Indian Law Resources Center PWCC Behind Big Mountain Relocation Cultural Genocide

8/2/2019 Indian Law Resources Center PWCC Behind Big Mountain Relocation Cultural Genocide

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INDIAl'l LAW RESOURCE CENTER601 E Snu:ET . SvlJ11-jEAST. WASIIINGTOH, D.C. 20003 (202) M7~2800

ROBIlRT T. COULTER. E .l !XBCUT1VlJ DIRF.C1tJR

ST1;VEN M. ThLlJlERG. E",.CtJRTIB O. Bl!IU(EY. E",. BEHIND THE BIG MOUNTAIN RELOCATIONS:

NEW EVIDENCE ABOOT MINERAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS OF THEHOPI TRIBAL COUNCIL

There is nQW ~l~~r ~Vi~2r.C~~hdt the dopi Tribal Council hasplans to exploit coal resources in the Big Mountain area. Thisis the area from which Navajos are being for ci bly re lo cated inthe so-called Hopi-Navajo dispute. For many years there has beena debate abou~ ~he reasons for relocation ot HOpis and Navajosfrom that area. Although many believe that mineral developmentplans are the main reason, the previously available evidence hasnot been conclusive.

The attached map entitled "Hopi Reservation-Mineral Develop-ment Plan R shows that Big Mountain is in an area called aproposed Coal Mininq/Slurry Pipeline Area.- (The other map


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The Hopi Tribal Council presented the map in order to showthe Arizona court that the Tribe has plans for using largoamounts of water in future commercial and industrial development.The Arizona court is asked to reserve sufficient water resourcesfor the Hopi Tribe to carry out this development.

Here is how the Hopi Tribal Council's plans and water claimsare described in the court papers:

~.2.Future mining and slurry~There is sufficient coal of high quality on HopiPartitioned Lands for two additional mines and slurrypipelines should the Tribe so choose. The water forslurries and mining would be approximately 8,120 acre~feet per year. The exact location of wells and the dis-tance from which the water would be drawn cannot cur-rently be known, nor can contractual arrangements as toits use~ The Hopi Tribe acco~dingly claims 8,120 acre-feet per year of groundwater for future mining andslurry activities.

The general location of the coal and possible wellfields are shown on Map F.

G.3. Other mineral and industrial use.The Bopi Tribe claims 21,000 acre-feet ofgroundwater annually for other mineral and industrialuses; 16,000 acre-feet annually for a 1,000 megawattcoal powered electrical generating station, 5,000 acre-feet annually for development of oil, gas and minerals


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y~ar. Many times that amount would be need.d if the developmentplans were implemented. (An acre-foot of water is the amount ofwater that would stand one foot deep over one acre).

The Hopi Tribal Council almost certainly has in its filesmore detailed studies and plans. Otherwise it could not conf1-?ently state to the court that there is Rsufficient coal of highquality on Hopi Partitioned Lands for two ~~citivu41 mines and .slurry pipelines "

In light of this newly discovered evidence, there should bea fresh assessment o~ what Hopi mineral development plans indi-cate about the true motives for Hopi-Navajo relocation from theBig Mountain area. Just as important, there should be carefulconsideration of what such plans mean for the future of the Hopipeople.

In addition, there should be new demands for clarificationof the lederal government's role in these plans. Under federallaw, all l.a involving Big Mountain coal and WA~.r would have


