Sedonans have been instrumental in helping out the Navajo Nation community of Big Mountain, aka Black Mesa, when they needed it most.
A 22-year friendship between a resident of the Vista Montana subdivision in West Sedona and a Big Mountain woman has resulted in raising nearly $13,000 for the Navajo community, as well as funding for a delivery car and hundreds of physical donations of food, water, clothes and pet supplies.
Cheryl Breeman first met Marykatherine Smith in 1997 at a Native American studies class in Colorado, where she was living at the time. Breeman invited Smith to be a guest speaker for her preschoolers in Dillon, Colo., to help teach them about the Diné, or Navajo people.
“It started as a lesson in giving,” Breeman said. “I told the kids in my class, ‘if you want to donate anything we can take it to her.’”
That was the first time Breeman organized donations for Big Mountain, and certainly not the last.
“I needed to return [Smith] to Arizona after the organizer of her teaching trip to Colorado dropped her at my home and asked how I was getting her back to Big Mountain. My only possible response was, ‘I guess I’ll have to drive her,’” Breeman recalled of the 500-mile journey. “At that time Marykatherine was living in a canvas dome on her land in Big Mountain and the only place for me to sleep was on the floor in that dome. We had an immediate connection and after leaving Big Mountain we wrote letters to keep in touch because it was before cell phones and they had, and have, no land lines out there. I visited two more times that summer, bringing truckloads of clothing and other donated items each time.”
Over the years, Breeman was welcomed into Smith’s family and even attended community ceremonies.
“At this point in my life I’ve spent so much time with them I’ve become part of their family,” Breeman said of the community.
Family Land
Smith’s immediate family included her 11 siblings and their mother, Katherine Smith, who is famous for protecting her family’s land after the federal government tried to relocate over 10,000 Navajos and 100 Hopis in the area south of Kayenta to develop mineral resources with the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974.
A 1985 documentary on her activism was even nominated for an Oscar before she died in 2017 and was honored by the Arizona State Legislature.
Breeman says Smith is “a true heroine and matriarch like her mother was,” especially in these times.
“Not only does she drop off food, gloves, masks, and other supplies,” Breeman said of Smith. “But she teaches the family on mask wearing, temporary water stations, and aids in anything else the families may need.”
COVID-19
When the coronavirus first hit, the Navajo Nation seemed spared, but after a few weeks, the virus began spreading like wildfire throughout the 27,000-square-mile span that covers northeast Arizona, and parts of Utah and New Mexico. According to the Navajo Nation Department of Health, the infection rate there is over 3.4% with at least 431 deaths.
Before the virus, Breeman already knew firsthand that those they donated to who were living isolated on Hopi Partitioned Land from without water, electricity, or transportation. After the virus hit, families were not able to safely go to the reservation to check on their relatives or drive them to distribution sites, leaving many, especially elders, even more stranded than before.
Breeman, who bought a house in Sedona a year-and-a-half ago, was here when the shutdowns started and knew more funds would be needed to help out the Big Mountain and other Hopi Partitioned Land communities in this increased time of sickness and isolation. Breeman’s friend Lisa White, who also helps Breeman and Smith with the distribution efforts, started a GoFundMe page in late April outlining the situation.
“Many families on HPL are now in their third decade of resisting relocation, attempting to continue their traditional lifestyles,” White wrote in the funding description. “These much needed supplies can help protect them and also help them to continue their way of life upon this sacred land in the future.”
Sedonans Step In
Breeman said she was only expecting a few hundred dollars to come of it at first, but there has now been $12,976 raised.
“We posted the [about the donations] on Sedona bulletin boards and the response from the people in Sedona blew me away,” Breeman said. “In two days I had two truck-fulls of food, blankets and clothes.”
Breeman said Sedonans of all ages and backgrounds showed up at her Vista Montana home with supplies for her to donate, including people that have large houses, to others that may not have had much to spare themselves.
The money being donated is also being used to buy and deliver supplies. Breeman said over $11,000 has gone to things like food, drinking water, propane, sanitizing equipment, PPE, solar lanterns, laundry soap, hygiene items, food for the sheepherding dogs which their livelihood depends, and more, for stranded families, elders or the medical fragile.
Breeman posted about the most recent trip she took with Smith and White to deliver the materials on July 1, where they drove 200 miles to drop off food and supplies at eight locations.
“At one point we drove for two hours on a rough dirt road at 40 miles an hour to finally arrive at two houses each with two people living there,” Breeman said. “What impressed me the most was the isolation of these locations. At another location were two houses, with one man living in each, who previously had contracted Covid. They had not left their homes in 68 days, with Marykatherine making a total of four deliveries of food and water.”
Smith also commented on her and the group’s previous journeys, including one on May 25 where she drove for eight hours, logging 250 miles to make 21 deliveries in five different HPL communities.
“Today was a tough day…. The hard part was seeing the pain of lost family, the look of fear and coming across the sick with no food or water,” she said. “I tried to hold myself together but my heart is broken knowing 57-hour lockdown is mocked by those who live in modern housing with running water and electricity by vacationing in border towns, and calling that trip essential.
“I’m so, so saddened as I returned home to take all my clothes off to hang a few days and wash myself off before I enter my home. I encouraged the families to hang tight that are doing the right thing. Some had not left their homes since March, not even to check their mail.”
Smith, Breeman and White will continue to help supply the HPL communities as long as the donations continue.
As far as what is currently needed, Breeman said water in one gallon or larger containers is always essential due to the water shortage.
“Because there is no recycling near people on the reservation, people try to reduce the amount of single use items,” Breeman said. “At the present time people feel they have enough beans and rice and would like more canned vegetables, including peas and green beans, no sugar … and other healthy options.
Whenever organic foods are donated, they are the first to go. They can always use food, toilet paper and paper goods, batteries — especially size AA — gallon containers of cooking oil and raisins.”
Find out more at gofundme.com/f/aid-for-the-navajo-of-blackmountain.
Alexandra Wittenberg can be reached at 282-7795 ext 126 or at awittenberg@larsonnewspapers.com
