Photo taken of Prayer Journey stop in Gallup, NM from gathering with the Navajo in the area.
As we stood at Thacker Pass held back by a chain-link fence, Wendsler Nosie Sr caught my attention as he said, “I can hear the land crying: Help, help! I’m in
prison!”
Wendsler, the leader of the Apache Stronghold, had brought our group to visit the Red Mountain People of Thacker Pass in Northern Nevada, where the tribes have been fighting a lithium mine on their ancestral homelands.
The Red Mountain People have a reciprocal relationship with the land and an understanding that what they do to the land, they do to themselves. The tribes are grieved to see their land torn open and surrounded by this fence.
I had never thought of the land in this personified way, and I was deeply moved by the comment and continued throughout the journey to deepen my understanding of Native ways of connection with Mother Earth. They do not think of her as a commodity, but as the greatest gift ever given, the provider of all life.
They are deeply committed to protecting her, and they invite us all to that deep spiritual connection.
This past July, I went to a COFA training for accompaniment of the Apache Stronghold in Oak Flat, AZ. Oak Flat is the holy ground of the San Carlos Apaches. It is where their ancestors lived freely, where they collect food and medicines, where they drink from the springs, where they gather for sacred ceremonies, and where they have their closest connection to God.
At the training, I learned more about their fight with the US government and Resolution Copper, who want to destroy the Apache’s sacred land with a copper mine. When I was offered the gift of accompanying them on their six-week prayer
journey to the Supreme Court, I jumped at the chance. It was an opportunity for the connection I had been wanting, and I could not turn it down.
For the past few years, I have been learning about the Indigenous Peoples of America, our shared histories, and what it means to be a descendant of colonial settlers. I have studied books like Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization by Elaine Enns and Ched Myers and the study materials put out by the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery.
I have thought about decolonization, asking myself, what does that mean for me? What does it really mean to decolonize? I found myself wanting to go deeper, to connect with my Native siblings, to learn about the struggles of the people around me and in my own land, to learn more deeply about the pain of our Mother Earth, and to find ways to act in solidarity.
I had plenty of anxiety as I joined the prayer journey in August. What would it be like to be white and to travel for six weeks with a group of Indigenous People? I knew very little about Apache culture, and I doubted whether I was worthy of the group going on this journey. I was the only person from the accompaniment project who could go for the entire six weeks. Others joined in for short periods along the way.
My big lesson, both in the beginning and throughout, was to watch and listen, which is the Apache way of learning.
After our journey started with the trip to Thacker Pass, we visited several tribes in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Because Oak Flat is a symbol of the broader struggle to protect Indigenous lands and rights throughout this country, with each tribe we stopped to visit we shared one another’s struggles and offered each other prayers, blessings, and gifts, building unity and mutual
support. Most of the tribes we visited shared stories of their own struggles to protect the lands they live on and promised to join us in DC on September 11, when the Apache Stronghold case was to be submitted to the Supreme Court.
As we headed east, we visited more churches and community groups. The Apache Stronghold talked about knowing the tribal traditions in the West, but not so much in the East, where there are no reservations. It was then that I started to learn more about the pathways of Indigenous assimilation into US colonial culture, which include the taking of land, language, children, and sources of food and water—in sum, erasing their ways of life.
Wendsler talked about how assimilation started in the East, moving to the West through Oklahoma and then up through the Northern Plains before heading to the Southwest, making Arizona one of the last places to be assimilated. The Apache Stronghold is trying to hold on to their ancient ways of living and their spiritual practices that are deeply tied to their sacred lands.
The taking of Oak Flat is another removal of Native peoples and culture aimed at the full assimilation of America. When we drove past the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the Gateway to the West, Wendsler said that we were taking The Spirit of the West, of the ancient ways, back across the country to the East and to Washington, DC.
As I have continued to think about decolonization and its meaning, I have come to understand that we have all been assimilated into the capitalist culture that dominates this country—that we have lost much of our ancestral histories as those who came before us tried to fit into the dominant culture, to become “white.” It is likely that the reason my maternal grandfather never told any stories about his life in Latvia before running away from home was because he wanted to fit in here.
My favorite time of day on the trip was getting up at dawn for morning prayers and blessings. It was a grounding time for us to come together, and it helped me to feel connected to the group. We carried a staff with five eagle feathers to the morning prayers and to all the ceremonies on the journey.
Wendsler told us that one of the feathers was collecting the prayers, blessings, difficult stories, and joyful stories shared with us by tribes and churches all across the country, and when we got to the Supreme Court in Washington DC, one of our lawyers took this feather inside and shook it to release all that it held into the halls and chambers of the Supreme Court.
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to journey and pray with my Apache siblings and new friends through this land. It was a sacred journey that we ventured on together. The Apache Stronghold is a deeply spiritual group of people, full of love for one another, offering generous welcome to all, and believing that prayer is their strongest weapon. They treated me as family member (which included plenty of teasing!), and they started me on a whole new path of appreciation for and connection to our Mother Earth. She is our greatest gift from God, who provides all that we need for life.
The truth is that she is all we have, and she is not infinite. This fight to save her is for us all, for our children and their children after us. If we do not take care of her, of the air and the water, she will not be able to continue to provide life for us all.
Frances Loberg lives in the ancestral land of the Kalapuya Indians, now known as Salem, OR. She has 3 grown children, is a semi-retired Lactation Nurse, and has been involved in various movements for peace and justice since her early 20’s. Frances attends Salem Mennonite Church and is currently helping lead the Adult Sunday School class through the study materials put out by the Coalition for DDOD.