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': .~ '~.~,:,Prel i~ {nary.audit of~ ,~~r',>:.v." 'TufL'.iCityCourt',:f. ,i /, : ') : , " ' ' ': '' '' shows, $90.000 gone.~~_\,..r ... ~., ,--"-~::",' ... ' "

t~ : , J , ; : ~. : . : ~.,>.. ' " .,-!",;"" '", Hy Luke . WilJiaml4 Nelson were dealingill'lhe ba ck 't.. ~. . .. ; 1 't : : : . 'A " , ; : r . : ' \ , : : : ~ . TUBA Cll'Y;:Ariz.- The Nava On July 31, 1986, Lawrence room wi.!h Chu81u Energy CumH :M ~ { i} \ : : : } i~ i : ' , : " ' : jo Netion Enquiry has learned.of ". While. furmer deputy director of pany which is supposedly owntlf..1by .~'-'~' ,::~\ ..,:.~ .. . preliminary Tribal Audil Report the N avajo Tax Commission expos- . Larry Manuelilo, candidate for. '.', j " ,:'.: . 'i : . which shows '90,000 m is5 in g f ro m ed Peterson Zab for what he r~lllly triba l chairm an. (See ~eparule,:


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The AmericanIndians' two greatestresources-their children andtheir land-

are threatenedby theMormon church.

C U L T U R A LG E N O C I D EBY JON STEWART AND PETER Vv'llEY

hey came 10tr -s !ar,d- n 600 c C . fleeing Ihe Babylonian .nvasoo ofjerusalem. Led by the great t.ern. who sroxewith God. they crossed the great waters aoclanded somewhere on the West Coast of m eAmericas. the new Promised LandOver the cenrunes trus sma:t bend of he-

Drewsgrew great in number. The:rcutture ar-creilglon tlounshed. They burlt rr.egnli!cer:: :e'7 '-ales and cines. So crea: was the,r pie, andcrorrnse that the Son of God acoeareo ceto-e


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war in which evil trium~e8 over good.The Nephites were destroyed to a man, orto a single man, Moroni. It was for this lastprophet of God's people to collect the reocords of his race, inscribed on sacredplates of gold, and bury .them in the HillCumorah until some far-off time when thetrue religion might be restored in "the tat-te r days."The rest, of course, is history. The "Iat-terdays" arrived on September 22,1827,when 21-year-old Joseph Smith of Palmy-ra, N.Y., having received instructions fromthe angel Moroni, dug up the plates, trans-lated them, and presented the world withthe Book of Mormon. Today the Church' ofJesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints(l.D.S.), commonly known as the Mor-mons, is the fastest-growing church inAmerica. Its virtual control of Utah politicsand its significant influence inArizona. Ne-vada, Idaho. and California would seem tomake it a rel igious powl!!" without paral lelin America. Its econom'rc holdings. which would place it among the top 100 Amer i -ecan corporations, make it t ile church with the greatest centralized weaTthin the Unit-ed States.But for all the wealth and power. there.' remains a flaw-those. "dark and loatn-some" Lamanites. the lost brothers ofcenturies ago. whose descendents are to-day the native "Indians" of the Americasand the Pacific islands. They have forgot-ten who they are , where they came from.They have taken up strange pantheist re-ligions, and they reraain desperately im-poverished, uneducated to the wondrousopportunities for creating a reflection of.God's world on earth through corporatecapitalism. But still they are brothers un-der that dark skin. They must be saved.They will be saved, by GOd.It is hardly surpnsing mal an obsession

