PAULINE WHITESINGER

(August 20th 1999):

The meeting today at the Hard Rock Chapter was only for those resistor who signed the Accomodation Agreement. It was not for us and we had no purpose in attending accept to be humiliated again by the Justice Department and the BIA Attorneys for the Hopi Progressives. Also, I have come to realize again that this Chapter (Navajo Nations' Sub-districts) is invalid as far as being a representative of all the surrounding Dineh communities. It is nonexistence because there were no Navajo elected official at this Chapter House. There was only the Hopi Vice Chairman who I mistakenly thought he was the Chapter's Council delegate, Lorenzo Bedoni. I even called him, Lorenzo Bedoni, until someone told me that he is the Hopi Vice Chairman, Eugene Kaye. The other official attendentees were the Navajo Nation's "Land-dispute" Office director, Roman Bitsui, one of the BIA Police who has been out here all the time this summer --the one with the mustache, and others who were supposely attorneys for the Hopis and a representative from Washin'don' (Washington D.C.).

The podium was continuously dominated by Betty Tso who translated what the Official wanted this meeting was for. According to Betty Tso's translation, she said 'this Law' is unchangeable, and it can't be argued at all. Resistors or anyone else should not attempt to waste their time to confront the processes of this law (Accomodation Agreement). It was said also there will be a new law/policy soon to be implemented and that everyone will have to be aware of it and accept it. So to me, basically that meeting was to tell the traditional Dineh that, This is the law, The law will be implemented, This law will apply to you, and A law you all have to go along with. Once in a while she would let her mom, Mae Tso, come up and all she repeated was that the Signers' willingness to cooperate with BIA-Hopi's Lease Agreement and she hopes to welcome Hopi jurisdiction and its protections.

I absolutely felt then, at this meeting, that I didn't need to hear this or that none of us traditional Dineh should continue to just accept these types of humiliations. So, I casually took the microphone from the podium and told the official about the recent incident. I told and reminded the BIA Progressive Hopis that they are violating many sacred laws of the Mother Earth. They have violated many sacred laws of the Five Finger Race (Human Rights). As you violate more of these sacred laws, you and your attorneys have gained millions of dollars every time our traditional Dineh population is decreased. The federal government awards you all for making way for future mining. Surely, many of you or nearly your whole nation will gain maxium profit but we Indians don't realize how heavy the money can become, and what other options are there for depositing it besides the BIA Trust? You the progressive Hopis will just carry this load of money for a short time until it breaks your backbone and eventually, you will be buried by this heavy load of money. I said this because I want everyone to know how I felt about their succress of their implementations of 'the Law.'

[Author's Note: Concerning this next piece of words from Pauline, it should be understood that a ceremony was disrupted, more severely than this summer's Anna Mae Camp Sundance. The corn pollen is the initial sacred offering used in all Chant Way ceremonies of the Dineh. Only a woman can collect such pollen from the corn fields. This woman often prepares for this time of collecting the pollen as she will pray and mediate days prior to it. The day of the collection of the sacred Corn Pollen she will cleanse herself and put on clean clothing, and as she enters upon the sacred corn field she will chant the Beauty Way Chants. After the collection of the pollen the ceremony will not end until the day the pollen is sifted, dried and put into its buckskin pouch. BYK]

PAULINE, August 20th 1999: (continued)

On August 18th just two days ago, I was in the middle of loseing the pollen off the corn stalk tassels into the pan when a disturbance distracted me to look up. I noticed that there was a BIA Police officer confronting my Non-Indian supporters who were hoeing the weeds at the other end of the field. I quickly stopped the collection of the pollen and sat the pan down, covered it with a clothe and hope that the pan of pollen doesn't tip over. Then, I rush down to where the comotion was. I place myself before the Police officer who was now following the support women and a little girl. He had a video camera and the supporters were merely trying not to be taped. I stopped him and told him why is he harrassing the women and why does he want them on video tape so bad to be chasing them around the field. I told him if he is Hopi he should understand his own culture that the Corn Field is a sacred place where both sex must respect each other. Because he is chasing these women around can be justified as 'Sexual Harrassment!' I told him. He kept recording and still trying to aim the camera at the ladies who had distanced themselves from him. I wave my hands in front of him and said Stop! When he didn't listen I slapped the camera upward and the camera flew up into the air and landed in the dirt near by.

As he was dusting off the camera I told him, 'I, like any other traditional resistor, will from hereon take action upon your BIA-Washington D.C. intrusions. I hope to Great Spirit that will not have to harm each others' physical being because if we do harm each other, we humans are irreplacable or irrepairable. That camera can easily be replaced, but I have wished already not to hit you because it is not you who dictates the laws you are enforcing, today.' This is what happened and the ceremony of Corn Pollen Collection was interrupted in this manner, and I just have this weird feeling now. They (BIA Agencies) are taking more vigarous means to intrude and are really becoming aggressive in their continuous presences on my land because of my support for having witnesses on my land.

Please, tell the supporters and concerned individuals to tell the Hopi BIA Agency personnel that we traditional Dineh resistor see them as those intending to sexually harass women in the middle of the sacred corn field. Also, they must begin to listen to what the Non-Signers have to say and they must not just go as they please upon our ancestral lands. We will take action if they continue these types of harassment and intimindations. I guess it is just me saying this but please understand that I've been targeted all summer and previously as well, and I have become more extreme in my confrontations these days.