Richard Peacock

Rachel Nelson

RPTM 220

26 February 2023

Evaluation of Rights and Roles

Modern Indigenous peoples face problems that challenge their human rights, and their

culture is still misunderstood by Western civilization. The documentary In the Light of

Reverence depicts the issues of the Lakota, Hopi, and Wintu tribes face, such as desecration,

violation, or destruction of their spiritual sites. All three tribes share a connection with the

spirituality of the land that the Westerners do not understand. The documentary explores the

different points of view of those involved which sheds light on the injustices that Native

Americans face.

The first Indigenous group discussed in the documentary was the Lakota people. The

major problem that the Lakota tribe faced was that the land they used for ceremony was being

desecrated by people who used it for recreation. This desecration took the form of rock climbing

on an important site to the Lakota people, a small mountain known as Mato Tipila or Devil’s

Tower. This mountain resides in federally owned land in Black Hills National Forest and gained

popularity after the mountain was showcased in the film Close Encounters of The Third Kind

which was released in 1977. Rock climbing has become a common activity and draws many

visitors to this location. This caused the Lakota to feel a sense of violation on the grounds they

have a spiritual connection with, and they should be able to practice their religion without

obstruction. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that

“everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” (Universal Declaration).
The ways of celebrating the mountain may be considered inconvenient for recreational purposes,

but the ideas of Article 18 should still apply since the Lakota have the right to celebrate their

religion. This land was also once Indigenous-owned, but a treaty was broken in 1874 and has not

been resolved through the court system. The rock climbers feel they have a right to express

themselves in the form of recreation. Article 1 from the UDHR best relates to their situation in

that, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (Universal Declaration).

The park asks the climbers to voluntarily refrain from climbing the mountain in the month of

June out of respect for the Lakota, but there are no penalties if they decide to do so. Though the

rock climbers may not agree with the Lakota’s ideologies, it would be courteous to honor the

accommodation. Society does not typically follow the Indigenous traditions and there are those

who do not fully recognize the mountain as sacred as the Lakota perceive it to be. In order to

help improve human rights, the Lakota tribe can try to speak with the government or local

officials about making it mandatory that no one climbs Devil’s Tower in the month of June,

instead of it being a suggestion to climbers.

The second Native American group the documentary focused on were the Hopi tribe.

Their reservation was their land, but their spiritual sites surrounded land that was not part of their

reservation. This led to the destruction of an important spiritual site that was privately owned by

the McKinnon company, who purchased the land in 1991 and tried to sell it to the Hopi tribe for

much more than they purchased it for, but they could not afford it. The Hopi tribe had never

signed a treaty with the United States government for possession of the land, so the government

did not recognize their legal rights at the time and sold the surrounding land to any buyer. The

Hopi tribal council also signed a mining lease with the Peabody mining company in 1966 and

were not aware of the scale of the mining operation. Peabody supplied coal to western cities and
used up the water in the Hopi area to carry the coal. In the case of the McKinnon family, they are

legally the owners of the land and have rights to mine in the area that is owned by the company.

Article 17 of the UDHR states that “everyone has the right to property,” which best supports

McKinnon’s right to mine in purchased land (Universal Declaration). Article 18 of the UDHR,

which affirms everyone has freedom of religion, encourages the Hopi tribe to have the freedom

to consider the spiritual sites as shrines, but unfortunately the legalities of land ownership led to

destruction of some of the sites (Universal Declaration). To improve the protection of their

human rights, the Hopi tribe could try to work with the government and petition for national

recognition of their spiritual sites so that they are respected and cannot be destroyed by mining

operations.

The final Indigenous group covered in the film was the Wintu tribe. During the gold rush

of the 1800s, the Wintu Tribe went from around 14,000 in number and was reduced to 395 by

1910. They had lost their land, and many lost their lives to bounty hunters that were hired to kill

Indigenous people. The Wintu people were never recognized as a tribe, but their religion had

survived. A ski resort was proposed to be built on Mt. Shasta in California near the spiritual

springs of the Wintu people. The Wintu were led by spiritual doctor Florence Jones who

vehemently opposed the idea of the land being desecrated. Prior to the creation of the UDHR,

Florence had been captured at 10 years old, baptized, and put into a boarding school where they

introduced western civilization ideals upon her involuntarily. This goes against the 9th article of

the UDHR, which states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile”

(Universal Declaration). Florence had been unjustly detained against her and her family’s will.

The new age movement saw people adopting the spiritual aspect of Indigenous tradition.

Participants in the movement used Mt. Shasta as a site that they would gather in order to
celebrate their version of religion. Article 19 of the UDHR communicates that “everyone has the

right to freedom of opinion and expression which the followers of the movement embrace”

(Universal Declaration). The followers of the movement have freedom of expression but should

honor the wishes of the Wintu tribe as well. In order to protect their human rights, the Wintu can

petition the court system to recognize that their people had always been a tribe and their wishes

should be honored to atone for the atrocities committed to their people in the past.

This documentary presents the idea that things that are not important to one person are

important to another. Cultural differences sometimes cannot be fully understood by an outsider.

People should do their best to educate themselves to better understand differences between

culture so the issues that the Indigenous peoples face are less likely to occur. The articles of the

UDHR were a positive way to present human rights but sadly they have not been implemented to

their fullest extent or have been recognized worldwide. The three tribes had valid concerns and

their wishes should have been upheld by the people who had the power to do so.
 Work Cited

“Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations, United Nations,

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.