s- -.,.cific has netted more than 116.000 Poly- That eHor t today is two-pronged, airT'_~. nesians 10 the Mormon rolls (they, also, at the Indians' two greatest resources=are considered descendants of the La- Indian children and Indian land. Or . the'manites) while a crusade among the Indi one hand. thoJLsandsof young, white Marans of Mexico and Central and Soulh 'rnon men, a\l!d 181021, roam the res-America has boosted membership from ervations in dark suits, ties, and close-those Catholic strongholds to a half mil .cropped hair, spreading the Word andlion. InAmerica no church-save the ratn- gathering up the Lamanite children forer informal Native American church of "placement" in white Mormon homes. Onpeyotism-is as visible, as powerful, and the other hand, a small and powerfulas entrenched on Indian lands as the Mor- clique of attorneys. oHicially tied to themon church, Mormon church in Salt Lake, scour theWhy? Why should a basically Anglo- canons of Indian law, significant parts ofAmerican church, whose vision is shaped which they wrote, searching for ways toby middle-class notions of the good life,' "extinguish': Indian land claims, therebybe so obsessed with the remnants of a enriching themselves and paving the wayrace of people that muct) of America has for mineral development by corporationsconsigned to the history books? Church to which the church is tied financially.doctrine. certainly, plays a significant role. These same Mormon attorneys also rap-Indians are lost brothers, cursed and resent, as general counsels, many of theloathsome. perhaps, but nonetheless Indian tribes in the Southwest, includingamong the chosen. . the Hopi, the Ute, the Gosiute. Paiute, andAre there other motives? Perhaps. "In- Shoshoni.dian people are sitting on one-third of the Tom Luebben, a young white attorneyin Albuquerque who used to work exclu-sively on Indian law cases, has confrontedthe Mormons on both fronts. He charac-terizes the "extinguishments" as "\he big-gest land transfer of the twentieth

century." The "placement program" forIndian children. he says, is "nothing shortof cultural genocide."

,A California professor.son of a prominentMormon family, claims thatmany Mormons havetaken advantage of thechild-placementprogram to supply free labor.

''I'm a Nephite, and I'm also a Lamanite.I'm an Israelite." The man of many iden-tities isGeorge Lee, 37, a full-blooded Na-vaho and the son of a, medicine man.Today he is the highest-ranking Indian inthe church hierarchy. a member of theOuorurn of Seventy. the body that imple-ments and administers the policies formu-lated by the Council of the twelve Apostles

i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i l i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i_ i ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii _ ' i ii _ and the First Presidency. Lee's climb tothe top began in a humble if Significanttow-sulfur strippable coal and srxty-Iive way: he was among the first batch of In~


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for the hills," George Lee recalls."So they tried another approach. Nexttime they came they brought sacks ofcanned goods, potatoes, and so on fromthe trading post. Mom and Dad liked that.And finally it came around to religionagain. This man helped the governmentschool twenty miles away, recruiting stu-dents and signing up the kids for thechurch they wanted to attend. He was notonly a trader, but hewas also a missionaryfor the L.D.S. [Latter Day Saints]."Thus did George and his brother join theMormon church and begin attending ser-vices at the church near the BIA (Bureauof Indian Affairs) school. Two years laterthe trader showed up again and con-vinced George's parents to place theirsons in Mormon homes near Salt LakeCity, 500 miles away."He took us as we were, tom T-shirts,worn-out Levi's, no shoes. On the bus ev-eryone was crying, all the kids, saying, 'Iwant to go home; I want to go home.' Icried ti ll I fell asleep."In Provo, Utah, where the bus journeyended, ten-year-old George was pickedup by his new foster parents, who im-mediately began his cultural transforma-tion. He says he didn't speak a word tothem for two long months, though theyshowered him with gifts, new clothes,even a cowboy outfit."I had to make a complete transitionfrom one way of life to another. I got sicka lot. because I wasn't used to their food.Back home I never got sick; we were Im-mune to disease. I had hives allover mybody."But George was one of !he lucky ones.He adjusted reasonably ,'.~ ;ha'"'"s'"part to being an outstano.oc atnlete .A, ne:high school he went on to 3ng!-.am YoungUniversity. did a two-year m.ss.onary snntback on the reservation. and look a doc-torate in education. Then. a few years ago.

ervations by missionaries and churchleaders. and, as is often the case, by gov-ernment social workers who happen to beMormons. Those children who completethe program are encouraged to attendBYU. and then to return to the reserva-t ions to take professional jobs in the tribalgovernment and continue church "prosy-liting," the Mormon word for proselytizing.Church officials in Salt Lake City whoare in charge of the placement programrefused to talk to us. George Lee, the pro-gram's most outstanding graduate, ac-knowledged that there have beencriticisms of the program from Indians,"like the militant groups like AIM [Ameri-can Indian Movement]." but they are"misinformed." "They criticize not justplacement," says Lee, "but they crit ic izethe government, you know, for steal ing alltheir land-they make a stink about everylittle thing."Lee contends that his own researchshows that more placement kids get ad-,One Navaho leader says thatthe Indians must develop a tribalpolicy to counter the Mormonchild-placement program.If not, she said. "we won'tsurvive .... They will literallyconquer the Indian people."

