Robin Arevalo passed around a bundle of sage in an abalone shell to a small group outside the Shell gas station in Orovada. We each took turns waving the burning sage over ourselves, letting the earthy-smelling smoke fall over us and Citli, the dog, whose owner smudged her too.
Smudging provides a bridge to ancestors and people who physically aren’t able to be here, and as protection, Arevalo said.
“Our prayers are carried with the smoke,” she said.
The Prayer Horse Remembrance Ride is in its third year and occurs throughout multiple communities during different seasons. But for this trip, everyone participated on foot.
The blue sky stretched overhead in the Quinn River Valley as a slight breeze kept us cool. Autumn colors began to settle in and all that can be seen is a sea of sagebrush with golden-yellow rabbitbrush in bloom. Brown hills and jagged mountains surrounded us.
To start, Gary McKinney played an uplifting, enlightening, protective song on a drum. Then, he intentionally faced the bright sun for a prayer. Right when it wrapped up, we got an unexpected visitor when a pickup truck pulled up.
“You guys part of the ‘don’t like the lithium mine?’ ” the driver asked.
“We got our ancestors that were massacred,” McKinney said.
“I’d like that lithium mine gone myself,” he responded.
The driver said he’s concerned lithium mines will encroach where he can transport his cows.
He declined to join our walk to Sentinel Rock located at Peehee Mu’huh, which translates to “rotten moon” in the Numu language.
On Sept. 12, 1865, 31 Paiute men, women, and children were murdered by federal cavalry members, according to two eyewitness accounts, including a survivor. Despite opposition and litigation from local tribes and environmentalists, construction is underway.
Organizer Josh Dini, a member of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, led the group with the prayer horse staff, which must remain in the front.
“The staff is made out of a willow that I picked down by our river. I painted it with our red Indian paint,” Dini explained. “The tail I got off of our horse that we’ve been using. Her name’s Black Beauty and I laid across between the fork of the staff and the eagle feathers; they’re our protection. The eagle, he flies so high to the sky, he carries our prayers closer to the creator.”
Dini helped start the prayer horse ride to continue the legacy of his brother Myron Dewey, an activist journalist. Dini said he felt his brother guiding him, and it’s part of his healing journey.
“We come out here with our horses, our legs, our vehicles, but most importantly, we come out here with our hearts and our prayers and to remember this place here, Thacker Pass, because of the lithium mining that’s coming in. The government, they’re trying to erase us,” Dini said.
Arevalo, who has Indigenous ties to Ecuador, Chihuahua, and Amatitlán, wants to see the mine put to a stop.
“I understand that there’s the pressure for the so-called green economy and that in order to do that, we need all these heavy metals to make batteries and all these other things,” Arevalo said. “There’s got to be a better way to move away from pollution. I think it makes a bigger footprint, and in areas that are near Indigenous communities, areas that are sacred to Indigenous communities, that’s not where the mining should happen,” she said.
But this walk wasn’t just to remember painful points in history. It was about connecting with Native culture, healing, and bringing people together.
“It’s about making space and holding space for whatever each community needs. A lot of knowledge has been lost as elders pass on and make their journey. There’s been a lot of knowledge lost with the generations that were kidnapped to the government schools,” Arevalo said.
As we approached the final two miles, everyone gathered close to finish the walk as one. The landscape transitioned into long yellow grass covering rolling hills, separated by a fresh, dark asphalt road with dashed yellow lines. We turned off the paved path onto a dirt road leading up to Sentinel Rock. It’s dark brown and resembles a tree stump jutting from the ground.
McKinney, a member of the Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Tribe, helped form the coalition People of Red Mountain, which opposes lithium mining. He held an eye-catching yellow flag, which flapped wildly in the strong afternoon wind, and read, “Life over lithium.” He said his great-great-great-grandfather, Ox Sam, was a survivor of the massacre at Peehee Mu’huh.
“This is the human fight here,” McKinney said.
He called lithium a sham and said that it’s all about money.
“Maybe they can go mine Arlington Cemetery, or maybe they can go and drill oil in the White House, or maybe one of President Biden’s ancestors has oil. They do it to ours. But how dare I go there?,” he said.
After eight hours, the walk ended at a plateau with a 360-degree view of the vast green and yellow desert. In the distance, the start of one of the largest lithium mines in the world, overseen by Canada-based Lithium Americas, was visible.
Dini pledged never to give up as the group shared songs, prayers, and food.
“As long as I could ride, I’m gonna ride every year,” Dini vowed.
