On Arizona’s Tohono O’odham Reservation, some residents want to make money on the ruins of an ancestral village – literally. A year ago, the tribal council agreed to construct a new gambling casino near a freeway exit 10 miles south of Tucson. But there’s a hitch: The site, Punta de Agua, is thought to contain a buried village and possibly gravesites as much as 700 years old.
In June, as some in the tribe argued against the project, the council voted 2-1 to hold off while medicine men assessed the consequences of disturbing the 54-acre site. The next day, June 25, the council changed its mind, and is now moving ahead with plans for digging.
Ironically, this site was instrumental in securing protection for Native American artifacts and remains. Archaeologists first excavated it in the 1960s, removing the remains of 22 people and many artifacts. Two decades later, San Xavier residents demanded their return, staging one of several protests that led to the passage of the Native American Graves Repatriation Act of 1990, which returns excavated Indian artifacts to tribes.
Tribal leaders see a different irony. Edward D. Manuel, chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, in an angry June 22 letter to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star, wrote, “For centuries, developers for the sake of progress and archaeologists for the sake of knowledge have sold, destroyed, bulldozed and desecrated our ancient and sacred sites. Where was the press or ‘public concern’ then?”
Some tribal members oppose any kind of construction at Punta de Agua, and some San Xavier landowners refuse to sign the casino lease.
Casino supporters say the digging would be done sensitively, according to federal and tribal laws, and without harming or destroying any artifacts. Human remains would be reburied on the reservation, a common practice, says Manuel. He thinks the current controversy is about the casino, not what’s under it. “I don’t see why this is so different from any other development,” he says. “It’s happened before and it will happen again.”
Tohono O’odham spokesman Alex Richey says that the process is far from complete, but the press has misconstrued the issue. “We find it very interesting,” he says, “that white newspapers are screaming and yelling when they had nothing to say about all the sites that have been bulldozed in the development of Tucson. Nobody breathed a word.”
In any case, the controversy may have been for nothing. The O’odham Nation needs a state Department of Gaming permit to open a new casino, on a burial site or elsewhere. Gibson McKay, spokesman for Arizona’s Gaming Department, says the chances of a casino going up at Punta de Agua are slim. His agency is taking the O’odham Nation to court, charging it with mismanagement of another casino, the Desert Diamond, already in business on the reservation.
McKay says the state has found thousands of gaming law violations at the Desert Diamond, including repeated accounting violations and the employment of felons.
“Gaming revenues outweigh the safety and well-being of the patrons (at the Desert Diamond),” says McKay. “There’s no way we’re going to let them open another.”
* Emily Miller, HCN intern
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline An Indian casino would sit on ancient graves.
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