Days 7-5, Jean Baptiste

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born at a time when stars remained silent to the fate of men. A between time when the borders of nations expanded and contracted in accordance with ill begotten and soon discarded treaties. A sea of languages, of displaced and displacing men, all caught in the pull of a great tide of endless frontiers.

Born to a Shoshone woman and a fur trapper from Quebec, who is said to have won this woman as winnings from a night of gambling, Jean was as an infant, the youngest member of a party set out to survey the new territory known as the Louisiana Purchase led by explorers Lewis and Clark. Perhaps it was because he was born traveling that no horoscope could be cast which would equal the magnitude of what this child's life was to become.

No simple list of his life events will be recounted here, but it was remarkable by any standard what he achieved in that sad, brutal century. That he came to me through reading about his mother, Sacagawea, which is the name of a local park near where I first lived with my sister upon my return to my hometown after living away for nearly 30 years, and that I have a coin with both his mother's and his own images on it, I find ironic. That I drove into the hills he last traveled and died in I find magical.

Days 9 and 8 Found Footage

Construction workers at a Southern California University found yesterday a medium sized cardboard box behind a wall in the bathroom of the university library, which is undergoing renovations. The find was curious for several reasons, one being its location. It was said that there was under a sink in the men's restroom a small door, presumably to access the plumbing, yet when a worker opened the door it led into an unused room, approximately 6 by 10 feet, and had no other openings from which to exit or enter. The room is assumed to be one of those spaces which are created by poor architectural planning, or a complete lack thereof, where during a previous renovation an unused space was simply walled up and forgotten. In the room was also several old cans of paint, several cigarette butts and an unusable flashlight.

The worker brought the box out, which was completely sealed in silver tape, cut the tape and opened the box. When the material was judged to be perhaps lost academic material, the worker turned the box over to the head librarian, who after further examination delivered the box to the head of the universities film department. The contents of the box have been reviewed, and a search now is underway for whomever may have left the box for posterity, or safekeeping. Because of the content, the search is for the moment focused on former alumni who may have graduated from the following departments; Film, Comparative Religion, Anthropology, or Native American Studies

Below is a list of the content of the box, and partial description as they have been discovered. More complete descriptions will be forthcoming.

38 developed reels of super-8 film;

dating from the imagery from the early 1960s into the late 1990s. The films range in content from standard, home movies of a family, cartoons, or pornography to fully realized films of varying lengths, some have been edited and spliced together, while others seem to be sequences not yet assembled into a (larger?) whole. Individual reels, apparently not related to any other sequences range from footage of whale hunting, ambient footage of light on water, assorted landscapes. As well, some reels are completely black, with perhaps a few seconds of a visible image, or conversely, entirely washed out, with one or two visible images.

14 Journals;

These journals are of a small, rectangular size, and based upon addresses written down, phone numbers, graphics from the manufacturer, and line formatting, show that the author of these journals purchased them over time while visiting, or residing in as many as 15 countries.

The contents of the journals are primarily concerned with various religions, focusing on pre Islamic, Persian cosmology, and variants of Native American religious practice of the mid 19^th century. These are rounded out with bits of Jewish philosophy, and Christian esoterica such as Alchemy and Gnosticism.

Another area of interest to the unknown author is, of course, film. There are copious notes taken by the author on films he has studied intently, as well as notes on a film he wishes to make. These detailed notes cover sound mixing, montage, post production effects. While not all the films have been examined yet due to the fragile nature of some of them, it appears that the author was attempting to put together one, cohesive film from this diverse material.

The journals are also filled with drawings that while not representational, seem to depict some as yet indecipherable system of editing. Other drawings may be of a religious, or anthropological nature.

4 Books;

Spiritual Body, Celestial Earth, by Henry Corbin

The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, by James Mooney

Human Days, A Mary Maclane Reader*

No Horizon, An Anthology of 16^th Century Adventurer's Tales, edited by Seth Haloway

The Arcades Project, by Walter Banjamin

• Several of the reels of super-8 appear to be related to Ms. Maclane

2 Hard Drives

One drive contains of 50 films, presumably by the owner of this box, over 600 pages of texts, notes, essays and stories. The other drive contains footage of deserts, mountains, or other landscapes. Mostly devoid of people, the shots are largely, 'austere', for lack of a better description.

On both drives are music and audio sequences either barely begun, or very finished. All of the audio appears to be intended for use in a film.

 It is our intent to seek out the originator of this box, presumably a former student, but also perhaps a former faculty member. Until we do, and if we do, work will continue to be done examining this strange find. It is our hope to present not a film, but the tattered remnants of what was to become a film. The film is of interest to the school as it seems to come from the fruit of beloved labor stemming from research done here.This film would then be left in the university's archive, along with the contents of the box.

Days 11-10 Voices past

Said the Shadow;

I believe now that the light I saw was a sign from God. I hauled in all the sails but the mainsail, and lay still til daylight. At dawn we saw naked people, and went ashore in the ship's boat, armed, with the other ship' captains, and unfurled the royal banners. Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia bore witness and faith that I was taking possession of the island for the King and Queen.

No sooner than we had concluded the formalities of taking possession, than people began coming to the beach, all naked as their mothers bore them. They are a very well built people, with handsome bodies and fine faces. Many paint their faces, others their whole bodies. Some are painted black, others white, some red or different colors. They are a friendly, well dispositioned people who bare no arms, except small spears.

They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. They brought balls of spun cotton, spears, a kind of dry leaf they hold in great esteem, and parrots. Other than parrots, I have seen no other beast on this island. I have been very attentive and tried to find out if there is any gold here. I have seen a few natives who wear a little piece of gold hanging from the nose, and if I interpret them correctly, I have learned that by going south I may find a king who possesses great containers of it.

I cannot get over how docile these people are. They have so little to give, but will give it all. I kept moving so that I may give an account of everything to Your Highnesses, also I wanted to see if I could find a suitable place to build a fort, though I do not think this is necessary, as these people are very unskilled in arms. With 50 men you could subject everyone and make them do what you wished.     Christopher Columbus

 Said the Reflection:

I have only one heart, one tongue. Though you say, Go to another country, my heart is not that way. I do not wish for any money for my land. I am here, and here is where I am going to be. I will not part with my lands, and if you come again, I will say the same thing.

My young men will never work. Men who work cannot dream, and wisdom comes to us in dreams. Your wisdom is poor and weak, and of no value to us indians, who must must learn the highest wisdom from dreams. Each one must seek for himself the highest wisdom. It cannot be taught. You were given the wisdom of your race. Be content.

Our work lasts only for a few weeks. It is natural work and does us no harm, but the work of the white man hardens the soul and body. Nor is it right to tear up and mutilate the earth as white men do. We simply take the gifts that are freely offered. We no more harm the earth than would an infant's fingers harm its mother's breast, but white man tears up large tracts of land, runs deep ditches, cuts down forests and changes the face of the earth. You know very well this is not right. Every honest man knows in his heart this is wrong.

You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to rest. You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for bones? Then when I die I shall not enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass, make hay, and be rich like a white man. It is a bad law and we will not obey it. I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead will come to life again. Their spirits will come into their bodies again. We must wait here in the homes of our fathers, and be ready to meet them.    Smohalla

Day 12, Platonic Musings on Shade

A line of thinking from Plato, on through John Dee;

A thought is but a Shadow of an Idea

an Idea is but a reflection of a Mind

a Mind is but a Sun

without which 

both Shade and Idea are none

I headed north to the great dunes of Eureka, across the great shallow lake, over several mountain passes and stopped in the highest peaks, looking at shade resting on snow.

On my way back I went through a small reservation of Paiute Shoshone and read a plaque that described what I have been reading about. The Settlers moved onto Native lands. Conflicts arose. Natives sold lands in treaties which included promises of food. The payments were only made in part, no food arrived, the natives went into the hills from where they both starved and prepared for war. The natives were slaughtered, and survivors sent on a long march to other lands, during which, many more died.

Later even, in the dunes, a shadow played a requiem. 

Day 13, contemplating evil, aesthics and brotherhood

After watching the nearly full moon vanish into the hills I went to the lobby, filled up on coffee and headed out into the now black morning. Soon the first splashes of sun hit the mountaintops, the black morning seeking shelter in the canyons and crevasses of the high snow dusted crests. After the truck warmed up a bit I put on the first album by Suicide. I thought of the first time I heard this record. I had since heard some punk rock, which was easy to relate to because of its basic, conservative form; it was simply stripped down rock, and its message of protest was in many ways just an updated version of any protest song. You could trace it to Dylan, to Buffaloe Springfield, to Neil Young. But THIS?

I ripped it off the turntable after spot checking each track. Then the record seemed to be evil, its sinister and grimy synths a sick parody of 1950s pop set to a cheap drum machine. Then there were the lyrics and their delivery. Alan Vega's voice describing murder, suicide, poverty all with the sure and confident crooning of a sexual predator set on getting you into his car.

