True Respect for The Mountain
The Arizona Republic have an interesting article covering Native American objections to ski area expansion in and around Arizona.
“I don’t know how any mountains could be more important to a religion than the peaks are to us”, said Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. “Part of the rites of passage of all of our children is to be initiated in the kachina belief way, and what’s being lost there is that the federal government keeps substituting technology in place of nature.”
If we want to truly respect the mountain, we need to also respect the traditions of those for whom the mountains have an importance far beyond our own use of them (for recreation, or commercial enterprise). For the Hopi people, the peaks in question are part of their way of life.
