Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T04:44:21.133Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dignity as (Self-) Determination: Hopi Sovereignty in the Face of US Dispossessions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Justin B. Richland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 2013, the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort began spraying artificial snow made from reclaimed wastewater on Arizona's highest peak, a place the Hopi people call Nuvatukya'ovi, “Snow-on-top-of-it.” As one of the Hopis' most sacred places, the home of the katsinam and the southwestern boundary marker of their aboriginal territory, the Hopi have fought for decades to stop development of the ski resort, which today sits on US Forest Service land. Viewing the history of this dispute through the lens of Atuahene's notion of a “dignity taking,” this article argues that despite never having been relocated, the indignities that the Hopi have suffered by US dispossessions of much of their aboriginal territory are the product of a series of bureaucratic sleights of hand that only bear the mark of legality if one ignores history and denies the enduring right to self-determination and sovereignty that Hopi have continuously claimed with regard to the totality of their aboriginal land.

Yuuyahiwa,

Ayamo Nuvatukya'ove'e.

Oo'oomawutu,

angqw puma naayuwasinaya,

pewi'i.

They are preparing themselves [for a journey],

Over there at the snow-capped mountains [San Francisco Peaks].

The clouds,

From there, they are putting on their endowments [of rain power],

To come here.

A Hopi katsinam song recalled by Emory Sekaquaptewa (from Sekaquaptewa and Washburn, 2004, 468)

