A Bridge Between Two Worlds : Ferrell Secakuku values tradition. But the Hopi chairman is pushing a modern agenda to move the 10,000-member tribe into the 21st Century.

Ferrell Secakuku, the new chairman of Arizona’s Hopi tribe, grew up working in his father’s trading post, where groceries were often exchanged for the pottery, baskets and silver jewelry that are the Hopi artisan’s signature.

“That was the traditional way,” says the soft-spoken Secakuku, 56, who spent his early years on the Hopi reservation, a series of arid villages in the high desert of northeastern Arizona.

When his father sent him to Ganado Mission High School, run by the Presbyterian Church on the Navajo reservation, he had known little beyond his birthplace, the land the Hopi regard as the center of the universe.

“It was a total shock,” he recalls. “I was a full-fledged Hopi. I didn’t even know how to speak English and I had no idea the world was made up of many difficult, different environments.”

But Secakuku learned fast. Very few Hopi went to college in the 1950s, but Secakuku’s father had sent him off with instructions to “be somebody.” Secakuku graduated from Northern Arizona University with a business degree.

“He told me to learn the white man’s ways and lifestyle, and learn their business, and then come back and help develop our people. There were no jobs on the reservation.”

Secakuku came home with his business degree and converted the family trading post to the only supermarket on the reservation.

“I applied modern techniques,” he says. “I introduced self-service, fresh produce, a deli section, videotapes, health and beauty aids.”

Secakuku may have learned the white man’s ways, but he never abandoned tradition. He is the first chairman of the Hopi tribe to be both a businessman and fully initiated into the Hopi religious societies.

“I’m a member of the Snake Clan--we dance the religious dances.”

When he decided two years ago to run for chairman of his 10,000-member tribe, he turned over the business to his family.

“I have six daughters and they grew up in the business,” he says. “I like to say that the best man for the job is a woman.”

But despite the reservation tradition of close-knit, extended families, Secakuku is divorced. “It’s unfortunate,” he says. “I think these modern times decided for us.”

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Describing himself as a bridge between two worlds, the Hopi chairman has an ambitious agenda for development projects in education, jobs, communications, business and health care.

His blueprint for the Hopi people was reiterated on a large scale last week as Native American leaders from throughout the country sat down with Clinton Administration officials for a “listening conference” that followed a high-profile meeting with President Clinton at the White House.

Although the 500-plus Native American tribes have various special needs, depending on their history and location, a common thread running through the discussions was a need for more tribal sovereignty. Says Secakuku: “We want to move into the 21st Century on our own terms.”

For the Hopi, heading the action list is an issue as old as the tribe itself--water. “It’s an issue of extreme urgency,” Secakuku says.

On the landlocked Hopi reservation--which has an average annual rainfall of 10 inches--the sustaining water supply is a naturally pure aquifer, a layer of porous rock 3,000 feet underground containing water that bubbles up to the surface in springs and washes.

Water shapes the entire culture. Not only have the Hopi used aquifer water for farming, drinking and bathing for 900 years, Secakuku says, but “water is so sacred to the Hopi that is it like a bloodline to our heart.”

But for the past few years, the water has been drying up. The washes are dry and the springs are disappearing, leading to a classic water-rights dispute.

Under a lease signed 24 years ago, the St. Louis-based Peabody Western Coal Co. mines coal from the Hopi Black Mesa. To transport it to Southern California Edison’s plant in Nevada, Peabody pulverizes the coal, mixes it with ground water and delivers it through a pipeline.

The unusual process (this is the only slurry line in the continental United States) gulps up a billion gallons of aquifer water a year, more than the Hopi use in a decade.

And although the Hopi, and the neighboring Navajo Nation, leased both the water and coal rights to Peabody--and consider the mining a business partnership--the Hopi now see the slurry line as draining away their very existence as a prolonged drought makes water more precious. “Our land is drying up,” Secakuku says. “Without water, our entire culture and people are at risk.”

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Revenues from the mining partnership are essential to the tribal budget and Secakuku emphasizes that “no one wants the mining operation to end, but after making one mistake, we don’t want to further it.”

The Hopi have suggested substituting pipeline water from Utah’s Lake Powell for the ground water.

In St. Louis, Peabody spokesman Ron Greenfield reiterated the company’s position that the pumping is not the culprit. “Several studies have been done and they’ve all shown no effect,” he says.

Nevertheless, Peabody has agreed to study alternatives, Greenfield says, “but it won’t be a simple process. Water rights in the West are complex and controversial.” The matter now rests with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

Secakuku and other tribal leaders were in Los Angeles last month to attend a forum, “Energy 2000 and Beyond,” at the Sheraton Grande. Relaxing in the hotel lobby before lunch, they talked about Hopi self-determination.

“On one hand, we want to diversify our economy,” Secakuku says. “On the other, we are trying to reach back and find ourselves as Hopi people.”

The two goals are equal in priority, adds Wayne Taylor, 39, the tribe’s new vice chairman. That was the message they got from voters when they went door-to-door campaigning before the election in February.

“The strong thing that came out in the campaign,” Taylor says, “is that our people want to reaffirm our actual beliefs.”

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There is concern that young people aren’t carrying on the traditions. “We’re worried that young Hopi no longer speak their language,” says Taylor, who has a business administration degree from the University of Arizona. “We’re worried about the brain drain--our people move to Flagstaff and Phoenix for jobs. We want to develop our economic base.”

Education and scholarships are major items, along with economic development, on the action plan Secakuku has drawn up for his four-year term as chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council. Composed of representatives from the eight Hopi villages, the council meets the first week of each month at tribal headquarters in Kykotsmovi Village.

Despite the pastoral look of the reservation--with its dusty roads, vegetable gardens and grazing sheep--the Hopi do not live as they did 50 years ago, Secakuku says: “Our lifestyle has changed quite a bit to reflect the white man’s ways.”

Most of the eight villages have running water pumped from the aquifer and are wired for electricity or have solar panels. The tribe has just published its first mail-order catalogue for Hopi jewelry, kachina figures, baskets and other crafts.

This is just the beginning, the new tribal leaders say. “We need better schools and more economic development so people can get into business,” Secakuku says. “We need more controlled tourism--right now (visitors) roam around all over the place.”

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Looking toward the 21st Century, they can see potential in tapping Arizona’s abundant solar energy for rural areas, and in producing their own electrical energy through a tribal utility authority. “We’re doing a feasibility study for a wireless communication system throughout the reservation,” Taylor says.

But heading every list is water. In a mountain of hydrologic studies, position papers, congressional hearings and petitions to the Department of the Interior, the Hopi have chronicled their growing concern over the continued pumping of their ground water.

When the mining project began 24 years ago, Secakuku says, no one thought it would endanger the Hopi water supply. In fact, a U.S. Geologic Survey computer model (which has later been questioned) predicted that the pumped water would be replenished naturally.

“Even at the time, our Hopi elders were warning us not to do it,” Secakuku says. “But economy played a big part in the decision.

“We don’t want to create any hard feelings,” he adds, “but we don’t want to rape our land of water at the expense of the Hopi life.”