There are old ones who still communicate with stones, bones, skulls, feathers, plants, and know the songs to honour the natural world and spirits. Our ancestors worked with the spirits, water, fire, air, earth, the drum, prayers, and songs for harmony and fertility. They walked the Earth in harmony and respect for the Universe and Creation.
You know how it is when you have a pain, if you get a little cut it hurts. That’s the way the earth is now and we need to heal her in some way. They’re not patching up anything for Mother Earth and She’s not healing, She’s just getting worse with pain. They are trying to take Her precious guts out for money." --Roberta Blackgoat, Diné  Elder
Roberta Blackgoat fought tirelessly for the human rights of her people as well as all living things. She is best known for her refusal to relocate out of the Navajo Reservation after federal orders. Over the years she spoke publicly in various forums around the United States and Europe to fight for Native American Rights. She spoke against issues that were not always talked about such as, "the mining of uranium, coal, natural gas, and the taking away of water supplies" from Native Americans
Roberta Blackgoat 
Diné Elder 
1917-2002
On the 14th April, 1999, Roberta Blackgoat made the following statement that she wishes to be distributed.
Roberta is an 82 year old Navajo Elder and is one of the resisters at Black Mesa under threat of imminent eviction.
My name is Roberta Blackgoat, I am speaking to you from Thin Rock Mesa, the place where I live, the place where I’ve been born, and raised, and been taught how to live in this area.
For twenty five years I’ve been dealing with the government trying to move me off my ancestral lands. My great, great ancestors have been born here, and they’ve been buried in this area,…. around here there is a lot of my ancestors graveyard sites. My grandfather had taught me how to care for life on the land in the sacred ways, with the sacred prayers and the sacred songs, and he told me how in the very beginning the world was created and how the Great Spirit has surveyed it for the Dine people in this area, between the Sacred Mountains, Mount Blanca in Colorado, Mount Taylor in New Mexico, San Francisco peaks in Arizona, and Mount Hesperus in Colorado.
Between these four Sacred Mountains is a room for the Dine people, where it has been made like a church, and way out on the west side, by the San Francisco Peaks, inside the room is our altar. And this is the main point,… that we are being told to move off the land.
This is our altar that we can’t give up. We can’t sell it, we can’t buy it, we just have to take care of it and have people live in this area. And now we’re being told to move off from our altar.
This is why I really need it to be understood,…. That the government….. what they want this land for is what the Mother earth is living on. She is supposed to have a liver, and lungs, and a heart, and all these things are what we are sitting on. Just like our bodies, the Mother Earth has internal organs,….. these are the precious and valuable minerals that she needs, and so, all the equipment and things they make, all our food, even ourselves is made out of the Mother Earth,… and even money is a part of her body that has been turned into money. And now the greed is always working against our Mother Earth, and Mother Earth is suffering.
We’ve been hearing a lot about tornadoes,… and earthquakes,….. a lot of these warnings have been going on,…. That’s Her breath, because She is suffering and her breath is giving us warnings. These are the main things that we need to have understood…. That the people need to be allowed to live in the way that they have been all their lives.
PLEASE.. I am wanting to have this understood…..by writing letters to the Congressional leaders, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and all these people to know we have a pain feeling for our Mother Earth. She’s getting more surgery, and no patch to it. It’s just when a human being has surgery, and something is patched, but I don’t believe Mother earth has any patches, they just keep on killing her more and more. I believe more understanding is needed in this way. I am just needing for this to be heard. I am not begging for money or anything, but I’m really hanging on to the world for my Dine people and every living thing.

- Continued in comments

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