
heard it argued on the other hand

00:31:20.210 --> 00:31:24.177
that because there was this decline
that it made the people who wanted to

00:31:24.210 --> 00:31:29.306
continue with it and many of them were
elderly, it made it all the more

00:31:29.339 --> 00:31:33.276
difficult for them to get to continue
with certain things that they

00:31:33.309 --> 00:31:39.056
thought was important. So they were
particularly unhappy about because

00:31:39.089 --> 00:31:42.046
they already have been put in a
marginal situation. You see what I mean? I

00:31:42.079 --> 00:31:45.976
mean, that's sort of already, you hear
people argue it kind of in both

00:31:46.009 --> 00:31:54.009
directions. Yeah, Well, I think there
were some uh, traditional people and

00:31:55.210 --> 00:32:00.296
the lifestyle that they led for many,
many years. There was, and there was

00:32:00.329 --> 00:32:08.329
a decline in that group of people
declined in in population and uh, which

00:32:08.430 --> 00:32:15.197
played into some of what was
happening. And I would agree that, yes, that

00:32:15.230 --> 00:32:22.187
probably did happen. But it also
reduce the number of neighborhood

00:32:22.220 --> 00:32:27.157
traditional people that would continue
their lifestyles and they didn't

00:32:27.190 --> 00:32:33.127
really have any choice to accept to
seek some other alternative and which

00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:41.160
was to move in with their Children. In
some cases, those Children were

00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:50.400
removed already from the Navajo and
Hopi land. And so it's something that

00:32:51.940 --> 00:32:59.796
uh, made the relocation program very
complicated and it was such an

00:32:59.829 --> 00:33:07.829
emotional issue For many, many
families and four, the federal government,

00:33:08.940 --> 00:33:14.586
a federal government thought that all
we had to do was make some houses

00:33:14.619 --> 00:33:20.657
available for Navajo people who may
want to move after uh, Navajo

00:33:20.690 --> 00:33:28.447
reservation into these uh, urban areas
and uh, and then move into a nearby

00:33:28.480 --> 00:33:34.657
cities and towns and uh, and that's
all we had to do to resolve the issue.

00:33:34.690 --> 00:33:39.986
But it didn't, it didn't work out that
way because uh, the Navajo people

00:33:40.019 --> 00:33:48.019
live a certain lifestyle all their
life and uh, which was uh, you know,

00:33:48.630 --> 00:33:55.707
the dependency on land and uh, animals
and grazing and all of that. And

00:33:55.740 --> 00:34:00.217
when you uproot people from those
kinds of situation all of a sudden in

00:34:00.250 --> 00:34:06.516
one year, for example, and put them
into uh, an urban setting where they

00:34:06.549 --> 00:34:14.296
have to pay taxes, for example, and on
their their their homes and uh,

00:34:14.329 --> 00:34:18.606
when they have to do all these other
things that they weren't accustomed

00:34:18.639 --> 00:34:25.497
to, uh, then it becomes a difficult
issue and it's very, very, extremely

00:34:25.530 --> 00:34:30.517
difficult for those particular family
to live that kind of a lifestyle and

00:34:30.550 --> 00:34:37.296
began changing all of a second within
a matter of 66 months to a year to

00:34:37.329 --> 00:34:45.329
completely change uh, you know, their
attitude, uh, their lifestyle to the

00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:53.367
lifestyle of the urban people. It
just, it was, it was almost unacceptable

00:34:53.400 --> 00:34:59.436
to uh, to many of the neighborhood
people who move. And uh, and that's why

00:34:59.469 --> 00:35:07.026
it became such an emotional issue. And
so the really, the relocation

00:35:07.059 --> 00:35:12.557
program uh, never really succeeded in
anywhere that the federal government

00:35:12.590 --> 00:35:18.977
did. And even going all the way back
to the late 1940s and early 1950, uh

00:35:19.010 --> 00:35:25.836
, the federal program, uh had these
massive relocation program. And the

00:35:25.869 --> 00:35:30.956
whole idea was to get the Indian
people off the reservation, put them into

00:35:30.989 --> 00:35:36.276
the urban areas and let them become
gainfully employed and let them buy

00:35:36.309 --> 00:35:40.867
homes and they'll have their Children
here and they'll become urbanized

00:35:40.900 --> 00:35:47.327
and they'll be just like any of us, uh
you know, taxpaying citizen. And

00:35:47.360 --> 00:35:51.856
that was the plan. The border town
schools had dormitories, didn't they?

00:35:51.889 --> 00:35:57.336
Also the people were pushed in that
direction, dormitories in school were

00:35:57.369 --> 00:36:04.816
then built in in those towns. And but
that never really, that never really

00:36:04.849 --> 00:36:12.416
really worked out uh mainly because
the indian people want to remain what

00:36:12.449 --> 00:36:18.477
they were meant to be, the indian
people wanted to be for for Navajo, they

00:36:18.510 --> 00:36:21.936
wanted to be a Navajo and they wanted
to live like the Navajo people

00:36:21.969 --> 00:36:28.287
always live out there out in open
space and having horses, having cattle,

00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:35.657
having sheep and and everything and
the freedom to uh to uh to exist out

00:36:35.690 --> 00:36:43.690
there as they please. And uh and and
that was that was a custom. And uh so

00:36:44.829 --> 00:36:51.046
I imagine from the Hopi side, they
also had a lifestyle, but some of them

00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:55.666
also had to be relocated, you know,
from where they were living before the

00:36:55.699 --> 00:37:03.017
, before the partitioning of the land.
So they had to move back into uh

00:37:03.050 --> 00:37:07.876
their own side of the reservation that
divided land. It's a much smaller

00:37:07.909 --> 00:37:12.907
number of people, yep, it's a much
much smaller number, but the effects

00:37:12.940 --> 00:37:19.097
were the same. Uh the emotion and
everything were the same. So it never

00:37:19.130 --> 00:37:23.626
really, it never really worked out the
relocation program for the indian

00:37:23.659 --> 00:37:29.546
people. Whether it's a Navajo Hopi
issue or relocating them for jobs and

00:37:29.579 --> 00:37:35.177
for schools away from the reservation,
it just was not a good program.

00:37:35.210 --> 00:37:39.717
Bennet freeze didn't help things
either. Well, the Bennett freeze was a

00:37:39.750 --> 00:37:47.617
special issue and uh, and still today,
30, 40 years later, you know, we're

00:37:47.650 --> 00:37:53.177
still having to deal with that and
that even made the Navajo Hopi land

00:37:53.210 --> 00:38:00.077
dispute uh, even more complicated on
top of uh, on top of what, what it

00:38:00.110 --> 00:38:03.986
was before.

