Opinion ID: 704021
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Religious locations.

Text: 33 The district court rejected the Hopi claims to religious locations. 34 [T]he Hopi Tribe claims in the 1934 Reservation based on the eagle gathering activities, visiting shrines, and gathering of ceremonial plants and animals are not sufficient occupation, use and possession to establish a property interest for exclusive use or partition purposes. 35 Id. at 1528. The religious locations included places visited for religious rituals and marked with rock cairns, petroglyphs, or hidden depositories for offerings. The Hopis also had traditional areas where eagle feathers were gathered for ceremonial purposes and shrines within those areas. The court also rejected Hopi title to traditional areas for gathering fir boughs, wild tobacco, and animals for use in religious ceremonies. 36 The district court gave three reasons for this rejection. All three require consideration of legal principles and are not strictly factual, so we review de novo. McConney, 728 F.2d at 1202-04. 37 First, the district court held that a 1974 statute entitling tribes to Interior Department protection of religious access obviated any claim of title: 38 Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act to the contrary, the Secretary shall make reasonable provision for the use of and right to access to identified religious shrines for the members of each tribe on the reservation of the other tribe where such use and access are for religious purposes. 39 25 U.S.C. Sec. 640d-20. On the basis of this statute, the district court concluded: 40 Given that access to religious shrines will be protected, the Hopi Tribe cannot persuasively argue that their presence gives the Hopi Tribe a property interest in the 1934 Reservation. 41 Masayesva, 793 F.Supp. at 1527. 42 We reject the district court's reasoning. The religious access statute was passed almost a half century after the 1934 Act. If the Hopis became entitled to property under the 1934 Act, they could not lose it because subsequent legislation added to their protection. The statute is not superfluous, even for shrines the Hopis own. For example, it protects each tribe's right to cross other tribes' land to reach its shrines, to decide who can go to the shrines, to control maintenance, and to such other protections as may be necessary for appropriate religious use. This 1974 religious access statute cannot, however, have any bearing on whether the Hopis were located at a particular shrine in 1934. If they were, they are entitled to the shrine, regardless of the terms of the 1974 statute, and even if Congress were to repeal it. 43 Second, the district court held that allowing Hopi religious use to establish a property interest would contradict Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n, 485 U.S. 439, 108 S.Ct. 1319, 99 L.Ed.2d 534 (1988). While we agree with the district court that a religious use does not by itself create a property interest, the property interest in the Hopi religious shrines is created by the 1934 Act, not the religious use by itself. As we said in our previous decision, one of the purposes of the 1934 Act was to protect the Hopis' rights to areas occupied outside the 1882 reservation by shrines. Sekaquaptewa, 619 F.2d at 808. Lyng and Manybeads v. United States, 730 F.Supp. 1515 (D.Ariz.1989), were First Amendment cases; this is a property rights case. If the Hopis were located, for a religious use, on certain land in 1934, then this was among the pockets occupied to which they obtained title under the 1934 Act. 44 Third, the district court held that the religious uses were not sufficiently intensive to satisfy the statutory located criterion. For example: 45 Eagle gathering occurred only once a year, with only a small number of men involved. The Hopi Tribe failed to demonstrate that a substantial number of Hopis travelled to shrines outside the immediate vicinity of the Hopi villages in the 1930's, and many of the shrines are often only known to a small number of Hopis. 46 Id. at 1528. Because this conclusion was largely legal, depending on whether annual use or use by small numbers of people, sufficed, rather than strictly factual, we review it de novo. McConney, 728 F.2d at 1202-04. 47 We cannot accept that once a year use is too infrequent for a tribe to be located at a religious site. Many religious observances take place only once a year, e.g., Yom Kippur, Christmas, Easter. Nor does use by only a few people, or people of only one sex, disqualify a religious site. Many religions require that access to a holy site be limited to a designated few people and to special times. In the Jewish religion, only one man, the high priest, could enter the holiest location, and he could do that only once a year. See Leviticus 16 (only Aaron could enter the innermost shrine, and only on the tenth day of the seventh month, to make expiation for the sins of all Israelites). Many shrines, such as Mecca and the Western Wall, are holy to a religion, even though most of its adherents have never been there. Some holy sites, such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, are known only to a minority of adherents of the religion. Some religions, such as that of the Druse, are largely secret even from their own adherents who have not obtained a particular status within the religion. Some religions limit participation in certain rites to men, or to priests. The district court demanded a level of intensity of occupancy of Hopi holy sites which would be inconsistent with the practices of many religions. 48 We remand, so that the district court can award identifiable locations regularly and exclusively used for religious observances or activities by the Hopis to that tribe. Locations that were regularly used by both Hopis and Navajos may be determined to be subject to partition on the basis of fairness and equity. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 640d-7(b). A religious shrine marked by a physical object or marking, such as rock cairns, petroglyphs, and hidden depositories for offerings, is an identifiable location. The district court must determine whether the eagle feather gathering and other religious hunting and gathering areas are sufficiently identifiable and subject to demarcation of boundaries so that the Hopis were located there in 1934. 49 We affirm the district court's conclusion that the evidence ... reflects that ceremonial plant gathering was sporadic and at irregular intervals and usually occurred around the vicinity [of] Moenkopi, off-reservation ... or inside the 1882 reservation. Masayesva, 793 F.Supp. at 1528. Sporadic activity at irregular intervals over a general area not subject to precise demarcation is not a place where the Hopis were located in 1934. 50 Where the Hopis can show for 1934(1) physical evidence of a shrine, such as a rock cairn or petroglyphs, or (2) regular (such as annual) religious use of a specific and identifiable area (as may be the case with eagle feather gathering), that is enough to show location. This does not imply that the Hopis are entitled to all of Hopitutskwa. The district court must use its discretion to allocate a reasonable amount of land around the shrine or regular use area to provide for its appropriate use and maintenance and reasonable access thereto. 51