Local Indigenous groups worry Bears Ears Monument will limit access to ritual space
The initial push for the monument was supported by the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, but the two closest chapters of the Navajo Nation resisted the plans. At stake are two different visions of how to best protect sacred land. Read the article from Religion News Service here.
Aerial shot of the Valley of the Gods in Bears Ears National Monument. Photo courtesy Bureau of Land Management/Creative Commons
As the daughter of a nonagenarian Navajo medicine woman, Ana Tom is used to long road trips. Tom supports her mother Betty Jones’ role as a traditional healer by taking her far from San Juan County, Utah, to look for rare herbs for use in various traditional medicines important for Navajo rituals.
“There isn’t a lot of (elders) who know where to collect the herbs and what is needed, and sometimes, we have taken her past Reno and even up to Lake Tahoe to collect herbs. My father, who was a medicine man, would go to Texas for wild tobacco, and that is a trip we also do.”
Taking any plant from Mother Earth, even the smallest thing, involves a prayer, she says. Most of the herbs her family uses are readily available in the area surrounding Bears Ears, two twin buttes that jut up more than 8,000 feet above sea level. Like nearly 65% of Utah, Bears Ears stands on federal land, though their current status is likely to change.