Huck and Genevieve Greyeyes

P.O. Box 814

Tuba City, AZ 86045

 

To: Ms. Mary Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights

Mr. Abdelfattah Amor, Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance

Mr. Francis Deng, Special Rapporteur for Internally Displaced Persons

United Nations Commission on Human Rights

 

Re: The meaning of our hogan that was destroyed.

 

Hogans are made with prayers. They are set up that way in the creator's way facing to the east. Our hogan meant a lot. A lot of ceremonies-always there. It really hurt us in our mind and heart what was done to us.

 

A hogan is educational for our kids-to know and realize how sacred and what a hogan means to us as Dineh people so our children can learn from this in documents. The hogan has songs and prayers we always sing in ceremony. The hogan has a song of itself. Then songs are sacred and prayers are sacred. You can't put any words than what originated from the Holy people.

 

On April 15 or 16, 1996 the Hopi tribe illegally tore down our ceremonial hogan. It was more than 100 years old. That morning I saw 4 trucks, 1 tractor trailer and 5 Hopi Bureau of Indian Affairs officials around our hogan. We tried to tell the Ranger that the hogan belonged to my deceased brother-in-law who died four months before and it was given to us by him for ceremonial use or to live in. We tried to tell the Ranger that it was for medicine man and I was going to use it again but the Hopi BIA just wanted to bury it. We said no. We said this you can't do this. This is why the Holy Ones hold back the rain. Every hogan has a name, prayers and a song. You cannot bury it. This hogan is our church; we can't just destroy it. We sing and pray in it. Genevieve said, I don't know what to do. I am getting old. My husband is 74 years old and he is kind of sick. We were going to have a prayer and now we don't have a hogan. I don't know what to do. She remembers the hogan as a child. She guessed that the hogan was more than 100-years old.

 

When the hogan was first built it was blessed with corn pollen. After it was completed we built a fire. Genevieve's father's hogan, it's been built over 100 years ago. There were a lot of ceremonies there, a lot of different kind of ceremonies-even sacred mount bundle was done and re checked there and a lot of births. Genevieve was born in that hogan.

 

There used to be one male hogan-it was in the meadow but the Hopi dismantled it and took all the posts and all the materials. This was back in 1974 or 5. They didn't even notify us before it was gone-even the posts are gone now. There used to be a sweat lodge-we don't know what they did with it-they buried the posts or took it.

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They destroyed at least 10 hogans in the area-they buried them. They are not supposed to do this. This is how they violated it.

 

It's really hard without a hogan. In ceremony its always in a sacred manner-blessed from the beginning from the east, south, west, north-whatever happens during ceremony-corn pollen always in a clockwise manner. There has to be a hogan. this was our original hogan they destroyed. Medicine men have to say prayers in a hogan, they cannot do a ceremony in a stone house. So the hogan itself means a lot to us especially with ceremonies. We saw a lot of people healed there from a lot of kinds of healing at this hogan. With hogan comes its own life, livelihood, livestock, food, corn and various kinds of food we grow. We must have a hogan. We have some sacred instruments we use in performing ceremonies and we have sacred mountain bundles. It is a hardship for us not to be able to do ceremonies.

 

We are hoping we can make another hogan. We are slowly collecting posts back together. All the parts we used to use we are fobidden-Juniper to build a hogan. We have to go far away to get the wood. Even paying $10.00 for one post will cost us $2,800.00 To buy the posts it adds up to just that to rebuild. That's not labor just the posts alone. I want to rebuild my hogan with protection so it will never be desecrated again.

 

Our house is falling apart, when it rains it rains inside and our ceiling is falling in. It is cold in here and we have much illness from this. In 1972 we built this house and since then we can not fix it. We want to fix our home. We cannot even gather firewood to heat our home because it is against the law and we are denied a permit. So we have to buy our firewood.

 

The Hopi Bureau of Indian Affairs Rangers put fence posts in our land. When they put them in they never did a geological clearance. There was no survey crew to mark off the boundary, there was just a guy making a line. Their bulldozers caused erosion. They don't take care of the land. This hurts the land but they don't care. We were told they were building a fence to protect their cattle from running off to the highway. They cut off the windmill, our water supply for our livestock when they put in this fence. Now we have to haul water for our livestock when we have a well right near here. They also put in a cattle guard so we have no way to get our livestock to this water. We were told if we do anything to the fence so we can have access to the water that we can go to jail. The fencing is hard.

 

Before the fence we had good grazing management. We moved around to different areas for summer, then come back for winter and let the land rest. It was pretty good. We used to go to water but with the fencing we are trapped in-we are all fenced in.

 

From our doorway, a rocky ridge can be seen. It's called Rough Rock Point and is a traditional Navajo shrine for livestock. We are called trespassers but the Hopi BIA is not going to chase us out. I volunteered for the Navajo a long time ago so our freedom

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would be guaranteed. We don't want to lose this land or take off some place. Please help us be able to build a ceremonial hogan again and protect it so that it will not be destroyed. Please help us have access to water for our livestock and give us the right to fix our home so we can feel safe again.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

 

Huck Greyeyes Genevieve Greyeyes

 

 

 

Translated by: Date

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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