While the Standing Rock Sioux community fight to defend their watersheds and treaty rights, recent successes by Native peoples in California to retain sovereignty over their waterways should offer hope.
In Northeastern California, the Pit River Tribe (known in their own languages as Hewisedawi) successfully defended their rights of sovereignty over Spirit Lake, a glacial-fed body of water over which the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had claimed jurisdiction. For the past 12 years, the tribe has been in court, arguing that the BLM wrongly awarded leases to private companies wishing to exploit the region for geothermal development. In April, 1026, a judge ruled in the Hewisedawi’s favor, thus affirming BLM overreach and setting the stage for the return of this sacred place, a part of the Medicine Lake Highlands that the federal government designated a Traditional Culture District in 1999.
The tribe’s website explains that “the Hewise people never signed a treaty with the United States; their land was simply confiscated. Today, the Hewisedawi have survived and continue to live in what is now called Modoc County, as well as throughout the West. They continue to hunt and gather in their traditional places, and pray at their sacred sites throughout their homeland. Today, they are federally recognized indians and one of eleven bands making up the Pit River Nation.”
The website also includes a poem by tribal member Erin Forrest. In “Reflection,” the poet speaks about the land in a way that indigenous peoples across the hemisphere can understand:
Today I peered through the stifling mist
That separates the spirit world from the land of my Grand fathers.
I see little resemblance of the land I knew where in my time,
I was spawned and grew.
Gone is the pristine beauty that inspired my youth.
Seasonal fragrances that permeated the glen
Replaced now by the offending odors of our conquerors.
The delicate sounds that announced the seasons are muffled now . . .
Over on the coast, the Hupa Nation has embarked on the restoration of its traditional salmon fisheries by restoring the Lower Trinity River watershed that supports them. Here is a short film produced by the tribe that describes their efforts:
The efforts of these tribes demonstrate the effectiveness of persistence and community organizing in facing down corporate and federal trespass on Native lands. But they also demonstrate the efforts Native Americans are making on behalf of us all. The protection of these watersheds benefits everyone, not just the tribes. As Pit River Tribal Chairman Mickey Gemmill, Jr. told reporters from Indian Country Today: “If Calpine fracks our land, it will take away a part of our culture and it will poison the waters . . . We’re not just fighting for our people but for everyone and the waters of California.
Non-Native citizens ought to sit up and take notice, for we too are invested in these brave indigenous efforts to save the waters we all share.
