Mohave Daily News: Top Story

MOHAVE VALLEY - Although it's been 30 years since Dennis Banks launched The Longest Walk, many participants in this year's event say the fight for American Indian rights isn't over.

This year's walk began in San Francisco and will finish in July with a rally at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. When the walk is completed, Banks will use the information gathered from meeting tribes across the United States to write a manifesto he'll address to senators, congressmen and the Environmental Protection Agency. Focusing on the environment, Banks says he'll stress chromium waste, the proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and how global warming affects harvest seasons.

For the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, it's about protecting the Colorado River and the other sacred sites that line the Mojave Desert.

Spirit Mountain and the mountain range near the Avi Casino are marked with litter, gang graffiti and shot-up abandoned cars. Collectors grab up artifacts or chip off rock pieces for souvenirs, officials say.

Topock Maze, believed to house the portal to the afterlife, is crossed by highways and gas pipelines. One tribal official says many think preserving a stretch of Route 66 is more important than the tribe's sacred land.

On Friday, participants in The Longest Walk met with the Fort Mojave tribe, toured their sacred sites and heard their grievances.

The walkers attended a presentation at the Aha Makav Cultural Society by Paul Jackson, who teaches arts and culture to tribal youth and high schoolers. Jackson showed the group slides of buffalo sculptures, landscapes and the paintings he has done depicting the tribe's creation story.

Officials also spoke on diminishing resources like cottonwood, willow and mesquite; droughts along the Colorado River and how uranium mining in Utah would impact the water flowing to the Tri-state. Chloride levels in the water, they said, also affect vegetation and feeding livestock.

“It's an effort throughout history,” said Linda Otero, the society's director. “We are a living culture and these things are part of our existence. This valley is our home.

“We need to stand forward and make our voices heard.”

SACRED SITES

At Topock Maze, just west of the California-Arizona border, the group hiked down a dirt path lined with purple flowers and pipelines marked with caution warnings. In the distance, across the Mojave Desert, stands a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. water treatment plant. In 2004, test wells and equipment to control hexavalent chromium pollution were installed without prior consultation with the tribe.

Nearby a marker tells the story of the Maze landmark - an ancient design of lines along the desert that guides a soul's journey to the afterlife for the Fort Mojave tribe.

After a brief stop overlooking a mountain range, criss-crossed by a highway and train track, the group made its way down toward the plant, stopping occasionally to get a closer look at a cactus flower or rub the leaves of a plant to smell its oils.

When they approached a facility for treating water, they snapped photos of a sign warning the water's unsafe for drinking, swimming or washing.

Henry Dominguez, a tribal elder holding a staff adorned with feathers, stepped forward for an impromptu speech.

“How did water - that's supposed to be pure life - get this way?” he asked. “Let it be known you are witnesses to the genocide that's being done to Mother Earth. How can future generations survive if they continue to do this?

“The youth is very important here. That's why we say listen to your elders because one day we'll be gone. ... And when they attack your sites and your burial places of your ancestors, then you'll feel the pain of indigenous people.”

Later in the afternoon the group made its way down to the banks of the Colorado River as officials told them about the surrounding monitoring wells and the proposals to build more. Some tribal members said they've had dreams of souls coming back, saying they needed help to get through to the afterlife, past the wells, bridges and roads that block their journey.

One tribal member walked across the desert sand toward the river and came back with a bottle of water from the Colorado. Tribal officials then presented the water, along with a piece of pottery and a bag of cedar, for the group to take on their journey to Washington, D.C.

“I will think about you guys,” Otero said, “as you're walking the distance.”

THE WALKERS

The group numbers more than 100 walkers and their supporters, as well as members of about 25 different tribes from across the U.S.

During their stay in Laughlin, some said the “four-star” treatment they received from the Avi Casino has been the exception. More often nights along the journey have been spent under the stars and mornings spent cooking breakfast aboard a converted school bus painted pastel blue.

About half the walkers are in their 20s or 30s. A fourth are American Indians from various tribes, another fourth are dread-locked or tie-dyed activists and the rest come from everywhere else, including as far off as Germany or Australia.

There is a large group of Japanese with three-month visas who flew in to the starting point, including a Buddhist woman with a shaved head and a Polish man who once wrote an article for a magazine about the sacred sites he saw for the first time on Friday.

Takuya Sasa, 28, flew in from Tokyo, where he works as a shoemaker. He came along on the trip because he wanted to see America by foot, and because he once had a great experience with American Indians in South Dakota. Every time he thinks of them, he says, it touches his heart and gives him the same sensation he gets at a Japanese temple.

“Just so many things to learn everyday -ways of the Native American cultures, their traditions,” he said, “and lessons from their culture, like taking care of elders. Japan had that custom but (is) losing it now.”

To make time for the five-month trip, some gave up their jobs or sold their homes.

Michael Robinson, 19, took a semester off from Northern Michigan University, where he's majoring in environmental and Native American studies.

A month into the trip, Robinson says he's learned flexibility and how to get along better with people of all types. The experience also taught him to take lessons from other cultures instead of believing in a culture where “your way was the only right way and all others had to be dominated.”

“I had some amazing experiences and met some great people. This first month has just been opening up and getting to know each other,” he said. “It's taught me to be flexible and go whichever way things take us.”

Robinson hopes to instill a care for nature into the next generation, and spread the message that humanity has reached the threshold of their resource consumption and population growth. The paradigms need to be changed, he said, so nature can be preserved.

Another motivation for many participants is meeting people, he said, and interacting with the communities along the way, listening to their stories, learning about their ways and touring their landmarks.

“(It's) seeing on their faces how important this walk is to them,” Robinson said, “and how they wish they could be going with us.”