Bitter Water: Diné Oral Histories of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute (review)

Malcolm Benally, a Diné tribal member, utilized documentary footage and interviews conducted with producer/photographer Mary Fish to create Bitter Water, a unique collection of indigenous approaches and responses to the century-old Navajo-Hopi land dispute. Benally’s interviews with Diné female activists (Mae Tso, Roberta Blackgoat, Pauline Whitesinger, and Ruth Benally) offer the Navajo perspective on the land dispute that has displaced thousands of Navajo and Hopi people. Many Navajo families, including those of the women interviewed here, have resisted relocation and have endured discrimination and economic hardship in return. Benally presents the full transcripts of the oral interviews in both traditional Navajo and English in this volume, which begins with a historical/interpretive foreword by the historian Jennifer Nez Denetdale and includes traditional poetry/songs of the Navajo.

In 1882 President Chester Arthur created the Hopi Reservation, carved out of Navajo Reservation lands, in response to the concerns of a local Indian agent for the use of the Hopi and “such other Indians as the Secretary of the Interior may see fit to settle thereon” (quoted on xii). The Hopi people occupied the mesas that their ancestors had lived upon since the era of Spanish exploration and colonization, while the Navajo continued to expand their use of the land of northern Arizona for livestock herding. The two groups came into conflict as the Hopi complained that Navajo herders were invading their lands. Despite the longstanding debate surrounding the 1882 Reservation, “the imperative to address the complaints of Navajos and Hopis over shared lands was not taken seriously,” according to the book’s introduction by Jennifer Nez Denetdale, “until coal, gas, and water were discovered and it then became necessary to determine rightful ownership of the land” (xiii). At the center of the controversy was the Peabody Coal Company and its coal strip-mining practices that threatened the ecology of the contested Black Mesa region. The 1974 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act attempted to solve the problem by dividing the 1882 reservation equally between Navajos and Hopis and authorizing the relocation of both Hopi and Navajo families who lived on the wrong side of the line. Navajo families, including those whose interviews comprise the central element of the book, resisted—and continue to resist—the relocation law (Public Law 93–531) in numerous ways, including “calling for the repeal of the 1974 act, suing the U.S. government for violating their religious freedom, and physical resistance” (xiii).

The four women who appear on the pages of Bitter Water have been at the heart of Navajo resistance. Land, life, sheep, and religion thread through the interviews, tying them to the story of resistance against the cultural genocide represented by forced relocation from language, home, and livelihood. Fifty-eight-year-old Mae Tso speaks of her Mexican heritage, the growing of corn, and the “thin red line” created in 1974. “History is just a small reminder,” Tso argues. “We have become this land of ours” (23). “This is a big story,” echoes the words of Roberta Blackgoat:

Those of us who resist, let us continue to resist. What can they do? They don’t stand behind the ceremony. They only have their modern conveniences, its laws, papers, and the English language. This is all they have to work against us.

(34)

“It’s probably true that you should always think about the good things,” Ruth Benally said during her interview, “they come back to you.” Like the others, she will continue to resist relocation: “It looks like the animals are gone again, but they come home. The horses are always home. And I am sitting here. Until this evening when I go home” (61).

Malcolm Benally’s interview methodology allowed him to analyze how “the vernacular English and vernacular Navajo could come together in translation” (7). The book is based on more than...