Karen Marshall Photography

ANNA BEGAY “This was my mother. This was my father. I am 55 years old. We have always lived here. I was born here, before the use of the wagon I have been here. I will not move.”

WOMAN ON HORSE WITH DOG “Everywhere I look there is no sign of life, no livestock. I look out and remember when there was livestock all about. One could see a cloud of dust where a flock of sheep was being herded; drawn by a wagon that was hitched to horses. Now there is nothing. Only the wind fills the space.”

MAE TSO WITH NEW LAMBS “When I first became aware of who I am, I found myself herding sheep, that was my first awareness of who I am. Learn how to herd sheep I was told. This is how to become independent; it is a meaningful life. These were the teachings I remember.”

BROTHER WITH SISTER ON CRADLE BOARD When a child is born their umbilical cord is buried on their mother’s land and a cradleboard is made from a tree on her land. When the baby outgrows the board, that too is buried on the land. Both burial spots become sacred places for the child to pray.

YOUNG BOY “Earth, heaven, the atmosphere, sky, star, sun moon. These are our order of our universe. Within this order there are changes. Sunrise, high noon, sunset, the sun shines and darkness comes. The earth changes through the four seasons. Spring, summer, fall, winter. Days continue into months that are governed by the moon. Full moon, half moon, quarter moon, from the first sun rays and from the atmosphere life grows. This is the universal order that we know. Now this is being altered, causing disorder…..”

EMMA AND ELEANOR, MOTHER AND DAUGHTER “My daughter’s son pulled a gun on a Bureau of Indian Affairs agent last week. The agent was trying to harass his mother into relocating and he just couldn’t bear it anymore. Why do they bother us? There is always trouble. They know that we will not move.”

BESSIE BETONY WITH HER SONS Washing hair with water hauled from the windmill down the road. “…Our children are important to us. They are our body. They are our thoughts. They are our future bloodlines and our reason for existence. Even when they mature, they are still our children.”

SAM WILSON'S CLOTHES DRY

ACTION AT STAR MOUNTAIN Four generations of Navajo, 40 people, take over a fencing project near a sacred site and tear down one-and-a-half miles of fence that defined new reservation boundaries, separating them from a site their grandfathers told them to protect.

MARY T. BEGAY She died three weeks after this photograph was taken. In Navajo tradition if a person dies suddenly in the family Hogan (traditional round house), the family must relocate to a new structure near the home site. Because of a building freeze on the land (as a result of Public Law 93-531), and the family’s resistance to relocation off their land, they became homeless after her death.

HOGAN (TRADITIONAL ROUND HOUSE)

OSCAR WHITEHAIR’S SISTER-IN-LAW CLIZZIE A young man helps Clizzie sign an affidavit against harassment by Bureau of Indian Affairs agents with an “X” to signify name. “They came up here when they knew that they would be alone and told me that if I did not move that someone would come and take all of my animals away. Then they would take me into a field and kick me around and leave me there. I will not let them scare me in this way.”

PREPARING TO MAKE BLUE CORNMEAL MUSH “My grandparent taught me a way of life and that is not what I have been brought up to be. I am a Navajo woman. This plan, this act, is not my way of life. It is not my philosophy. It does not comply with the way that I was taught. It does not comply with the thought about the kind of person that I am. I am a creation of god. A brown skin.”

NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH MEDICINE MAN IN FRONT OF TRADITIONAL HOGAN

TAILER HOME. TUBA CITY This family relocated off the reservation. They were given a large house. Lack of job skills, alcohol abuse, and lack of money forced them to lose their relocation house. They now live in a trailer in a reservation city.

RELOCATION HOUSE. NAVAJO PARTITION LAND “They give me a large house with one acre of land. They never hook up the plumbing or the electricity. It has been two years. None of my friends or relatives believes in what I have done so they will not come and visit me. I have only one sheep and no place to herd sheep. My life has no meaning anymore.”

FIRST CEREMONIAL HOGAN BEING BUILD ON THE ‘NEW LANDS’ (NEW RESERVATION AREA FOR NAVAJO WHO RELOCATED) RAM HERDER. MEDICINE MAN. “I go back to my original land to gather plants for ceremony. I do not know the plants here and they do not know me. I do not know what the relocation will bring.”

WASHINGTON PRESS CLUB. WASHINGTON D.C. JANUARY 1988 Plaintiffs filing a First Amendment lawsuit, Manybeads vs. the United States Government in an attempt to make the United States government understand that forced relocation infringed on the elder’s religious beliefs.

 

FEDERAL COURT HOUSE. PRESCOTT, ARIZONA

Hearings for Manybeads vs. the United States Government. Elders leave for recess. The case was turned down by Federal District Court and was in the 9th Circuit Appeals Court for several years. Eventually, long-term leases were established for elders who wished to remain on their land. 

Betty Tso “I worked for several years for the Big Mountain Legal Office in Flagstaff defending my mothers land. I have traveled through out the United States and Canada. I have gone to Geneva and met indigenous people from around the world. It has given me a perspective on how traditional my culture still is. I have never gone to college but I understand the legal system. I now work for the Hopi/Navajo Legal Service. Fort now I am glad to be near the quiet of my mother’s land.”

Caretakers Of The Earth:

Navajo Resistance And Relocation

From 1987 through 1997, I spent extensive periods of time photographing and collecting testimony from a group of Navajo Indians in northern Arizona who were being forced from ancestral lands by a Public Law (93-531) enacted by the United States Congress in 1974. The redistricting of a jointly used reservation area resulted in relocation on the Hopi and Navajo reservations. One hundred Hopi Indians were affected by the law but for the Navajo the impact was far more dramatic. More then 11,000 Navajo Indians were ordered to leave their homeland, resulting in drastic disruptions in their ability to practice traditional beliefs and maintain ancient ways of life.


This modern day chapter of American Indian politics, the result of arbitrary decisions made in Washington a century ago, pitted one tribe against another. Wrought with corruption and cross-cultural misinterpretations, the relocation issue created heartache and displacement for the hundreds of traditional Navajo families who were uprooted.


My intention was to bear witness, to tell the story of the Navajos. My goal was to capture the changing world of this earth-based people who because of circumstances far beyond their control, were fighting to retain their traditional beliefs.


By witnessing these people during a crucial moment in their history, the documentation raises questions of universal concern, especially the plight of a non-dominant culture as it dealt with the intrusion of the late 20th century.

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