When President Joe Biden chose Red Butte, a distinctive mountain southeast of Tusayan to announce a new national monument Tuesday, he turned a spotlight on one of the most sacred sites of the Havasu 'Baaja, or People of the Blue-Green Water.
Wii'l Gdwiisa, or "Clenched Fist Mountain," stretches more than 1,000 feet over the high plateau about 12 miles south of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is known to the Havasupai as the abdomen of Mother Earth. Red Butte, and nearby Mat Taav Tiivjunmdva, a meadow about 3 miles north of Red Butte close to the Canyon's South Rim, is her navel...