Accord reached over Hopi religious sites on Navajo Reservation

PHOENIX — After a bitter 40-year dispute, the Navajo and Hopi tribes are signing an accord over Hopi religious sites on more than 700,000 acres of the western Navajo Reservation.

A signing ceremony for the accord was scheduled Friday at the Heard Museum here with Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne expected to attend.

Thousands of Navajos in the so-called Bennett Freeze Area have been without running water, electricity or modern appliances for decades because of a development ban put in place during the dispute.

The area is part of the 7 million total acres of Navajo land in which access by Hopis to religious sites will be resolved.

Federal officials imposed a ban in 1966 on construction and additional utility infrastructure on the Navajo land unless both sides agreed to it.

Joe Shirley Jr., president of the Navajo Nation, said "this compact clearly is one of the most significant agreements the Navajo and Hopi tribes have signed together.

"It resolves a 40-year-old dispute over land with no loss of land, no relocation, ensuring the religious rights equally to both tribes and ending a development freeze that has kept the western portion of the Navajo Nation in a time warp since 1966," added Shirley.

The Navajos reside on the nation's largest reservation, the majority of which is in northeastern Arizona.

"This land is just as spiritual to us as the mesa tops where we live," said former Hopi Chairman Ferrell Secakuku. "It's a milestone to negotiate this to an end in a peaceful manner. We both have to co-exist here, and this shows that one tribe can't dominate anymore."

The Hopi Tribal Council had approved the settlement measure in September 2004, but it took the Navajo Nation Council two years to finally sign off on it because of intense opposition in the western part of the Navajo Reservation over questions about development.

The Navajo Nation Council voted 75-3 to approve the agreement in September.

U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., and Clayton Honyumptewa, director of the Hopis' land office, said the settlement calls for an arbitration board to be set up to resolve disputes, a $50 million escrow account to be divided by the two tribes, creation of designated buffers where no Navajo development would be permitted and a five-year study of eagles in the area.

Eagles are an especially sensitive matter for Hopi religious leaders and their highly secretive ceremonial societies. They gather the birds for ceremonies over a wide swath, primarily between Flagstaff and the tribe's three mesas.

Honyumptewa said the arbitration board will deal with problems that arise if Hopis are denied access to their religious sites. It will be made up of equal numbers of members from the two tribes and will be overseen by an arbitrator with no affiliation with either tribe.