I kept driving up 190 east as the sun was flooding the mountains and foohills, still the lowlands remaining in the dark, and I thought how the desert was like a canvas upon which I could bring to light the darkest recesses or praise the highest sentiments. My thoughts were going back and forth between the beauty unfolding in front of me, and events like the Tate LaBianca murders.

As the record played on, I realized that what repelled me by that record over 30 years ago is that it challenged the middle class belief that all will work out, with a lot of love and work, that a newer, more just world could emerge. What I know now is that New York in the late 1970s and early 80s was one of the most singularly brutal places on the planet, and that this record was the sound of young people in the center of that brutality. Its honesty, desperation and perversity make it an important record, the form, content and quality of the songs make it a perfect record.

I used to wonder about the process in which what I used to find repugnant became something I later came to call beautiful. I know now that there is no singular thing by which this happens. You grow, you experience things, if you are smart and lucky, and willing, you put yourself in the place of others. You walk among them, eat with them, tell stories and hear theirs. By seeking out what is NOT you, you can become closer to saying without cliché, that you are a brother of All.

I pushed on up the mountains, pulled over to watch a coyote, and ended up in a town in Nevada that was in effect, a five mile long strip mall, the employees who tended them living in trailers scattered on the outskirts.

I found what I was looking for, and left. On the way back I encountered this amazing dust storm. I pulled over to watch it grow and move, seeing the upward streams of sand and dirt rush to form a huge cloud covering at least two miles. As it grew, it moved towards a town I had to pass through. I no longer was playing Suicide, but Faust, the deep groovey psychedelia fitting both the drama of the dust storm, as well as the flowering desert floor, shining streams and colorful mountains.

After I got back to my hotel I went out across the road into the dunes and spent some time with these shadows, looking like a fine, alien calligraphy on the desert sands.

Days 15 and 14, The Last Life of Joe Simpson

LYNCHING AT SKIDOO
 

Joe Simpson, who deliberately murdered James Arnold at Skidoo Sunday of last week, was taken from the guard on Wednesday night and hanged to a pole. There was a strong sentiment in favor of lynching Simpson the night of the murder, but the plotters were dissuaded from the plan. Arnold was a prominent and respected citizen of the camp, and his killing was an unprovoked and cold-blooded affair. Simpson was a gambler, hailing from Reno, but a resident of the desert camp for some time. He seems to have been a bad character, a number of offenses being charged against him. The opinion of the Skidoo people appears to be that the lynchers did a justifiable piece of business.

He slept poorly, the sounds of the desert mice serving to wake him, that he might recall just a flash of a bad dream. When finally resigned to full consciousness, he noticed it was cold in the cabin, and he looked to the light leaking in from the walls for a warmth that was not provided.

Looking back at his former lives and all the effort to erase any trace of them, he could never erase the feeling of shame, of ridicule, which would hover over the obliterated life like a bruise. There was the son who was never good enough for the father, the young boy whose exclamations not welcome, and wonder not shared by his classmates. Then there was the husband whose wife would exclude from her social gatherings, ashamed of his position as a petty cook in a filthy restaurant. He left those lives behind to pursue what he felt might be dignity in the Panamint Mountains.

Yet for each of his successes, for each purchase, a feeling of fraud would overcome him, as if such a quality thing was not his due. This he made up for by clothes sent from San Francisco, fine weapons and a taste for drink. It was small enough a town that he was able buy a saloon and have interests in the mining company with only a modicum of effort and capital. He enjoyed this as if he was living another's life, and for a brief time, came to believe the life was his own.

James Arnold was a man who saw weakness in a person before he would notice a smile, or the color of a person's eyes. These weaknesses would trigger a hunger in him. When Joe first arrived in Skidoo, James saw all the falter beneath Joe's swagger, he caught the fear residing under Joe's laughs and jokes. Whereas in some folk who had this gift of seeing and feeling what lies beneath what appears are moved to compassion for the weak, the estranged or alienated, in James this gift made him feel like one of the predators of the desert below, and he allowed Joe's reinvention to unfold that his fall might be greater.

It was in James' travels where he learned of Joe's past lives. He learned that Joe's wife did not die, but had left him in favor of his boss. He learned that Joe held no interests in the gambling establishments of Reno, but had fled that place with stolen money. As well he learned that Joe was generally thought of as naturally slow and shy of mind and spirit.

