Love on the Land (Kim Smith)
We are proud to present this keynote for our Fall 2021 collection, “Sacred Relationshop.” Note: this post contains activist writing (profane language).
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LOVE ON THE LAND
The allure of summer is the way it calls us back to the way we knew it as a child. That meant days spent outside, on the land, engaging, imagining, questioning, meditating, connecting to our Original selves. In Diné (Navajo) culture, children are most sacred because of their connection to the holy ones. The land also connects you to your relatives. Whether they are four legged relatives, or elders herding sheep from neighboring homesteads, or cuzzins you ran around with when you were kids.
My carefree summer days were spent in between Iyanbito, NM, St. Michaels, AZ, or in our family sheep and cow camps in the Chuskas. Some of my fondest memories were exploring the forests & canyons. As much as I loved it, I hated seeing trash dumps littered throughout Iyanbito and St. Mikes. Unfortunately, our Navajo government has no waste management program. For all my life we’ve had to haul our waste to neighboring border towns. Some families burn their trash and others create illegal trash dumps on the reservation and in our communities. We would play “house” and our “shopping” was done at the dumps. We reimagined the junk and it furnished our treehouses. Other times, they were eye sores and crept us out as we headed to our favorite canyon.
As a kid I saw the beauty in the land - the same beauty that I see today. I remember always having an urge and questions of, “How does this happen? How do we clean this up?” In the spring of 2006, for my senior project in college, I wanted to examine trash dumps and figure out a plan. Our assignment was to write a proposal that we could submit for a grant. (Introducing us to the non profit industrial complex, but that’s another topic.) When I submitted my draft, Dr. Smith said, “Not again, No. Why is it that every one of my Navajo students wants to do this topic?! Pick something else!”
This summer as I stood knee deep in ancient trash cleaning up and properly disposing of decades old trash, I remembered Dr. Smith’s words. I felt proud that after all these years I was doing it, cleaning it up! I thought to myself, I should have not let him mansplain issues in my own community but also, it meant that this waste issue is so prevalent in Diné society. Since I was young I knew I wanted to do something about this waste. I also came to the conclusion that you either clean it up or it will be there FOREVER. Most of the waste does not and has not decomposed and it's mad toxic.
So far, as a community and community organizers we cleaned up almost 4 acres of landfills. While on the land this summer I was reminded of those times out on the land with my cousins and siblings. I thought about our ancestors and what the land was like when they were my age. I thought about the history of consumption and capitalism. About the resource industry and the toxification of the land and water. Mostly, I worried about the future.
Waste management on Dinè BiKeyah has been an issue since before my time. This summer we heard stories of what the watersheds were like, stories of failed attempts to tackle the waste problem at the chapter level. We also saw other Diné actively hauling trash, (old and new), recycling and salvaging metal. As I saw some of my fellow Diné putting in work I realized that it’s an issue that must be fixed by the Navajo Nation government. Some Diné folx are actively cleaning it up. Everyone sees the problem. Everyone knows the problem but still in 2021 we don't have any nation-wide waste program. Our relatives at Nambe Pueblo have a waste system and recycle center that I envy when I visit. (as my niece says, “ALL SAD”.) There is also a huge lack of education. From the basics of what is waste management, how you recycle, what is compostable and what is not, to what is the range management plan, how healthy are our watersheds, & what the F is our nation doing?! Are all valid questions.
What led me to this work is my hope to start building my own homeplace. I hope that my siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews will move home too. For that reason, I have to connect the dots of the trauma on the land/our communities and the trauma on our bodies. All I had to do was look at my current reality, what’s in my own backyard? Also in my work I can't be talking about liberation and healthy environments if I am not protecting the water and defending the land where my umbilical cord is buried, our holy land. As I reflected on my life’s journey from that chizzy lil rez kid to now, shit is the same! I’ve been here over 3 decades and there are no huge changes and developments in our communities. Every city and town around us has evolved, changed, grew, profited. A large majority of that profit is off of our people - in border towns, energy sectors, our water, resources, the list goes on and on.