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vanced degrees than do Indian kids .n BIAor public schools, more go into the mili-

~ ., , :, . . :1 J: ,itants. Claudine Arthur, 'a NcMino govern-ment off icial and mottler - O f three in theNavaho capital of Windo~ Rock. Ariz.,flares up when the subject is broached."It's dangerous," she declares. "Theywant children who are emotionally stable,who come from decent, good homes.Those are the children they want to takeoff to their homes in Utah and brainwashfor their own purposes. If they really be-lieve that home and family is good, thenthey must believe that it's best for childrenlike these to be in their own homes withtheir own people. They say they don'twant kids from broken homes or kids whoare having trouble in school. They wantthe bright. intell igent kids. I find that two-faced."Another Navaho official, who requestedanonymity for fear he might lose his job,knows the placement program recruit-.ment methods from long experience withhaving to sort out the tragedies. "Whenyou look at the L.D.S. placements on acase-by-case basis, as I have, you seethat they're all families who are just barelysubsisting on a salary. It's not uncommonfor a family with eight or nine kids to haveto live on one minimum-wage salary oreven less. It's basically :r.ccme that deter-mines whether a child goes on placement.lts very hard, especially for a single par-ent. to make that decision."His own 13-year-old son, he said, cameto him last year and said that he'd beentaiking to the Mormon missionaries ... 'They told me we'd have lots of fun. We'dplay volleyball and football, and I couldhave my own room if I go on placement.'Dad.' he said, 'can! go?'"I~'Svery difficult to counter. There may- ;;',.2 oeen a number of circumstances inmy hie when I would have said yes."What about the many rumors concern-Ing Mormon "kidnappings" of Indian chil-cren? Do such kidnappings actually


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G E N O C I D ECONTINUED FROM PA GE 8 4Those kids lived right on that fine line."While the most blatant abuses appearto have ceased in recent years, more sub-tle and long-term problems still exist. Dr.Martin Topper, an anthropologist at theUniversity of California, San Diego, stud-ied a group of 25 Navaho children in thechurch's placement program over a sev-en-year period. Topper found that the sep-aration from family and tribe experiencedby placement children resulted in "seriousemotional stresses."The most wrenching experience, hefound, occurs when the children have toreturn home to the reservation for summerrecess. They then have to tear themselvesaway from the middle-class white world towhich they've become accustomed andreturn to the poverty of the reservation andthe realization that they will never be whitebut are destined to grow into Navahoadulthood and all that implies. Some stu-dents, he found, would try to change theirreservation home into a typical Mormonhome and to "convert or reaffirm theMormon church membership of otherhousehold members. This activity was en-couraged by the Mormon missionanes."said Topper.Others would fall into hysterical sei-zures and "severe identity conflicts." Top-per personally witnessed three suchseizures in reservation homes during onesummer: "The girls were highly agitated,hyperventilating, and often hallucinat-ing.... [They] pushed themselves to theopposite side of the beds on which theywere lying [and] would begin to screamand yell that they were being murderouslyassaulted by the ghosts of dead Navahosor that their family members were turning

