Sign at Turnoff from Navajo Route 16, Inscription House, Arizona
Earlier I discussed an article in the Navajo Times by Cindy Yurth about the many difficulties standing in the way of paving roads on the Navajo Reservation. She has another article elaborating on one of the problems, namely problems within the agencies of the Navajo government that can stand in the way of getting anything done. This is a constant problem in the complicated and impenetrable bureaucracy that is the Tribe. This particular article focuses on allegations by one Navajo archaeologist in the Historic Preservation Department that her Anglo supervisor made things difficult for her in a variety of ways that ended up keeping roads projects from going forward. The allegations are serious, culminating in physical intimidation and assault charges against the supervisor. As always with this sort of thing, it’s hard to tell who to believe and what was really going on with all the conflicting accounts by different individuals involved, but Yurth does a good job of presenting the different perspectives. One important thing to keep in mind when reading the article is that there are two separate departments within the Navajo Nation Division of Natural Resources that handle archaeology: Historic Preservation, which handles a lot of different things (including the Chaco Sites Protection Program, which is where John Stein and Taft Blackhorse do their work) but in the context of infrastructure projects serves as a regulatory agency, and the Archaeology Department, which does contract archaeology on large projects and functions like a commercial cultural resources management firm. The two have a complicated history, and in general do not get along. Although both are part of the tribal government, the relationship between the two on specific projects is contractual and subject to all the usual tensions and conflicts inherent in compliance situations. Yurth’s article contains a lot more information on the specifics, but it’s important to have this background information to understand it. Overall the article, like the previous one, is informative and definitely worth reading.
Road to Navajo National Monument from Shonto, Arizona
Worked for several years with the Navajo Nation Archaeology Dept and the relatively short lived NN Arch. Roads Dept. We did a lot in that time. Cleared many a road through archaeological rich areas. Several of these roads, although cleared have yet to be built, such as the road from Counselors to Pueblo Pintado. The problem is well stated above and in the first article. Mostly it is the mess of bureaucracy and with little hope for streamlining the process. The same reason there is not a Navajo owned restaurant in every small town on the rez.-too much red tape.