By Kay Ebeling
City of Angels
December 2, 2010
http://cityofangels8.blogspot.com/2010/12/generation-of-hopis-damaged-navajo-town.html
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In one of several conversations, Oso Pious told me, "One day, I suppose, the survivors of all this abuse will speak out or maybe not."
The former special ed teacher has been in touch with City of Angels Blog several times since we last reported on his recollections of the time he spent as Father Pious, working alongside Father Gerald Fitzgerald at Servants of the Paraclete in 1965. Pious says he recently found letters and notes with Fr. Gerald's handwriting, and CofA hopes to scan those papers here soon.
"I just remembered, the Navajo name for the town near where Father McNeill had his school," Pious spoke breathlessly in the phone a few days ago. "It's Anna' Task Ai I." (He spelled the name out carefully). "That translates in Navajo to 'The Place Where the Little Girls Spread their Legs.' In other words, there was so much child prostitution there."
The town is known today as Grants, NM.
Pious emphasized, "Everything I'm telling you is true."
Today known as "Oso Pious," he's emailed and phoned City of Angels Blog several times, and some of the information he's poured out is reproduced in this post. Oso Pious reports firsthand on a pedophile ring that would meet in locations with easy access to Native American children in New Mexico.
Oso Pious says recent stories at City of Angels Blog have triggered this outpouring of memories.
He emailed the other day:
Kay: In today's Albuquerque Journal on page C-2 there is an article about a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, concerning Father Clement Hageman." [Article is scanned here as Abq Journal is not online, click to enlarge and read.] "I worked as a special education teacher on the Navajo Reservation in the early 1970s when both Father Douglas McNeill and Father Jose Rodriguez were abusing Navajo youngsters in Thoreau and in Gallup. Father McNeill started his own school for Navajo children and in 1994 he was finally caught."
About the Navajo name for Grants, Oso Pious added: "It's the only Navajo name of a place that refers to a person, a very rare exception. In fact, it was against their religion to refer to humans in names of places, but they were so shocked by what was going on in this town that they called it Anna' Task Ai I." He spelled it several more times.
"I'm an expert in Navajo," Pious said. "I lived with them and went to their college with them, and I just remembered the name of the little town, so I called you."
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