that the church's powerful Washingtonlaw firm, Wilkinson, Cragun, and Barker(which Seneca once worked for), ~ascomplaining that the act was being "mis-interpreted" to the L.D.S. staff people onthe reservation. "The L.D.S. program,"stated the memo, "is exempt" from theact. "Please have any misinterpretationcorrected."How did the Mormon church escape therestrictions placed on virtually every otherpublic and private program dealing withIndian adoption and placement? Oursources in the Indian Subcommittee of theSenate Interior Committee. which handledthe legislation, claim that Wilkinson, Cra-gun, and Barker lobbied intensively on be-half of the church to change the initial bill,which would have put the Mormon place-ment program under greater governmentsupervision. They were ably assisted inthe effort by Utah Rep. Gunn McKay,brother of former church president DavidMcKay. In fact, the language in the bill ex-empting the Mormon program "wasadopted by the House Subcommittee onIndian Affairs at the specific request of thechurch ... ,. said a letter from RobertBarker to Seneca.According to the BIA social worker. it isnow up to the Tribal Council to come upwith a tribal policy that addresses theproblems of the placement program. Butthere is serious doubt that it will ever beenacted. Says a tribal official, "Mormonsare tied into what is happening in the lead-ership of the tribe-both the council andthe bureaucracy. I wouldn't be surprisedif half the tribal council is Mormon." Whilethat estimate is probably exaggerated, itis incontestable that Mormons are we!!represented il1 the council, and that manyof them gained their political influencethrough the very program they will beasked to restrict-Mormon placement.

children, is the Native Americans' lastgreat resource. Though once thoughtworthless, Indian land today is among themost highly valued real estate in the West,thanks to this nation's voracious appetitefor uranium, coal, oil and oil shale, tarsands, and the water required to mine andprocess those resources and to supplythe ever-growing cities.Despite Brigham Young's paternal ad-monition that it was "less expensive tofeed and clothe than to fight them," therehas never been a time when the Laman-ites have been welcome in the new Zionof the Saints. True, the early Mormon set-tlers tried, with l ittle success, to convertthe neighboring Shoshoni, Bannock, andUte-even experimenting with placing thereluctant heathens on church-ownedfarms. But for the most part, the fast-grow-ing body of Saints in the Valley of theGreat Salt Lake had no room for anybodywho was not of the faith. In fact, in 1857Brigham Young was able to marshall fully1,100 Mormon militia to guard the moun-tain pass east of Salt Lake against a U.S.Army expedition, mounted by PresidentBuchanan, which was seekino to install anon-Mormon governor over the Utah Ter-ritory. The territory. as far as the Saintswere concerned, was a semi-independentkingdom.By 1865 the Utah Indians. battling boththe Mormon militia and the U.S. Cavalry,had been defeated militarily, cut off fromtheir traditional hunting grounds, andwracked by white man's diseases. Thechieftains signed a treaty with the govern-ment, negotiated in part by Mormons, inwhich Ihey were forced to cede their vastlandholdings in exchange for reservationsin remote areas. The Ute, once the mostfeared warriors in the Rockies. were as-signed to about 2 million acres of majesticbut arid land in the Uinta Basin in the


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century. Lost in their own land, the Utedied faster than their children could beborn.And so it continued until the 1930s,when President Roosevelt brought aboutan "Indian New Deal" under the leader-ship of Harold Ickes, secretary of the in-terior, and John Collier, who becamecommissioner of indian affairs. Sincereand well-meaning for their time, they im-posed on the Indian tribes the greatest gi ftthey could conceive-formal, electedgovernment.For decades Washington did not knowhow to deal legally and officially with thevarious Indian bands. How could the U.S.government or, more to the point , certainU.S. corporations execute treaties, land

