Navajos Won’t Be Evicted, Hopis Say

Navajo families living on Hopi land who failed to sign a 75-year lease by a midnight deadline won’t be evicted, as many Navajos feared, Hopi tribal officials said Monday.

Navajo families had until midnight Monday to sign leases acknowledging that the rugged patch of desert in northern Arizona is Hopi, or lose their claim to the land that holds religious significance for them.

In New York, San Francisco and Flagstaff, Navajo resisters rallied Monday to protest the land-lease plan aimed at ending a century-old land dispute between the two tribes.

Demonstrators at each rally said the plan violates Navajos’ religious freedom by requiring permits for certain ceremonies and forbidding them to bury their dead.

As of Monday afternoon, more than 60 of the 80 affected Navajo home sites had signed leases, also called “accommodation agreements,” allowing them to stay on the land for 75 years, said Hopi tribal spokeswoman Kim Secakuku.

More families were expected to sign as the midnight deadline approached. Estimates of how many Navajos live on the Hopi reservation range from 300 to more than 1,000.