Sundance near Dilkon may have ties to Black separatist cult

WINDOW ROCK

A sundance that started today at a home site north of Dilkon may have ties to a Black separatist cult whose leader is currently in prison after pleading guilty to 77 counts of child sexual abuse.

The “Black Thunderbirds Freedom Sundance” is being held one mile north of the Dilkon courthouse, according to a poster advertising it.

Several homemade posters and flyers around town include drawings of hearts and flowers, a suggestion to “bring tents and moccasins” and a note that “children are definitely welcome.”

But a chapter resident believes the seemingly innocuous event is a front for the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, a Black separatist organization with a bizarre religion that includes UFOs, a veneration of ancient Egypt and the belief that the white race was created by the union of humans and dogs.

Two fundraising websites for the sundance seek donations to free Malachi York. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which produced a paper on the Nuwaubians, Malachi York is one of numerous aliases for Dwight York, the leader of the sect who is currently serving a 15- to 50-year prison term for molesting the children of his followers.

York pled guilty to 77 counts of child sexual abuse in 2003, but the original indictment was for 197 counts, and prosecutors said they could have had more than 1,000 counts if the victims had remembered the dates and circumstances surrounding the incidents.

The fundraising websites were put up by a woman named Qmamti Bnu. On the generosity.com site, she states:

“This is Qmamti Bnu of the Dine and Yamassee tribes, from Dinétah, Navajoland, Arizona. It is my responsibility and duty to secure a place for the People to commune with the Great Spirit, in order to renew our ceremonial rites. The 13th altar has been prepared just as the Ancient Ones instructed. The day of Purification is here, just as it was foretold by the old ones …

“We are in perilous times and many know the urgency for the Holy People of the Earth (you) to take responsibility for the conditions that plague humanity, among them, false imprisonment, whether spiritually, mental, and physically.”

The statement goes on to request donations to free “Dr. Malachi Z. York, Chief Black Thunderbird and the Black Thunderbirds worldwide.”

The generosity.com website has raised $30 of a $50,000 goal and a gofundme.com site has raised $795.

Carol Davis, a Dilkon resident and former chapter manager, says Qmamti Bnu is actually Reevka Thomas, an African American and Diné woman whose family’s home site is the location of the sundance.

Davis said Thomas’s partner, who goes by Malachi Pittman, is “a low-level operative” in the Nuwaubians.

According to Davis, the Nuwaubians have held events in the chapter before and she is worried, because of the design of their posters and the fact that children are explicitly invited to the sundance, that they are trying to recruit children to the cult.

A Dilkon Chapter employee said the chapter is not sanctioning the event and is hosting an emergency meeting at 6 p.m. tonight (Tuesday) to discuss ways to deal with it and possibly evict the Black Thunderbirds from the chapter.

Bnu did not respond to a Facebook message.

The Navajo Nation president’s office did not return a phone call.

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