America's First People Still Seek Religious Freedom
by Malinda Maynor and Christopher McLeod
Sacred Land Film Project

At the end of January and in the middle of El Nino's raging storms, we traveled to Los Angeles to attend a meeting between California Native American activists and Abdelfattah Amor, a United Nations investigator of religious intolerance issues.

Caleen Sisk-Franco (Wintu), Mark Franco (San Carlos Apache), Chris Peters (Pohlik-Lah/Karuk) and Floyd Buckskin (Achumawi) testified from personal experience about sacred site struggles in northern California at Mt. Shasta, the High Country of the Siskiyous and Medicine Lake.

Regarding the visit of UN investigator, a spokesperson for Senator Jesse Helms said, "There is no problem with religious intolerance in this country. The UN should stop wasting time and money investigating the United States and start fixing its own sinking ship."

It is exactly this mindset that the native activists were trying to combat in their testimony. Each spoke about American society’s lack of respect for both their religions and the spiritual landscapes to which they minister on behalf of all life. Caleen Sisk-Franco explained that government land managers fail to understand the connection between Wintu religion, medicinal plants, a sacred spring on Mt. Shasta and healing. As a result, the Forest Service has encouraged proposals for a ski resort and allows New Age rituals at the Wintu sacred spring. "When you take Mt. Shasta, you’re taking the heart of the whole creation - what holds the world up," Sisk- Franco related.

The native speakers were striving to convey the importance of their religions to a UN investigator who spends much of his time hearing about abuses heaped upon practitioners of the 'major' world religions - Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. "We need to make them understand that our religion isn’t just a fad.," Chris Peters observed, "It’s something viable, with a history, that works for the world. Everyone seems to understand and respect that when dealing with Christianity or Islam. Why not with us? Why don’t we get that respect and attention?"

Peters explained to the UN investigator that in 1988 the Supreme Court ruled that First Amendment guarantees of free religious practice do not apply to large areas of federal land considered sacred by Native Americans. Subsequent attempts to gain legislative protection by amending the flawed American Indian Religious Freedom Act were shelved after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. Sacred sites are now at the mercy of individual [state and local] government officials who bend in the blustery winds of political change.

"The government can bulldoze, mine, remove an entire mountain sacred to native people and we have no litigative recourse," Peters continued. "We can’t go to court. This is the epitome of religious intolerance because our practices are tied to the earth, to sacred places, and these are not protected in the United States." The Supreme Court’s 1988 decision was "the final act of physical and cultural genocide," said Peters. As a result, "at Little Medicine Mountain (CA), Mt. Taylor (NM), Mt. Graham (AZ), and Enola Hills (OR), the US government has contracted with corporate America to destroy a sacred place. Our holy land can be destroyed and we cannot bring a legal action to stop it."

The idea that land-based religions were not part of America’s religious freedom doctrine seemed surprising to Mr. Amor. Speaking through an interpreter, he asked what the native representatives wanted to change about their situation.

"At this point in America, we can’t even get our grievances heard," Peters replied, "We can’t tell the American people that religious freedom abuses are happening right here under their noses. We just want to get a fair hearing in the courts."

The investigator was incredulous when confronted with the fact the Native American religious freedom issues cannot be addressed in the US legal system. He shook his head, seemingly overcome with the gravity of the situation.

Mr. Amor announced that he would take the testimony he had heard very seriously.

A Victory for Mt. Shasta
US Forest Service Supervisor Sharon Heywood announced on February 19 that she would recommend against the construction of a $22 million ski resort that threatened Native American spiritual practices and sacred sites at Mt. Shasta.

For 15 years, a coalition of Indian and other activist groups have been battling local political leaders and residents who see the resort as a key to the area’s economic development. Mt. Shasta is a ceremonial site central to the cosmologies of many northern California native communities. Supervisor Heywood cited native concerns as primary in her decision to recommend against the construction of the resort. Heywood does not have final say in the matter, but agency higher-ups in San Francisco and Washington DC are likely to follow her recommendation.

Activists celebrated the decision and the apparent statement of concern for Native Americans’ religious freedom and cultural preservation. Lawsuits, appeals, and a proposal to expand an existing ski area lower on the mountain may follow, so the fight isn’t over.

A Victory for Devils Tower
On April 3, a Federal judge in Wyoming ruled that the National Park Service’s (NPS) attempt to protect religious practices at Devils Tower National Monument is constitutional.

The Park Service had instituted a voluntary ban on climbing during June - at the height of ceremonial activity for the 20 Native American tribes that consider Devils Tower a sacred place. In the first two years of the voluntary ban, 85 percent of climbers chose not to climb the tower in June.

The US District Court’s ruling dismissed a 1995 lawsuit by several commercial climbing guides who argued that the voluntary ban violated the First Amendment prohibition of government sponsorship or establishment of religion. Judge William F. Downes wrote, "the government may (and sometimes must) accommodate the religious practices and... it may do so without violating the Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment.

The conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation has appealed the decision. Steve Gunn of the Indian Law Resource Center observed, "These appeals are very expensive, and this is a clear indication of how high a priority it is for conservatives to stop government recognition and protection of Native American sacred sites on federal land."

For more information, contact Christopher (Toby) McLeod, Sacred Land Film Project, Earth Image Films PO Box C-151 La Honda, CA 94020 (650) 747-0685, fax: 650-747-0750, eif@igc.org