One step at a time

One step at a time

Bill Bradley

Daily Yomiuri, March 10th. 2001

You can hardly walk across a college campus in the United States without encountering the phrase. It graces so many dorm-room posters, faded T-shirts and backpack buttons, it has become almost as much a cliche of the hippie lifestyle as Birkenstocks and patchouli. But when asked what he has learned from more than a decade of involvement in an American Indian resistance movement, Haru Yamaguchi ays without a hint of insincerity:"The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth." For Yamaguchi and the other volunteers of the Japan-based Walk in Beauty project, the words are a constant source of inspiration, a mantra to get them through the hundreds of kilometres they walk across Japan and the United States in support of the Dineh Indians of Big Mountain. In that remote corner of northern Arizona, 1,000 years of history, two centuries of repression and billions of dollars in international coal interests have resulted in one of the most impassioned resistance movements in recent American history.

Walk n Beauty's first walk began on Jan. 1, 2000, when 30 members set out from Mt. Kuraiyama in Gifu Prefecture for a 480 kilometre trek to te U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. where they delivered a petition bearing nearly 15,000 signatures in support of the Dineh. The group then boarded a flight for the United States to join more than 100 activists from around the world for a 230-kilometre march from Flagstaff, Ariz.., through the desert to Big Mountain.

"We're not demonstrating. It's more like a spiritual walk." Yamaguchi said, "Each step is like a prayer for Mother Earth. But at each place we stop during the walks, we have meetings to tell people about the Dineh and the Big Mountain problem, and to collect signatures. It's still underground in Japan, but people are starting to know about it."

Getting the word out

The Dineh situation is relatively unknown even in the United States. What most Americans do know about the indigenous cultures overwhelmed by the march of manifest destiny they have filed away under "Wild West History." It is as removed from modern life as covered wagons and Billy the Kid. Few know that in the last twenty years, 14,000 Dineh have been relocated by the U.S. Government in the largest such exodus of American Indians since the 1880's.

The Big Mountain Dineh - also known as the Navajo, a name they received from spanish explorers - live over one of the largest coal reserves in the world. Those who fight the relocation fear that if they give in, the land they have held sacred for generations will be strip-mined. Much of it already has been.

So about 200 resisters remain, mostly tribal elders who would rather stay and fight than take a government settlement and be separated from the only homes they have ever known, especially to live out their days in a tract home in suburban Flagstaff.

But many of them are to old to get by on their own, and their herds have been reduced to sub-sustenance levels by officials who accuse them of overgrazing - on land earmarked for strip-mining. So volunteers like those of Walk in Beauty visit Big Mountain to assist with the farming, herding and other daily chores and to help preserve one of the last pure examples of indigenous culture left in the United States.

"It's not as if we want to become indians," Yamaguchi said, anticipating the criticism that often follows any non-indians' interest in American Indian culture. "But everyone in the world will benefit if we can help keep their ancient wisdom alive."

Bahe Katenay, a Dineh who helped found the Walk in Beauty project in 1998 and has come to Japan to speak about Big Mountain, supports Yamaguchi in this.

"The Japanese who have come here do sincerely believe in peace in the world," he said in an email from his home in Arizona. " They want to learn about what little is left of indigenous America and to redefine their movements toward saving the environment and their own endangered traditions."

Thinking globally, acting locally

According to boundaries the U.S. government has redrawn several times since the coal rush began in the 1950's, Big Mountain is part of the Hopi reservation, making the Dineh who remain trespassers on the lands in which they were born. Many have accused the government of trying to avoid the responsibilty for the relocations by portraying this as a land dispute between two tribes. Authorities with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (which falls under the control of the Department of the Interior, which also oversees mining issues in the United States) say the relocations are only intended to give the Hopis - who have been more willing than the Dineh to negotiate with mining companies - control of what is theirs.

But Yamaguchi stresses that denying the traditional Dineh access to the mountain prevents them from practicing their religion. "Big Mountain is like their temple. It's sacred to them - and to the traditional Hopi," he said. "But there don't seem to be many traditional Hopi left."

Yamaguchi visited Big Mountain for the first time in 1990 to attend the Sundance, a four-day celebration of the Earth that he said transformed him. "I was shocked. There were no cameras, no videos - no recording at all. They weren't dancing for publicity; they were just dancing for the land," he said. "I remember thinking, 'as long as these people remain, the Earth will be OK.'"

He spent much of the next decade working with Katenay and other activists in Japan to generate support and organize more trips to Big Mountain. When the U.S. government set a Feb. 1st, 2000, deadline for final evictions, he and other Japanese activists decided to join a massive walk being planned in Arizona. At Katenays suggestion, they began their march from deep within the heart of Japan as a sign of their dedication.

By the time the deadline came, the international focus on Big Mountain had grown more intense than anyone had anticipated. Even prominent European politicians had stepped up to condemn the relocations as violations of the Vienna Declaration and the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So the U.S. authorities, perhaps fearing the repercussions if footage of federal agents forcing elderly people out of their homes was broadcast around the world, backed down.

The U.S. attorney overseeing the relocations has not pressed for an eviction order so far, although he has said he will seek one soon if the situation is not resolved soon. Some Dineh have signed an "accomodation agreement" that effectively makes them tenants of the Hopis.

But the traditional Dineh, many of whom are so completely removed from mainstream America they cannot even speak english, hold the belief that the people belong to the Earth as a fundamental truth. For them, the idea that words on paper could decide ownership of the land is nonsense. They refuse to sign the agreements, choosing instead to wait out the federal authorities.

And so the walkers walk.

They met at a temple high in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture last month to discuss the latest developments on Big Mountain and to make plans for a walk in Arizona this spring. Most of the two dozen or so who attended the meeting had visited the Dineh at least once, and each of them assumed the same reverent tone when discussing their experiences.

"I stayed there about a month, helping with herding, chores - doing whatever needed to be done and learning what ever I could," said Iri Yoshida, one of the younger walkers.

The members range in age from their 20's to their 60's, most of them with the long hair, loose cotton and hemp clothes and -on the men - unkempt beards that one might expect of such a group. They are cooks, authors, farmers, alternative healers, musicians and independent business people (flexible schedules are important) all united by a desire to help preserve Dineh culture - and the environment in the process. They will take on any cause tied to environmental preservation, and they will do so with an unyielding belief that such issues transcend race, culture, religion and nationality.

After several talks and presentations about Big Mountain the group heard from Johanna Mochidome and other members who walked from Tokyo to Hiroshima and Nagasaki recently to raise awareness of nuclear issues. Mochidome, a Web designer from Tokyo, also demonstrated the bilingual Web page she has launched to link like-minded groups and to provide information about other walks.

"I think it's important, in a sense, to arrange a sort of community without strong central leadership," she said.

Yamaguchi believes the loose, communal sensibilities are integral to these groups and base our activities on each other's interests," he said. "For example, if someone lives near nuclear power plant or a polluted river, we'll discuss it and see what we can do.

"The lakes feed into the rivers, which run into the oceans, so everything is connected to everything - Big Mountain, too. Ultimately, it effects all of us."

Katenay feels such sentiments are best summed up in a quote from Australian Aborigine Lilla Watson:"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."