During March, 1992, Mendocino County will join a nation-wide effort to collect desperately needed food and other supplies for traditional Navaho (Dineh) and Hopi families in the Big Mountain area of northeastern Arizona.
The Sprinq Food Run to Biq Mountain is part of an ongoing effort to aid these heroic families, who lack some of the most basic items necessary for human survival, because of governmental policies that deny them fundamental rights to support themselves. It is being coordinated by the Native Support Network, a Philobased organization, and by the Veterans Peace Action Teams, a national organization founded by well-known veteran and peace activist Brian Willson.
FOOD: beans, white flour, rice, sugar, coffee, cooking oil or shortening, powdered or canned milk, other non-perishables. Not desirable: foods packed in glass containers, or in packages that have heen unsealed.
WARM BLANKETS AND QUALITY COATS. Miscellaneous clothing is not as needed as some of the other items, so clothing donations will be taken only if there is room on the trucks.
WOOL for weaving: Navaho women support their families by weaving and selling beautiful rugs, but the government has confiscated or destroyed most of their sheep herds, so wool is hard for the women to come by.
FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS for perishables such as vegetables, fruit, etc., and for gasoline for vehicles hauling supplies. (Checks can be made payable to "Native Support Network," PO Box 146, Philo, CA 95466.)
TRUCKS for hauling supplies are urgently needed. Anyone who has a truck that she/he could either drive or would be willing to loan to a competent driver, is urged to call one of the contact people immediately!
For more than twenty years, our government has been carrying on a ruthless campaign to coerce the families into "voluntarily" leaving their ancestral homelands so that the lands can be mined for coal, uranium and other minerals.
Peabody Coal, a conglomeration of several multinational corporations, wants the land for mining operations. In 1974, Peabody, its lawyers, and co-conspiring legislators convinced Congress to pass a law (PL 93-531), that extinguishes Navaho and Hopi rights to lands that they had lived on for centuries, and demands that the Indians leave.
Since then, many Indians have complied with the unjust law, and have relocated to reservation border towns. Most now live in abject poverty in unfriendly, unsympathetic, societies that are completely foreign to them. Some have died as a result of the hardships suffered from the relocation.
However, a small, hard-core group of about 350 extended families (about 1000 people) is resisting the relocation efforts. The backbone of this resistance are elderly women who live in traditional hogans, without phones, power or plumbing. They try to raise livestockÑin particular, sheepÑfor their livelihoods. They are deeply religious, and are tied spiritually to their lands and to their livestock.
In order to weaken these elders' resolve, and to coerce them into voluntarily moving, the government is intimidating them with a variety of ""relocation activities." These include killing or impounding of Indians' livestock, destroying their homes and places of worship, fencing off their water and grazing lands, filling their wells with cement, poisoning water and vegetation, and otherwise harassing them.
Because of such assaults on their food supplies and other resources, the resisting families find they must look to the outside world for help until they can beat the law and regain the right to live in peace and harmony on their sacred land.
Since 1990, the Veterans Peace Action Teams have been conducting nation-wide food runs to the Big Mountain resisters. They now conduct three such runs per year.
In The Past, Mendocino County Has Generated Substantial Amounts Of Aid For Big Mountain. Last fall, during two national food runs (one in September, and one over Thanksgiving weekend), seven vehicles of food, wool and other supplies, and over $2,500 were collected for the Big Mountain people. Since then, additional loads of wool and food have been delivered whenever vehicles and drivers have been available.
In February, the Native Support Network sponsored a highly successful showing of Navaho rugs for the Weavinq Project, a collective of about 85 Navaho women who help to support their families by weaving beautiful, traditional rugs for sale.
Facilitators of the Weaving Project help by obtaining wool for the women (who have lost most of their sheep because of relocation activities) and by selling the finished rugs in travelling rug shows. 100% of the money from the rug sales goes back to the Navaho weavers.
During the rug show, 29 rugs were sold, and over $14,000 was raised for the weavers. Two art galleries that helped make it happen by donating time, energy and show space for the rugs were Tangents of Fort Bragg and Blue Sky Beadwork of Point Arena.
Until the people in Big Mountain area are allowed to live in peace, and with dignity, Mendocino County and the Native Support Network will continue to participate in support and relief efforts.
For more information, please contact the Native Support Network, P0 Box 146, Philo, CA 95466, (707) 895-3736; or call a local contact person as listed in this press release.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited