By DANA HEDGPETH | The Washington Post | Published: April 12, 2021 OAK FLAT, Ariz. Just as his Apache ancestors have done for centuries, Wendsler Nosie the former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe led a traditional ceremony on a mountaintop at Oak Flat, about 60 miles east of Phoenix, overlooking a landscape of basins covered in tall grasses, boulders and jagged cliffs. The tradition, called a sunrise ceremony, is a rite of passage for a teenage girl in which she goes through a series of rituals to recognize her transition to womanhood. The girl had collected plants from Oak Flat that have the spirit of Chic chil Bildagoteel, the name of the sacred spot in the Apache language. Plants from anywhere else cannot be used they don t have the spirit that resonates from Oak Flat. And the girl spoke to the spirit of Oak Flat, giving thanks for providing acorns, yucca, cedar and saguaro cactus that the tribe uses.
Native Americans desperately want to protect Oak Flat, a sacred site near Phoenix, from a mining operation. On Tuesday, a House Natural Resources subcommittee will hold a hearing on the future of the land, which sits on one of the largest untapped copper deposits in North America.