Calls For New National Monument on Indigenous Peoples Day

Suzanne Potter, Public News Service

[Although it is a positive  development that President Joe Biden has become the first President in U.S. history to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day, he remains silent as the Line 3 tar sands crude oil pipeline encroaches on and destroys indigenous land. – Progressive Hub]

In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day today, many in Nevada’s Native community are calling for the establishment of a new national monument at Spirit Mountain, known as Avi Kwa Ame, near Searchlight. Multiple tribes derive their creation story from the Avi Kwa Ame area.

Nora McDowell, a project manager for the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe’s Pipa Aha Macav Cultural Center, said the land is her people’s most sacred site.

“The river is our namesake,” she said. “We are the Aha Macav, ‘People of the River.’ The mountains we revere as a place of creation. You could analogize it to the Vatican, Arlington Cemetery, the Wailing Wall. This is our church, this is our place. This is our home.”

On Friday, President Joe Biden restored the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, which had been shrunk by former President Donald Trump. Searchlight resident Kim Garrison Means, an organizer for Avi Kwa Ame, said Biden’s move has injected new hope into the fight to establish a 380,000-acre monument in southern Nevada…