Taking Power to Create Power: Examining

Southern Paiute Responses to Proposed

Solar Energy Development in a Ceremonial

Landscape

Kathleen Van Vlack

PhD Candidate

American Indian Studies

University of Arizona

SFAA 2012

Baltimore, MD

Solar Energy Technology

Proposed Solar Energy Zones in Six Western States

Southern Paiute Territory

The Escalante Valley SEZ American Indian Study Area

Site Visits

• Visits to the Escalante Valley SEZ Study Area occurred in November 2010, May 2011, and August 2011.

• Involved Tribes- Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation.

• 35 interviews were

conducted in total.

Bridging Ethnographic Studies

• Intermountain Power Project- 1982-1983

• Solar Ethnographic Study- 2010-2011

1982

2011

Numic Understanding of Pilgrimage

Puha • Puha derives from Creation. It exists on three

levels and can move between the three levels of the universe: upper (where powerful anthropomorphic beings live), middle (where people now live), and lower (where extraordinary beings with reptilian or distorted humanoid appearance live).

• Puha continuously flows back and forth from center to the periphery-both concentrically and radially. Therefore it connects, disconnects, and reconnects every element of the universe.

The Pilgrimage Concept

• Pilgrimages are complex ritual performances that take place in sacred landscapes.

• During pilgrimage, a person’s actions are part of a ritual performance.

• These acts are intentionally directed towards the transformation of the pilgrim and the world around him or her.

• The journey is not solely about reaching a destination place; instead, it is about doing so in a specific order across a specific landscape.

Communitas

• Communitas is “a relational quality of full undedicated communication, even communion” with other pilgrims (Turner 1976).

• In Southern Paiute culture communitas is actually

created between people, place, and objects.

• When Paiute people visit places and interact with them, the places remember the stories, prayers, and songs of thousands of years of visitation and use. Offerings found at these places represent the physical manifestations of those interactions.

People-Place

People-Object

People-People

Communitas

Southern Paiute Communitas

The Escalante Valley SEZ Study Area

SEZ Study Area Sulphur Spring

Mountain Spring

Doctor Rock

Mountain Spring Peak

Pilgrimage Trail from Sulphur Spring to the Doctor Rock Area

Sulphur Spring

• A traditional spring near Lund, Utah that served as both a stopping place for people seeking healing in the nearby hills and a community location.

• Sulphur Spring was a central place for travelers going back and forth across the Escalante Desert.

• Because of its regional centrality, it had a permanent Indian community before the arrival of non-Native people.

• Sulphur Spring was a place of social and ceremonial gathering.

Mountain Spring • This spring is the

closest water source to the Doctor Rock.

• The spring has a

variety of medicine and food plants. Ritually deposited lithics also were found.

• The spring likely

served as the main support camp those involved in ceremonial activity

Mountain Spring Peak

• This volcanic mountain was identified as being part of ceremonial activity that was linked to the Doctor Rock.

• It was a destination for Puha acquisition to be used during doctoring ceremonies.

• Puha’gants using the Doctor Rock during healing rituals would pray to the mountain as part the ceremonies.

The Doctor Rock- Puha-tump

• Medicine men or women, also known as Puha’gants, would take the sick to the Doctor Rock and would engage the rock as they approached it.

• The Puha’gant and patient would explain to the Doctor Rock where they were from and what their purpose was for visiting.

Once at the Doctor Rock… • Upon arrival, the Puha’gants would remove offerings (stones) from the previous visitors and place the offerings on the right side or the left downward slope below the rock.

• The placement new placement of the offering depended upon the size of the item. Large stones were placed on the right whereas the smaller items were placed on the left. Once this was done, a new offering was placed in the eye of the Doctor Rock.

Offerings Ritually Deposited

Stones-Offerings to the Doctor Rock

• The Puha’gant would then take the sick person and place him or her on top of the rock. After this step was completed, the Puha’gant began doctoring by performing prayers and certain ceremonial activities until the patient was cured.

Photo- William Palmer 1930s

Tending to the Patient during

Doctoring

Doctoring and Viewscape SEZ Study Area

From the Doctor Rock, a person has a view of Table Butte and the Escalante Valley SEZ study area.

Viewscapes are important for ceremonial activity because it allows the Puha’gant to pray to nearby features and draw upon their power during a given ceremony.

If these views are obstructed, there is a risk of disrupting the flow of Puha and the movement of prayers, causing the ceremony to fail.

A failed doctoring ceremony would cause major physical and spiritual harm for the patient and Puha’gant.

Impacts “Putting solar panels in this area would take

from the viewscape and may take power away from this area of healing. The sun‘s energy will be collecting in these panels, taking water from

the earth and springs to support the solar panels and taking water away from the Doctor Rock.

The contaminants polluting the earth will kill the power of the Doctor Rock. All things are

connected. The earth, plants, trees, air, and water all lead to this place of power, healing, and

prayer.

The Paiute people still travel to this place of healing and the dry lake bed is connected to the

Doctor Rock. I don‘t want to look out and see solar panels so close to a sacred place of healing; a place the Paiute people have come to be healed

and prayed to the Creator for thousands of years. This ground is as sacred to us as a church

is to a Christian.” – A Southern Paiute Elder