Throughout our lives the trauma of colonial, evangelical and imperialist history isn't taught or even acknowledged in our community. Those oppressive systems are deeply embedded in our current society. Our local chapter houses, our whole government system, schools, churches, and families uphold these systems. They are designed to condition us. That conditioning is almost at the point of no return. In 2021, Navajo society still actively upholds and glorifies colonialism. We must know all of our history in order to better plan and understand our sovereignty and to reclaim that power as a nation.
St. Michaels, where I grew up, is 3 miles from Window Rock, AZ, the “capital” of the Navajo Nation. Window Rock is also right at the border of so-called New Mexico. This area was one of the first settled on our territory. 10 miles north of Window Rock is Fort Defiance - the first military post in AZ. It was established in 1851 to create a military presence in Navajo territory. Dine’ warriors defended their land fiercely, they eventually had to relocate the Fort because of the Dine’ resistance. The militarization led to the forced relocation of thousands of Dine’, the slaughtering of our livestock and demolition of our food & water systems. In 1868, the Navajo Nation government was established through the treaty of 1868.
Soon more fed agents and agencies came, the schools came in, then the churches. In 1898 the Franciscan Friars (Catholic) invaded Ch'íhootsooí, what is now known as St. Michaels, AZ. Traders also started to settle around this newly established government. More Catholic clergy invaded Ch'íhootsooí, privatizing and gentrifying it. In 1902 the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament started a Catholic school. The 2 merged together to colonize Dine’, the church and school stripped Dine’ identity and names from locals. Dine’ names now became government white passing names.
While this was happening on the ground, John Collier and other fuckfaces started to map out natural resources for the feds and soon to be energy corporations. Collier served as a commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Roosevelt administration. He is responsible for the “Indian New Deal” and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. He is also responsible for the Navajo Hopi Land Dispute and the forced relocation of Hopi and Navajo. The relocation was done to get to “the richest coal deposits in the world”. Soon the Window Rock area was surrounded by fossil fuel exploration. Coal, Gas, oil deposits and the railway soon created the energy corridor of the southwest. Resources were exported from Diné BiKeyah to border towns to feed the railway and eventually Interstate 40.
The shift on Dine’ homesteads was detrimental. The terrorism was traumatic. Being forcefully relocated and starved, and back again; children stripped from their identity and homes and put in boarding schools; to the rape and exploitation of the land. There was really no time to heal, just adapt. The currency also changed. Rations and canned foods replaced hunting and gathering, planting and a nomadic lifestyle.
These capitalistic concepts also introduced waste. It changed our relationship to the land. Wagon trails and watersheds were full of the glass, tin, silver and other materials. All this learned behavior was taught by a new wave of patriarchy. Cowboys, priests and feds invaded a matrilineal society deeply embedded in Sa'ah Naaghai Bik'eh Hozhoo. By the mid century Navajo men left to work to build the pipelines, railways, power plants, and join the military. All the abuse and the learned behavior of violence that was learned then is now so normalized. The fracturing of our land, bodies and kinship.
We have and continue to hide the trauma. Some hide their identity (bc of boarding school trauma), some hide their identity because they are Two Spirit or Trans (bc of the trans and homophobia). We may all suffer from an identity crisis at some point in our lives. Trying to uphold tradition but going up against colonialism and christainity. We hide sexual violence and abuse, substance abuse, traumatic sicknesses that has and still plagues our communities for centuries. Which then uncovers the mental health crisis that comes with the hiding of our traumas. If we can’t acknowledge these things then we can never truly heal.
Sadly, colonial Hetero-patriarchy has forced its way deep into our tribal societies and has become one of the main driving and oppressive forces in the decline of my community. It is so bad that some folks say there’s a “prophecy” that when a Dine’ woman is President/Chairwoman that it will be the end of the world. That most definitely sounds like some colonial BULLSHIT. Gender roles carry toxic traits and authoritative systems. Clan mothers and matriarchs have ensured that our clans, ceremony, language and planting perseveres. Shit, when capitalism forced our men to leave for the day or for a long time to work outside our communities, the woman had to maintain the homestead, fields, harvests, seeds, livestock, families and ceremonies. To this day Diné womxn still uphold all those responsibilities and our beloved ceremony and language.
