A land fight pits a sacred Apache tradition against a copper mine
An Apache girl comes of age in a traditional ceremony, possibly the last at Oak Flat before copper mining threatens to transform the sacred site in Arizona.
The girl danced for hours in the knee-deep water as slanting rain pelted her slight frame weighed down by a sodden buckskin dress. Each step brought her closer to the end of a ritual that also signified a beginning.The Washington Post was allowed to record parts of the Sunrise Dance ceremony without audio, to preserve its spiritual power.Several days earlier, Lozen Brown-Lopez had arrived at the top of Oak Flat. She was 11 years old, from the San Carlos Apache Tribe and about to endure a grueling four-day ceremony that has been practiced by Apaches for centuries. Surrounded by a hundred family and fellow tribal members, dancers, singers and medicine men, she would perform the Sunrise Dance, reenacting part of the Apache creation story. At the end, after she had been daubed in clay to represent the mythological mother of all Apaches and ritually cleansed, Lozen would emerge as a young woman.What worried many of those who came to this mesa in mountainous southern Arizona in early October was the very real possibility that this Sunrise Dance might be the last one at Oak Flat.Oak Flat sits on one of North America’s largest undeveloped deposits of copper. The mineral is used in dozens of items, including smartphones, electric vehicles and solar panels. The company Resolution Copper believes there are 20 million tons of copper under Oak Flat that could supply up to one-quarter of the U.S. copper demand over 40 years. At today’s prices, experts say that much copper would be worth about $200 billion. The company asserts it will create more than a thousand jobs in an area with high unemployment.Map shows the location of major copper deposits in the Southwest.Mining Oak Flat, however, would eventually transform the landscape, creating what geologists say would be a vast crater. To prevent this, the tribe and other opponents of the mine have filed multiple lawsuits and tried unsuccessfully to get one of the cases heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. A federal appeals court will hold a hearing for several of the suits in early January.“If they take Oak Flat, they destroy our religion and who we are,” said Vanessa Nosie, an archaeology aide for the San Carlos Apache Tribe who also helps her father lead a nonprofit fighting the mine. Lozen, she added, is “dancing to carry the fight for all we’re trying to save.”As the singers drummed in the downpour, Lozen pounded her ceremonial cane into the muddy ground. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and she faltered for a moment.A woman in the crowd whooped. Another onlooker yelled, “Go, Lozen!” She pulled her shoulders back, lifted her head and looked straight ahead to the sprawling landscape of cacti and Emory oaks that give the region its name.She kept dancing.For many in the San Carlos Apache Tribe, Oak Flat — or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel — is where time began.Some believe the Creator, or Usen, made a corridor between heaven and earth on Oak Flat, and Ga’an, mountain spirits, live in the hills. Not all of the roughly 41,000 members in the eight federally recognized Apache tribes consider Oak Flat to be sacred ground. Those who do, however, revere it as one of the few places to reenact the story of White Painted Woman. Some believe earth was first covered with water, and when the floodwaters receded, White Painted Woman emerged from the earth as a sign of renewal of life. Apaches believe she was touched by the rays of the sun and gave birth to twins who were guided by Ga’an and fought off evil monsters on earth.“It’s no different than Mount Sinai and how the Holy Spirit came to be,” said Wendsler Nosie Sr., who runs Apache Stronghold, the nonprofit group fighting the mine, and who is a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. “It’s a holy place that gives the teaching of God’s creation to all of us. It makes us who we are.”Gold, silver and copper were found in the area in the 1870s. As miners moved in, Native Americans were forced out by the U.S. military. In one spot, called Apache Leap, U.S. cavalry pushed warriors to the edge of the cliff. They chose to jump to their deaths rather than surrender.Since then, the history of the land has been a continuing fight among tribes, the federal government and mining companies. For more than 80 years, the Magma Copper Co. ran an operation near Oak Flat. When geologists discovered a huge untapped deposit with high-grade copper at Oak Flat in 1995, the pressure intensified to build a mine. But Oak Flat, which lies within the Tonto National Forest and is controlled by the U.S. Forest Service, has part of the deposit that has been protected from mining. Congress found a way around this problem in 2014 when it passed a law that lifted the ban, allowing a private company to swap land it owns for access to public land.Resolution Copper has offered to exchange 5,000 acres elsewhere in Arizona for 2,400 acres around Oak Flat, but a court injunction has temporarily stopped the transfer. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona) introduced legislation Wednesday to repeal the land exchange with Resolution Copper, a bill similar to one her father filed unsuccessfully in 2015.Mining the ore beneath Oak Flat would not be easy. Roughly a mile beneath the surface, material would be removed from below the deposit and transported underground to a processing facility about 2.5 miles away. As the ore gets removed, the rock above would gradually collapse.In a report this year, the U.S. Forest Service said such mining would ultimately create a crater 1,000 feet deep and two miles wide. By comparison that’s about two times the height of the Washington Monument and the length of the National Mall.Apache Stronghold, environmentalists and the San Carlos Apache Tribe argue in their lawsuits that the mine project violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and an 1852 treaty with the U.S. government to protect certain lands for Apaches.“Religious Indigenous claims are subject to a double standard and get lesser protection,” said Luke Goodrich, a lawyer for Apache Stronghold and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “Because of the nation’s history of dispossessing Indigenous people of their land, their sites are on land that’s controlled by the federal government. Their practices are uniquely tied to land in a way that other religions aren’t, so they disproportionately have to rely on the government for practicing their religious practices.”The legal arguments have mostly failed so far. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear one of the cases. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a strong defender of Native rights, issued a dissenting opinion, calling the decision a “grievous mistake.”“The government has long protected both the land and the Apaches’ access to it. No more,” Gorsuch wrote. “Just imagine if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral on so questionable a chain of legal reasoning. I have no doubt that we would find that case worth our time.”Other lawsuits based on similar religious claims and the potentially negative environmental impacts from the mine are making their way through the courts. In early January, the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit will hear arguments in three lawsuits filed against the federal government and the company by several Apache women, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, which represents conservation and environmental groups.Adam Gustafson, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement: “These baseless lawsuits are just the latest effort to block development of natural resources that benefit the American people.”Four days before the start of Lozen’s Sunrise Dance, the Supreme Court again declined a request to hear one of the cases.Lozen’s mother, Sinetta Lopez, told her daughter the news.“I told her: ‘You could be the last one to dance at Oak Flat or the first one to win the fight,’” she said.Just after sunrise on the first day of the ceremony, Lozen’s godmother — Tanya Rogers — adorned her with items symbolic of becoming a young woman.A floor-length buckskin dress. A T-shaped beaded necklace. An abalone shell tied with a thin leather strap on her forehead. In Lozen’s long dark hair, she pinned an eagle feather — a symbol of prayers for a long and healthy life. She passed her a cane made from trees at Oak Flat.“Every knot, every piece of leather from a deer, it’s done with prayer and a song that goes with it,” Vanessa Nosie said. “When it’s placed on her, it’s her protection, her shield. It’s her story of our people.”Dozens of Apache girls choose to go through the ritual every year, mainly in the spring and summer. Lozen’s was late in the season to accommodate the class schedule at the charter prep school in Scottsdale where she plays volleyball and basketball and runs cross-country. Not all Sunrise Dances happen at Oak Flat. Some perform the ceremony at their reservations.By tradition, a girl is ready for her Sunrise Dance within four days of her first menstruation. Most families spend months planning the ceremony. Lozen, who is named after a well-known Apache woman who fought alongside Geronimo, had gone as a young girl to the ceremonies of her older cousin and her sister.“She’d play with dolls as a kid and paint their faces with the yellow pollen that we believe is for blessings and prayers,” her mother said.Now it was Lozen’s turn.A week before the ceremony, Lozen’s family brought truckloads of tents, blankets, clothing, pots, pans, grills, folding tables, chairs, firewood and food. One morning, a group of men cut down willow trees for Lozen to build her wickiup — a traditional dome-shaped Apache home.“The home she learns to build is a symbol of how she will form her life,” her mother said. “It has to be strong and keep her family warm in the winter and cool in the summer and be able to withstand life.”Lozen and her cousin, who had already performed the ceremony, stayed in the structure for several nights. No smartphones and no metal were allowed inside.“I got to see more things at Oak Flat that you don’t get to see if you’re on your phone — like hummingbirds,” she said.On that Saturday morning, Lozen began to reenact the story of White Painted Woman. Facing the rising sun, she bounced on her knees with her hands beside her face for roughly 20 minutes.