Armed Forest Service Agents Desecrate Sacred Fire at Peaks Ceremony

ONCE UPON A TIME IN BIG MOUNTAIN AS A WORLD AS YOU ALL HAVE NEVER KNOWN or as you wish to not know: prophecies were mentioned by both Dineh and traditional Hopis, we have to return to Creator’s Road. Instead, we divert from that to honor and value the colonial doctrines and keep expecting It to privilege us “rights.” I was at the Big Mtn. Sun Dance during this ‘sacred fire’ thingy for the Peaks, and all I heard from Dineh speakers was “We need to honor our military service personnel!” We no longer honor our true warriors, but instead we pray and empower the colonial forces that could obliterate our human identities. Their colonial laws will march over us IF we don’t seek solidarity and the truth of real land-base liberation like the Relocation Resisters of Big Mtn.

Further, I understand how devalued and violated one feels when the law tramples on your “freedom” of speech and religion and it is as worst (it seems) as when they will tear gas and beat you then arrest you. This particular Sun Dance got altered first because of federal police threats in 1996 and sponsors decided to move all the sacred elements. Eventually, it is (in my personal opinion), now, way too altered since the Real Intention of the 1983 SDN Sun Dance was for giving strength to resistance to relocation and coal mining. Today, the new sponsors of this Dance ritual allow political retoric to enter into the midst of Dancers and Singers who are in meditation. Here, is where they express their “American” patriotism and prayer for U.S. military aggressions also.

-Kat