The Indigenous Future of Bears Ears

Honoring our ancestors and maintaining our living cultures, while giving forthcoming generations their own cultural ground to stand on.

BY LYLE BALENQUAH

The perspective that follows is in no way meant to be a formal declaration of the Hopi Tribe, nor am I a tribal employee or attempting to speak for all Hopi people or Indigenous cultures. I am a Hopi person who has worked as an archaeologist for over 20 years, and part of my fieldwork is conducted in the Bears Ears National Monument. I speak and write from my own experiences first and foremost.

Other factors influence my perspective, including the fact that my mother is from the Greasewood (Dep’wungwa) Clan, and my father is of the Rattlesnake (Tsu’wungwa) Clan, both from Paaqavi (Reed Springs) Village on Third Mesa of the Hopi Reservation located in northeastern Arizona. Acknowledging this lineage establishes a connection to Hopi ancestors who once inhabited various regions of the Southwest. In truth, when we conceptualize our history, we always begin in the present and work back to previous generations.

This is based on the Hopi perspective that we are a living culture, not simply rooted in some ethnographic past of a black-and-white photograph. The knowledge of our history manifests in the present amongst the Hopis who retain and continue to use such information in our daily and ceremonial lives. This is evident in many forms within traditional Hopi culture: the crops we grow and eat, the art we create, the ceremonies we enact, the spaces we worship in, and the language we speak. All of which is really an accumulation of ancestral Hopi experiences, learned over countless generations.

TIM PETERSON

My own ancestors once lived in and along the rivers, canyons, and mesas of the Bears Ears before setting upon epic migrations that brought us to our current homelands. For generations they inhabited these areas and left evidence of their presence in the form of ancestral villages, rock art, artifacts, shrines, and burials. This tangible proof forms the “footprints” of Hopi ancestry that I now strive to learn from and document through my archaeological work. Additionally, there are many other Hopi clans, Pueblo groups, and tribal nations who can trace their ancestral lineage to this landscape. Some still reside in this region, continuing an unbroken line of Indigenous presence. We have always been here.

Although many tribes have ties to the Bears Ears, their connections and history in the region are often challenged due to the imposition of historical land designations. For Hopi, we must acknowledge that our current reservation is over 200 miles south of the Bears Ears region. For some, that means we should have no say in how those lands are managed. In Western concepts of land ownership, if you don’t have legal title to the earth you claim, you literally have no ground to stand upon. This practice is the means by which much of the lands of this country were stolen from Indigenous peoples, supported by the 19th century ideology of “Manifest Destiny.” 

The generalization of federal lands as “public lands” also has detrimental impacts on Indigenous connections to ancestral landscapes, effectively erasing centuries of Indigenous use and presence across millions of acres. An underlying theme of this concept implies that because Indigenous people are no longer “found there,” they have no interest in or connection to those landscapes. This often results in the removal of Indigenous people from the current processes of federal land management. Regardless of these obstacles, Indigenous peoples continue to fight to maintain their respective stewardship values of these lands.

TIM PETERSON

My introduction to the Bears Ears region began over a decade ago when I started working as a guide on the San Juan River, which forms portions of the southern boundary of the Obama-era monument designation. More recently, I have added archaeological fieldwork in areas north of the river to my experiences. This work comprises a full spectrum of documentation: surveying and mapping of ancestral village sites, artifact analysis, conducting condition assessments, and in some cases, subsequent stabilization of architectural materials that have stood for 1,000 years or more.

I work alongside other archaeologists. Some are Indigenous, but not many. Our crews are neither numerous nor large. The sites we work on have not been assessed in decades, or perhaps never at all. Our work helps to establish baseline information that gives us a “snapshot” in time of a specific site, its associated artifacts (if there are any left), and the overall state of the surrounding environment. This data will aid current and future archaeologists and land managers in tracking overall site conditions in the long term. We also record detailed information about visitor impacts occurring at sites, which have increased substantially over the past few years, in large part due to increased publicity and social media. These impacts highlight the current lack of funding and personnel devoted to the overall management of this landscape.

