Letter to Senator John McCain and the Committee on Indian Affairs,

oversight hearing on the Accomodation Agreement

April 1996

They (the officials) make it seem like our kids from town and outside can't come and visit. I've been suffering all these years. It is getting worse.

Another reason, I am being abandoned from this area and cultural traditional ways. This is my ancestral grounds. I don't need to live in all this pain to live here. I am supposed to be happy. But with all these corruptions going on, I am in pain.

Another reason, I've done my time. I am more than sixty years old. That is the many years I live here. This is not being recognized and I am being told by the BIA that the house I live in does not belong to me. My sheep corrals, all corrals around my house, I built myself to carry on my tradtonal ways. They are saying that all of this is considered not mine. I want the persons passing all these laws and rules, the officials that enforce, I want the main person, members of Congress, to come around and talk face-to-face and talk with me. All this is nonsense. Those rules and regulations from them and enforced by them, the esponsible persons must come out here to enforce these laws.

For all these reasons, I've got future generations and grandchildren, that is why I say this statement

And all the elders from their communities on HPL hope and would like to come up with a final solution to the land dispute. We have hopes for that. We do not have hope for the 75 year lease agreement.

There is a spiritual circle around us. All these rules and regulations are being brought into. This is not good in our traditional ways. Any rules and regulations created by mankind does not relate in our traditional society. Another thing, our language is being changed. Our young ones are forgetting about our language. In our ceremonies we have traditional names for our Spiritual God. We have to use our language in our traditional ceremonies. Our language is a very important part of our life. We speak our language and have spiritual protection in our culture.

And even as I talk, all the spiritual people are watching, the trees, the dirt, Mother Earth itself, the sky, the universe, and other beings are all spiritual beings that watch as I speak right now.

Black Mesa is the female God, the female mountain. In our culture it cannot be disrupted in any way, for any reason. It provides us with all the necessities we need for our life to survive. It only carries the good things, not the bad stuff, in life to make a good life.

And hopefully with this statement you will consider and reorganize me. If you ever read my statement, I thank you for it.