wfn.org | Sacred Sites

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252
Internet:  news@ncccusa.org

67NCC7/17/98                FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DETAIL EFFORTS TO PROTECT SACRED 
SITES IN U.S.
IN "SACRED SITES, SACRED RITES," FIRST RESOURCE OF 
ITS KIND

NEW YORK, July 17 ---- A new resource published by 
the National Council of Churches details an emerging 
conflict -- the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the 
United States to protect their sacred sites versus 
government and private intrusions on the land.

"Sacred Sites, Sacred Rites," a joint project of 
the NCC's Racial Justice Working Group and the 
American Indian Community House in New York, is the 
first known available resource that examines this 
conflict from an Indigenous perspective.

Along with other issues, the 62-page resource 
focuses on a 14-year campaign by Indigenous 
communities and their supporters to stop a giant 
astronomy project on Mt. Graham, located near 
Safford, Ariz., and the most sacred site to the San 
Carlos Apache.

The University of Arizona, the Max Planck 
Institute in Germany and the Vatican are in the 
process of building a series of giant telescopes on 
Mt. Graham that would destroy a quarter of the 
mountain's forest.  This project, which was 
initially designated as part of Italian and Vatican 
celebrations in 1992 recognizing the 500th 
anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the 
Western Hemisphere, was to be called "the Columbus 
Project."

The resource also contains historical background 
on attempts by Indigenous Peoples to protect their 
sacred sites and a list of sites currently under 
attack by private developers and federal and state 
governments.  And it  examines the history of 
Christian churches in the United States in 
supporting such efforts.

The resource is authored by Andrea Lee Smith, a 
Cherokee currently doing doctoral work at the 
University of California, Santa Cruz, and contains 
an introduction by Sammy Toineeta, Program Director 
of the NCC Racial Justice Program.

-more-

SACRED SITES, SACRED RITES
67NCC7/17/98 - Page 2

"The reason the protection of sacred sites is 
important is because there are 250 million 
Indigenous Peoples in the world and each area has 
its own sites," said Ms. Toineeta. "These sacred 
sites are the churches for 250 million Indigenous 
Peoples. When a church is desecrated or violated in 
any way, people become very angry and protective. 
When the same thing is done to a sacred site, 
unfortunately it is 'business as usual.' "

One source of ongoing conflict between Indigenous 
Peoples and the federal government is that the 
federal Native American Cultural Protection and Free 
Exercise of Religion Act of 1994 does not contain 
protection of sacred sites. "The area in which 
indigenous religions are least protected is the area 
of sacred sites," Ms. Toineeta said.

"For Indigenous Peoples, the spiritual grounding 
that we experience throughout our lives is the 
expression of that which is encoded in our genetic 
structure, and it is as necessary for the 
fulfillment of our lives as water," Toineeta writes 
in the introduction to "Sacred Sites, Sacred Rites." 

"The land serves to do more than nourish our 
bodies. It nourishes our spirits and souls. Many of 
our elders have stated that, if we lose the land, we 
will physically cease to be as a people. This is how 
strongly Indigenous Peoples are bonded to the land."

"Sacred Sites, Sacred Rites" is available for $5 
plus $2 shipping and handling from the Racial 
Justice Unit, National Council of Churches, 475 
Riverside Drive, Room 812, New York, NY 10115.  E-
Mail: rjwg@ncccusa.org.  Phone 212-870-2491.

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