RSS FeedCIBOLA COUNTY - Many residents in and around Cibola County have asked - “Why was Mount Taylor designated a Traditional Cultural Property?” Or, “what are the qualifications for a property to become a TCP?”
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The video started off with a photo of Sky City, arguably the oldest inhabited community in North America, with Mount Taylor in background, giving a visual of its significance to the Acoma Indians.
Significance
The video went on to claim its significance: A) Association with events that have made significant contributions to the broad patterns of the nominating tribe's history; B) Association with the lives of persons, historical and spiritual, significant in the tribe's past; C) The property has yielded or may be likely yield information to prehistory or history.
Contributing and non-contributing
The following slide showed 'contributing properties' - The mountain, boundary markers, springs, lakes, shrines, blessing places, 1,000 archaeological sites, ceremonial sites and grazing sites. A 'contributing property,' according to HPD Director Katherine Slick, is property on the mountain that has recognized the cultural significance of the mountain and will benefit from its designation in a variety of ways.
The show went on to 'non-contributing properties' - private landholdings. Reasons for excluding private properties: A) Fenced off lands are no longer accessible to the tribe's physically and spiritually; B) Lost their integrity of association and feeling; C) No longer contribute to the overall cultural significance of the TCP.
Nomination
According to the video, which was marked as “inaccurate” by several landowners, the HPD finally claimed 434,767 acres as contributing lands and 89,939 as non-contributing. The video stated, “verbal boundary description revised to more clearly indicate the lowers slopes of the mesas, or guardian peaks, that surround the summit and their importance as home to shrines, trails, springs, places of offering and other cultural sites: The mesas of San Mateo, Jesus, La Jara, Horace, Chivato and Bibo and 1,000 archaeological sites have statewide significance to all tribes in New Mexico. The sites are important for their connection to each other and to the mountain.
The video concluded, establishing the mountain as a TCP, stating, “The state register nomination clearly established this (Mount Taylor) landscape as a Traditional Cultural Property worthy of protection and preservation. The tribe's statements of significance, individually and collectively, demonstrate that the mountain and its surrounding mesas fulfill the federal requirements of a TCP. It is rooted in history and important to maintaining cultural identity in the modern world. The tribes have established that private landholdings on the mountain no longer contribute to the elements that give Mount Taylor its cultural significance, and that private property does not need to be afforded the protections provided by a state register listing.
Committee and HPD comments
Chairman Alan “Mac” Watson thanked the tribes for bringing the nomination forward and for sharing their closely held spiritual beliefs, “making us all aware of the importance of Mount Taylor.”
Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman commented, “Certainly the value of Mount Taylor as a TCP has never been in question, but neither has the importance of balancing the spiritual beliefs of our Indian tribes and the inherent rights of private property owners.”
Slick said, “The nomination achieves the tribes' goal of finding common ground in their differing beliefs that includes their respective historic and cultural affiliation with the nomination. The survival of the mountain, which they see as a living, breathing spiritual being, is what is essential for their traditional and cultural practices to continue.”
Tribal comments
Shortly after the designation a spokesman for the tribes remarked: “This designation highlights the rich historic and cultural connections that each tribe maintains with the mountain,” said Acoma Governor Chandler Sanchez; “The Navajo people travel to the four sacred mountains, including Mount Taylor, to obtain soil, tobacco, minerals, medicines, and other resources to create the sacred Mountain Soil Bundle, which are used in our Blessing Way Ceremony, the foundation of all Navajo ceremonies and Navajo way of life.”
Editor's Note: On June 5, after being temporarily registered, the state Cultural Affairs Committee unanimously voted yes in order to permanently register Mount Taylor as a TCP. For more information about the HPD and the designation go to www.nmhistoricpreservation.org. Five tribes - Acoma, Laguna, Hopi, Navajo and Zuni - were the applicants requesting the mountain's TCP designation.
Comments
jr wrote on Jul 7, 2009 8:00 AM:
Grants Resident wrote on Jun 30, 2009 10:56 PM:
jr wrote on Jun 29, 2009 2:52 PM:
Pueblo Man wrote on Jun 25, 2009 10:53 PM:
Izzy Grant wrote on Jun 24, 2009 10:23 PM:
pamela lashmet wrote on Jun 23, 2009 7:20 AM:
Th damage has been done to the areas that is not even resolved and you let more mining in.
Does no one value the land or people. "