Cover photo by Misha Gravenor

Losing Sacred Ground

Values of faith and profit conflict on federally owned land.

By Reed Karaim

Indian Pass, a broad sweep of sand and sky in southeastern California, has the elusive beauty of desert landscapes, a sense of creation drawn in the simplest lines, leaving plenty of room for the human imagination. The rock-strewn desert of black basalt and white quartz rises to a crescent ridge that frames the bottom of a flawless blue sky. The Chocolate Mountains hang in the distance, and there is an almost unnatural silence at midday.

The setting entrances anyone who gives it enough time to register. But to the Quechan Indians, who have inhabited the area for centuries, it's a location of specific spiritual significance. The pass is crisscrossed by paths sacred in the Quechan's traditional faith, including the Trail of Dreams, where tribal members travel in search of visions. "It's like a church without the church," says Willa Scott, a member of the tribe's culture committee, standing on the hard desert floor one bright autumn afternoon. "A place we can go for reflection and prayer."

Unfortunately for the Quechan (pronounced qwitzahn), Indian Pass is also the place where the U.S. Department of the Interior recently reopened the possibility that Glamis Gold Ltd. will dig an open-pit gold mine that could reach 850 feet deep and use cyanide to leach the low-grade ore. The tribe's open-air church could disappear into a giant hole in the ground.

The Quechan are hardly alone. Indian Pass is one of many Native American sacred sites threatened by development. From the Mandan in North Dakota to the Zuni in New Mexico, tribes are fighting to protect places they consider holy from being mined, drilled, or otherwise subjected to depredation. The National Congress of American Indians has identified 23 imperiled sites, and other Indian leaders say there are more.

The battle over sacred sites predates the Bush administration but has intensified under the current Interior Department. Most of the sites lie on public lands, and the administration's determination to accommodate energy and mining interests on these lands has threatened several sacred places. The administration has sought to roll back environmental regulations limiting what can be done on public lands, in some cases appearing to work hand-in-glove with the corporations it is supposedly regulating. Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the department's lead attorney, William G. Myers, have reversed legal rulings by the previous administration that closed Indian Pass and other sites to development.

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