This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Blanding • Native Americans from around Utah began gathering in Comb Wash on Thursday to celebrate Bears Ears National Monument — just ahead of an announcement that could undercut protections for the lands considered sacred by many tribes.
"We would like the monument to remain, no matter what," said Kenneth Maryboy, a Navajo and former San Juan County commissioner. "It's always going to be sacred, but we want it to be protected."
Bears Ears is the first monument to be reviewed under President Donald Trump's executive order instructing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to evaluate 27 large monuments designated since 1996. Recommendations for the others, including Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante, are due in late August.
Zinke could recommend undoing the entire monument or shrinking the 1.35 million acres set aside by then-President Barack Obama in December.
Maryboy said he found the evaluation process troubling.
White politicians, he said, cannot evaluate what is sacred to Native peoples.
"Anglos have been [in southern Utah] here for 140 years and they still don't know who we are," he said. "They have no respect and that rankles us in San Juan County."
Maryboy also was miffed at Zinke for not talking to more Navajos during a recent trip to southern Utah.
"When he was here," Maryboy said, "he ignored Native Americans."
The former San Juan County commissioner was among the initial group of Native Americans who began pushing for protection of historical lands seven years ago.
This week's celebration is the third annual Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Gathering and is taking place through Sunday some 20 miles west of Blanding. Navajos, Ute Mountain Utes, Northern Utes, Goshutes, Hopis and Zunis will rejoice in their cultures with stories, dances, songs and workshops in foraging, sheep butchering and shawl making, among other things.
Hundreds are expected to attend over the course of the weekend.
But weighing on their minds is the coming decision by the Trump administration. The president earlier had called the Bears Ears designation a "land grab," language often used by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and other members of the state's all-Republican congressional delegation.
The Anglo politics surrounding Bears Ears Monument are sad because "we all live on Mother Earth," said Mary Allen, co-chairwoman of the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Tribe.
"I don't think Donald Trump understands the native point of view," Allen said. "And things we've heard here in San Juan County — I don't know how to put it, but some of them were not nice."
A presidential move against a monument declared under the Antiquities Act has never been tested in court, which is where the Bears Ears designation may land whatever Trump decides to do.
Either the tribes will challenge any action against the monument, or Utah will challenge the legality of Obama's Dec. 28 designation. It could even end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
But no decision by any court will change the spiritual nature of Bears Ears, said Jonah Yellowman, a Navajo spiritual adviser.
"Anglos say, 'There is nothing out there. Why is it sacred to you?' " Yellowman said.
The land is a place for healing, Yellowman explained. It also is a spiritual home.
"We go back to the ground, the plants, the animals, the trees, the birds, the rain, the stars — we talk to them, we pray to them," he said. "We want to be part of this land, and we want people to recognize it. We want people to know we are here and we are human."
The area contains an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings that are more than 3,500 years old.
Some of it has been vandalized, according to Maryboy, who said cliff drawings have been shot at and burial sites excavated.
It would be like Navajos going into Blanding and shooting headstones, he said.
The land has been left to us by the "ancient ones," Maryboy noted. "This is where our ancient creators dwell. Your body is given back to Mother Earth for future generations."
Their struggle, clearly, is not over. Yellowman said the treaties between Anglos and Native Americans always urged them to go home.
"And here we are," he said. "Still trying to go home."