Traditional Cultural Property Eligibility Statements for Gold Strike Canyon, Nevada and Sugarloaf Mountain, Arizona
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The Land Still Speaks: Traditional Cultural Property Eligibility Statements for Gold Strike Canyon, Nevada and Sugarloaf Mountain, Arizona Item Type Report Authors Stoffle, Richard W.; Carroll, Alex; Toupal, Rebecca; Zedeno, Maria Nieves; Eisenberg, Amy; Amato, John Publisher Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona Download date 15/02/2019 22:14:39 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/270991 Traditional Cultural Property Eligibility Statements For Gold Strike Canyon, Nevada and Sugarloaf Mountain, Arizona Camp 8, Black Canyon of the Colorado River, 1871. Photograph by Timothy O’Sullivan Source: Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. This Statement of Eligibility (DOE) is submitted to the State Historic Preservation Office by the Federal Highway Administration in partial fulfillment of Section 106 Requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 for the Hoover Dam Bypass Project. June 21, 2000 Traditional Cultural Property Eligibility Statements For Gold Strike Canyon, Nevada and Sugarloaf Mountain, Arizona Prepared for CH2M Hill, Inc. 2020 E. Flamingo Road, Suite 160 Las Vegas, Nevada And Federal Highway Administration Central Federal Lands Highway Division Denver, Colroado By University of Arizona (Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology): Richard Stoffle, Ph.D. Alex Carroll, M.A. Rebecca Toupal, M.L.A. M. Nieves Zedeno, Ph.D. Amy Eisenberg, M.S. Rebecca Toupal, M.L.A. John Amato, LPN American Indian Core Consultation Work Group: Richard Arnold, Core Group Spokesperson (Southern Paiute) Octavius Seowtewa (Zuni Pueblo) Paul Chaco (Navajo Nation) Elda Bulter (Mojave Tribe) Betty Cornelius (Colorado River Indian Reservation) David Harper (Mohave – Colorado River Indian Tribe ii Table of Contents Page Section I: Background and Introduction....................................... 1 American Indian Landscapes.................................................... 4 Levels of Cultural Landscapes.................................................. 8 American Indian Cultural Ecoscapes in Riverine Environments ............................................................................ 13 Summary................................................................................... 19 Section II: Evaluation of Sugarloaf Mountain and Gold Strike Canyon..................................................................................... 21 Traditional Cultural Properties.................................................. 21 National Register Criteria ......................................................... 22 Evaluation: Sugarloaf Mountain TCP....................................... 24 Ethnohistorical Context for Sugarloaf Mountain TCP ............. 35 Evaluation of Gold Strike Canyon............................................ 48 Ethnohistorical Context for Gold Strike Canyon TCP ............. 67 Gold Strike Canyon TCP Boundaries ....................................... 73 Bibliography ..................................................................................... 75 List of Figures Figure 1: Meeting of Core Work Group Members and BARA Researchers, Tucson, June 5-9, 2000 Figure 2: Natural Elements of Riverine Ecoscapes Figure 3: Human Elements of Riverine Ecoscapes Maps Map1: Boundaries of Proposed Traditional Cultural Property at Sugarloaf Mountain, Arizona Map 2: Boundaries of Proposed Traditional Cultural Property at Gold Strike Canyon, Nevada The Land Still Speaks “Listen. We need to tell you some of our stories. We need to tell them, and you need to hear them.”1 - Dean Suagee Section I Background and Introduction As part of the American Indian consultation process for the Hoover Dam Bypass Project the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) consults regularly with representatives of tribal groups that have an interest in cultural and traditional resources affected by the project plans and activities. Since January 9, 2000, the agency has meet twice with tribal representatives from 14 tribal communities to discuss a wide range of issues related to the Bypass Project. These issues included the Environmental Impact Statement, the 106 requirements under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA), the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA), and various other topics that have the potential to affect tribal interests in lands and resources at the project site. To date, the result of these tribal consultation meetings have been very positive. One result includes a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that outlines agency and tribal commitments to engage in consultation throughout the life of the Hoover Dam Bypass Project. These consultation meetings have also resulted in a request from consulting tribal groups that the agency fund additional anthropological field work to document the cultural significance of sites within the project area. The consultation plan (MOU) and the tribal request for additional research is consistent with prior comments from the State Historic Preservation Offices of Nevada and Arizona. The SHPO comments focused on the need for the Federal Highway Administration to provide more ethnohistorical context to an existing ethnographic report, and to initiate consultation with tribes to fulfill responsibilities outlined in the 1992 amendments to the NHPA. This document is the result on the on-going consultation work by the agency, and by additional anthropological research. As a result of both of these activities, it has become clear that Hoover Dam and Bypass Project Area is part of a larger cultural or ethnographic landscape which includes properties within, and beyond, the area encompassed by the project. As such, these eligibility statements need to be viewed within a larger geographic and intertribal context. In an effort to help the reader understand this larger context, the authors of this document provide additional discussion focusing on the need to interpret the cultural values of sites within the project area in a manner that relates them to other sites outside of the project area. Although the larger 1 Tribal Voices in Historic Preservation: Sacred Landscapes, Cross-Cultural Bridges, and Common Ground. 1996. Vermont Law Review. Volume 21:145. 1 landscape issue is beyond the scope of this document, it is hoped that the reader will evaluate the significance of the sites under discussion here within the larger context of a broader, more inclusive, culturally significant landscape. This is not to suggest that all the necessary information on this larger landscape was collected during this research phase. This larger landscape has emerged as part of the data collection efforts on sites within the project area. It is hoped that additional research will allow a greater understanding of American Indian cultural concepts related to landscapes, or at least to a greater understanding of how the value and meaning of one site depends on its relationship to other sites or to the more expansive elements of regional geography. Preparation of the Eligibility Statement The process used to prepare this statement of eligibility is somewhat unique. In most cases, eligibility statements are prepared by professional historians, architects, archeologists or anthropologists. In this case, the eligibility statements resulted not only from research in oral tradition gathered from tribal members by an anthropologist, but Figure 1: Meeting of Core Work Group Members and BARA Researchers, June 5-9, 2000 also from the work of members of tribal groups engaged in consultation with the Federal Highway Administration. As a result of the on-going consultation between the FHWA and tribes, the tribal representatives selected a smaller Core Working Group from their own members to represent tribal voices on issues that needed immediate attention and could not wait for a gathering of the larger group. This Core Group consists of seven tribal representatives and a Group Spokesperson. It was this smaller group that met with the contract researcher to review the interview data and help construct the eligibility statements. The Core Group members that reviewed these data, and provided additional information, are listed as co-authors of this document. 2 Methods and Background The methodology employed for meeting the eligibility criteria for Traditional Cultural Properties includes two phases of on-site ethnographic interviews with elder representatives from the Southern Paiute, Hualapai, and Mohave tribes. In total, 78 site interviews, 36 landscape interviews, and 36 final evaluation interviews were conducted in 1998 and during the month of May, 2000. The research team consisted of elder tribal consultants, a writers' group of tribal representatives, and research members from the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology with specialists in cultural anthropology, archaeology, natural resource management, ethnobotany, and ethnohistory. The findings presented here are based on physical evidence of traditional use of this site by indigenous people from time immemorial to the present day. Also used is information provided in oral histories, songs, historical documents, and individually conducted interviews confirming continuous awareness and use of Sugarloaf Mountain and Gold Strike Canyon from prehistoric times into the present. As mentioned in the introduction, to place these properties into proper cultural perspective, it is necessary to provide an explanation of American Indian cultural landscapes.2 Although based in part on previous work on landscapes, this