leases, and mineral-exploration contractswith unelected leaders of informal, unof-ficial bands of Indians? Thus, in order forthe tribes to reap the harvest of federaland corporate royalties, on Ihe one hand,and in order for the government and thecorporations to reap the Indian land andminerals, on the other hand, the New Dealbequeathed the wonders of elected, rep-'resentat ive tribal government to the oftenreluctant tribes.Despite the inherent ironies of the newbenevolence in Washington, the periodmarked a turning point for the Ute, whosenew BIA-approved government received$1.2 million for a million acres that hadbeen appropriated for a nalional forest.Their future seemed assured, their landbase slowly began to grow again, and forIhe first time in 80 years Ute bir ths beganto exceed the number of Ute deaths.And Ihen the second cri tical event of thetwentieth century occurred for the Ute.The tribe hired young Ernest Wi lkinson, anenterprising Mormon attorney whoseWashington, D.C., law firm had gained areputation for its expertise on Indian lawissues and would go on to become an en-ergetic offic.al representative of the Mor-mon church. The tribe wanted Wilkinsonto press its other land claims before the

100 years earlier than passage of the act .Wilkinson would later boast in a letter to. a Ute leader that "as your at torney, Ispentconsiderable time assisting in the writingof that particular bill." He would go on tocall it "the biggest victory ever obtainedby the Indians in Congress with respect tosettl ing their claims against the govern-ment."The land claims law was, in fact, the big-gest victory ever obtained by the govern-ment and by lawyers over the Indians. Itwas designed to end, once and' for all,alllegitimate Indian claims to traditionalhomelands. The claims would be "termi-nated," not by the restorat ion of lands, asmany Indians had been led to believe, butby allowing the government to "buy out"the claims using land prices that had pre-vailed several generations back. Thelaw-dubbed the "Indian Lawyers Wel-fare Act" by its critics-also provided thattribal lawyers would receive settlementfees ranging from seven to ten percent ofthe total purchase price. Since settle-ments, even at nineteenth-century prices,often reached into the millions, the law-yers were highly mot ivated to encouragetribes to sue. According to one authorita-tive estimate, Indian-claims lawyers, virtu-ally all white, have reaped at least 560million by "selling off" Indian lands."It also became an incentive for lawyersto prove how much the Indians no longerowned," said one lawyer familiar with theUte case. "The more land the Indians lost,the more money the lawyers got." At the

heart of the controversy over the law wasthe stipulation that all settlements be madein cash. Time and again Indian leadershave stated that they never understoodthis provision of the act and that their law-yers, Including the most prominent of theMormon attorneys. led them to believethat by filing a land claim they stood agood chance of actually getting their landsback. Even today traditional Hopi, Paiute,Shoshoni. Gosiute. and others argue pas-sionately that they never realized that in

guise of freeing the Indians from the "yokeof federal supervision," termination a /aWatkins amounted to extermination, Thenew policy called for the end of all gov-ernment services to Indians, the imposi-tion of state jurisdiction over all Indianlands, the eventual sale of all Indian lands,and, in the meantime, the transfer of titleto an appointed trustee.In the end, the infamous Watkins policy"terminated" 20 tribes, bands, and rem-nants of tribes. Watkins would go on tobecome head of the Indian Claims Com-mission. Wilkinson's partner, John Boy-den, would soon succeed his mentor asone of the nation's most controversial In-dian land-claims attorneys.Sal t Lake City attorney Parker Nielson,who now represents the terminatedmixed- bloods, says that Boyden was "notintentionally devious, but he had a verymyopic view of Indians and their prob-lems. He saw itas a problem of convertingthem to round-eyed Caucasians and par-,

The highest-rankingIndian in the Mormon churchcomplained about Indianmilitants: "They criticize thegovernment for stealingall their land-they make astink about every little thing."

