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Navajo Elder Fights To Keep Land, Traditions

by Geri Moore. News From Indian Country

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump. The handcarved wooden batting comb thumped the yarn in place. Roberta picked up a piece of black yarn and tucked it in and around the warp threads.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump. The sound was steady. She sat on the floor. Only a small, thin pillow covered in a faded gingham check provided her with comfort from the floor. She sat weaving as she has done for many years. Her only source of income is from weaving of rugs. Navajo rugs are now collector items, becoming very scarce, very expensive.

Roberta and other Traditional Navajo women use only the wool from their sheep, sheep that they have raised from lambs, herded through the heat and the frostbite. They have shorn their sheep with shears that look like oversized scissors because the Traditional Navajo do not have electricity to use modern shears. The wool is combed out by hand; the children and grandchildren often find this their task. The wool is combed and recombed until it is soft and clean of burrs; then comes the spinning. No spinning wheels here on the Navajo lands. Just a piece of wood that looks like a toy top. The wool is spun by hand and then it is dyed and hung to dry. Finally, it is ready to become a rug.

True Navajo rugs are becoming scarce because more often than not, wool is being bought from K-Mart and Wal-Mart stores. Why? That, my friends, is where the sticky begins. Many Navajo people are being forced from their lands in a war that is undeclared yet just as devastating as the real thing. Lifestyles are disappearing and lessons are being lost. Children that have grown up in disputed land areas have lost their family title to those lands.

It is a complicated web spun by the growing need for energy, jobs, and money on the Navajo lands. In the middle of the web sits Peabody Coal Mine, ready to dig even deeper into Navajo lands for more black rock. The Hopi have woven their own web through no fault of their own. It is so complicated that it will take a master web-spinner to sort it all out. What it boils down to is Roberta Blackgoat is losing her land.

Roberta Blackgoat, at 76, has earned the right to sit on her own front porch and gossip about her neighbors like everybody else does. But Roberta is a fighter. She will not take this forced relocation without a battle. She marches to Washington, D.C., not once but many times.

Last May 1992, I spoke with Roberta, She spoke of the time the problems really began. "...the main starting in 1978. A time they were doing the fencing and making harassment. A lot of our ladies had been arrested during that time and that time it was when we joined the walks that was being set up from San Francisco to Washington, D.C."

"Then of course, we did talk and tell why we are joining this walk. The main trouble is all the struggles we are having there with the animals and the land and the relocation issue. Then we were told that we are getting paid, getting us welfare assistance and commodity food and that is payment for the land. "I say 'No way! I'm not going to eat my land.' So I refuse getting all this free stuff and I oppose these things. Especially in order for us to leave our land! "I will tell you why I am resisting and why I had to stay and try to fight. I say I am doing it for my children and my grandchildren, and for those that are coming, for more generations that are ahead of us.

"We are not allowed to sell or exchange our land; we are not allowed to according to the Traditional Way. And finally, I have been told that according to the sun, we have four sacred mountains; it is most important to us. "These sacred mountains are the posts of our hogan. Now, inside the room of our hogan, there are a lot of mice digging here and there. I mean the mining company digging here and they are mice. How would you like it if mice were making holes in your room?" "They are destroying a mountain that is sacred to us, where we have been offering our prayers. Now they don't understand and they don't believe us and they want to destroy our sacred shrine. And also, our own great grandfather and great grandmother is buried here, and there in time they have no cemetery. They have now turned to soil and we are walking on the soil and whatever is underneath. And this is what I want them to know, we have our sacred places!

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump. Roberta returned to her weaving. She has traveled to Germany and to The Netherlands. In 1988, she went to Switzerland to the United World Conference to tell any one who would listen what was happening to her people. And it still goes on.

Before livestock reduction, Roberta had a herd of 150-200 sheep and goats. They came with guns. Her herd was forcibly reduced. Now she has 40 sheep. If the new proposed plan passes, she will only be allowed 5-10 sheep.

How many rugs can she weave in the traditional way with only 5-10 sheep? How will she feed her family when they come to visit? Mutton is a staple of the Navajo diet. Life without sheep cannot be imagined. Without sheep, the whole culture of a traditional people will be history.

Roberta Blackgoat does not move. She stays. She fights. She cuts fences. She gets arrested. She joins protest marches. She goes to Sundance. She prays. But mainly, she stays. She is protecting her lifestyle the only way she knows how; by living it. By informing the rest of the world what is happening in her corner of Arizona.