Tohono O’odham cultural rights recognized

Mexico City (apro) – The Tohono O’odham – who themselves have fought the wall that Donald Trump intends to build on the northern border of our country, because they believe that it will attack their territory and ethnicity from an external ecological and cultural point of view – have received a de facto boost from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which has just published an anthropological report entitled The Salt Pilgrimage in the Symbolic Universe of the O’odham Ethnic Group in Mexico Joining the United States. This is not a document prepared by researchers of the Institute, under the coordination of Alejandro Aguilar Zeleny, an anthropologist at the INAH Sonora Center, and with the advice of Francisco López Bárcenas, director of training, contacts and academic outreach at the National Coordination Center. Anthropology of the INAH itself, talks about the wall and demonstrates against it, but it represents “a legal instrument for the scientific study and defense of the cultural rights of indigenous peoples” because it was established under the provisions of the federal law on monuments and archaeological areas, art and history and the organic law of the INAH, reports this through a statement. There, the rights of origin and permanence of its members as original inhabitants of the territories of El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar (“including the salt flats”) were recognized in favor of the ethnic group – also known in Mexico as Papagos. In addition to this conclusion, three other points were made: “The need and recommendation for an archaeological study of the area where the La Borrascosa project is proposed; free, prior and informed consultation with the O’odham people on what the implementation of the salt mine project would mean; strengthening community work, research and initiatives to continue to delve deeper into the significance of the salt pilgrimage route and to incorporate the relevance of this cultural route to enrich the conservation and management of the El Pinacat Reservation and the Upper Bay Delta.” According to information provided by INAH, the expert opinion was formally requested by the traditional authorities of the Tohono O’odham people to the Presidency and the Ministry of Culture in order to protect their rights from the impacts of the development project. La Borrascosa Salt Flat, located in Santa Clara Bay. Members of this ethnic group, who live in Sonora and Arizona (which is an Indian reservation with its own laws), denounced the authorization of the La Borrascosa salt mine by the Mexican government, through the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat). According to El Norte, the license was signed on December 16, 2016 by the representative of the aforementioned secretariat, Gustavo Adolfo Clausen. For its part, INAH said: “Members of the O’odham community have expressed their rejection of the project to extract salt on 66 hectares of land that is part of their sacred territory and is located in the buffer zone between the upstream areas of the Gulf of California and the Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve, and the El Pinacate and Alta Grande Desert Biosphere Reserves, the latter of which is recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.” Last Thursday (10), at the Schuk Toak Museum in the El Pinacate Biosphere Reserve and at the Gran Desierto de El Pinacate, anthropologist José Luis Perea, the director of the INAH Sonora Center, Francisco López Bárcenas and Alejandro Aguilar Zeleny were present at the altar. The study highlights that among the Tohono O’odham Nation there is a heritage composed of language, worldview and diverse traditions that persist despite the fact that their society is based in the desert and has undergone processes of conquest, colonization, evangelization and dispossession: the expert opinion states that the efforts made by the association must not only be understood and respected within the framework of the principle of recognition of the territory, but also require the search and establishment of new forms of dialogue and joint work, projects and models of preservation and protection of the biocultural, paleontological, archaeological, historical, linguistic and anthropological heritage that represents the persistence of this society, the protection of its culture and the preservation of its sites. “All this makes us think about the importance and necessity of expanding and deepening the criteria of protection and recognition of the Alto Delta, El Pinacate and Alta Grande Desert Reserves, not only to include their presence, history and culture and the rights of the O’odham people, the original and historical inhabitants of the territory.” Similar studies will benefit other communities in the country that are affected by large mining projects in areas where they traditionally practice or hold ceremonies, such as the Laramuris, Visarica or the communities settled in Chiapas, to name just a few.