BY SARANA RIGGS
Grand Canyon National Park turns 100 years old in 2019, but the centennial anniversary is a mere slice compared to the indigenous history of the Grand Canyon region. For the 11 tribes that call the canyon home, the park’s milestone is muddied with mistreatment. The creation of Grand Canyon National Park pushed the canyon’s original inhabitants off their ancestral lands and excluded them from stewardship, management, and economic opportunities in the park. But the centennial opens the door to redefine relationships, have tough conversations, and bring new ideas to the table.
Building on the intertribal gatherings we’ve hosted in the past, the Grand Canyon Trust is facilitating meetings with tribal members to discuss the centennial of Grand Canyon National Park. We are committed to bringing indigenous voices together, listening to their priorities, and supporting their vision.
Centennial gathering members are looking at the 100th year of Grand Canyon National Park as an opportunity to recognize the past and chart a path forward. In the five meetings we’ve hosted so far, they have discussed protecting resources, developing economic opportunities, and addressing educational needs, while honoring their teachings, cultures, and ways of life. For Native people of the Colorado Plateau, the canyon is their heartbeat. Let that guide us into the next century and beyond.
Ophelia Watahomigie-Corliss, Havasupai
OW: On a personal level, it really makes you feel small. And I think that’s important. The Grand Canyon from the Havasupai perspective is the embryotic, the emergence, the origin of how we came to be. We try to take care of it, we’ve always wanted to take care of it, and we still feel like we do take care of it. Living at the bottom of the canyon, I feel like I hear the heartbeat of Mother Earth a lot closer than I would on higher ground. So it would seem to me that the Havasupais, in their blood and with every breath, already know how to take care of the Grand Canyon.
OW: Borders. The park service showed up and told us what the borders were. And it was really hard to understand that we couldn’t enter park-service land anymore, but the Supais kept doing it. Supais lived in Indian Gardens for a long time.
I think one of the issues has been the national park’s original inability to communicate with the source communities who either lived there or would come there for ritual pilgrimages. So, the original partnership lacked and never existed. And then after about 80 years, then they wanted to start creating partnerships. And I appreciate that, I just wish they would acknowledge the years before. To acknowledge that they didn’t want us involved, and to say they’re sorry would allow most tribes to move forward in a productive manner.
OW: I’m still excited, maybe because I’m young and optimistic. But I feel like the people in positions inside the national park are listening to our perspective and they want to know what we have to say. And I’m excited that we might actually get somewhere. I feel like when I talk to these individuals in the park service that they want to help. So it’s a matter of teaming up with them and finding a way for them to make it through the red tape of the federal agency they work for.
OW: I want people to know that the cultural history of the Grand Canyon is not the history you read in colonial books. I want them to honor and respect our oral history and to understand that the history of the Grand Canyon doesn’t start with Mary Colter, Fred Harvey, and the Santa Fe Railway. But rather, to find in the timeline where the creation of Grand Canyon National Park fits into our oral history. So then we can see the history as a whole, not separate. They are one history, and we should be recognizing all of it at once.
Georgie Pongyesva, Hopi
GP: The canyon is a very sacred place. It’s awe, without words. For the Hopi, it’s a very spiritual place because of the Sipapuni, where we emerged from into this world. And it’s where we go back to when we leave this world. I’ve felt an energy down there that is unreal. They say our ancestors dwell in the canyon, and I definitely feel that.
GP: I would love to see more Native presence, and not like the fake trinkets you see at the park. It’s laughable that people really believe these things are true authentic Native. I’d like to have everyone’s voices represented in a respectful way. And I am excited to have our youth more present in the park. Some of our youth have never even been to the Grand Canyon because there are no opportunities for them to visit, or go there, or afford to go there. So overall to create more access for our tribal members and have us be able to tell our stories.
GP: We’re still here. We’re still in active communities. We still care very deeply for the lands and this landscape. We still use it and are stewards. The reciprocity of respect — what you give comes back to you. This is a one-of-a-kind place. It provides so much on so many different levels — spirituality, sustenance, and water. And it’s so important to protect it, and all these resources, because they’re not renewable.
