Bury My Heart At Big Mountain

Federal relocation of the Navajo runs into resistance

Oblivious to the thunderheads that gather above her, Roberta Blackgoat, 69, an elder of the Navajo tribe, stoops with a stick to scratch a rectangle in the northern Arizona desert. Beneath this sandy soil her ancestors for five generations have buried the umbilical cords of their newborn, a ritual affirmation of their link to this harsh and haunting land. Today, however, a land dispute with a neighboring tribe threatens to uproot Blackgoat and more than 10,000 other Navajo in a U.S. Government eviction unrivaled since the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.

Relocation of the Navajo is the...

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