It is also a potential source of supernatural money.
On the first question, the Supreme Court is expected to signal its interest in the coming days.
For now though, there is nothing to do but wait.
This June 15, 2015, file photo shows in the distance, part of the Resolution Copper Mining land-swap project in Superior, Ariz.Ross D. Franklin/AP
Rocking a black bandana like Geronimo and a pair of aviators, his very being seems to defy thisenvironment.
SINCE 2021, NOSIE HAS been suing the federal government for trading Oak Flat away.
First, has the government substantially burdened his religion by conducting this land transfer?
Second, if it has, does it have a compelling interest to do so anyway?
RFRA is a statute that Congress passed in 1993 with the intention of strengthening the First Amendment.
Becket is adamant: RFRA trumps all older case law.
Lynghas long been a sore spot for Native rights advocates.
Becket thinks the Supreme Court will be enticed to take up these RFRA questions related to its supremacy.
Nosie, for his part, isnt worried about the recent Republican sweep.
I want to fight evils best bring them.
NOSIES SPIRITUAL QUEST BEGAN the way so many do with a dream.
He was in his 30s and had just finished overseeing his first daughter, Vanessas, Sunrise Ceremony.
The Sunrise Ceremony is one of the most important ceremonies to the Apache.
Nosie recalls that Vanessas Sunrise Ceremony had been difficult.
He was anxious about the upcoming ceremony for his second daughter, Alicia.
He began to dream about the gaan,who live and travel through the mountains.
Thats why Oak Flat is sacred to us, Nosie explains.
Its one of the corridors.
He confided the dreams in his mother, who urged him to go to Mt.
Graham, a different holy mountain.
I turn around and its a white lady, Nosie recalls.
And she says Uh, I dont mean to ask, but are you Apache?
Then I looked at her and said, Yeah, Apache.
And she goes, Oh, wow.
This is your sacred mountain.
Wow, so youre here to pray.
Eager to leave the interloper behind, Nosie packed up his things, and began to hike.
But every time he stopped to look back, she was right on his heels, he recalls.
Clouds on a summit, he explains, is a taboo time for Apache to be up high.
Packing up his medicine bag and scrambling back down the mountain, he ran into two forest rangers.
By the way, another officer added, according to Nosie, dont ever come back.
Youre supposed to stay in that place.
Ill be back, Nosie retorted.
Well, you know whats going to happen if you come back, the officer allegedly countered.
Ill be back, Nosie replied.
THE TRESPASSING CHARGES did not stick; the praying Indian walked free.
Nevermind that in both Apache and Christian cosmology, one created the other.
He started speaking out against the mine.
He pressed his people: Who are we?
What do we want?
Who are we now?
The questions made some of the people uneasy.Better to not cause troublewas the attitude of some.
They had jobs in the nearby towns of Superior and Globe.
They knew that their reservation belonged to the U.S. government, and could therefore be taken away.
Gradually, Nosie says, some of the medicine men in the tribe came around.
Lets fight for what God gave us, they told him.
But its in us.
This is the guy who wants to take all your jobs!
According to Pike, her grandfather stood up and made an equally impassioned speech.
Sometimes, the stiffest opposition came from within the reservation.
Oak Flat is a sacred site?
reads the title of a 2015op-edwritten by former San Carlos tribal historian Dale Miles.
It never was before.
In addition, its unsurprising that some San Carlos Apache have no relationship with Oak Flat, Pike explains.
Even the name Apache is ahistorical, and may derive from the Zuni word apachu, meaning enemy.
Some of us are not even Apache, she says.
So the military has a lot of recorded documents on us Apaches.
But Nosie cant access it.
What makes me mad in todays court, they say, Why didnt you people ever say anything?
And Im like, the hell?
You put us in prisons of war.
You changed it to a concentration camp.
And then you made reservations and we were mandated to be under the government.
So that means that all this stuff that are archives of the universities, we cant use it.
You cant submit it in court.
They shut the door.
Now, largely due to its use in the energy transition, thats starting to change.
Nevertheless, he thinks the U.S. may have far more compelling reason to leave Oak Flat alone.
In fact, he says, ideology is the problem.
This kind of magical thinking is also governing the energy transition.
Lithium reserves are even smaller.
In other words, the rhetorical goal of net zero is just that rhetorical.
There simply arent enough minerals to even come close to replacing fossil fuels, he believes.
The good news is there are still people who remember how.
There are male places and there are female places, Nosie is telling me.
Oak Flat, known for its natural springs, abundant medicines, and acorns, is female.
So the old people are like, Why are these white people destroying these places?
When you destroy them, theyre nowhere else to be found.
In other words, what theyre saying is that theyre making Mother Earth into a man.
Because the man cant produce.
The acorns are everywhere and stupidly delicious like an umami cashew.
This can feed 800 people, she told me.
As we walk across the land, her eyes fill with tears.
She is anxious because the earth is anxious, she tells me.
Neither knows what is about to happen.
Its a privilege, and a right, that her great-grandmother Nosies mother never got to have.
Win or lose, he says, the real issue here is the Earth.
Were killing it, and were going to kill us, and were going to kill everything on it.
And thats not what God intended it to be.
