Manataba Messenger

COLORADO RIVER INDIAN TRIBES “ This is the time to be slow, Lie low to the wall Until the bitter weather passes. Try, as best you can, not to let The wire brush of doubt Scrape from your heart All sense of yourself And your hesitant light . If you remain generous, Time will come good; And you will find your feet Again on fresh pastures of promise, Where the air will be kind And blushed with beginning.” ―John O’Donohue Addressing two crises, health and financial, responding to a pandemic, changing for a new way of life: A collage of a government made up of families. This unprecedented situation called for meetings, directives, and coordination of all bad news. The next two pages are a few of the scenes that look at the massive under- taking the CRIT Tribal government took on since early March. From the initial meetings with Indian Health Service to the giant weekly teleconferences of the Incident Command Response Team, essential workers and tribal council meetings were taking place back to back due to the everchanging information and uncertainty of COVID- 19. As tribal members went into lockdown, essential workers and tribal council went to work. From the first days of delivering care packages to the elderly, CRIT has never faced anything like this, to the reservation-wide mass food distributions planned, coordinated, and implemented by tribal government employees. These departments came together from all different areas and did their best to help this incredible situation we were faced with and still face today. Not all entities are here, not all that put in the long hours are in these photographs, but this is an attempt to show our community that we are a CRIT family. We will get through this together. We will continue to fight COVID-19 and maintain our sovereign rights as first peoples, and we will adapt and survive like our good ancestors that have come and gone, and for the good ancestors, we will be. —M.Msgr. CRIT helps Hualapai people during the Coronavirus Pandemic CRIT TRIBAL COMPLEX, COLORADO RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION — The ongoing COVID- 19 pandemic has far-reaching effects for every native community right now; it is a stressful time, and even more so for the animals and livestock owners. As the pan- demic lockdowns entered their first month here on the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Chairman Patch and his administration received a call for help, and CRIT responded. A little less than 25 tons of hay got transported to the north. Nothing more than sharing the bounty that the river has provided, the Pipah AhaMakaav, “People of the River,” with their sister tribes, donated over 500 bales of hay, each weighing over 100 pounds to the “People of the Tall Pines”(Hualapai) in the north. In the past, the Colorado River Indian Tribes has got involved and made a difference in rural aid to the Navajo Nation with donated hay and water during drought crises. In a press release, issued earlier last month, Chairman Patch stated, “We are more effective when we fight this pandemic together, we may all be social distancing, but we are all standing together.” The transport was provided by El Coyote Trucking and Hay Services of Parker, AZ., In the photo from L-R: CRIT Tribal Council Secretary Amelia Flores, El Coyote Truck driv- er, unnamed, Chairman Dennis Patch and CRIT Tribal Councilman Johnny Hill, Jr. The U.S. Government established the Hualapai reservation in 1883. (Content: Hualapai Tribal website and El Coyote Trucking Facebook site.) Page 7