00:38:04.019 --> 00:38:12.019
Okay. Um, I remember the, the other
uh, question was, I was relating to

00:38:12.929 --> 00:38:16.836
the uh, and you may not want to tackle
this right away, but the native

00:38:16.869 --> 00:38:22.467
american church and how it is, it
seems to me as an outsider, it has a

00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:29.387
somewhat different role and place
within, within Navajo nation that it

00:38:29.420 --> 00:38:36.787
once had. It was, it was such an
enormously um emotional issue for so many

00:38:36.820 --> 00:38:42.686
years. Raymond knock, I ran for
chairman in part on the pledge to begin to

00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:45.626
change all of that. But there were a
lot of people who did not like this

00:38:45.659 --> 00:38:49.776
new church coming in, but over time
there have been more people who have

00:38:49.809 --> 00:38:55.586
found it not necessarily as a
replacement, but it is additional

00:38:55.619 --> 00:39:00.117
help in terms of brotherhood in terms
of dealing with some other domestic

00:39:00.150 --> 00:39:06.706
issues and today, the the percentage
of or the number of Navajos who are

00:39:06.739 --> 00:39:12.037
involved in it in one way or another
is, it's different than it once was.

00:39:12.070 --> 00:39:15.927
Doesn't seem, it seems like more
people have sort of accommodated or made

00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:20.217
their peace with it or whatever, but
it certainly seems to play, you know

00:39:20.250 --> 00:39:25.287
, a significant role in the lives of
many Navajo people.

00:39:25.320 --> 00:39:33.320
Well, the native american church
movement, I guess happened way back

00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:39.787
sometimes in the

00:39:39.820 --> 00:39:47.820
Late 1930s, 1940s. and uh the native
American people had their, their own

00:39:48.400 --> 00:39:56.400
way of uh practicing their religious
beliefs and what they believe in. And

00:39:56.769 --> 00:40:02.677
uh, I don't know all of the detail and
I don't pretend to be a historian

00:40:02.710 --> 00:40:08.477
on that subject. But it's something
that the neighborhood people felt

00:40:08.510 --> 00:40:16.510
going into uh the Mid 1950s when this
movement came to the, to the

00:40:19.860 --> 00:40:27.646
neighborhood nation and many of the
Navajo people who by the way went to

00:40:27.679 --> 00:40:32.427
school, that was one of the main
conduit, yep, one that went to school in

00:40:32.460 --> 00:40:38.467
Oklahoma. They went to school in, in
other places throughout America and

00:40:38.500 --> 00:40:45.677
they became uh friends in contact with
other indian tribes that had that

00:40:45.710 --> 00:40:53.557
religion and uh and they inter married
with some of those other indian

00:40:53.590 --> 00:40:59.666
tribal members and that whole idea of
native american church movement then

00:40:59.699 --> 00:41:04.896
began moving onto to the neighborhood
nation. I remember the neighborhood

00:41:04.929 --> 00:41:12.227
nation government, I fought them and
they even pass a resolution, tribal

00:41:12.260 --> 00:41:20.260
council resolution saying that, you
know, they don't really belong on, on

00:41:21.650 --> 00:41:25.947
the neighborhood nation. So in in many
respects, it was a discriminatory

00:41:25.980 --> 00:41:33.697
uh using religion uh for the
neighborhood nation to do what they did. But

00:41:33.730 --> 00:41:39.967
neighborhood nation being a sovereign
nation, the courts uh left it alone.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.456
And the native american church people
were raising the issue of freedom

00:41:44.489 --> 00:41:51.396
of the religion uh spelled out in the
United States constitution. And so

00:41:51.429 --> 00:41:59.429
that ah battle began way back then and
there's one individual that that

00:42:00.909 --> 00:42:08.909
that really lived through this hole,
right fight between the tribal

00:42:09.219 --> 00:42:15.137
government and the native american
church is David Clarke. Uh and David

00:42:15.170 --> 00:42:21.776
Clarke is considered one of the top uh
leadership in the native american

00:42:21.809 --> 00:42:28.046
church. Uh huh And and live on the
number of lives on the Navajo into this

00:42:28.079 --> 00:42:34.986
day. He still makes his home in tiesto
Arizona highly respected individual

00:42:35.019 --> 00:42:43.019
, very bright individual and that
really loves the the Navajo people. And

00:42:43.989 --> 00:42:48.847
I have a tremendous amount of respect
for David for what he believes in

00:42:48.880 --> 00:42:54.887
what he did as an individual to
enhance and to make the church a lot

00:42:54.920 --> 00:43:00.137
stronger on the Navajo. And some
people may disagree with native american

00:43:00.170 --> 00:43:05.557
church, but it's a religion. It's a
belief, it's a belief and they have

00:43:05.590 --> 00:43:10.077
every right to uh to promote what they
were promoting. But one of the

00:43:10.110 --> 00:43:17.247
things that caught my eyes as a young
boy was what they were teaching.

00:43:17.280 --> 00:43:25.280
They were teaching that for example,
drinking is wrong. They were teaching

00:43:26.300 --> 00:43:34.300
uh that uh you can't do all of these
violent things uh against one another

00:43:34.329 --> 00:43:39.506
that if you have Children, you have to
take care of your Children. And

00:43:39.539 --> 00:43:45.947
that education was very important.
They talked the local people all of

00:43:45.980 --> 00:43:51.686
these. Uh for me, one wonderful thing
is because I heard them say that and

00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:57.037
uh and because of that I guess early
on I decided that you know, if they

00:43:57.070 --> 00:44:04.986
are promoting all of those things then
why why are we fighting? And uh and

00:44:05.019 --> 00:44:13.019
it was no different than my also
listening two for example, uh a church

00:44:14.420 --> 00:44:20.376
such as the Protestants or the
Catholics uh doing the same thing out there

00:44:20.409 --> 00:44:27.626
and uh and they were teaching some
some good things and uh and so native

00:44:27.659 --> 00:44:33.486
american church was, was a big
movement that was pushed by individuals

00:44:33.519 --> 00:44:40.907
like David Clarke and there was
another person by the name of Hola. So and

00:44:40.940 --> 00:44:47.416
he was from around Sawmill area that
lived through a lot uh during that

00:44:47.449 --> 00:44:51.017
period of time. And he worked very
closely with David Clarke. David Clarke

00:44:51.050 --> 00:44:56.236
was just a young man. And David Clarke
was this individual that got jail

00:44:56.269 --> 00:45:03.916
uh by uh and arrested by a tribal for
police and got jail. And but he, he

00:45:03.949 --> 00:45:09.586
never gave in, he just kept on going,
kept on going. And and that's why

00:45:09.619 --> 00:45:15.796
he's such a uh devoted person to the
churches because of what he went

00:45:15.829 --> 00:45:21.267
through. And uh to this day, he still
considered one of the well known

00:45:21.300 --> 00:45:28.546
american indian religious uh, leaders
throughout America. And he certainly

00:45:28.579 --> 00:45:35.057
has my respect for some of the things
that he did, he did accomplish a lot.

00:45:35.090 --> 00:45:41.157
 And some say that probably

00:45:41.190 --> 00:45:46.447
around half of the neighborhood nation
uh, is a member of the native

00:45:46.480 --> 00:45:54.480
american church. And maybe, or or some
would say no, it's really a third.

