Haaland welcomed ‘home’ to Bears Ears

By Krista Allen
Special to the Times

MOKI DUGWAY and MULEY POINT, Utah

The Interior secretary was gifted a ch’ah, a beeldléí, a ts’aa’ and a Shash Jaa’ T-shirt, among other things before she left this area, her ancestral homeland, just northwest of Valley of the Gods.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland also had tóshchíín (naadą́ą́ʼ dootłʼizhí), chiiłchin (tsiiłchin), aza’aleeh (haza’aleeh), tł’ohchin, nímasii – organic food from the Shash Jaa’ area – as she was welcomed home on Thursday morning.

“She really enjoyed it and she ate all of it,” said Davis Filfred, the board chair for Utah Diné Bikéyah, who sat next to Haaland at Muley Point where she met privately with a few tribal dignitaries and some members of the UDB and the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition.

The meeting – without an agenda – lasted only one hour.

“It was all verbal,” said Filfred, the former delegate from Aneth, Utah. “We had to be (at Muley Point) at 7:45 a.m.”

The meeting began 15 minutes later. Jonah Yellowman, a spiritual advisor and a UDB board member, sang a traveling song. And Ute Mountain Ute Councilman Malcolm Lehi gave an opening prayer.

“This is my third Interior secretary that I met with,” Filfred said, adding that he’s also met with former secretaries Sally Jewell and Ryan Zinke.

“Sally Jewell was very approachable,” he said. “I sat with her in a tepee at Bears Ears. We sat on the ground (Native) style, cross-legged, and we spoke with the coalition members.

“I’m very glad to sit with (Haaland) at the table because she sat by me,” he said. “I told her (Zinke) sat across the table – way over there. I thought that wasn’t being approachable.”

Damage to sacred land

Haaland, a Kawaik, was in the Beehive State last week as part of an Interior Department review of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, both of which were downsized by former President Donald Trump at the behest of Sooléí politicians.

The Dec. 4, 2017, decision took effect 60 days later on Feb. 2, 2018.

The 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument, established by President Barack Obama in 2016, was reduced to 201,397 acres.

And the 1.88-million-acre Grand Staircase National Monument, established by Bill Clinton in 1996, was reduced to 997,490 acres.

Haaland didn’t visit the Bears Ears buttes because roads were either muddy or covered with snow.

The twin buttes and surrounding landscape are considered sacred by many of the region’s Native tribes. But the threats to the Shash Jaa’ region come in many forms: from roaring ATVs to uranium mining to Tooh Dine’é visitors seeking outdoor adventure.

Visitors often leave trash, loot fossils and remnants of the Anasazi and scratch graffiti over ancient petroglyphs.

“And that’s how we feel about Bears Ears,” Filfred said. “Bears Ears is like a church, a holy place … where we go to do our offering, our prayers and we don’t want it bombed.

“We don’t want people to come in and bomb the place and take out all the timber,” he said. “The timber, that’s a habitat for all the wildlife and the species that are up (on Bears Ears).”

Filfred said he doesn’t want Shash Jaa’ made into a parking lot nor to remain defiled and looted.

“I know what that is because that’s what I grew up in,” Filfred told Haaland. “I don’t want that for Bears Ears. I am for wilderness. I want this to be untouched for generations and generations to come so our great-great-grandchildren can see it like it was since Day One.”

Filfred also told Haaland that his father is a well-known hataałii on the north side of the San Juan River and everything that he does comes off of Bears Ears.

“You take the red stones, the yellow sandstones, the white stones and you grind them into powder,” he said. “My dad will sit there and spend hours sandpainting on the ground so his patient can sleep on it overnight or sit on it for a couple of hours.

“And all these sand paintings come off of (Bears Ears),” he said. “The black comes from (lightning-damaged trees). It’s grinded into a powdery black and it’s mixed with other colors. This is way before crayons were ever invented. And this isn’t written down, it’s from (memory).”

Haaland said she understands what the Shash Jaa’ region means to the Native Americans who have cultural ties to Bears Ears.

“I understand everything,” Haaland said to the 20-plus attendees at Muley Point. “I want you to know that it is my job to take back (to President Joe Biden) your thoughts, your words, your feelings, your emotions. That’s exactly what I’ll do.”

Haaland said she appreciates and enjoyed the food from Bears Ears that was prepared for her that morning – these are the types of Native foods she grew up on.

“Yes, I do feel very much at home here,” Haaland said as she thanked the attendees for praying with her to show that they are in the fight together.

“And that we endure regardless of what obstacles we face,” Haaland said. “I appreciate so much your strength, your wisdom and your love. I look forward to the next time our paths cross.”

Haaland later posted on Twitter photos of her overlooking Ooljéé’tó-Tsébii’ndzisgaii area: “The earth holds so much power. We must all work together to honor it.”

Restoration of Shash Jaa’

Haaland on Wednesday evening met with President Jonathan Nez and Pueblo of Zuni Lt. Gov. Carleton Bowekaty and Ute Tribal Business Committee member Shaun Chapoose at the Bluff Pavilion in Bluff, Utah.

This meeting was for only tribal officials and a handful of invited guests.

“Even Miss Navajo (Shaandiin Parrish) wasn’t allowed to (sit at the table with the leaders),” said a source familiar with the meeting.

Parrish that night posted on Facebook that Haaland called her over and made room for her to stand in a row of male leaders who attended the meeting.

“I saw her gesture as a literal depiction of her making room for all indigenous women,” Parrish said.

Tribal leaders say they are hopeful that Haaland will recommend to Biden the restoration of Bears Ears National Monument.

Nez said he supports the restoration of Bears Ears’ original boundaries and the potential expansion to 1.9 million acres.

“This was an opportunity to share with Secretary Haaland the significance of Bears Ears to the Navajo people,” Nez wrote in a statement. “This landscape is home to many historical and cultural sites, plants, water, traditional medicines and teachings for our people.”

Nez added that the Shash Jaa’ area not only provided refuge for the Diné in times of conflict but it’s also the birthplace of Hashké Naabaah.

“But it is more than that,” Nez said. “Bears Ears is sacred, and it deserves to be protected.”

“Going to Blanding you’ll see all those ‘No Monument’ signs,” Filfred said. “That’s how it is here. What’s it called? Ping-pong.”

Political ping-pong

Hopi Vice Chairman Clark Tenakhongva said he had hoped that Biden would use an early executive order to restore the national monuments to their original size.

Tenakhongva, the co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, expressed disappointment that the courts haven’t ruled on whether Trump had the authority to reduce the monuments under the Antiquities Act.

“It’s still in litigation,” Filfred said of the case that was filed in court after Trump’s unprecedented move. “That’s what I’m hoping for – Bears Ears restored back to its original size or add some to it, 1.9 million acres.”

The Sooléí delegation, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mitt Romney, are urging Haaland and the Biden administration to be collaborative on a long-term, legislative solution with Congress for the future of the monuments rather than following the same path of their predecessors and using their powers under the Antiquities Act to designate the monuments with a stroke of a pen.

Political “ping-ponging” doesn’t serve anybody and the only way to stop it is getting a bill through Congress, said Cox.

“There’s nothing fun about what we’ve been arguing about over the past decade,” Cox said. “Can we find solutions? I think there is an opportunity for that, to provide the resources that are needed. But all of those things can be done (only) through legislation. It can’t be done through executive order.

“But that’s hard,” he said. “It’s hard work. If it was easy, we would have done it already.”

Tribal leaders say all Trump did was open a wound.

Filfred added, “And that’s what we’re doing — is fighting.”

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