However, do we also still uphold Hetero-patriarchy and toxic masculinity in Navajo culture now? HELL YEAH! And we need to reflect and heal. Our lack of doing so is showing. It shows by the way we allow our homeland to be littered with trash dumps, abandoned fossil fuel toxins, overgrazed land and yazh lords (sonny boys). Toxic matriarchy goes hand and hand with the upholding of these hierarchical destructive systems. Toxic matriarchy is the enabling of toxic masculinity, it’s femmes turning a blind eye to the heteropatriarchy or even aligning with those ideals and carrying them out in the household. We are so far from healing our traumas that we actively inflict the destruction of ourselves. Our society is so desperate to please the white man and uphold their vision of status while we are dependent on the economic systems and imperial values.
The biggest question is what are we going to do? What am I going to do? When and how are we going to acknowledge and heal all this violence and trauma that haunts our lands? How do we treat the land? Each other? What’s in our backyard? Is it violent?
These are the questions that continuously came up for me during my trash clean up in the land that raised me. Each layer of trash was a new layer of learning. Like an onion peel, layer after layer of uncovering trauma on the land and while trying to heal the layers before.
I know that I have inherited traumas. Land violence has physically made me sick. For half my life I have fought an autoimmune disease that made me dig deeper into how the land makes me sick. Every time I am on the land cleaning I also go on a detox. Healing the land and healing myself. Being in sync with earth mom as we heal together. This enlightening process is ceremony and vital in my healing process. It challenges me to connect the dots of my sickness.
Also to acknowledge who allowed and allows for the sicknesses to plague our lands? For me, a catholic baptized person raised in Diné tradition, it has been a lot of unlearning and unbaptizing, trying to find answers on the land, in ceremony and relearning a lot of what my grandparents taught me. Which is hard since all my grandparents have gone on to the spirit world.
Covid has shown us how these systems made us more vulnerable to the toxins and dependent. We’ve made the energy corporations, border towns and “healthcare” industry millions since covid came, we made them a lot before but once surges of assistance came in, we took it, paid energy bills, shopped in border towns and became guinea pigs for the covid vaccine. I've always heard in my work “get involved in the government'', “get involved at the chapter level”, “talk to your delegate”. These systems are the very pillar that upholds John Collier's agenda. 1900 policy with 20th century technology - in the 21st century. The truth is that we need to reclaim our ancestral ways of decision making, of building community and upholding ceremony. The systems and structures in place are failing us.
Another reflection that was heavy on my mind this summer is that shit is the same! We still have tribal buildings that are filled with asbestosis or run down mobile homes as our tribal offices. After decades in the billion dollar fossil fuel industry we are in the same place. Hetero men still fill most of the leadership seats. We are pushing plans that have been planned for years but haven’t come into fruition. Stuck projects and plans. We need an extensive range and watershed management plan. That vital mapping will show us where the landfills are, watersheds, erosion, abandoned toxic sites. Without that knowledge and planning we will continue to have an unstable food and water system. Two major components to our survival in an ever changing climate.
RAISE THE ROOF
This epiphany of my life’s journey has shown me what I need to do. Stay in St. Mikes. As simple and easy as that sounds, it's not. In order to live in a healthy environment I have to clean up decades old landfills because my family's land is on the route of an old wagon trail which leads to the Catholic Church. My family’s land is also at the start of “Grazing permit” and “Homesite leased” land. It is at the base of the Defiance Plateau of the Chuska mountains. In the 60’s a huge sawmill was built 30 miles Northeast of St. Mikes in Navajo NM. This mill’s clearcutting had a devastating impact on our community and beloved sheep camp havens. Financially it brought jobs and economic opportunities. Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment was an OG environmental group that was created to shut down the mill due to deforestation. They were successful in the closure. Navajo NM fell victim to the boom and bust cycle. It brought “economic development” but also took it. The closure also put a 20 year hold on development throughout the Chuskas. As the hold is lifted I find myself hoping to build at the base of those very mountains. It’s really no wonder that the amount of Dine’ that live off our homeland is 56%.