~ticularly Mormon round-eyed Caucasians.That was the intention of [Watkin's] termi-nation policy. which he helped to design.It contributed to the urban Indian problem.It forced the Indians off the reservation and


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1970s, the t ribal council launched a sec-ond effort to fi re Boyden as general coun-sel for his part in negot iating a Ute water-rights deferral that would divert Ute waterto Salt Lake City. The expanding city, ledby the expanding church, needs the ad-di tional water if i t is to continue to grow asa western energy center. The tribal coun-cil's attempt to dump Boyden was re-buffed by the Department of the Interior'ssolicitor in Utah, Will iam McConkey, whooverruled the tribe.Ute water continues to be of paramountinterest to the Church, city, and state(which are inextricably interlocked), but itis not the only Ute resource coveted in SaltLake. Oil and gas leases from the tribecurrent ly bring in some $9 mill ion a yearto tribal coffers, and the reservation sits onsome of the best shale oil land in the West,waiting patiently to be developed in thepromised era of synfuels.The Ute's most significant gas leaseswere negotiated by Boyden with MountainFuel and Gas Supply, the largest gas sup-plier in Utah. Not surprising, it is also a firmin which the Mormon church has exten-sive interests and interlocks. The church'sf irst president, Nathan Eldon Tanner, thechurch's teading business adviser and aformer energy entrepreneur in his ownright, sits on Mountain Fuel's board of di-rectors, as does church official and formerCIA man Neal Maxwell. Maxwell, who isregarded as one or the most important fig-ures in the next generation of church lead-ership. is also a member of MountainFuel's executive committee. MountainFuel chairman B. Z. Kastler. in-turn. recip-rocates the favor by sitting on the boardsof two church-owned corporations. Ac-cording to our research among state legal

G E N O C I D E~::;;~;.UL.f:vr.U~f..t.(.E : ';.;leys of the Utah Ute, the Shoshoni, theGosiute. and the Paiute but also south tothe high red-rock mesas of northern Ari-zona. to the very heartland of ancientAmerica.There. among the gentle Hopi, the di-rect descendants of the cliff-dwelling An-asazi (the Ancient Ones), we found theMormon-Lamanite struggle written in highrelief. The Hopi. befitting a tribe that haslived centuries on this continent, have away of speaking of the distant past asthough it were the immediate prelude tothe present. Nothing is forgotten. Every-thing is interconnected. Add to this char-acteristic their intense religiosity, and it isnot surprising that their retations with theMormons past and present should so con-sume reservation tife today."To the Hopi these sacred mountainswere set up as a village plaza." saysThomas Banyacya. pointing out the rockhouses perched precariously on the razoredge of Ihe mesa above us. The villageis Old Oraibr, which. with nearby Shungo-pavy. is considered the oldest continuous-ly occupied community in North America.Banvacya's forefathers lived in this placeas long as 1100 ,; D and perhaps 500years before that.As an offiCial mteroreter of the tradition-al HopI leaders. known as the Village klk-

monqwis, srnce 1948. Banyacya hascome to know every detail of the longstruggle waged by the Hopr. The last per-son he mec to tell tu s story to was PresI-dent Carter. but the oresroent had moreoressmq business. ano Banyacya ceuv-

council among the Hopi had met with re-peated defeat, thanks to t1hetraditionalHopi leaders, who clung to t1henonelectedtheocratic form of government that hadserved the tribe well for more t1han1,000years.Without a "representative" councilnolhing could happen. "It does not appearthat leases acceptable to oil companiesmay be made under existing law unlessthe Hopi Indians will organize a tribalcouncil ... ," lamented one Interior De-partment official at the l ime.Enter John Boyden. By 1950 Boydenwas well connected, to say the least,among the Indian bureaucrats. As a U.S.attorney in Utah, he had handled Indian

cases for more than ten years. With theFBI before that he had writ ten a new crimi-nal law code for the Navaho Reservationand had even sought the job of Indiancommissioner. With this background,Boyden would have no difficulty in gett ingthe government to sanction him as the Ho-pi's claims attorney; all he had to do wasget the Hopi to go along.Since there was no tribal council to ap-point him. the BIA decided that Boydenshould go meet with the people of eachof the Hopi villages. explain to them themeaning of the lands claim. and then con-duct an election in each village. I f a rna-jority wanted him. he would be legallyrecognized as a Hopi attorney and wouldfile the claim.Boyden found only five ..progressive"viilages that would give him a hearing.Five other villages. populated by the "Ira-ditionals." who opposed any monetarysettlement. refused even to meet with him.Despite abysmally low voter turnouts evenIn the progressive villages that would ad-mit him. the BIA concluded that "the peo-