It was in Joe's affection for a local prostitute that James Arnold saw his chance, for this blonde was a thing which Joe seemed to really love. Taking away Joe's status, his holdings in the mining company were after all, simple to aquire and simple to lose. But the love a person in these hard lands was a thing rare, and the subtle nature of negotiating a place of warmth in a human heart had odds worse than striking gold. James had a little talk with this woman whose business was her body.

Joe remembered that his life was not his own, and as his spirit woke that cold morning, a thought occurred to him that all lives belong to their surroundings, and that his own had been revoked by the good people of Skidoo. The last picture of him was taken by his own doctor, who had dug his body up, and hung it again once more in a tent before removing the head, which the doctor took as a keepsake.

Day 16; a conference of Shadow and Reflection

Just as Shadow pursued Reflection, Reflection sought shade. What they shared was a skin, a membrane that divided their respective natures in two. With Shadow this skin was the object which lent it form from the other side of Light. Reflection's divisive skin was a clear pool of water, the smooth surface of glass or polished metal upon which its likeness was returned as an Image.

Both sought what was denied them. Shadow yearned for the light of the sun as Reflection dreamed to emerge from the frigid waters and walk the land. While Reflection was a bound prisoner to the surface that held its countenance, Shadow's very being depended upon the whim of the skies and the rhythm of days and nights.

It was in a ruin deep in the desert where they held their first conference. The space held enough light and shade, and was remote enough that their voices could be heard from near and far, and what men call ghosts, but are not but the will and desire of Shadow and Reflection spoke of the need for wholeness, of being united with their substance, of being free to walk the lands, to move, to touch and to see.

 

Day 17, a Tree of Trixters

These creatures fly in every evening from all directions, mostly in pairs, to a tree right outside my room. For an hour they click, purr, squawk and chirp, fussing over who gets what branch for the night. They sit as couples, feeding and grooming each other, switching from branches now and then until at last, all are comfortable and they go to sleep.

This amazing animal has captured the attention of humans for thousands of years, and has a variety of myths attributed to them. It is thought that a raven taught Cain how to bury his murdered brother. the raven also is thought to have protected the bodies of saints until they could be recovered and properly buried. Apollo is said to have turned the raven black for bearing the news of his lover's infidelity, also related to amorous tales, the bird is thought to have been the only ones to have sex on Noah's Ark, getting them in trouble with hotel management. Rabbis once thought that the raven only had oral sex. Once you go black, you never go back, the saying goes.

Regardless, these endearing folk brighten my mornings and evenings with their social gatherings. Their chatter is in marked contrast to my solitude, and the sweetness with which the couples interact touches me. their minor competition for prime real estate in the tree reminds me of when I was a kid, and all of us children would come alive with our stories of the day, of how we would make up rules for made up games.

Another tradition sees the raven as creator of the world, spilling a box which contained the sun and stars. Thanks for bringing a little light, dark bird. I hear them waking up now.

Day 18, changing the dictionary

create |krēˈāt|

verb [ with obj. ]

bring (something) into existence: he created a thirty-acre lake.

origin

late Middle English (in the sense ‘form out of nothing,’ used of a divine or supernatural being): from Latin creat- ‘produced,’ from the verb creare .

lament |ləˈment|

noun

a passionate expression of grief or sorrow: a song full of lament and sorrow.

a song, piece of music, or poem expressing sorrow.

an expression of regret or disappointment; a complaint: there were constant laments about the conditions of justice.

express regret or disappointment over something considered unsatisfactory, unreasonable, or unfair: Thomas Jefferson later lamented, “Heaven remained silent.”

panegyric |ˌpanəˈjirik|

noun

a public speech or published text in praise of someone or something: his panegyric on geography and memory.

origin

early 17th cent.: from French panégyrique, via Latin from Greek panēgurikos ‘of public assembly,’ from pan ‘all’ + aguris ‘agora, assembly.’

time |tīm|

noun

the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole: travel through space and time.

the progress of time as affecting people and things: things were getting urgent as time passed.

(a time) an indefinite period: traveling always changes one's sense for a time.

