For months, the O’odham had maneuvered to avoid such a scene, taking their case to federal court. Their homeland straddles the border, and thousands of tribal members live in Mexico. A wall would disrupt routine border crossings for ceremonies and family visits and destroy landscapes they consider their duty to protect, members and leaders say. Their lawsuit argued that the Trump administration’s efforts to build it despite their opposition constituted an historic attack on tribal sovereignty.
DESTRUCTION OF SACRED SITE
The O’odham suspected the government would not be as mindful as it claimed.
Two days after the meeting with Mullin, the DHS secretary, a border wall contractor had “inadvertently disturbed a cultural site” west of the reservation. The crew had bulldozed a 70-foot swath through the Las Playas Intaglio, a 200-foot long earthen etching in the shape of a fish that was at least 6,500 years old. The site was well marked and well known to area archaeologists.
Wynona P. Larson Yazzie, an O’odham tribal elder, Marine Corps veteran and former tribal police officer, had organized prayer runs that included stops at the intaglio. She’d visited the site the day before its destruction. Since then, she’d closely followed the Nation’s lawsuit.
On Aug. 6, Larson Yazzie saw a disturbing filing from the tribe’s attorneys. They’d received word that in four days government contractors would enter the reservation to conduct tests. DHS, the tribe argued, was “exploiting” the judge’s reflection period to “move forward with highly disputed actions.”
Tribal leaders erected dozens of 8-foot-wide “no trespassing” signs along the three main access roads leading through the reservation to the border.
READ:
https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=870459&p=30&view=issueViewer
Ancient geoglyph damaged by border wall contractors, archaeologists say
The Center for Biological Diversity documented a 50-foot-wide scraped corridor cutting through part of the 272-foot-long fish-shaped figure after U.S. Customs and Border Protection contractor drove heavy equipment through the area on April 23.
The earthwork was previously thought to be only about 1,000 years old, but according to the article, titled "Las Playas Intaglio Damaged by Border Wall Construction is Older Than 6,500 Years," it is now identified as the oldest scientifically dated geoglyph in the Americas.
This discovery places its creation 2,000 years before Egypt's first pyramid and 1,500 years before the first construction of Stonehenge.
"This discovery makes an already devastating loss even more profound. It’s a cultural and historical atrocity,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity.
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