“She’s dancing to the sun, just like the White Painted Woman came out and saw the sun,” said Theresa Nosie, Wendsler’s wife.Two tall mine towers poked from the ridge about a mile away. Resolution Copper, a joint venture of two multinational mining companies (Rio Tinto and BHP), has redeveloped some of the old Magma operation as part of its plan for the new mine.The company says about 80 of the approximately 400 workers preparing the site come from the San Carlos Apache Tribe. When the mine is fully operational, Resolution Copper has said, it will employ about 1,400 workers. Some tribal members see the jobs as a boon to the estimated 10,000 tribal members who live on the reservation, where the unemployment rate hovers above 60 percent. But the tribe’s consultants have disputed the jobs estimate, saying much of the work at the mine will be automated.“People will ask me: ‘Are there any jobs?’ ‘Can you get my son or my uncle a job?’” said Brenda Astor, a member of the San Carlos Apache who lives on the reservation, about 60 miles from Oak Flat. For three years, she has worked as a principal adviser for Native affairs at Resolution Copper. “This is a chance for our own people to help ourselves by getting jobs and bringing that salary back home and providing for their families.”That evening, a few men built a huge bonfire. Dancers dressed as Ga’an — with tall wooden headdresses, bells tied on their ankles and sacred symbols painted white on their bodies — appeared around the blaze. Lozen and a few other girls who had already gone through their sunrise ceremonies danced with them.As the bonfire’s flames stretched into the night sky, a red light atop the mine towers blinked in the distance.Heavy rain and flash flooding arrived before the third day. Women chased pots and pans that floated away in the current. Men carried children in pajamas on their backs, ferrying them from tents filled with water and mud to their vehicles.But no one considered calling off the ceremony as it approached a crucial moment.Lozen’s godfather took white clay — made from water and ash — and painted her face, shoulders and hair with it. In the Apache creation story, the White Painted Woman is covered in ash when she emerges from the earth.Lozen closed her eyes as the dripping clay hardened on her face. After a few minutes, her godmother carefully wiped her eyes with a scarf, marking her official transition to womanhood. Lozen was now seeing with new eyes.“You watch your child go from baby to toddler and then to a young girl,” Sinetta Lopez said. “And then to watch her eyes as they’re wiped as she transitioned to a young woman in front of you. It’s like she’s reborn.”Naelyn Pike, one of Wendsler’s granddaughters, said watching Lozen was powerful. “She’s this young girl telling the world: ‘I’m here. I exist. We, my people, still exist,’” she said.Resolution Copper believes the mine will not impact the Apaches’ desire to preserve their sacred ground.“The copper at Oak Flat is one of the deposits that really counts,” said Lawrence Cathles, a geologist at Cornell University. But getting to the deep reserve, which in spots is more than a mile below the surface, is tricky and involves a method known as panel caving. Workers must bore deep shafts and tunnels to get to the ore. Gradually, the surface at Oak Flat will collapse like a sinkhole, mining experts said. Many conservationists and Native Americans worry about the environmental harm to plants, animals and water supplies.Resolution Copper’s general manager and president, Vicky Peacey, disagreed. She said 70 percent of Oak Flat will be untouched, including the campground where the sunrise ceremonies are held. “It’s possible it may never be impacted,” Peacey said.As part of the land transfer, Resolution Copper agreed to give public access to the campground as long as the company deems it is safe.Peacey said her company has worked with 11 Native American tribes in the region to protect parts of Oak Flat, including historic Apache Leap, and avoid some spots where there are significant streams and medicinal plants. Resolution Copper has said it plans to set aside $54 million in an endowment for the 11 tribes to use for education, helping youths and preserving cultural heritage.“We’ve worked with them,” Peacey said of the tribes, “on how we can change things so culture and nature can coexist with mining.”For Lozen, there was one final step in her passage to womanhood.Still covered in white clay, Lozen rode about two miles down an unpaved road with her mom, sister and a few other women. Then the women hiked, climbing over slippery boulders down into a canyon where rocks rose steeply on either side of a pool of water.Lozen lay on her back on the rocks, her long dark hair flowing in the pool. Her sister and other girls cut open yucca they had carried from camp. Her mother squeezed the yucca so it foamed, making shampoo, and gently washed the clay from Lozen’s hair.After the hair washing, Lozen laughed and swam with her cousin in the pool. Her mom later said: “The trees, the water here. This is all going to be wiped out with the mine, as they dig deep into the ground.”Storm clouds rolled above the canyon wall. Lozen scrambled out of the water in front of the older women and emerged as one of them.