00:45:54.659 --> 00:45:58.666
You have one third of the Navajo
people that belong to a native american

00:45:58.699 --> 00:46:04.006
church, one third that still believes
in the Navajo tradition. Another

00:46:04.039 --> 00:46:10.256
third that relieved but believes in
Christianity. And so they're, they're

00:46:10.289 --> 00:46:16.717
out there and uh, and there are groups
to be uh, to be reckoned with and

00:46:16.750 --> 00:46:19.836
you just have to look at those
different groups and see what they promote

00:46:19.869 --> 00:46:26.066
, see what the practitioners do and
uh, what kind of ceremonies they

00:46:26.099 --> 00:46:33.827
perform and then what the group uh, is
doing as a whole, uh, in order for

00:46:33.860 --> 00:46:41.860
uh, someone to, to really get a good
handle on. And what is it that these

00:46:42.219 --> 00:46:49.517
churches are all about. But I also
know that in any of these three groups

00:46:49.550 --> 00:46:57.550
, there's always a small minority that
would abuse, they would abuse the

00:46:57.619 --> 00:47:04.316
system that would abuse uh, whatever
the group is trying to do and

00:47:04.349 --> 00:47:10.956
whatever paraphernalia is that they
use to keep the church going there.

00:47:10.989 --> 00:47:18.447
There are the abusers. Uh, maybe it's
no different than in America. You

00:47:18.480 --> 00:47:23.787
know, we have different kinds of food,
but sometimes we abuse those food,

00:47:23.820 --> 00:47:30.736
we, we abuse alcohol, we abuse other
substance and but it was not meant to

00:47:30.769 --> 00:47:36.026
be that way. So even in these
religious groups, you also have, you know,

00:47:36.059 --> 00:47:42.276
that minority group that's represented
and no one likes to see it. I don't

00:47:42.309 --> 00:47:48.646
like to see it. Sometimes people use
those in the wrong way.

00:47:48.679 --> 00:47:55.416
Um when I put together that collection
of documents for Navajo people DNA

00:47:55.449 --> 00:48:00.526
speeches, letters and petitions,
there's, I was very impressed going

00:48:00.559 --> 00:48:04.907
through the, The transcript of the
council meetings in the 50s about David

00:48:04.940 --> 00:48:08.697
Clarke and people like that. They
really give eloquent testimony. And it's

00:48:08.730 --> 00:48:11.626
also interesting to see letters from
young members of the church who have

00:48:11.659 --> 00:48:15.077
been serving in the armed forces
during World War II. And they say, you

00:48:15.110 --> 00:48:20.666
know, here I am fighting for my
country and at the same time I'm not being

00:48:20.699 --> 00:48:25.017
allowed to vote, you know, in off
reservation elections and I'm not. Uh

00:48:25.050 --> 00:48:28.816
and I'm not and I'm not able were not
able to hold a native american

00:48:28.849 --> 00:48:33.287
church meeting without being it being
disrupted. And so in a sense, they

00:48:33.320 --> 00:48:37.796
were calling on America to live up to
its ideals and to practice what it

00:48:37.829 --> 00:48:44.336
preached. And there really seems to be
a strong sense that gradually

00:48:44.369 --> 00:48:48.677
becomes more and more politically
effective, that, you know, this doesn't

00:48:48.710 --> 00:48:53.347
have to supplant or replace other
forms of ceremonial, traditional

00:48:53.380 --> 00:48:57.057
leadership. It's just an additional
one that's being brought in and over

00:48:57.090 --> 00:49:01.236
time being made, you know, into
something that becomes traditional, I

00:49:01.269 --> 00:49:06.637
think. Yeah, well, one of the other
leaders, one of the other leaders that

00:49:06.670 --> 00:49:10.816
kind of, when, when a tribal
government was fighting with native american

00:49:10.849 --> 00:49:18.626
church members, a leader came into
being and that was Raymond archive. He

00:49:18.659 --> 00:49:25.117
was the person that kind of calm
everything down and by telling the people

00:49:25.150 --> 00:49:32.566
and and saying, look, we live in
America and in America and through

00:49:32.599 --> 00:49:39.497
constitution, we have freedom of the
religion and why are we criticizing

00:49:39.530 --> 00:49:44.146
this? One particular group, so much,
you know, that we're beginning to

00:49:44.179 --> 00:49:49.927
fight with each other and there's so
much hatred uh that uh is beginning

00:49:49.960 --> 00:49:54.967
to surface here and there throughout,
never would land. So he, he come, he

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:01.157
calmed them down and I always credit
him for doing that. And he says in

00:50:01.190 --> 00:50:06.186
his most of his political speeches
that he gives, you know, that I'm not

00:50:06.219 --> 00:50:10.486
going to as a chairman, I'm going to
tell you what to believe it. You

00:50:10.519 --> 00:50:15.557
believe in whatever it is that you
believe in, that's your right and the

00:50:15.590 --> 00:50:19.537
government is no longer going to be
fighting. You, you believe in what you

00:50:19.570 --> 00:50:22.606
believe in. And he got, he didn't do
it for this purpose, but he got

00:50:22.639 --> 00:50:27.227
tremendous support from some of the
areas in the Navajo nation that were

00:50:27.260 --> 00:50:32.526
where the church had a lot of members
and they, it made a difference in

00:50:32.559 --> 00:50:38.557
him, gaining the, the chairmanship. It
sure did. And you just have to give

00:50:38.590 --> 00:50:45.997
credit to people like, you know, the
late uh Chairman Raymond archive for

00:50:46.030 --> 00:50:50.227
for doing what he did. And it was
through his effort dealing with the

00:50:50.260 --> 00:50:57.157
native american church issue that he
introduced into the council for them

00:50:57.190 --> 00:51:04.646
to approve Neverhood bill of rights
that essentially says that. And so it

00:51:04.679 --> 00:51:11.157
was through people like him and David
Clarke and others that really work

00:51:11.190 --> 00:51:17.927
on that issue. So hard to to make that
a

00:51:17.960 --> 00:51:23.276
mhm. You know, a document that we now
have as part of our neighborhood

00:51:23.309 --> 00:51:31.309
nation preamble in our tribal code.
When Mr Nakai passed away some time

00:51:32.780 --> 00:51:38.586
ago, some time ago, somebody asked me
about his status, his role and I

00:51:38.619 --> 00:51:42.477
said as an outsider, I don't have much
to say. But it always seemed to me

00:51:42.510 --> 00:51:48.956
like he had been, he was the first of
the modern era. Um, chairman of his

00:51:48.989 --> 00:51:53.776
use of the radio, his ability to speak
eloquently in both languages and

00:51:53.809 --> 00:51:56.666
his determination for the Navajo is
really to be in charge of their own

00:51:56.699 --> 00:52:00.816
government and to reduce the kind of
power that people like norman motel.

00:52:00.849 --> 00:52:05.796
The attorney had held that he was, I
thought historians and others had

00:52:05.829 --> 00:52:11.276
really not given that sufficient
credit that he was more significant

00:52:11.309 --> 00:52:18.416
figure than many, you know, younger
people uh, realized. And

00:52:18.449 --> 00:52:22.927
it seems to me it was, it was
difficult because he became chairman when he

00:52:22.960 --> 00:52:27.206
was relatively young man and he served
for those two terms. And then, and

00:52:27.239 --> 00:52:31.407
then Mcdonald came in after that and
you came in after that And he lived a

00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:36.287
long time, but it was difficult for
him to find a proper roll or medium or

00:52:36.320 --> 00:52:40.967
whatever to put that those abilities
to work in a constructive and

00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:46.046
appropriate fashion after you became
the german maybe that's something

00:52:46.079 --> 00:52:51.376
that many chairman of in many tribes
struggle with when you've been, you

00:52:51.409 --> 00:52:53.736
know, in this position of authority
and power and influence and then what

00:52:53.769 --> 00:52:57.517
, what do you do next?

