Hopi Tribe Rescues Homol'ovi Ruins

Not far from Winslow lies a magical place called Homol'ovi.  Over 300 Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites are situated on 4,500 acres that were designated as an Arizona State Park in 1986.  On February 22 this year, Homol'ovi was closed, becoming yet another victim of Arizona's budgetary night of the long knives. 

Today, the world-at-large learned the Good News--The Hopi Tribe rode to the rescue of Homol'ovi!  They're pitching in a whopping $175,000 cash money to reopen the park full time, 12 months a year. 

Cedric Kuwaninvaya (Sipaulovi), Hopi Council Representative and member of the Hopi Land Team,undoubtedly spoke for the feelings of many Hopi when he said that after the closure, "Hopi became worried that once again, the pot hunters could start desecrating our ancient homelands"

Less than 8 months after the official closure, The Hopi Tribal Council  on October 19th voted 12-0 to approve a resolution providing funds to reopen that special place.   Shortly thereafter, State Parks Director Renee Bahl (at right in photo at left) joined resolution co-sponsor Norman Honanie to formally sign an agreement.

The news was revealed in the October 27th edition of The Navajo-Hopi Observer through a Special to the Observer submitted by Louella Nahsonhoya.  You can click here to read the entire NHO article.  We also printed the article to PDF format and have archived it in our Google Docs.  You can click here to download the PDF file.


This historic agreement is Huge News to anyone who knows about Homol'ovi and its relationship to The Hopi Tribe.  It is definitely a cause for celebration, too!  A date for re-opening of the park has not been announced.  We will follow this story closely to learn the date as soon as it is set by officials from State Parks and The Hopi Tribe.  We can guarantee you it's going to be a major occasion along The Little Colorado River and a very emotional moment as well.  We sure hope we can be there.

Our congratulations to The Hopi Tribe 
for going way beyond the extra mile 
to make history happen!  THANK YOU!


Here are some other resources:

The Wiki on Homolovi  
The Arizona State Parks Homolovi website
The Homolovi Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society. 
A 2008 article on Suvoyuki Day at Homolovi