(also times) a more or less definite portion of time in history or characterized by particular events or circumstances: Victorian times | at the time of Galileo |

(also times) the conditions of life during a particular period: times have changed.

origin

Old English tīma, of Germanic origin; related to tide, which it superseded in temporal senses.

pass |pas|

verb

move or cause to move in a specified direction: [ no obj. ] : he passed through towns and villages | the shells from the Allied guns were passing very low overhead | [ with obj. ] : he passed a weary hand across his forehead | pass an electric current through it.

change from one state or condition to another: lands that have passed from private to state ownership.

go beyond the limits of; surpass; exceed

elapse; go by: the day and night passed slowly | the moment had passed.

spend or use up (a period of time): this was how they passed the time.

come to an end: the danger had passed.

noun

a route over or through mountains: the pass over the mountain was open again after the snows | [ in place names ] : the Ubehebe Pass.

origin

Middle English (in the sense ‘division of a text, passage through’)

face |fās|

noun

the front part of an animal's head from the forehead to the chin, or the corresponding part in a human.

a manifestation or outward aspect of something: the unacceptable face of social injustice.

the surface of a thing, especially one that is presented to the view or has a particular function, in particular: a vertical or sloping side of a mountain or cliff: the south face of Funeral Mountain.

the side of a planet or moon facing the observer.

confront and deal with or accept: honesty forced him to face facts

have (a difficult event or situation) in prospect: each defendant faced a maximum sentence of life without parole.

in-between |ˌinbəˈˌtwēn| informal
adjective
situated somewhere between two extremes or recognized categories; I am not unconscious, but in some in-between state
noun
an intermediate thing; successes, failures and in-betweens 

 

Day 19

Blood Meridian, by Cormac Macarthy was a wonderful read. It must have been at least 20 years since I have read it, but this passage has always stayed with me. I can almost smell the fire around which the characters are circled as the judge shares his thoughts;

 There are rumors and ghosts in this land, and they are much revered. The tools, the art, the building--these things stand in judgment on the latter races. Yet there is nothing for them to grapple with. The old ones are gone like phantoms and savages wander these canyons to the sound of an ancient laughter. In their crude huts they crouch in the darkness and listen to the fear seeping out of the rock. All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery of nameless rage. So. Here are the dead fathers. Their spirit is entombed in the stone. It lies upon the land with the same weight and ubiquity. For whoever has made a shelter from reeds and hides has joined his spirit to the common destiny of creatures and he will subside back into the primal mud with scarcely a cry. But who builds in stone seeks to alter the structure of the universe and so it was with these masons however primitive their works seem to us. 

Old notes found in a tattered journal;

early 1800s – Robert Fulton develops with Louis Daguerre a 360 degree diorama which soon leads to a theater devoted to landscapes. Humans, if present were so only to provide perspective of scale. This new theater void of actors brings a new perspective of landscape; natural scenery which man should not contaminate with his presence.

mid 1800s – the fantasy of a straight line becomes real with the speed and directness of the railroad. No longer is motion conforming with the contours of the land, the direction of the winds, or the abyss that opens up underfoot with a silver trail of a river far, far below. A mountain or desert are no longer 'verbs', that is, events with which the traveller interacts. They become nouns, the mountain a thing to blast holes in for the laying of tracks that because of cost, travel becomes limited to the shortest distance between two points. All space becomes colonial space.

 
21^st Century – The world we live in is shaped far less by what we celebrate than the painful events we try to forget.

I think of spaces and landscapes that are freed from use. For me so many post apocalyptic films are seen as a promise. Empty cities are the playgrounds of the protagonists, a chance to start over. Lands are no longer burdened with the need to produce. What was an economy of accumulation (weapons, wealth) becomes again an economy of The Gift. 

Day 20

He put a large can of fuel into the car, and drove 40 miles around the salt flats and dunes to head into the mountains opposite and watch the sunset from the east. Climbing up the road of blasted stone, a cloud of golden dust behind like a veil, he thought this could be like any of those mountain passes on the planet where the population was driven, anywhere, really where suffering migrates from one place to another.

So it is that crime is wrapped in memory now closed, moving through Paradise.

One is tempted to think of the horror of war as something separate from their race. Genocide neatly set aside and placed in an archive labelled, "Evil", discounting the factors of debt, natural resources, capital and pure will to power that summon folks to war, and are simplified by the evening news so that any need for critical thinking is stripped from both subject and content. 

But back to the film he had come to make. How could he make a film which could encompass his love for people, a longing for life, AND a bitterness from the fact that from many perspectives, Life can be as sad as it seems?

He thought of the irony that a sprawling, restricted weapons testing site lay just to the south of Paradise.  

Days 22 and 21 imaginal fragments

The population would separate according to their functions in the group. Here they would go into trance, the resultant visions later to be shared with all groups when the ritual was ended. By these means would the settlers make choices which guided their movement through Time in these Spaces.

Here is where lightning is caught in stone. It is not known if the mountain uses these captives from heaven as food, for warmth or for protection. Perhaps it is their downward motion which sends spells to the valley below.

