In the middle of the night, I would wake up in a tent on a mountain to frost and howling coyotes. Chi’chil Biłdagoteel. That’s the name of the sacred place with hundred-year-old oaks, whose hollow trunks with mighty crowns greet them like silver-green ancestors in the Apache language. Since I’ve been in the US, this is the most beautiful and poignant approach to the Native American culture ever-present in Arizona, with more than 20 tribal territories in the state.
But this place, an hour’s drive from Phoenix, is special. Oak Flat is a flashpoint in the indigenous people’s struggle against the government for their religion. Native Americans believe that the mountains are inhabited by spirits, and families here celebrate the Dawn Ceremony, a rite of initiation for maidens. I just went there with my colleagues to film the students who protested against the destruction of the holy place during a four-day run.
It turns out that beneath the silvery oaks and rusty rocks, the depths of the earth hold the largest deposits of copper in North America. Nine years ago, Congress overnight, at the suggestion of Senator McCain, set aside the area for two of the world’s largest mining companies. Their plan is ready – they will drill tunnels under the deposits, explode and excavate them, and the emptied earth will fall into a huge crater. So deep that it includes the Eiffel Tower.
Indians call it the continuation of colonization. It is amazing that the tribes have been able to continue the fight for so long, as business and political interests in the United States grind like a giant wheel, for which the oak trees of Native American ancestry are just a cog on the road to billions of dollars. Why bother recycling copper waste when it’s more profitable to recycle political power into huge profits? An important court decision is expected in March, but even that will not be the end – the loser will go to the Supreme Court.