00:52:57.550 --> 00:53:03.327
Yeah, I would agree that you know
Raymond our chi was one of those

00:53:03.360 --> 00:53:11.227
individuals that was very much
dedicated to helping the native american

00:53:11.260 --> 00:53:18.436
church, helping the church itself grow
and where it would be respected by

00:53:18.469 --> 00:53:22.456
the tribal government. And he kept the
tribal government out of their

00:53:22.489 --> 00:53:27.816
affairs. And uh and then in educating
the neighborhood public about what

00:53:27.849 --> 00:53:32.456
freedom of religion is all about and
what it means. And so he had a, he

00:53:32.489 --> 00:53:39.197
had a giant roll and uh he was one of
these individuals that used the

00:53:39.230 --> 00:53:44.967
radio very, very effectively. He was
an excellent, excellent speaker of

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:51.247
the neighborhood language he created
never heard words to explain what he

00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:59.280
was talking about. And so he was very
in so many respects artistic in that

00:53:59.659 --> 00:54:05.486
fashion where he came out with words
that nobody ever used, never thought

00:54:05.519 --> 00:54:13.519
of using and but never people caught
on and uh and for example, uh huh

00:54:14.539 --> 00:54:22.539
people back then didn't know how to
say or how to illustrate sovereignty.

00:54:22.670 --> 00:54:29.316
Uh what is the meaning of indian
sovereignty? And he came out with this

00:54:29.349 --> 00:54:36.697
word uh using the analogy of the
rainbow uh

00:54:36.730 --> 00:54:44.247
rainbow. And uh and he says
sovereignty is like a rainbow and we were

00:54:44.280 --> 00:54:52.280
created within that that rainbow and
the rainbow is is something that the

00:54:52.489 --> 00:54:58.546
indian people uh believe it comes from
the great spirit and it was not

00:54:58.579 --> 00:55:02.497
something that was given to us by the
comment of the white man or any

00:55:02.530 --> 00:55:10.530
group of people. It was always here
and we were born into it. And uh and

00:55:10.559 --> 00:55:15.956
that's the way he explained rainbow
and it was very powerful and that was

00:55:15.989 --> 00:55:21.756
the creation on the part of Raymond al
Qaeda too explain sovereignty to

00:55:21.789 --> 00:55:27.807
the Navajo people. And it's a good
example. Yeah, it's the same thing that

00:55:27.840 --> 00:55:31.947
that and when he got dead when using
the neighborhood landed, which over

00:55:31.980 --> 00:55:39.980
the radio about tuberculosis. Because
tuberculosis you did not see and uh

00:55:40.949 --> 00:55:48.566
and you did not really feel the
effects of the of the disease at the time

00:55:48.599 --> 00:55:55.416
that uh it's affecting your your body,
you didn't see it. And so anyway,

00:55:55.449 --> 00:56:01.247
Nikola was the one that comes up with
those never whole words uh that says

00:56:01.280 --> 00:56:09.280
JST meaning it's a disease that could
eat into your heart. And uh you're

00:56:09.329 --> 00:56:14.117
going to have so that your your heart
is diminished in size and they won't

00:56:14.150 --> 00:56:19.146
function as well. And so she came up
with those kinds of words to make

00:56:19.179 --> 00:56:25.517
neville people understand Raymond
knock. I was the same way. Mhm. Remember

00:56:25.550 --> 00:56:29.456
she reading about how she went around
with scott Preston and convinced him

00:56:29.489 --> 00:56:36.066
as if somebody was traditional
ceremonial ist and ritual beliefs and and

00:56:36.099 --> 00:56:39.927
encouraged him to speak to people
saying that they weren't being opposed

00:56:39.960 --> 00:56:44.447
to the religion, but the tuberculosis
had to be fought in a different way

00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:48.396
and we had to take advantage of the,
you know, some of these other

00:56:48.429 --> 00:56:52.956
approaches to it. But you know, I
think about her, I remember talking at

00:56:52.989 --> 00:56:56.566
some length with Carl Todeschini a
number of years ago now about about her

00:56:56.599 --> 00:57:01.947
role and as as he called her the pet
milk lady because pet milk sponsored

00:57:01.980 --> 00:57:06.057
her program on the gallop radio
station. But but what, you know what

00:57:06.090 --> 00:57:10.416
tremendous strength people like that
had, you know, they were so

00:57:10.449 --> 00:57:16.356
determined two speak, you know, two
key issues and make sure the

00:57:16.389 --> 00:57:22.697
government was doing the right thing.
And I

00:57:22.730 --> 00:57:27.796
I can imagine mrs veronica in front of
the council at all male

00:57:27.829 --> 00:57:33.947
congregation and She was she was
really something and to have that kind of

00:57:33.980 --> 00:57:38.077
determination to serve for 30 years or
whatever it was, you know, in that

00:57:38.110 --> 00:57:40.396
capacity,

00:57:40.429 --> 00:57:46.407
really, really a determined person, a
person who realized that it would

00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:49.586
take a long time and hard work to make
things better. But there were

00:57:49.619 --> 00:57:55.896
things that could become better
through that kind of dedication.

00:57:55.929 --> 00:58:03.456
Well, I always say that anna when Nika
live ahead of her time, she lives

00:58:03.489 --> 00:58:09.566
ahead of the women's movement in this
country and before people start

00:58:09.599 --> 00:58:17.086
advocating for women's rights and the
role of the women in families and

00:58:17.119 --> 00:58:22.986
the role of the women and government
and all of that. Any Monica was way

00:58:23.019 --> 00:58:29.736
30, 40, 50 years ahead. And uh, you
know, by the fact that she was the

00:58:29.769 --> 00:58:37.146
lone women on the Navajo council for
many years, uh is just one of those

00:58:37.179 --> 00:58:42.827
that we saw during during her
lifetime. What Anna when Erica was all about

00:58:42.860 --> 00:58:47.706
and what she met through the true, the
neighborhood people, I always say

00:58:47.739 --> 00:58:54.706
this peter where, where the
neighborhood people, you have to look at this

00:58:54.739 --> 00:58:57.686
history

00:58:57.719 --> 00:59:04.557
when we were in captivity and we were
marched all the way from Canyon

00:59:04.590 --> 00:59:10.367
douche to afford device to fort
Wingate and then all the way into

00:59:10.400 --> 00:59:18.400
Albuquerque to santa fe and then
coming back down to uh fort Sumner. Uh uh

00:59:20.659 --> 00:59:24.787
southeast of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

00:59:24.820 --> 00:59:31.816
Mhm. They were, they were, There was
not one single neighborhood leader

00:59:31.849 --> 00:59:39.367
that took control. There was always a
group and over at the 4th summoner

00:59:39.400 --> 00:59:47.400
there was maybe 10, 12, 15
neighborhood leaders that were just outstanding

00:59:47.539 --> 00:59:55.539
as a group as a group and they did
their thing together. They plan and

00:59:56.219 --> 01:00:03.347
they help all the other members to
survive and they always managed to to