TIM PETERSON

There are other researchers, volunteers, and conservation groups working to educate the public on “visit with respect” etiquette, as well as documenting all aspects of the Bears Ears National Monument, including paleontology, geology, hydrology, flora, fauna, and forest and range management. Expanding our Indigenous and scientific understanding of the Bears Ears must remain a high priority among land managers. The process of learning about our Indigenous history in the Bears Ears provides opportunities to strengthen the foundations of our cultures, not only in the historical sense of who we once were, but also how we self-identify in the present and into the future. Personally, can I still call myself a “Hopi” if I let the evidence of how we became Hopi be forever lost or forgotten? Or do we step up and actively work to protect and preserve those foundations? When it comes to the Bears Ears, Indigenous people as a whole are choosing to pursue the latter action. 

This work is being led by the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, comprised of the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Ute Indian Tribe. This coalition, including other tribal nations and their allies, is fighting to ensure that the Indigenous presence in this region remains at the forefront, despite the fact that Indigenous connections to the Bears Ears landscape are repeatedly questioned or denied outright. This has taken form in acts of systemic racism, political gerrymandering, and attempts to minimize tribal involvement in land-management policy directly related to the Bears Ears National Monument. The reduction of the tribally endorsed Obama monument designation by the Trump administration was yet another attempt to silence the Indigenous voice.

We now have new leadership in the country. We have an Indigenous woman, Deb Haaland, from the Pueblo of Laguna, as secretary of the interior. Among her first tasks will be to oversee a review of the Bears Ears National Monument reduction, and hopefully a reinstatement of the Obama designation of 1.35 million acres, if not the original tribal coalition proposal of 1.9 million acres. If this becomes reality, what then? 

Well, the work continues. To what degree remains unknown and is dependent upon whether or not additional funding and personnel are provided for the management of the reinstated monument. If the tribal coalition and its allies are to have any chance of success, sustained resources need to be directed to their efforts. Simply reversing Trump’s decision is not enough. Tribes must have a lead role in the development of land-management policy, especially when the land base encompasses large parts of our ancestral history and self-identity. Furthermore, any monument advisory committees must include tribal representatives that are chosen by the tribes themselves, not by outside interests. The inclusion of Indigenous stewardship values within these decisions is long overdue. 

I have hopes that programs will be developed that allow for tribal members to reconnect with and strengthen their cultural connections to this landscape. This should include creating space for the recruiting and training of future Indigenous “scientists” that builds upon the work we do now. This also needs to include opportunities for our tribal advisors and elders to conduct formally supported field visits to these areas, not only to reaffirm cultural histories, but then also to teach that information back to their communities. As Indigenous people we need to retain control over our histories and be able to learn amongst ourselves in accordance with our own cultural practices.

We also need to engage in meaningful collaboration with our non-Indigenous counterparts in science and land administration. I have seen from my own work the benefits that can result from these partnerships. If formal consultation with tribes is to be effective, it needs to start from the very beginning, in the field, and not after management plans are already written. These types of efforts will ensure that Indigenous knowledge and values become established and maintained within policies directed toward our ancestral lands. 

TIM PETERSON

Yes, there is a lot of work to be done, and we are only just beginning the many steps in this journey. Our endeavors entail more than drawing a line on a map to protect a fragile ecosystem from the development of the fossil fuel industry. It’s about more than protection of archaeological sites from wanton vandalism or preservation of these sites for solely scientific purposes. Protection of this landscape grants us the opportunity to share with the outside world that we are more than historical footnotes, to show that our ties to ancestral lands traverse distance and time. At the heart of our efforts lies an inherent act of respect, honoring our ancestors and maintaining our living cultures, while providing forthcoming generations their own cultural ground to stand upon. This is the Indigenous future of Bears Ears.

Lyle Balenquah works as an archaeologist and outdoor guide throughout the Southwest. Follow his work online at From the Earth Studio ›
 

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed by Advocate contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Grand Canyon Trust.