""You can't separate our land from our culture," Eiler tells The Art Newspaper, noting that the border crosses tribal lines, and that she and members of her community still visit their cousins in Mexico for ceremonies in spite of plans to wall off reservation lands, which would separate tribal lands in the US from those in Mexico. The destruction of the intaglio, she adds, "is an insult to our ancestors.""
"Eiler says that a group of O'odham "runners", participating in a ceremonial practice of running and praying through their traditional territories, warned her on 23 April that they had seen bulldozers getting perilously close to the intaglio site. This was despite the fact, she says, that "DHS and the border patrol had been warned by the tribe and by Cabeza staff about the importance of the intaglio and what it meant to our people.""
A Department of Homeland Security contractor bulldozed a rare archaeological site in the Sonoran Desert, destroying a 1,000-year-old intaglio. The site, sacred to local Indigenous communities, is part of a biosphere with endangered species and over 3,000 petroglyphs. Lorraine Eiler, a Hia-Ced O'odham elder, emphasized the cultural significance of the land and the insult to ancestors caused by the destruction. Despite warnings from tribal members about the site's importance, the bulldozing proceeded, highlighting the ongoing conflict between development and Indigenous rights.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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