The lack of housing and the policies and procedures around make it harder for folks to invest into the community. That lack of investment into our community shows in our education, economic and housing infrastructure. It’s easier to build a church than it is for a Dine’ person to build a home. I would like to continue to examine what building and land use planning looks like in my hometown. Now that the landfills are cleaned and starting to be detoxified, watersheds restored, the next phase is planting seeds and building. Learn and reclaim my history so that I can help build a healthy environment. Part of that reclamation and decolonization is building. Reclaiming our principles of sustainably built homes. These days they call them “tiny homes” or “permaculture” or “energy efficient” we call them Hooghan.
The first structure we will build will be for ceremonial use. A hooghan made from earth bags, then the next structure made out of stone and adobe, then finally one of strawbale. The goal is to come up with a prototype that uses natural building techniques so that housing can become affordable and energy efficient. To restart our hooghan building societies and truly build community, I have started learning about the different techniques of building.
MY CONSUMPTION
My life's work has been a wild ride of colonialism, consumption & decolonization. What I have learned is that I have to nourish my relationship to the land so that I can earn the right to build on the land. And in that work there is so much uncovering. Decades of settlement and waste. The layers and layers of waste are like onion layers, the deeper you dig the juicier or spicier the damage. My life of consumption flashed before my eyes everytime I stood in that waste to clean it. As frustrated as I got cleaning up I could never blame my community because I consume too. I got expensive habits and dependence on the grid and internet.
The crazy thing is that there are billions of people that consume like it ain’t no thang! Like our resources are endless. How many of us freak when our phone is on the brink of death. Or the internet is slow or out. We are addicted. Straight up. Like my dear auntie says, “Addicts do any and everything to get their fix.” A huge percentage of our energy consumption comes from data storage for google, amazon, facebook, microsoft, apple etc,. In reality our climate is changing, our earth mom is warming. She’s pissed!
This is the story of modern Diné history and how we have perpetuated climate change and still do in 2021. Centuries of toxicity, whether that in gender roles or the rape of Mother Earth in the name of profit. The huge necessity to remediate and heal our fractured communities for ALL RELATIVES to heal. That healing has to not only acknowledge our energy privileges but more importantly the Rights of Nature. In our short lifetime on this earth we don't understand that we are guests to this earth. American society has conditioned us to carry entitlements and exhibit invasional tendencies. We actively allow for the disruption of ecosystems every day, everytime we consume goods and/or energy. We are guilty of producing that pollution.
I encourage all relatives reading this to explore more about the rights of nature and how other modern indigenous communities are fighting against climate change. Adapting, migrating because we can no longer flourish in our homelands. Chances are there is Indigenous resistance to your need to consume, like Line 3, LNG, Oak Flat, Four Corners power plant, and the list goes on. We must also pray, summon, think, speak, and sing about healing the land. Let’s restore that intimate relationship with all living beings, with the Tree, Water, Wind, Medicine ancestors, and make them proud. We must do it compassionately and fiercely, understanding that we all have traumas and fracturing that we must heal. We must constantly remember that what happens to the land, happens to us. If we pay attention and listen to nature and Earth Mom they will show us the way. We should all aspire to lean the fuck in.
What It Means To Be A Human Being
by: John Trudell
In the reality
Of many realities
How we see what we see
Affects the quality
Of our reality
We are children of Earth and Sky
DNA descendant now ancestor
Human being physical spirit
Bone flesh blood as spirit
Metal mineral water as spirit
We are in time and space
But we’re from beyond time and space
The past is part of the present
The future is part of the present
Life and being are interwoven
We are the DNA of Earth, Moon, Planets, Stars
We are related to the universal
Creator created creation
Spirit and intelligence with clarity
Being and human as power
We are a part of the memories of evolution
These memories carry knowledge
These memories carry our identity
Beneath race, gender, class, age
Beneath citizen, business, state, religion
We are human beings
And these memories
Are trying to remind us
Human beings, human beings
It’s time to rise up
Remember who we are
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Kim Smith hails from the Diné Nation and is founder/editor at large for the feminist magazine, Indigenous Goddess Gang. She is a leading contributor to the UN's work on climate justice and an international Frontline Defender. This piece is part of our Fall 2021 collection, Sacred Relationship, exploring the Native American sense of sacred relationship with Earth’s other living creatures.
