University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 8-19-2011 Sacrilege in Dinétah: Native Encounters with Glen Canyon Dam Sonia Dickey Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Dickey, Sonia. "Sacrilege in Dinétah: Native Encounters with Glen Canyon Dam." (2011). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ hist_etds/21 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i SACRILEGE IN DINÉTAH: NATIVE ENCOUNTERS WITH GLEN CANYON DAM BY SONIA L. DICKEY B.A., History, Georgia Southern University, 1998 M.A., History, Georgia Southern University, 2001 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May 2011 ii Acknowledgments Like any large project, this dissertation benefitted from research grants and scholarships. I would like to thank the History Department at the University of New Mexico, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University, and the New Mexico branch of the Daughters of the American Revolution for providing much needed monies that enabled me to research at institutions all over the Intermountain West. I am extremely grateful for the funding opportunities Dr. Tobias Duran and the Center for Regional Studies have given me during my tenure at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Duran and the center generously provided fellowships that allowed me to work at both the University of New Mexico Press (UNMP) and the New Mexico Historical Review (NMHR). Without these monies, this journey would have been virtually impossible and I would have never discovered the wonderful world of publishing. Thank you, Dr. Duran! On a similar note, I would like to thank Dr. Clark Whitehorn, Glenda Madden, and the amazing staff at UNMP, some of whom have moved on to pursue other exploits and some of whom are still there, for teaching me what it takes to be a great acquisitions editor and equipping me with all the skills to enter an awarding career in publishing. Thank you! I also want to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Durwood Ball and the NMHR crew (you know who you are) for providing encouragement on those days when it seemed this project would never end. I would also like to thank Drs. Cathleen Cahill and Samuel Truett for their thoughtful suggestions on how to make this work ever better, and Dr. Byron Pearson for iii his helpful tips on possible avenues of research and his willingness to serve on my committee as an outside reader. I would like to take this time to thank the late Dr. Ferenc Szasz. I will always treasure our many conversations ranging from Georgia peculiarties to religion and the West. Your thoughts and advice on approaching the Mormon faith proved invaluable to my own work. Your curiosity and love of learning has inspired countless generations of students, undergraduates and graduates alike. You are sorely missed, and I am honored to have worked under your tutelage. Thank you, Dr. Szasz! This project would have never been possible without the guidance of Dr. Margaret Connell-Szasz, my advisor and confidante. Words do not suffice as a way to express my eternal appreciation for your advice, encouragement, support, and friendship over the years, even in the face of adversity and hardship. Your open door approach, the inpromptu meetings at the growers’ market, and the innumerable hours spent in Mesa Vista Hall trudging through the project’s details greatly improved this manuscript. Thank you, M C-S! I cannot even fathom this journey without the love and support of my dearest friends. Janet Rahn, thank you for opening your home every time I visited the ‘Boro and never questioning my presence. Sarah Payne, Laurie Hinck, Jay Schifferdecker, and Lisa Brown, thank you for all the wonderful memories, talks, cries, intellectual conversations, hikes, and Ponderosa jaunts. I would have never completed this trek without your inspiration and amazing friendships, ones I hope will last the rest of our lives. Tracie Lissner and Martha Sucsy, thank you being my “sisters” here in Albuquerque and providing me a place to escape the rigors of academia. We are family. Sue Schuurmann, iv thank you for traveling with me in search of water and the many, many adventures and heart-to-heart talks that ensued. I will cherish them always. Jack Loeffler, thank you for being my constant champion and inspiring me to “remove the nails from my frame of reference.” All our chats and intellectual confabulations over breakfast at the Range helped me connect the dots and view this project within the larger context of home watersheds. I am honored to have collaborated with you on the Watersheds as Commons documentary radio series. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of Lore of the Land, Inc. and its awesome group of aural historians, and for introducing me to the power of sound collage. Muchas gracias, mi amigo! And finally, I want to thank my family. Alan Downs, you are my best friend, my kindred spirit, and words are not enough to say thank you for all your love, encouragement, and support over the years. It’s because of you that I started this odyssey in the first place and discovered the real me along the way. Thank you! Max, my sweet girl, thank you for laying at my feet every time I sat at the computer, thank you for insisting that we go outside to ride bikes, play ball, or walk by the river, and thank you for reminding me what life’s all about. Mom, Dad, and Rebecca, I am so very blessed to have you as my family. Your eternal love, all your prayers, advice, and reassurance over the years provided me the tools and wherewithal to embark on this astounding passage. I would have never finished this journey without you. Thank you! I love you with all my heart! v SACRILEGE IN DINÉTAH: NATIVE ENCOUNTERS WITH GLEN CANYON DAM BY SONIA L. DICKEY ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May 2011 vi SACRILEGE IN DINÉTAH: NATIVE ENCOUNTERS WITH GLEN CANYON DAM By Sonia L. Dickey B.A., History, Georgia Southern University, 1998 M.A., History, Georgia Southern University, 2001 Ph.D., History, Georgia Southern University, 2011 ABSTRACT This dissertation spotlights indigenous encounters with Glen Canyon Dam and places Native peoples, especially the Diné, at the center of the dam story. In doing so, it exposes the façade masquerading a less pleasant and creditable reality surrounding the dam than historians have conventionally offered. Considering traditional knowledge; relationships to homeland; pivotal moments in Navajo history, such as the Long Walk and the Bosque Redondo and the stock reduction of the 1930s and 1940s; as well as mid- century Navajo Tribal Council concerns, this study uncovers a multifaceted story of water and energy development in the Southwest. In this version, the Navajo Tribal Council becomes a major player. Through its efforts to secure irrigation projects, beneficial land deals, valuable waterfront property, and advantageous mineral leases, the council actively participated in the environmental degradation of Dinétah (the original Navajo homeland). Its deeds reflected the exploits of the federal bureaucracies and politicians attempting to orchestrate the entire scheme. The actions of Native leaders and their push for much needed revenue on the Navajo Reservation during the postwar era vii resulted in a form of internal colonialism through resource development that mirrored the efforts of external interests to turn habitat into money, all at the expense of the tribal council’s constituents. The People, those Diné who resisted both internal and external forces urging them to abandon their ancestral ties to a particular place, whether McCracken Mesa in San Juan County, Utah, Manson Mesa near Page, Arizona, Rainbow Bridge in San Juan County, Utah, or Black Mesa, Arizona, possessed a profound connection to their motherland, an unbreakable bond that embraced both the physical and metaphysical worlds around them. Equipped with generations of lore, both practical and mythic, the People related lifeways and experiential methods appropriate to their respective homeland. “Sacrilege in Dinétah: Native Encounters with Glen Canyon Dam” aims to highlight the People’s struggle for self-determination, tribal sovereignty, and religious freedom while they combated a representative government run amuck. Themes of relocation and resistance emerge, both exemplifying the People’s profound connection to the desert world enveloping them. viii Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1: “On the Wall of the Garden, A Legend Did Say”: Native Narratives about Glen Canyon………………………………………………………15 Chapter 2: “Rock the Boat, Skin the Goat”: Navajos’ Struggle to Maintain Land-use Rights in Southeastern Utah………………………………………………46 Chapter 3: “Cool Clear Water, Where You Can’t Never Tell”: Navajos and the Origins of Glen Canyon Dam……………………………………………………82 Chapter 4: “I Can’t Help You with Your Troubles, If You Won’t Help with Mine”: The Great Debate over Navajo Rainbow National Park…………118 Chapter 5: “Paradise Waits on the Crest of a Wave”: The Navajo Nation and Industrial Tourism………………………………………………………………162 Chapter 6: “Don’t You Let that Deal Go Down”: Navajo Water Rights and the Black Mesa Struggle………………………………………………...199 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...230 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………236 ix Introduction During the fall of 1969, seventy-five-year-old Norman Rockwell traveled from his studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to the contorted canyonlands of southeastern Utah.