Ha`tata (The Backbone of the River): American Indian Ethnographic Studies Regarding the Hoover Dam Bypass Project Item Type Report Authors Stoffle, Richard W.; Zedeno, Maria Nieves; Eisenberg, Amy; Toupal, Rebecca; Carroll, Alex; Pittaluga, Fabio; Amato, John; Earnest, Trey Download date 06/10/2021 20:56:24 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/270990 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA Ha`tata (The Backbone of the River): American Indian Ethnographic Studies Regarding the Hoover Dam Bypass Project July 2000 BUREAU OF APPLIED RESEARCH IN ANTHROPOLOGY Ha‘tata (The Backbone of the River): American Indian Ethnographic Studies Regarding the Hoover Dam Bypass Project Prepared For CH2M HILL, Inc. 2030 E. Flamingo Road, Suite 160 Las Vegas, Nevada and Federal Highway Administration Central Federal Lands Highway Division Denver, Colorado Prepared By Richard W. Stoffle, Ph.D. M. Nieves Zedeno, Ph.D. Amy Eisenberg, M.S. Rebecca Toupal, M.L.A. Alex K. Carroll, M.A. Fabio Pittaluga, M.A. John Amato, LPN Tray G. Earnest, B.A. Genevieve Dewey, B.A. Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology The University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 With a Contribution by Henry F. Dobyns Revised July 12, 2000 Foreword This foreword clarifies some issues of interpretation that may arise during the reading of this report. First and foremost, this is a report of ideas that have been expressed by American Indian elders officially sent by their tribal governments to talk about places connected with the proposed Hoover Dam Bypass project. Second, this report provides ethnographic and ethnohistorical background, which serves to contextualize the statements of Indian people. This background analysis is designed to help the reader better understand the Indian statements by knowing that they have time- depth, ethnographic foundations, and historical documentation. Indian statements stand on their own authority, and the background analysis is not meant as a step toward validating these statements. The Hoover Dam Bypass project is in its the final stages of preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). A project webpage that contains a history of EIS activities, visual descriptions of the project alternatives, and many current study findings is available at http:www.hoverdambypass.org. The American Indian portion of EIS studies is funded by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Lands currently under consideration are managed by the Bureau of Recreation (BOR) and the National Park Service (NPS). There are a series of proposals that have been put forth over the past decade to relieve the traffic snarls that occur almost daily at Hoover Dam, which created Lake Mead on the Colorado River. Concerns also have been expressed that some of the trucks involved in these traffic jams carry toxic substances and radioactive waste; and, that due to an accident, these could find their way into either Lake Mead or the Colorado River. Generally many of the Indian people involved in these studies do not like these traffic jams, have expressed concern over the proximity of chemicals and wastes near the Colorado River, and believe these problems should be eliminated in some way. Thus there is basic American Indian agreement and widespread support for the efforts of the FHWA. At various times during the process of formally seeking a solution to the traffic passing over Hoover Dam, the FHWA has considered at least 14 different alternatives, which range from using existing crossings of the Colorado River such as the one at Needles, California to constructing new bridges over the Colorado River. Throughout much of this time, Indian concerns were not incorporated into the EIS process. When tribal consultation began and the first tribal elders were asked to evaluate project alternatives only three bridge locations, all near the current Hoover Dam, were being considered. This presented a fundamental tension in the evaluation of these alternatives inasmuch as the studies have documented that from an Indian perspective all three possible bridge locations are in the same place; that is, the mouth of Black Canyon on the Colorado River. It is important when reading this report to realize that most Indian people who have been involved in the study see all three currently proposed routes as being without an actual cultural alternative, although they do make statements that distinguish one bridge location from another. There is almost universal agreement that Black Canyon is an area of great cultural importance to the Indian people of the immediate area and of the region. There is also some confusion of terms and statements in the text of this report; a confusion that comes from different perceptions of what is connected in Black Canyon and surrounding areas. Contributing to this confusion are terms and statements that derive from very different cultural perspectives on objects, places, and cultural landscapes. Minor differences occur from person to person, from gender to gender, and from ethnic group to ethnic group, but the major confusions derive from epistemological differences between how Indian people and EuroAmericans view the Black Canyon and the Colorado River. Interestingly, this project for the first time has attempted to clarify these complex differences in environmental and spiritual perception. Certainly they have existed since EuroAmericans arrived in this area and began to change it for their own interests. Past development projects did not involve the cultural views of Indian people. Hopefully this report makes a positive contribution towards increasing our understanding of how Indian people view this land and making these findings most useful for the Hoover Dam Bypass EIS considerations. The Role of Culture This report conveys ideas that derive from different cultural systems. There are real differences in perceptions of time, place, and artifact between the Indian elders who participated in this study and the trained scientists who have commented on their ideas. Cultural ideas are neither easily explained nor understood. According to most ethnographers, cultural systems are abstract ideas about the nature of the world and the role relationships that human have to this world and to other humans. Cultural elements can be very abstract like beliefs about what is in the world (that is epistemology), can be organized in terms of values that generally guide human behavior, and norms which are specific rules that guide specific behaviors. Cultural elements are shared, what LeVine (1984: 68) calls a supra-individual phenomenon that represents a consensus on a wide variety of meanings among members of an interacting community. And yet, many aspects of culture are unevenly distributed among this community because some knowledge and rules are restricted to categories of people. Simply put, culture is abstract, carried through time by a human community, and difficult to explain across cultural boundaries – the task of this report. In order to improve the ability of this report to communicate across the various cultures involved in this study, this Foreword provides two examples of different cognitions of the Hoover Dam Bypass study area and documents how they influence comments about objects and places in the area. These examples are ordered from the smallest to the largest in scale and in complexity. What is a groundstone? It is interesting that the idea behind a grinding stone could be so complex, but it really is. In the science of archaeology, groundstone usually means something that has clearly been used many times – often in the processing of food. If it really is a tool in the science of archaeology, then considerable evidence of grinding should be evident. Indian people’s use of the term “grinding stone” ranges from a stone that shows no evidence of use and to a heavily used seed grinding stone. Grinding stones are a kind of stone – they tend to be viewed as gifts from a mountain or a quarry of some type and therefore non- human hands mostly prepare them. In fact, much of the work to make a grinding stone is done by the time a human picks it up and accepts it as a gift of the mountain. Once it is used for grinding, some evidence of its use begins to appear on the stone, but the stone was already identified as a grinding stone before any grinding occurred. During this study three types of ground stone were viewed and identified by tribal elders. The basic stone is what one may call a “geofact,” that is, a well-shaped foundation stone that could be used for a number of grinding purposes and that has been made by non-human forces. Many of these stones occur on the flank of Sugarloaf Mountain in a large deposit of what geologists would probably call “river rolled” stones or boulders. Indian people identified this deposit as a deliberately produced gift of Sugarloaf Mountain who (“who” is grammatically correct because the mountain is alive) made the stones and placed them there for the use of Indian people. Thus the term “geofact” further implies a conscious effort on the part of the mountain and any other forces that may have combined their effort with the mountain in order to shape the stones and place them there for human use. The shape, weight, and materials of these geofacts are to Indian people evidence of conscious and purposeful activity (albeit non-human), just as if the stones had been used for dozens of years and clearly showed signs of human use. So the first kind of ground stone is a geofact that has no human use history. A second type of ground stone is a doctoring rock or healing rock. These may or may not show signs of use. They may be geofacts waiting as gifts from the mountain for use by Indian people for healing. They tend to be quartz, smaller than a hand, very smooth, and flat.