01:00:03.380 --> 01:00:09.836
do things as a group and that right
leading up to the signing of the

01:00:09.869 --> 01:00:17.869
treaty, the uh, that the signing of
the Uh, Navajo and the federal

01:00:19.119 --> 01:00:25.486
government, the treaty of 1868, prior
to that leading up to the, to those

01:00:25.519 --> 01:00:32.387
days that were signed when the people
were signing that treaty, right? You

01:00:32.420 --> 01:00:37.907
know, they, the Navajo people, those
leadership uh, got together Chief

01:00:37.940 --> 01:00:45.940
Manuelito and Ganado Montceau and
those people like that. Uh they they did

01:00:47.210 --> 01:00:55.210
not, they did not object to going back
to the Navajo land that was

01:00:55.599 --> 01:01:03.599
suggested to them that went uh and the
alone, the the state line, Arizona

01:01:04.929 --> 01:01:09.747
state line go all the way up the ship
rock and then coming back down on

01:01:09.780 --> 01:01:16.486
both sides of that uh, state line. It
was a small strip of land, maybe no

01:01:16.519 --> 01:01:21.756
more than two million acres of land,
Maybe 1.7 million or something like

01:01:21.789 --> 01:01:27.157
that. It was just a small, a small
piece of land uh, that the federal

01:01:27.190 --> 01:01:32.316
government that was willing to make
that into a neighborhood nation. They

01:01:32.349 --> 01:01:38.367
asked the people to go back to that.
There were no arguments among the the

01:01:38.400 --> 01:01:43.546
10 or 12 leaders that signed the
treaty represented the never people. They

01:01:43.579 --> 01:01:49.677
didn't argue among themselves and say
that that land is too small.

01:01:49.710 --> 01:01:57.710
What probably happened is that they,
they were so uh, intent on going back

01:01:58.809 --> 01:02:03.597
to the original neighborhood land,
which was different than what the

01:02:03.630 --> 01:02:10.477
federal government was thinking. And
yeah, the federal government can draw

01:02:10.510 --> 01:02:16.296
those lines and they can say they want
us to go back to this little piece

01:02:16.329 --> 01:02:20.497
of land here. But you know, we're so
homesick that we want to get the hell

01:02:20.530 --> 01:02:24.517
out of there. Well, they fought
against the, yeah, it was sure it was

01:02:24.550 --> 01:02:27.717
Sherman who wanted initially to send
them to indian territory and

01:02:27.750 --> 01:02:33.436
Barbara's Ito says, uh, yeah. And uh,
and so they went back to that land

01:02:33.469 --> 01:02:41.469
and when they got back to uh, for
defiance area and they were given each a

01:02:41.900 --> 01:02:47.256
goat and a sheep, you know, that was
their livelihood. That was, that was

01:02:47.289 --> 01:02:55.289
their food and uh, and some uh
duration some commodity food that was given

01:02:56.719 --> 01:03:01.077
to them. That was all they needed. And
then they used that and they

01:03:01.110 --> 01:03:08.677
planted some corn and they planted
squash, tomatoes, apples, potatoes and

01:03:08.710 --> 01:03:13.557
all of that. You know, they were back
in business and those leaders

01:03:13.590 --> 01:03:18.477
probably then had another meeting and
say, hey, we don't want to raise the

01:03:18.510 --> 01:03:23.927
issue back then. But this land is, is
just a small, too small for us. Why

01:03:23.960 --> 01:03:31.960
don't we start expanding? And uh, any
kind of arguments that they can

01:03:32.110 --> 01:03:38.637
think of. Good, reasonable arguments
that they can think of. Uh, they,

01:03:38.670 --> 01:03:44.197
they use that to expand the
reservation. And the bottom line for that

01:03:44.230 --> 01:03:48.666
group of Navajo leaders was the size
of the reservation, they wanted to

01:03:48.699 --> 01:03:55.956
expand. They wanted to grow, they said
that this land wouldn't hold us 10

01:03:55.989 --> 01:04:02.566
years, 20 years down. And so our job
number one priority is to expand the

01:04:02.599 --> 01:04:09.986
land. So they kept on growing up on
growing until, you know, uh They came

01:04:10.019 --> 01:04:15.686
to something like maybe 14, 15 million
acres. And uh but it didn't stop

01:04:15.719 --> 01:04:23.719
there. And uh leadership later on
going into uh the era of paul jones and

01:04:24.130 --> 01:04:30.787
scott Preston and uh you know, Jacob
morrigan, Howard, Gorman Raymond,

01:04:30.820 --> 01:04:35.876
Okay, all of those people, they kept
at it, they kept on adding to the

01:04:35.909 --> 01:04:41.666
reservation. I was just looking at the
map the other day and then looking

01:04:41.699 --> 01:04:49.699
at the numbers, we now have nearly 17
million acres of land, 17 million

01:04:51.039 --> 01:04:59.039
acres. That's a huge, huge
reservation. So collectively, collectively the

01:05:00.469 --> 01:05:06.206
Navajo good leadership, did that not
only in the period of one or two

01:05:06.239 --> 01:05:14.239
years, it was an ongoing thing for uh
100 years. And uh and the last time

01:05:16.809 --> 01:05:24.809
I saw the Navajo tribal budget, They
have something like 53 million that I

01:05:25.860 --> 01:05:32.146
helped create. When I left called land
acquisition fund. We we established

01:05:32.179 --> 01:05:40.179
a land acquisition fund a year before
I left the neighborhood nation. And

01:05:41.190 --> 01:05:47.526
uh and and and said to the Navajo
nation to the Navajo people that we want

01:05:47.559 --> 01:05:54.486
this trust fund to grow and someday
we're going to have 2030, 40 million

01:05:54.519 --> 01:06:02.519
in there. And when that happens in the
land that's put up for sale

01:06:02.780 --> 01:06:08.177
adjacent to the neighborhood nation
and away from the neighborhood nation

01:06:08.210 --> 01:06:12.546
in the land put up for sale

01:06:12.579 --> 01:06:18.276
that you should be in the position to
buy it. And this trust land

01:06:18.309 --> 01:06:25.497
acquisition fund, Well we'll give you
that resources to use to buy those

01:06:25.530 --> 01:06:29.427
lands the last time, About a year and
a half ago when I looked at the

01:06:29.460 --> 01:06:37.460
tribal budget, it had around 50
million. And I saw the the collection uh

01:06:37.489 --> 01:06:44.896
of the neighborhood leaders. They all
had that in mind. Every one of them

01:06:44.929 --> 01:06:50.776
that came into office. They said land
acquisition is important. But they

01:06:50.809 --> 01:06:57.867
really didn't have that the the fund
necessary uh to buy those lands. And

01:06:57.900 --> 01:07:03.947
now because of what Uh we did during
my administration, they're not able

01:07:03.980 --> 01:07:09.356
to buy those lands and it's grown and
it may even as we talk and may even

01:07:09.389 --> 01:07:14.876
be over 17 million, you should take
that and I would say within the next

01:07:14.909 --> 01:07:22.909
20 years it's going to keep on
growing. And so it's it was a situation

01:07:24.889 --> 01:07:31.396
where the leadership of the Navajo
people through all these years. That

