Gaming revenue helped tribe buy ancient pilgrimage trail in Arizona for $8.7 million.

Through the purchase of the Hinkson Ranch, which includes land in Arizona and New Mexico, the Zuni Tribe acquired 14,791 acres of private land and acquired the use of 8,523 acres of Arizona state leased land, the Independent said.

"Since time immemorial and continuing today, every four years, religious practitioners from the Zuni Tribe leave their homeland in New Mexico and walk more than 50 miles to Kohu/wala:wa, or 'Zuni Heaven,' as part of their religious practice," tribal officials said this week in a news release.

"Traversing the Zuni Reservation, the religious pilgrims then travel along the Zuni River through lands owned by others until they arrive at Zuni Heaven," the officials' release said.

But with the land purchase arranged through a financing agreement with First Community Bank, the tribe has acquired a significant portion of the pilgrimage trail that itself contains sites and springs sacred to the Zuni people, officials said.

Zuni Heaven, which also is known as Kachina Village, is a 12,482-acre detached portion of the Zuni Reservation located southwest of the New Mexico pueblo in Arizona, and the trail is known as the "Barefoot Trail," according to Wikipedia's article on Zuni.

Although the tribe doesn't have ownership of all the land along the trail, the right of its religious leaders to pass along the trail every four years has been established, Zuni Lt. Gov. Dancy Simplicio told the Independent in a telephone interview.

"The Zuni Tribe has long sought to restore its ancestral lands, including its sacred Pilgrimage Trail, but the acquisition became urgent because of subdivision development already under way on the (Hinkson) ranch," Zuni Gov. Norman J. Cooeyate said in a tribal news release. "None of this would have been possible without the gaming revenues made available through Zuni's ongoing and productive relationship with the Gila River Indian Community."

Although there are no Zuni communities located in Arizona, Simplicio told the Independent, the tribe's land holdings there allow it to be recognized as a tribe with gaming rights in that state, and Zuni has leased out shares of gaming devices to the Gila River Indian Community.