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , Fall 2016 , pp. 917 - 938
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Atuahene, B. 2014. We Want What's Ours. Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barak, A. 2015. Human Dignity. The Constitutional Value and the Constitutional Right, trans. Kayros, D. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Byrd, J. 2011. The Transit of Empire. Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Castiglione, J. D. 2008. Human Dignity Under the Fourth Amendment. Wisconsin Law Review 655:101–56.Google Scholar
Clemmer, R. O. 1995. Roads in the Sky: The Hopi Indians in a Century of Change. Boulder, CO: Westview Google Scholar
Dongoske, K., Ferguson, T. J., and Jenkins, L. 1993. Understanding the Past Through Hopi Oral History. Native Peoples Winter:24–31.Google Scholar
Dongoske, K., Yeats, M., Anyon, R., and Ferguson, T. J. 1997. Archaeological Cultures and Cultural Affiliation: Hopi and Zuni Perspectives in the American Southwest. American Antiquity 62 (4): 600–08.Google Scholar
Eggan, F. 1950. Social Organization of the Western Pueblos. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, T. J., Berlin, G. L., and Kuwanwisiwma, L. J. 2009. Kukhepya: Searching for Hopi Trails. In Landscapes of Movement: The Anthropology of Paths, Trails, and Roads, ed. Snead, J. E., Erikson, C. L., and Darling, J. A., 20–41. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Fewkes, J. W. 1900. Property‐Right in Eagles Among the Hopi. American Anthropologist 2 (4) 690–707.Google Scholar
Glesney, R. D. 2011. The Right to Dignity. Columbia Human Rights Law Review 43: 65–142.Google Scholar
Glowacka, M., Washburn, D., and Richland, J. 2009. Nuvatukya'ovi. San Francisco Peaks: Balancing Western Economies with Native American Spiritualities. Current Anthropology 50 (4): 547–61.Google Scholar
Harris, W. 1997. Dignity and Vulnerability. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hough, Walter E. 1897. The Hopi in Relation to Their Plant Environment. American Anthropologist 10 (2): 33–47.Google Scholar
Hough, Walter E. 1898. Environmental Interrelations in Arizona. American Anthropologist 11 (5): 133–55.Google Scholar
James, H. 1974. Pages from Hopi History. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, L., Ferguson, T. J., and Dongoske, K. 1994. A Reexamination of the Concept of Hopitutsqwa. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory, Tempe, AZ, November 11.Google Scholar
Kuwanwisiwma, L. J., and Ferguson, T. J. 2009. “Hopitutskwa and Ang Kuktota; The Role of Archaeological Sites in Defining Hopi Cultural Landscapes.” In The Archaeology of Meaningful Places, ed. Brenda J. Bowser and Marìa Nieves Zedeño, 90–106. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Laird, W. D. 1977. Hopi Bibliography. Comprehensive and Annotated. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Mahoney, M. 2011. This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land: An Historical Narrative of Intergenerational Conflict Over Public Use Management of the San Francisco Peaks. MA Thesis on file with Arizona State University, School of Sustainability.Google Scholar
Ostler, J. 2010. The Lakotas and The Black Hills. New York: Viking Press Google Scholar
Parsons, E. C., ed. 1936. Hopi Journal of Alexander M. Stephen. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Paust, J. J. 1984. Human Dignity as a Constitutional Right: A Jurisprudentially Based Inquiry into Criteria and Content. Howard Law Journal 24: 145–225.Google Scholar
Prucha, F. P. 1986. The Great Father. The United States Government and American Indians. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, M. 2012. Dignity: Its History and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rushforth, S., and Upham, S. 1992. A Hopi Social History: Anthropological Perspectives on Sociocultural Persistence and Change. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Sekaquaptewa, E., and Washburn, D. 2004. They Go Along Singing: Reconstructing the Hopi Past from Metaphors in Song and Image. American Antiquity 69 (3): 457–86.Google Scholar
Voth, H. R. 1912. Notes on the Eagle Cult of the Hopi. In Brief Miscellaneous Hopi Papers. Field Museum of Natural History. Publication 157. Anthropological Series. Vol. XI., No. 2.Google Scholar
Whiteley, P. M. 1998. Rethinking Hopi Ethnography. Smithsonian Series on Ethnographic Inquiry. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press.Google Scholar
Whiteley, P. M. 2008. The Orayvi Split: A Hopi Transformation. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 87, 2 vols.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, C. F. 1988. American Indians, Time, and the Law. Native Societies in Modern Constitutional Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. 1969 Philosophical Investigations 1, trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. London: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia. 30 US (5 Peters) 1 (1831).Google Scholar
Healing v. Jones, 210 F. Supp, 125 (1962).Google Scholar
Hopi Tribe v. United States of America, Docket 196, 39 Indian Claims Commission at 2010 (1976).Google Scholar
Hopi Village of Shungopavi v. United States of America, Docket 210, Indian Claims Commission Records, RG 33494‐23‐054. (1951) Petition National Archives, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Johnson v. M'Intosh, 21 US (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823).Google Scholar
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 503 (1903).Google Scholar
Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Service, 479 F.3d 1024 (2007).Google Scholar
United States v. Joseph, 94 US 614 (1876).Google Scholar
United States v. Sandoval 231 U.S. 28 (1913).Google Scholar
