: I'm lost here. Hopi culture what?..I'm pulling a Vinnie Bobarino on this one. Please fill me in. Is this some culture where people get off torturing animals? Once upon a time there was a group of people called the hopi ('peace lovin'). They had a long and fine cultural tradition that they traced back for many many years.
Then one day some stangers arrived on their shores and began killing them and taking their land and possessions from them. Eventually things calmed down and the foreigners allowed the traditional owners of the lands to settle down in places that were out of the way and not really well used by the invaders.
The hopi tried to keep their culture intact. Indeed this was one of the precepts of their very being as hopi, to keep the old ways alive. Unfortunately many of the younger hopi did not feel that way and began to follow the ways of foreigners.
Then one day a lunatic fringe from the environmentalist lobby decided that they knew what was best for the hopi. That they in their short 36 years had ammassed knowledge equal to 3500 years of hopi learning. That they could step in and tell the hopi what to do.
This was despite the fact the hopi are really an independent nation and at any rate have the right to practice freedom of religion under the american constitution.
They made their claims without any consideration of the impact such action might have upon the hopi, without a thought that a practice might be SACRED for some very good reason. Without any consideration on the potentially devestating effects that loss of culture can have for indigenous peoples.
Indeed, so crazed were they that they actually advocated putting the hopi in gaol if they refused to adhere to the new sacred practice as announced by the environmental groups.
As a neutral observer, i can only say that i would have thought that punitive sanctions against the hopi caused far more damage to the hopi than any of their traditional practices ever did to anything else (That traditional, sacred practice being eagle sacrifice, if you didn't catch it).