01:07:31.429 --> 01:07:36.537
was their priorities. That that was
what they did. No, there is no other

01:07:36.570 --> 01:07:43.597
group, there is no other group in
America among the indian people. Yes,

01:07:43.630 --> 01:07:49.546
they had some great american indian
leaders out there. You know, you know

01:07:49.579 --> 01:07:55.847
, you know, all of them and you have
sitting bull out there, you have

01:07:55.880 --> 01:08:03.137
chief joseph, you have, you know
geronimo and you have all these people,

01:08:03.170 --> 01:08:09.967
they they were good, they were good at
the time, but they really didn't do

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:15.727
what the level people did. And there
were people uh collectively their

01:08:15.760 --> 01:08:21.897
leadership through a long period of
time. Their priority was to add land

01:08:21.930 --> 01:08:29.930
and to this day they're still doing
for me, for me the measurement of what

01:08:30.859 --> 01:08:36.866
is considered a good american indian
leader for their people, land land

01:08:36.899 --> 01:08:40.706
base should be one of them.
Absolutely. Because that is that is so

01:08:40.739 --> 01:08:46.116
important. There's so many people who
want to make the story of Navajo

01:08:46.149 --> 01:08:51.387
history or other indigenous peoples
primarily a story of victimization and

01:08:51.420 --> 01:08:55.887
loss. And I always go to them, D'Arcy
McNickle who said there's a

01:08:55.920 --> 01:09:00.737
difference between, yes, we have lost
many things he wrote, but we were

01:09:00.770 --> 01:09:06.586
never defeated. And and also you look
too, that's one of the reasons why I

01:09:06.619 --> 01:09:09.656
enjoyed putting that documents book
together because it really speaks to

01:09:09.689 --> 01:09:15.406
not only leadership that adds the land
base, but also leadership that

01:09:15.439 --> 01:09:19.897
protects the land base and doesn't put
the people in a position where you

01:09:19.930 --> 01:09:23.967
know, it got divided up and allotted
and so forth. You have to dodge

01:09:24.000 --> 01:09:29.326
writing to the Secretary of the
Interior franklin Lane in 1916. And he

01:09:29.359 --> 01:09:32.956
said, well, you asked me what would
happen if we, you know, did allotment

01:09:32.989 --> 01:09:37.756
on the main the large Navajo
reservation and I'm writing to tell you don't

01:09:37.789 --> 01:09:42.237
do it, don't do it, it will serve us,
it will not serve us well, we need

01:09:42.270 --> 01:09:45.217
to because that's the heart of our
country. And that's what we need to

01:09:45.250 --> 01:09:48.956
defend. And it's the foundation
essentially, he says that we're building

01:09:48.989 --> 01:09:52.977
from. So the fact that while there was
some allotment of, you know, in the

01:09:53.010 --> 01:09:56.597
checkerboard area and things like
that, the main section of the

01:09:56.630 --> 01:10:00.347
reservation, the heart of the
reservation, the large portions added by

01:10:00.380 --> 01:10:06.046
executive order that Chee dodge and
people who followed saw as their, you

01:10:06.079 --> 01:10:09.036
know, one of the most important
responsibilities to make sure that that

01:10:09.069 --> 01:10:12.656
remained land held in trust and wasn't
divided up into all these

01:10:12.689 --> 01:10:16.317
individually held parcels which just
as you well know, has played havoc

01:10:16.350 --> 01:10:21.847
with economic and social cultural
issues on so many other reservations. So

01:10:21.880 --> 01:10:24.036
I think, you know, when you think
about history as being something, not

01:10:24.069 --> 01:10:28.397
just that happens to you, but that you
make, you know, that Navajo

01:10:28.430 --> 01:10:33.286
leadership over time understood that
and acted upon it and that's in, you

01:10:33.319 --> 01:10:36.996
know, that's that's a if there's one
thing we need to do more of, I would

01:10:37.029 --> 01:10:40.357
argue not only a novel history, but in
american indian history generally

01:10:40.390 --> 01:10:46.826
is we need to recognize the kind of
fight that novel whose and others made

01:10:46.859 --> 01:10:54.217
two, you know, they to forge a future
that would be viable. And, you know

01:10:54.250 --> 01:10:59.067
, it's as you were saying, it's a very
important dimension of sort of

01:10:59.100 --> 01:11:02.927
legacy of that leadership.

01:11:02.960 --> 01:11:10.960
Well, I think it's because of those
kinds of attitudes and among the

01:11:11.270 --> 01:11:19.270
leadership of the Navajo people that
way back in Uh mid 1930s, when there

01:11:20.140 --> 01:11:26.586
was also a movement to divide up the
land and make land so that allotted

01:11:26.619 --> 01:11:32.946
to individuals and individual
families. Never, people find out what what

01:11:32.979 --> 01:11:40.717
that did to their land holdings. And
uh and when the Navajo people started

01:11:40.750 --> 01:11:45.967
selling that, those are a lot of land
to the non indians, they put they

01:11:46.000 --> 01:11:53.126
put a stop to it. And because because
historically

01:11:53.159 --> 01:11:59.387
it was getting into whatever it is
that they were trying to do, rather

01:11:59.420 --> 01:12:05.166
than expanding the land, the land base
of the Navajo people by having this

01:12:05.199 --> 01:12:09.876
allotment on the Navajo hood. And the
Navajo people were beginning to sell

01:12:09.909 --> 01:12:14.406
some of their land. They say, hey,
that that's not what we're all about,

01:12:14.439 --> 01:12:19.076
that's that's not something that you
should be doing instead. Instead we

01:12:19.109 --> 01:12:22.807
should be adding more land. And they,
they put a stop to it. So they acted

01:12:22.840 --> 01:12:30.840
, they acted when they had to act.
Yeah, those decisions were hard by the

01:12:31.050 --> 01:12:36.807
tribal government, but but they did
for me, they did what was necessary

01:12:36.840 --> 01:12:44.840
which was to act opposing any kind of
diminishing the landholding of the,

01:12:46.489 --> 01:12:52.897
of the Navajo people. And so that's
that's one good example of uh the

01:12:52.930 --> 01:12:57.237
quality leadership that never who
exhibited through all these years. The

01:12:57.270 --> 01:13:03.767
other one. The other one that I think
is is also very, very important, is

01:13:03.800 --> 01:13:11.800
one uh that you and I are in, which is
uh in education. Uh huh way back in

01:13:12.850 --> 01:13:16.217
the late

01:13:16.250 --> 01:13:20.147
In the late 1870

01:13:20.180 --> 01:13:28.180
1880 when Chief Manuelito became such
a powerful figure on the Navajo

01:13:28.600 --> 01:13:33.706
nation. Uh the Navajo people didn't
want to send their Children to school.

