Great Basin tribes campaign to get sacred Nevada site protected, named national monument

Native American tribes of the Great Basin are lobbying the government to make Bahsahwahbee, a desert oasis in Nevada, into a national monument to commemorate past massacres at the site.

Bahsahwahbee — Shoshoni for "Sacred Water Valley" — is where the spirits of their dead live on in the trees growing among the open graves, the final resting place of ancestors who remained where they were slain.

Now they want to tell their story on their own terms. The Ely Shoshone, Duckwater Shoshone, and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation — a coalition representing about 1,500 enrolled tribal members — are lobbying the federal government to designate nearly 40 square miles as Bahsahwahbee National Monument.