Wilson v. Block, 708 F.2d 735 (1983).Google Scholar
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 US 515 (1832).Google Scholar
Code of Federal Regulations 50, 22 et seq., Eagle Permits.Google Scholar
Establishing the Coconino National Forest, Proclamation of President Theodore Roosevelt. July 2, 1908.Google Scholar
Establishing the San Francisco Mountains Forest Reserve, Proclamation of President William H. McKinley. August 17, 1898.Google Scholar
Forest Service Manual Ch. 2360 Heritage Program Management; Ch. 2367 Permitting.Google Scholar
Moqui Reserve, Executive Order of President Chester A. Arthur. December 16, 1882.Google Scholar
Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, PL 726; 60 Stat. 1049.Google Scholar
Forest Reserve Act of 1891, 26 Stats. 1095.Google Scholar
Forest Service Organic Administration Act of 1897, 16 U.S.C. § 475.Google Scholar
Public Law 94‐465, 90 Stat. 1990 (October 8, 1976).Google Scholar
Religious Freedom and Restoration Act of 1993 42 U.S.C.§ 2000.Google Scholar
Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement Between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic (Villa De Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848).Google Scholar
Annual Climate Statistics, Hopi Tribal Department of Natural Resources. http://www.hopi-nsn.gov/department-natural-resources-2 (accessed March 5, 2012).Google Scholar
Letter of Sen. Barry Goldwater to Superintendent John McGuire, 9 August 1978; copy of letter on record with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, Kykotsmovi AZ.Google Scholar
Letter of Commissioner Ezra A. Hayt to W. H. Mateer, 14 August 1879.Google Scholar
Letter of Commissioner H. S. Price to Secretary of Interior H. M. Teller, 13 December 1882.Google Scholar
Letter of Hopi Agent W. H. Mateer to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, E. A. Hayt, 1 May 1879. MSS 343; John S. Boyden Collection; 20th & 21st Century Western and Mormon Americana; L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.Google Scholar
Reporter's Transcript, Public Hearing of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors, Flagstaff, AZ (27 April 1974). p. 259.Google Scholar
San Francisco Mountains Forest Reserve, Letter from the Secretary of the Interior to the House of Representatives, 10 March 1906.Google Scholar
USDA Forest Service, Arizona Snowbowl Facilities Improvements Final Environmental Impact Statement, 2 vols. (2005).Google Scholar
Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia. 30 US (5 Peters) 1 (1831).Google Scholar
Healing v. Jones, 210 F. Supp, 125 (1962).Google Scholar
Hopi Tribe v. United States of America, Docket 196, 39 Indian Claims Commission at 2010 (1976).Google Scholar
Hopi Village of Shungopavi v. United States of America, Docket 210, Indian Claims Commission Records, RG 33494‐23‐054. (1951) Petition National Archives, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Johnson v. M'Intosh, 21 US (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823).Google Scholar
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 503 (1903).Google Scholar
Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Service, 479 F.3d 1024 (2007).Google Scholar
United States v. Joseph, 94 US 614 (1876).Google Scholar
United States v. Sandoval 231 U.S. 28 (1913).Google Scholar
Wilson v. Block, 708 F.2d 735 (1983).Google Scholar
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 US 515 (1832).Google Scholar
Code of Federal Regulations 50, 22 et seq., Eagle Permits.Google Scholar
Establishing the Coconino National Forest, Proclamation of President Theodore Roosevelt. July 2, 1908.Google Scholar
Establishing the San Francisco Mountains Forest Reserve, Proclamation of President William H. McKinley. August 17, 1898.Google Scholar
Forest Service Manual Ch. 2360 Heritage Program Management; Ch. 2367 Permitting.Google Scholar
Moqui Reserve, Executive Order of President Chester A. Arthur. December 16, 1882.Google Scholar
Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, PL 726; 60 Stat. 1049.Google Scholar
Forest Reserve Act of 1891, 26 Stats. 1095.Google Scholar
Forest Service Organic Administration Act of 1897, 16 U.S.C. § 475.Google Scholar
Public Law 94‐465, 90 Stat. 1990 (October 8, 1976).Google Scholar
Religious Freedom and Restoration Act of 1993 42 U.S.C.§ 2000.Google Scholar
Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement Between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic (Villa De Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848).Google Scholar
Annual Climate Statistics, Hopi Tribal Department of Natural Resources. http://www.hopi-nsn.gov/department-natural-resources-2 (accessed March 5, 2012).Google Scholar
Letter of Sen. Barry Goldwater to Superintendent John McGuire, 9 August 1978; copy of letter on record with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, Kykotsmovi AZ.Google Scholar
Letter of Commissioner Ezra A. Hayt to W. H. Mateer, 14 August 1879.Google Scholar
Letter of Commissioner H. S. Price to Secretary of Interior H. M. Teller, 13 December 1882.Google Scholar
Letter of Hopi Agent W. H. Mateer to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, E. A. Hayt, 1 May 1879. MSS 343; John S. Boyden Collection; 20th & 21st Century Western and Mormon Americana; L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.Google Scholar
Reporter's Transcript, Public Hearing of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors, Flagstaff, AZ (27 April 1974). p. 259.Google Scholar
San Francisco Mountains Forest Reserve, Letter from the Secretary of the Interior to the House of Representatives, 10 March 1906.Google Scholar
USDA Forest Service, Arizona Snowbowl Facilities Improvements Final Environmental Impact Statement, 2 vols. (2005).Google Scholar