In 2014, after more than a decade of lobbying, Congress passed a bill that transferred land near Oak Flat, Arizona, to a mining company that planned to build a huge copper mine on the land. This prompted opposition—and a lawsuit—from an Apache resistance group led by Wendsler Nosie Sr., a 64-year-old Apache elder, which claims the site is sacred to them:
Apache roamed Oak Flat, which they call Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, for generations before white settlers forced them onto reservations. Nosie and the other Apache involved in the case — who go by the name Apache Stronghold — say it is sacred land blessed by their Creator and home to spiritual guardians akin to angels.
....In their lawsuit — which is now before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — the group argues that the deal to trade Oak Flat to Resolution Copper in exchange for other lands scattered throughout the state violates their religious rights. They say construction of the mine would prevent them from conducting their religious ceremonies and break their ties to the land forever, in violation of an 1852 treaty between the Apache and the U.S.
There's no question that Oak Flat used to be territory occupied by Apache, who were treated brutally and moved to a nearby reservation in the 19th century. An ethnographic study of Oak Flat in 2015 found areas with Apache place names, Apache camps, and ancestral archaeological sites, as well as other landmarks that “possess traditional cultural significance.” But was it ever considered sacred land?
Backers of the mine have questioned the Apaches’ religious ties to the land....Today, critics of Apache Stronghold, including some longtime residents of Superior, question the group’s religious claims to the land, saying they never saw Apache at Oak Flat until the fight over the new mine began.
....James Phillips, 33, is a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a father of two. He is also a Resolution Copper employee who supports the mine....The truth, he said, is that he just doesn’t believe what Nosie preaches about Oak Flat.
“If you were to ask me if I truly believe Oak Flat is sacred, honestly no, I don’t. I’d never heard of it being sacred before,” Phillips said.
I'm not a religious person, so I probably find religious claims more tiresome than most people. I recognize that—and I also recognize that if I'm skeptical of claims that a particular tract of land is "sacred," I need to be careful. It might just be my biases speaking.
That said, claims of sacred land frequently seem to pop up a little too conveniently when Native groups oppose a project of one kind or another. In this case, huge swathes of New Mexico and eastern Arizona are historic Apache territory, but which parts are sacred? Not all of them, certainly. And the truth is that it's hard to find any mention of Oak Flat being sacred that's not tied to the proposed mine. Even in a 2007 letter from six Apache tribes that is tied to the mine, they refer solely to Oak Flat's "unique recreational and historical values" and explicitly claim only that Apache Leap—an outcrop two miles from the mine site—is sacred. But Resolution Copper has already agreed to leave Apache Leap alone.
So . . . it's a little hard not to be skeptical. With no disrespect intended, it would be nice for Native Americans—and everyone else—to designate their sacred areas now, instead of waiting until they have something to oppose. It's not as if this would be impossible: many areas, like Apache Leap, are already designated. Why not do them all?
Good luck with your recovery Kevin. This blog has just gotten way too far in the weeds for me to visit.
All these graphs and charts for completely inane things that have no effect on your life and you have no involvement or knowledge of.
It's as irresponsible as most cable news networks. Good luck to you, your wonderful life and your wonderful cats.
Take care of yourself sir.
Meh, Kevin's blog is one of a tiny handful I've read daily for decades, exactly because of the "graphs and charts for completely inane things".
Seconded, heartily. And just for the record: following Kevin for free Jabberwocking is much better on so many levels than paying to read the inanities and balderdash of, say, Matt Yglesias, over on substack.
Gosh, has someone been forcing you to read this blog? That's terrible, you should call the police.
"Assault with an Inane Blog!" I can just hear the 911 operator reacting to this...
I can make $200 an hour working on my home computer. {h42 I never thought it was possible, but my closest friend made $25,000 in just five weeks working on this historic project. convinced me to take part. For more information,
Click on the link below... https://GetDreamJobs1.blogspot.com
Does Don Trump honestly believe Carrol is a slut?
Does Exxon have strong feelings about the philosophy of taxation?
The tribe is making the best legal arguments it thinks it has in order to support the outcome they think is in their best interests. You don't have to like the claims. Hell, you don't have to like the tribe.
But it is a bit weird to get sanctimonious about this specific instance of legal reality and not others.
If Hobby Lobby can claim that providing contraception to their employees violates their religious freedom then I think the Apache have a perfectly fine justification for their lawsuit.
Like +50!
Sauce, goose, gander, one-and-done.
Amen! The issue is not so much whether those lands really are sacred. It’s whether we are going to treat all religious claims the same or give special treatment to just one teeny tiny group that claims religious protection for whatever evil pops into their heads.