Ed Kabotie, Hopi
EK: The canyon is a place of origin. The canyon is a place where the spirits return to the afterlife. The canyon is a place of wonder, of fear, of life and death. The canyon teaches you humility by its vastness, by its hostility, and by its peace at the same time. The canyon is many things to me. When I think about the canyon, I sense power, and strength, and holiness.
EK: People come to the canyon to appreciate its beauty while being totally ignorant of the suffering that’s taken place there, of how the landscapes have been abused, are being abused, and how the indigenous people of those landscapes are suffering. But I’m very encouraged by what’s taking place in the park right now. I see very pointed efforts to reestablish relationships within our communities.
EK: I’m most excited about the outreach to Native communities in an effort to help educate outside cultures about who we are. In the indigenous communities involved with the Grand Canyon, all of us are experiencing some type of environmental, historic, personal, or cultural trauma. The affiliated tribes of the Grand Canyon have all been severely assaulted over the last 125 years by government entities, mining companies, BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] boarding schools. It’s hard to describe to an outsider what has taken place in our culture. So I think what I’m most excited about is our voice. That is what brings healing and understanding, not only to victimized individuals and communities, but also to the greater culture and the world.
EK: I would love to see an increase in the awareness of the First Nations’ cultures and our relationships to the canyon. We get visitors from all over the world who are interested in seeing our landscape, and I’d hope that stories of our people would be elevated through the park service and our voices would be heard to the world.
Renae Yellowhorse, Navajo
RY: The canyon is a sacred space. You only go there with prayers in your heart. With purpose on your mind, with purpose in your steps. Then you leave it the way you found it. You don’t look back. You don’t wander there. All those spaces are protection places for us. That’s where life began. It’s where I get my cultural identity. The emergence place, where the waters meet together, that’s where life begins. When I go to the canyon, when I go to that sacred space, it links me to all the people that came before me. That is where we come from, and it makes me feel grounded to know that.
RY: The Grand Canyon itself, the whole area, is older than the park. There are original people that are there, and for it to continue on into the next 100 years, to the next millennia, is to recognize the original people from there are still there. We’re not in the history books, we’re not back then. We’re here right now. We work in the parks. We work to defend and protect the parks. Talk to me, ask me about my history. Ask me about how I feel about the canyon. Don’t ask a historian. Don’t ask an archaeologist that’s not Diné or a Native. Ask me, I’m right here.
RY: I’d like to see my progeny — all my great-grandchildren, and their grandchildren — be able to go to the canyon and realize and know that those places are protected and preserved for them. I don’t want them to come to face what we had to. The humiliation, the attempts to make us so ashamed of where we come from. I want them to be happy. I want them to go there and realize that that’s what we worked for, that’s what we fought for, and that it will still be there for their own grandchildren, for their own great-grandchildren.
Richard Powskey, Hualapai
RP: The Grand Canyon is a place where the Hualapai live and farm, and move back and forth with our sister tribe, the Havasupai. There are a lot of ties with all the dwellings and all the different areas, the sacred sites, the springs, the different elements that we gather in the Grand Canyon — like salt, red paint, different plants like tobacco. It’s scenic, it’s beautiful, it’s awe-inspiring. We protect it as much as we can.
RP: Since the creation of the national park at Grand Canyon, their whole approach was not very accommodating to the tribes. Theodore Roosevelt went there, designated it, and had all the tribes moved out of that area, claiming it a natural treasure for the American people. We are the American people too, and that’s our homeland. That’s where we’re from. So when we look back on our ties to the canyon, we can’t just abandon that and go by somebody’s proclamation that moved us out. We’re still there, and we’ve been there forever, and we’re still going to be there in the future forever.
RP: I’d like to see more people involved that are from the area, that know the history of the environment in that local region. People need to feel welcome there, and we can share our histories and our cultures with people who are genuinely interested. I think that’s one of the things we want to promote and also help people understand that, as Indian people and Natives, we have a way of life and a quality of life that we hold on to and value.
RP: Come to the Grand Canyon. Experience it. Enjoy the spiritual aspect that it will bring to you. Be thankful for all that you have. You come to a place as beautiful as the canyon with no words to describe it, just sit there and don’t say anything, and honor it.
Sarana Riggs manages the Grand Canyon Trust's Grand Canyon Program.
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.
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