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granted recognition to a group of nine pro-gressive Hopi who claimed to constitutea tribal council. The eight other seats thatmake up the constitutional tribal councilremained unfilled because traditionalle ad e rs refused to participate.Six years later. and many more extra-I~al manipulations later, the new tribalcounci l entered into its' first mineral-leaseagreement. As Boyden had predicted. theminerai leases would bring a steady flow'of funds into the tribal coffers. Early oilleases in 194 resulted in a reported $3million. To show its gratitude, the tribalcouncil.which Boyden had helped create,voted to pay its attorney a $1 million feefor his e ffe rTs . l-'is prediction, made a OeG -ace earlier, that oil leases would even tu -aJiy pay his fees. proved correct.In 1966 the tribal council. guided by50yden, signed a lease that entitled Pea-body Coal to strip-mine 58,OOO.acres ofthe Black Mesa, a rnininq operation thatwould come to be known ir. the environ-~~1.~""T-~~~~~~~~ ,

.The tanc-clakns lawwas the biggest victory everobtained by governmentand lawyers over the

G,-'dians.lt was designed toend a.!! !eg~tirr:a~e indjan claimsto traditional nometanos .

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rnentai rnoverner.t as " T ' h 8 Angel of Death.In the vieW of Banyseya and the tradition-ats, the. council and Boyden had not onlyparticipated in Ilia rape of their sac re dland but also sold cut the Hopi's historicduty to protect the earth on behalf of theGreat Spirit."We Hoo is have to hold the land :cr the

religion. he wrote in an editorial. "is notworth practicing and pursuing. It is time to..;urn up me rest of our suppos~Iy sacredaltars and ritual paraphernalia."Wayne was also a member of the Hopi'smost prominent Mormon family. His orom-er Abbot is chairman of the tribal couoct.:whiie his brother Emory ha s served as e x-ecu-tive director of the tribal council.For a time, a decade ago, it looked as

if the Mormon church were going to be assuccessful at gathering H:-"pi souls asBoyden was at gat'leringHopi mineralleases. The traditional leaders spokedarkly of a Mormon conspiracy to takeover the reservation. Boyd(O~'was clearlyin control of the council ar.c its relationswith the outside world. Stewart Udall. amembe r of anothe r politicaJly prominentMormon family, had direct interest in theHopi and could make his interests felt asthe secretary of the interior, who is uiti-mately responsible for all Indian affairs. Inaj::!itior.. the commissioner of Indian at-f, . rs was a Mormon, as were prominentloca l and national BIA officials. Every-.where a Hopi looked he saw Mormons,and they were inevitably in posit ions of'~reat power.NorietJ"leless, there is no evidence tha t:r- i /-;lormons nava won the hearts an dminds of the Hopi people. Relatively fewropi children enter the Mormon ChildP;acement Program, and even fewer re-main jt'; it lo;")g e~ouQh to become ir:doc~tnnated, While sortie Hooi claim that as'11 uc !i a :;: 7~ percent of the reservation hasoeen t;apti2~d Mo::non, most knowledge-able r-;opi :aus~~a! such a figure.And, acccrcinq to :or.~deritia! sourcesv\ ithin the tribal oureaucracv. distrust of'Jhil 8oyde'" hi:nself was beginning to;"0,": in the \r~oalgovemment. Sorne of the. Junci: members, though they were pro-: -essives, were even beginni!1g to talk se---ously ot hearinq from at least one other~W firm.The matter was taken out of their hands ne n John Soyden died late in 1gaO, leav-;J his son Steve in charge of his lingeringrs iness and rns old SIA Mormon friendk' srtin Seneca to take 'over the Ute ac-


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