Our Community

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At a packed April 27th community gathering in the Kayenta Arts Center, Lawrence Snow, Shivwits Land Manager and Paiute elder, described growing up in the old rock house that was once the Indian school. He related the history of the Shivwits Band of Southern Paiutes, who in the 1800s were pushed off their land with nowhere to go. In the 1890, they were given desolate land for a reservation. 

In 1953, the government terminated the Utah Paiutes as a tribe, ended their reservation status and trust protections, and transferred jurisdiction to the state for the purpose of forcing their assimilation with the non-Indian culture surrounding them. Still, for 27 years the Shivwits people fought to keep their beloved Red Mountain. They survived by selling sand and gravel and working at a local turkey farm and processing plant. Thankfully, local rancher named Gruber generously paid the land taxes for the Shivwits people.  

Congress finally reinstated the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah and restored the Shivwits Band's reservation in 1980. In 2001 the Southern Paiute Tribe's Shivwits Band finally secured a water rights settlement that for up to up to 4,000-acre-feet per year of water.

A Summary of the History of 

Shivwits Band of Southern Paiutes Reservation

Mary Snow, Shivwits Band Member, president, founder, and leader of the Red Mountain Land Preservers, welcomes community support, noting that "we are all neighbors who share the same magnificent view" and “to Paiutes, our mountains are more than a view—they are sacred.” Mary spoke of her people’s history of resilience as “a story written on the canyon lands.” She relayed that Paiute children are taught to share a spiritual oneness with the land, which she described as “a third eye, a deep feeling that comes from within, a feeling in the bones, balance." To the Paiutes, “The land is living. The winds are talking. The Red Mountain wants us to come together.” 

Mary described how in the past, Shivwits members always had transparency and a say in decisions made for the band by their council. But during the past year, Shivwits council members met secretly and rejected band members’ requests for information and documents. Shivwits members were not even told about a bill introduced in Congress that singles out the Shivwits reservation, stripping it of Federal and tribal protections and transferring the whole reservation to state jurisdiction without a vote of the members. If that bill were to pass, it will be another termination legislation. That is why, Mary said, Red Mountain Land Protectors is asking for a vote—a vote for the land, the future, and the truth.

  On April 27th, 2026, Shivwits elder Sabrina Redfoot described how the Shivwits and other Utah Paiute Bands had always functioned as one family, a strong tribe with their elders and culture behind them, but the current controversy over the proposed golf courses was tearing them apart. “We’re not a family anymore.” 

As a girl, Sabrina was sent to an Indian boarding school in Riverside, California. Returning to the reservation, when she came to Utah Hill and saw the Red Mountain glowing in the sunset, “it was home." 

There was no electricity or running water on the reservation. Her mother worked in the fields and later in a turkey plant in Washington, and her grandpa worked at the turkey farm in Pine Valley.

Sabrina recalled fondly how the Paiutes had stories and songs for everything and her grandmother sang all day long. The men were all hunters. There were ceremonies when girls became women and babies were born.  

“We are fighting for our land,” she said, “and we appreciate your support.” 

People of good heart across the Southwest and in communities around the country are united in support of the Shivwits people in their fight to save their sacred land from harmful development and preserve their sovereign voting and legal rights.  

In December of 2025, Mary Snow went on Next Door with a plea for the SW Utah neighbors to help the Shivwits people save our ancestral lands. In February 2026, hundreds of Utahans packed the Ivins City Hall with standing room only, to hear Shivwits elders and Band Members tell their story and describe their concern that Reef Capitals' mega golf course resort will hurt their people and harm their land. 

On March 9th, the Southern Paiute Shivwits people and the local community gathered together on the reservation to share a wonderful meal, learn about attempts to restore the Paiute culture, language, and traditions, and hear oral history from Shivwits elders, who, with other Paiute speakers, expressed concerns about Reef Capital's resort plans for their sacred land. 

On April 27th, the Kayenta Arts Center was filled to capacity for a joyful presentation by Red Mountain Land Preservers billed as a “Celebration of Southern Utah Paiute Culture and a Fight for Its Future." The event drew so many interested residents from neighboring communities that over 150 people had to be turned away at the door. The community response has been resounding.  We are so grateful. 

Our talented young musicians preserve our Southern Paiute culture by speaking the language of the living lands and the talking wind with their drums, rattles, and songs. To hear their music and to see their dancing is to be witness to our long history of deep connection to our land and our abiding honor for our sacred Red Mountain. 

At the April 27th celebration of Southern Paiute Culture, Shivwits musicians, including Leena (pictured above), Crawford, and his cousins Cordell and Draven, charmed the audience with traditional songs punctuated with rattles, drums, and dancing. Crawford described Paiute music as reaching from “constellations in the sky to dust devils on the desert floor." 

Singer Crawford Redfoot described how the "land is a sacred thing that has a spirit and gives you power." 

He expressed gratitude for his calling to sing the traditional songs for his people, a calling he described as absorbing and exchanging power with the land. “We are of the land and of the people and we serve them.” 

Each of our many hundreds of volunteers is cherished. It's inspirational how many people from different backgrounds, places, and beliefs have joined with the RMLP and the Shivwits people to help us save our land and protect our rights.

Volunteers have passed out flyers at community events and set up tables at street fairs for petitions to be signed. They've put together fundraising dinners and organized protests, called congressional offices and emailed the Senate Committee for Indian Affairs. Even Washington DC Congressional staffers have commented on how many calls and emails they've received from people opposing the Act. 

The online community of Next Door, Instagram, and Facebook, too, has been overwhelmingly supportive, weighing in strongly in favor of giving the Shivwits people the right to vote on whether they want Reef's luxury golf courses and resort to lease their land and water rights for 99 years.

We are so grateful for each and every one of you.  We thank you for your advocacy, your time, and your service to our people.

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