01:13:33.739 --> 01:13:39.977
Uh They refuse practically refused to
send their Children to school. And

01:13:40.010 --> 01:13:44.647
I could hear many of the older people
saying I don't want to send my

01:13:44.680 --> 01:13:52.680
Children to school because look what
the white people did to us. Mhm And

01:13:53.050 --> 01:13:59.057
and I don't want to I don't want to
subject my my Children to that kind of

01:13:59.090 --> 01:14:04.326
education where they would become
somebody like them and they're the

01:14:04.359 --> 01:14:10.097
Navajo people were just very upset
about what what was happening to them

01:14:10.130 --> 01:14:14.916
and they were about to set their
Children to school. And Chief Manuelito

01:14:14.949 --> 01:14:22.949
then came into being and he says to
the Navajo people hey look look

01:14:23.439 --> 01:14:31.439
mhm there are so many non never who's
out there, non indians and Chief

01:14:33.399 --> 01:14:39.477
Manuelito says that I took a trip to
Washington D. C. And along the way I

01:14:39.510 --> 01:14:47.307
saw so many white people and they have
farms, they have food, they have

01:14:47.340 --> 01:14:53.906
big tractors, they have bulldozers and
they're plowing their land and

01:14:53.939 --> 01:15:01.756
they're raising so much food, they
have cars, they have grocery stores and

01:15:01.789 --> 01:15:09.789
and they even have a vehicle that
flies in the air and uh and so he says

01:15:11.630 --> 01:15:16.177
that these guys aren't going to leave,
they're going to they're going to

01:15:16.210 --> 01:15:22.906
keep on fighting us And he says that,
I can't, I can't believe the number

01:15:22.939 --> 01:15:29.006
of non indian people that's out there.
And he was explaining this at a

01:15:29.039 --> 01:15:34.737
sweat lodge along with other
neighborhood leaders that were taking a sweat

01:15:34.770 --> 01:15:42.770
bath. And he picked up a sand, He
picked up a sand in two hands and it was

01:15:43.810 --> 01:15:51.706
breezy that day. And he let the sand
go and it flew the sand blue. And he

01:15:51.739 --> 01:15:58.206
says, if you were to count all the
sand, The little pieces of sand in here

01:15:58.239 --> 01:16:06.239
, that's how many there are. They're
plus, uh, maybe 20, times over.

01:16:06.609 --> 01:16:13.517
That's how many non in the non Navajo
people are out there. So put your

01:16:13.550 --> 01:16:20.456
bowl in arrows down. Uh, don't fight,
there's just too many. And he says,

01:16:20.489 --> 01:16:28.489
the best thing we could do is to send
our Children to school. And

01:16:30.029 --> 01:16:36.866
when we do that, I will fight them
with education. We will turn our own

01:16:36.899 --> 01:16:42.546
Children into being lawyers, being
doctors, being engineers, being nurses

01:16:42.579 --> 01:16:50.579
, all that, those kinds of, uh,
education and school and will have our,

01:16:50.989 --> 01:16:56.996
our students become that. And then
we'll fight them with that. We're not

01:16:57.029 --> 01:17:01.126
going to use gun. We're not going to
use bullets. We're not going to use

01:17:01.159 --> 01:17:05.906
bowling error. We're going to use
education. That's how we'll fight them.

01:17:05.939 --> 01:17:13.487
That's the day when he said, my
Children, education is the latter go tell

01:17:13.520 --> 01:17:19.946
her people to take it, he says, And
that's what he meant. And so education

01:17:19.979 --> 01:17:26.496
was very unpopular among the Navajo
people up to that point. And he was

01:17:26.529 --> 01:17:31.887
one of the leaders that came forth and
said I disagree with all of you, we

01:17:31.920 --> 01:17:37.527
need to send our Children to school.
And he said it at the time when it

01:17:37.560 --> 01:17:44.126
was very unpopular. To say that very
unpopular for anybody on the

01:17:44.159 --> 01:17:49.737
neighborhood nation to say that. And
here we are over 100 years later.

01:17:49.770 --> 01:17:55.996
Look at the number of, look at the
number of neighborhood Children uh that

01:17:56.029 --> 01:18:02.126
are in colleges and universities
across America. Uh I just talked with

01:18:02.159 --> 01:18:10.159
Rose Graham last week who was here and
she was saying that There are

01:18:11.369 --> 01:18:18.116
10,000 over 10,000 neighborhood
Children in school colleges and the

01:18:18.149 --> 01:18:24.717
university throughout the president.
And she says the Navajo nation

01:18:24.750 --> 01:18:32.116
doesn't fund all of them. We only fund
a very very small proportion of

01:18:32.149 --> 01:18:37.217
that. And she says that most of these
kids have earned their own

01:18:37.250 --> 01:18:42.267
scholarship. Uh They use other
resources to go to school. They're

01:18:42.300 --> 01:18:48.467
beginning to be very resourceful and
uh and they don't heavily rely on the

01:18:48.500 --> 01:18:53.237
Navajo nation government all that much
in there more ships as so when you

01:18:53.270 --> 01:19:00.076
see when you see that many
neighborhood Children in school, you know,

01:19:00.109 --> 01:19:06.576
that's that's very encouragement
encouragement for me and just look at a.

01:19:06.609 --> 01:19:11.256
S. U. You were talking about some time
of the accomplishments. Well look

01:19:11.289 --> 01:19:18.586
what happened last year in the year
208 May of 208.

01:19:18.619 --> 01:19:26.357
We graduated a record number Of
American Indian students here. We

01:19:26.390 --> 01:19:33.317
graduated over 300 Native American
students to be exact. I believe it was

01:19:33.350 --> 01:19:35.586
305.

01:19:35.619 --> 01:19:43.619
And either that 305 graduating class
uh something like 75 percent of them

01:19:44.369 --> 01:19:52.369
are Navajo people. And when you look
at the 305 graduates, 21 of them were

01:19:52.460 --> 01:19:58.076
doctorate. That's very impressive. 21
doctorate. That's how many degrees

01:19:58.109 --> 01:20:02.477
we gave up. And then 56

01:20:02.510 --> 01:20:04.677
was

01:20:04.710 --> 01:20:12.710
people with Masters degree. So when
you look at those numbers 300 some odd

01:20:13.079 --> 01:20:18.576
students 21 Dr 56

01:20:18.609 --> 01:20:25.336
With uh master's degree. They're all
out there and it looks like this year

01:20:25.369 --> 01:20:33.369
209 it's gonna be a repeat is going to
be a repeat. And that for me that's

01:20:34.159 --> 01:20:41.187
effect of the leadership of Chief
Manuelito. Uh That's more than what

01:20:41.220 --> 01:20:49.220
money can buy. Uh And I guess that's
why for for me I agree I agree that

01:20:51.319 --> 01:20:56.237
we have all this land. We have all
this resource. Yes we have lots of

01:20:56.270 --> 01:21:00.897
problems on the Navajo nation. People
are talking about tribal government

01:21:00.930 --> 01:21:05.517
reform. People are talking about the
horror stories of education on the

01:21:05.550 --> 01:21:11.916
neighborhood. There's a lot of
problems. But uh huh. If we have all that

01:21:11.949 --> 01:21:19.949
space with its natural resources and
then if we can educate more and more

01:21:21.689 --> 01:21:26.237
neighborhood. What more can you ask
for? What more can you ask for? That's

01:21:26.270 --> 01:21:33.897
all we need is, uh, there was
educated, the neighborhood students to go

01:21:33.930 --> 01:21:39.527
back someday, someday they're going to
all get together out here and

01:21:39.560 --> 01:21:44.177
they're going to say, hey, let's make
a commitment to return and let's

01:21:44.210 --> 01:21:49.277
develop the neighborhood nation this
way. And they're gonna all go back

