Energy and Environment Solar Self-Reliance
In the sunny Southwest, many Hopi and Navajo people have discovered that solar panels strike the right balance between tradition and technology.
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Verma Nequatewa, a jeweler who lives on the Hopi Reservation, uses solar panels to power her home and studio.
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by Winona LaDuke
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In the sunny Southwest, many Hopi and Navajo people
have discovered that solar panels strike the right balance
between tradition and technology.
The Hopi village of Old Oraibi is believed to be the
longest continuously inhabited village in the United
States. A thousand years of history have shaped the Hopi
culture, with its many stone houses, corn, melons and
ceremonies. On the 1.5 million acres that make up the Hopi
Reservation in northeastern Arizona, 8,000 people live in a
dozen villages high atop the mesas. They follow teachings
about sustainability, and this covenant with Massaw, the
Creator: Live respectfully, acknowledge the Cloud People,
hold your ceremonies, grow your corn, and your people will
see the arrival of the next world.
It is from this village of Oraibi that the other Hopi
villages in Arizona sprang — Bacavi, Moenkopi and
Kykotsmovi, to name just three. Here, in the center of Hopi
tradition, one also can find evidence of a people looking
to the future: In Oraibi, and across the reservation, many
homes are now outfitted with solar panels, quietly
generating renewable energy.
The Solar Business
The United States’ fast pace and tendency toward
sudden, dramatic changes is not always a comfortable fit
with the Hopi values of resilience and tenacity, yet it has
not been possible for the Hopi to remain completely
isolated from the rest of American culture. Ironically,
many Hopi live without electricity, even though the
reservation is surrounded by coal mines and power plants.
The Hopi accept change slowly and deliberately, and most
readily when the changes are of their own doing. The Hopi
word potskwaniat means “Hopi pathway to the
future,” and it is a phrase aptly applied to the work
of Native Sun, a Hopi solar power business based in
Kykotsmovi.
Native Sun is owned in part by Doran Dalton, a man whose
lifestyle spans both past and future. Dalton is the former
chair of the nonprofit Hopi Foundation, and now runs Native
Sun, a small for-profit business that has employed up to
eight people for big installation projects. With the
support of a group of committed Hopis and friends, more
than 800 household-sized solar units have been installed
for Hopi and other Native American people in the region.
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