Today in class we watched a short film about mining companies in
Hopi territory. The conflict was between the mining companies and the Hopi tribe. The mining companies have been taking resources that are valued in the Hopi culture. One example, the mining companies took resources from Woodruff Beaut, which is a sacred place for Hopi tradition. This shows that the mining companies do not give any respect to the tribe and the rich history they have in these mountains. They interviewed a white man who works in the mines and asked him about his opinion on the situation. The white man “didn’t understand” why the Hopi people value the land and of course he didn’t understand because he never took the time to appreciate the native culture.
The next part of film was about Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and how sacred the natives view the piece of land. The landmark is a staple in the Lakota tradition and they value that land greatly. The controversy on that land is that many non-natives want to rock climb on that piece of land, but the Lakota people feel that it is disrespectful to rock climb on a sacred piece of land. The rock climbing on that land has drastically decreased after the Lakota announced how they viewed the situation.
seanjr81 July 16, 2018
I liked how the Black Hills was eventually resolved unlike many other cases regarded the Indians wanting a change and the Americas not doing it as usual. In that movie I spoke about the interviews with the elder and how bascially they were uneducated in the sense of saying “Americans were the first people here”. In my opionion that made me mad just how they portrayed themselves by saying that and they had a standoff tone about it as well, then they also said ” they take better care of the mountain”. That proves to the point that we as Americans are very subborn in regards to the Indian culture and history.