Ramapoughs Trial Continues As Tribe Claims Town Is Trying To Outlaw Prayer At Tepee Site

MAHWAH, NJ — The Ramapough Lenape Nation claims that township officials are preventing the indigenous people from expressing their religious beliefs at a prayer site it established in October 2016.

The nation will plead its case in the ongoing Superior Court trial regarding the dozens of alleged zoning violations the town began issuing last year. The nation is accused of using the 14-acre campsite as a place for public gatherings and prayer meetings. The site has tepees, tents and other structures the Ramapoughs erected, all of which the town claims violate local zoning laws.

The tribe is accused of not obtaining zoning permits and not getting the town's permission to move soil. The tribe is disputing that the tepees are structures, as defined by the township code.

Town engineer and zoning officer Mike Kelly defined a structure as a "combination of materials to form a construction of occupancy, use, or ornamentation, whether installed on, above or below the surface of a parcel of land," according to a NorthJersey.com report.

“If Mahwah is allowed to outlaw prayer here, then the first amendment of the Constitution is dead and prayer can be outlawed everywhere,” said Chief Dwaine Perry of the Ramapough Lenape Nation. “This is another step in the quiet genocide of our people. We have been praying in these lands for decades and our ancestors for millennia. But now Mahwah wants to get rid of us by declaring our prayers and presence to be illegal.”

Perry and the tribe claim that the town's allegations are "unfounded."

“The Ramapough are lawfully using its property for religious ceremonies, prayer and communal assembly," said Aaron Kleinbaum of the Eastern Environmental Law Center and an attorney for the Ramapough.

The tribe founded the site to show solidarity with fellow Nation Americans at the Standing Rock protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline in the mid-western United States and to protest the possible construction of the Pilgrim Pipeline, a 178-mile, double-pipe system that would deliver crude oil from upstate New York through New Jersey to the Bayway Refinery in Linden. Gasoline and heating oil would be sent back up to New York.

The Ramapoughs will present their case Tuesday at 9 a.m. The town presented its case Oct. 3 and then rested. The trial will continue every Tuesday until a ruling is issued.

“We’re going to present the relationship of the Ramapough to the land from prior to George Washington, all the way up until now,” said Tom Williams, an attorney representing the Ramapough. “We’re trying to say that this group of Native Americans, like many Native Americans across this country, need to be heard and we need to listen to them.”

RELATED: Judge Sides With Ramapoughs, Lifts Restraining Order Regarding Teepees At Prayer Site

RELATED: Mahwah Suing Ramapough Mountain Indians Over Teepees

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