01:21:49.310 --> 01:21:55.717
when that day that happens, we're
going to see the real real progress of

01:21:55.750 --> 01:22:01.187
the neighborhood nation that's
meaningful. That comes from within rather

01:22:01.220 --> 01:22:06.796
than having that movement come from
the outside. Yeah, that's genuine

01:22:06.829 --> 01:22:12.666
progress that neighborhood people
could have. And uh, and I guess you and

01:22:12.699 --> 01:22:18.796
I spent so much time and educating the
indian the youth here, the Arizona

01:22:18.829 --> 01:22:24.777
State University because we see that's
happening. And every year we're

01:22:24.810 --> 01:22:29.267
getting closer and closer to that. For
me,

01:22:29.300 --> 01:22:35.406
for me, that's exciting. That's
exciting. And I guess that's what, that's

01:22:35.439 --> 01:22:40.876
why I'm continuing to work here, as
long as I have energy remain here and

01:22:40.909 --> 01:22:45.156
, and do those kinds of things. And I
think we're beginning to see the

01:22:45.189 --> 01:22:49.647
light of a real progress for the Never
Neverland nation. Absolutely.

01:22:49.680 --> 01:22:55.107
That's, I'm really pleased to hear you
articulate this in this way and you

01:22:55.140 --> 01:23:00.286
think about it. It's such a opposite
from how Navajos were perceived and

01:23:00.319 --> 01:23:03.796
other native groups were perceived 100
years ago when they were talking

01:23:03.829 --> 01:23:07.166
about the Vanishing India and the end
of the trail and so forth and so on.

01:23:07.199 --> 01:23:13.286
And you know, I've argued that not
only are there more Navajos today than

01:23:13.319 --> 01:23:16.727
there were 100 years ago when they
were taking those photographs, But

01:23:16.760 --> 01:23:20.977
probably the more Navajos today than
there were Indians 100 years ago. So

01:23:21.010 --> 01:23:25.607
it's a kind of scale and a kind of
size and a kind of uh, appropriate

01:23:25.640 --> 01:23:33.166
ambition and determination that fuels
the future. And I like that public

01:23:33.199 --> 01:23:36.717
service announcement a few years ago
that Fort McDowell put out and they

01:23:36.750 --> 01:23:42.437
said our future is burning bright. And
I think that's, that's right. And,

01:23:42.470 --> 01:23:46.217
and you see that in many different
parts of indian country, but I think no

01:23:46.250 --> 01:23:52.567
, where is the fire brighter than it
is within the Navajo nation.

01:23:52.600 --> 01:23:59.446
Good. Well, you know, Pete, my son
picks me up. We share, we share a ride.

01:23:59.479 --> 01:24:04.527
So that's good. I have to get back,
get back over to the office before,

01:24:04.560 --> 01:24:10.137
before four because he just works
several blocks from here and then he

01:24:10.170 --> 01:24:13.557
gets off at four and then he comes
over and picks me up. Good. We'll think

01:24:13.590 --> 01:24:17.196
about when you'd like to do this extra
little bit. Yeah, it doesn't, you

01:24:17.229 --> 01:24:22.057
know, it doesn't have to be long. But
I just think, and I don't want it to

01:24:22.090 --> 01:24:25.006
b I don't want to have it. Anything
that you don't want to have in there.

01:24:25.039 --> 01:24:30.357
But I just know that that's the one
dimension that there will be an

01:24:30.390 --> 01:24:33.376
expectation that you'll speak to that
in some way and you don't have to do

01:24:33.409 --> 01:24:37.656
so negatively or, or you know, in a
way that's inappropriate. But I think

01:24:37.689 --> 01:24:43.376
that would be good. So, um, I think
you can check the genie, I guess. Look

01:24:43.409 --> 01:24:47.656
at your schedule and let me know when
you'd like to do that.

01:24:47.689 --> 01:24:51.477
I agree. We can't, it's something that
we can't skip. No, I don't think

01:24:51.510 --> 01:24:55.927
you've covered lots of ground today. I
thought it was very good, very

01:24:55.960 --> 01:25:02.727
pleased with our conversation today
and we'll have one more. Uh, yeah, I

01:25:02.760 --> 01:25:06.137
think that that really will do it. I'm
going to this Western History

01:25:06.170 --> 01:25:09.496
Association meeting. Remember the one
we had in scott's a few years ago

01:25:09.529 --> 01:25:14.156
and this will be in Salt Lake this
time and I will leave a week from,

01:25:14.189 --> 01:25:19.097
let's see a week from tomorrow. So if
there's any chance we could do it

01:25:19.130 --> 01:25:23.057
prior to, prior to that, that would be
nice. If we can't, then we'll just

01:25:23.090 --> 01:25:27.906
do it when I get back. Yeah. So you
take a look at your calendar and you

01:25:27.939 --> 01:25:33.567
can block out an hour or so somewhere
I'd be happy to. So Next week, like

01:25:33.600 --> 01:25:37.586
the 20th, you'll be up there. No, I
won't leave until the 20, I want to

01:25:37.619 --> 01:25:42.567
say the 22nd, 22nd of Yeah, I think, I
think monday monday is the 20th,

01:25:42.600 --> 01:25:46.946
isn't it? And to Wednesday is the
22nd. It has to be after that. Okay,

01:25:46.979 --> 01:25:53.586
that's fine because the 20th is Navajo
nation council meeting going to be

01:25:53.619 --> 01:25:57.987
up there for sure. Then the National
Congress american industry down here.

01:25:58.020 --> 01:26:01.317
So Okay, well there we are. Well then
maybe you too can look at the

01:26:01.350 --> 01:26:05.996
calendar for the week that starts
monday the 27th. Maybe we can do it that

01:26:06.029 --> 01:26:10.467
week. Sometimes you see, you know, it
doesn't Okay, we're almost there and

01:26:10.500 --> 01:26:15.576
when we meet next time, what I'll do
is I'll bring in, you know, were, you

01:26:15.609 --> 01:26:19.847
know, sort of putting some of these
together if we have the uh huh we

01:26:19.880 --> 01:26:24.746
really need the typescript from
today's session, but I think it's covering

01:26:24.779 --> 01:26:28.746
lots of ground and I think it's, I
think it's going to be a terrific book.

01:26:28.779 --> 01:26:34.366
Okay. And I, and I have your approval
to talk to you and impress uh, at

01:26:34.399 --> 01:26:37.717
that conference. Not to make any
decision, but just to let them know where

01:26:37.750 --> 01:26:44.647
we are on this if that's okay with
you. Okay. Okay, Good, good. Okay,

01:26:44.680 --> 01:26:48.046
what's happening? Okay, thank you.
Take care of you. Take care of us. I

01:26:48.079 --> 01:26:52.347
will.

01:26:52.380 --> 01:26:58.147
Got to call my son. Okay. Yeah, here
we are. I'm attempting to long. Okay

01:26:58.180 --> 01:27:06.180
, Thank you. Good. Okay, thank you.

01:27:19.880 --> 01:27:26.746
I just want to make sure he gets
turned off properly and the rest hoping

01:27:26.779 --> 01:27:32.079
great. It looks like you got it all.
They're over now.