Yes. And it's not like Hobby Lobby had to identify it's objection to providing contraception coverage before the Affordable Care Act was passed. Prior to the Act passing, Hobby Lobby had provided contraception coverage to its employees. After they Act passed, Hobby Lobby said that they had had a religious objection to providing contraception coverage all along, and just hadn't told their insurance carrier.
I think sacred hills and so on are much more an Aborigene thing. First Nations of the Americas seemed to see it more the way Mary Brave Bird said: "The land is sacred. These words are at the core of our being".
That is, ALL the land. In contrast to the white man who had made the sacred small, a church, a bowl of holy water, an icon, so that everything else could be plundered. A hill is still bigger than a cross, but doesn't quite fit into the First Nation concept of sacredness as I understand it.
So what do we do when tribes finally declare that the entire country was sacred? Asking for a white friend who lives here.
Same thing you do when the white people who live their pretend they own everything.
Funnily, I'm more inclined to respect a native American tribe or pueblo claim that an area is sacred to them than I am the Israeli claim that they "own" an (ever expanding) territory that none of them have lived in for 2,000 years.
I don’t know of anyone anywhere who has lived in one place for 2,000 years.
Pretty sure he meant that it has been 2000 years since the Jewish people lived there not that they have not lived there continuously for 2000 years.
This is ultimately where a hyper focus on identity and tribe runs into a wall. Human history has been happening for 200,000+ years, with thousands of languages and cultures lost to the ages, one conquest at a time.
The Apaches (and every other Native American tribe) themselves conquered and assimilated countless other tribes, eradicating their languages and sacred sites. It's just what humans do. So who gets to decide which point in history counts the most? Should the Celtic tribes be given continental Europe back? Or is French culture now a fait accompli?
Nope, there is still a blood feud between the Scots and Irish branches over the Irish introducing the Scots to bagpipes as a joke. Unfortunately we have tin ears and no sense of humour
Several generations removed, placed into confined reservations separated from access to ritualistic spiritual practices and sites, without written history, I think you're being unreasonable.
Not every heiau, pohaku, and sacred site is remembered in Hawaii. It is not uncommon to start a construction project and come across bones that trigger an archeological review. And even when you know there should be a sacred site in an area, you might not find it for years.
In Hawai'i it is also very convenient to declare an entire volcano "sacred" to try to prevent a telescope from being constructed on its summit. Said holiness was unknown for nearly an entire century, but no longer!
Pfft.
Everyone who grew up in Hawaii knows that the volcanoes are the residences of fire gods. And Mauna Kea features at the center of Hawaiian mythology. In a non-trivial way, however, all of the aina is important.
It's probably more convenient to come onto someone else's land then disregard their history.
Regarding the TMT:
I don't think you realize how large this new telescope is. This is why it is controversial. The state is supposed to be good stewards of the volcano and the argument here is whether an 18-story structure on top of a sacred volcano is proper.
In your opinion, is an 18-story structure on top of a volcano proper?
I often wonder how many Native Americans are involved with these protests. Not all Native Americans feel the same way about things, and it would not surprise me if these objections were being raised only by a small portion of the Native Americans with their own particular views towards development who are making the rest of our lives rather difficult.
I like the idea of designating all of it now so everyone knows in advance. And limit it, because otherwise you KNOW that some groups would like claim like most of the country as sacred land...
Our media assume any small group of Natives peoples speak for all of them. Whoever is the most aggrieved, that's who gets the mic. North Slope oil drilling is the perfect example:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-environment-oil-feature/polar-opposites-the-remote-alaskan-village-divided-over-oil-drilling-idUSKCN1S01B5
Must we acquiesce to every bizarre hallucination and delusional belief of religious fanatics? There are no gods. There is no such thing as sacred. Get over it.
Another example…
“HAMTRAMCK, Mich. (AP) — A Detroit-area community has banned LGBTQ+ flags from publicly owned poles after a tense hourslong meeting that raised questions about discrimination, religion and the city's reputation for welcoming newcomers… Some members of the all-Muslim council said the Pride flag clashes with the beliefs of some members of their faith.“
So glad progressives welcomed all the religious freaks into the country. Thanks for nothing.
I know, right? Think of all the trouble we could have saved if we hadn't let those religious freaks settle here in Massachusetts 400-odd years ago!
Capital is sacred to some secularists. They cherish extraction, commodities, and markets.
Here's what the old and abandoned copper mine at Bisbee AZ looks like
https://www.travelguideline.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/copper-mine-bisbee-arizona.jpg