I see these marks left by the creatures that walk, silent in the night and their strange bodies form before me, transparent in my mind.

The waters that rushed through here, that have been and will be forever shaping the canyon so as to make the pilgrimage only for those whose heart entirely seeks vision, like thirst seeks water.

The shadow articulated forms, and in his lassitude these forms recalled the shapes of former loves. His arm resting on the thigh of a beloved, face pressed into fragrant hair, and heat from the neck warming him as the beloved slept. The desert gave him these memories in his weariness, that he would go on, in strength and peace.

Day 23, the spirit of writing

From James Mooney's report on the Ghost Dance Religion, 1896

"The remote in time or distance is always strange. The familiar present is always natural and a matter of course. Beyond the narrow range of our horizon imagination creates a new world, but as we advance in any direction, or as we go back over forgotten paths, we find ever a continuity and a succession. The human race is one in thought and action."

Today I am going to seek this strange remote.

There are the moments before I begin to write. I shall try to describe them. First off is the desire to write. This is experienced like a message, a feeling that something wants a voice. To begin I need to quiet my mind, to make it open to expression. When all is quiet and still, often some detail that connects 'me' with my surroundings begins to shine. I will describe such an instant because it was the first time I had experienced this. It was the late afternoon sun hitting my arm, and I could feel the difference in temperature, in all its grades from where the light hit, and the shade where it did not. By looking at the sun, then at my arm, while thinking of the warmth on my skin, I was given 'permission' to describe what asked to be articulated.

Next is the relationship between what is not me, the pen I hold and the paper upon which I place my marks as taught to me by my first teachers...... A B C D, through Z, and their various combinations. I believe that most things are connected, and that while there is an 'me', my responsibility is also to respect and honor what is not, and that any act of creation I may issue must respect this, and strive for merging my self with what is not me, not so that I may usurp or command, but rather that many voices could become one.

Being in this desert is the closest thing I have experienced to what Eternity might possibly be. There are voices swirling in the winds, laying at rest in the rocks of the mountains, gazing at the clouds pass from the skin of a clear pool of salt water. A coyote stood on the side of the road yesterday afternoon. As I slowed down, the animal looked me in the eyes, spoken here, just like that.

Day 24

Coteeakun went on to say that some day Saghalee Tyee would again overturn the mountains and so expose these bones, which, having been preserved so long a time, would be reoccupied by the spirits which now dwell in the mountain tops, watching their descendants on earth and waiting for the resurrection to come. The voices of the spririts of the dead can be heard at all times in the mountains, and often they answer when spoken to.   From James Mooney's report on the Ghost Dance religion, 1896

Originally published in 1896, James Mooney's book, The Ghost Dance religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 was commissioned by the Bureau of Ethnology. A government at war with the continent's original inhabitants, and faced with an expanding population of white people in a hard to police frontier who often simply took lands that were allotted to the natives by federal treaty had hired Mooney to report on a new religion among the natives.

This was a religion that risked bringing all native tribes together under a common cause. a religion that forbade drinking alcohol, that urged a return to ways of life before the white man arrived. The report Mooney issued is a comprehensive book, full of long passages of quotes from all concerned regarding starvation, theft of lands, massacre and hope.

That James Mooney wrote a book so sympathetic to the Natives, a book that really painted the sorrow of the defeated natives, in a context we would now call Genocide, is remarkable. That it was commissioned by the United States government is more remarkable still. Imagine Hitler's regime commissioning a history of the Gypsies in Germany, or a history of Jews that was sympathetic towards the subject.

I had this book years ago, and since had lost it. It is full of poetry, of stories, pictures and diagrams. It goes at length to provide an understanding of the mentality and world view of the Native American. Shortly before I left for the desert, a friend gave me his copy, and I brought it with me as a research book. I read it at night after driving and hiking all over the desert and mountains all day.

As it turns out, this new religion of the Natives swept through this area, and the tribe indigenous to Death Valley indeed practiced The Ghost Dance Religion at one point.

The picture above, taken two mornings ago, is of a volcano crater about 45 minutes north of where I stay. I drove there with both cameras at dawn. After hiking to the summit, I sat on the edge of abyss, looking into its variations of rock, color and sand. I began thinking of the Father and the Mother, the sun and the earth. I sat still for a while, when two ravens landed near me. I made clicking sounds with my tongue and they started to walk around me in opposite directions. Not once did they fly, but when I made a different sound with my throat, one of them would hop. Sometimes they would stop, and peck around for something to eat, sometimes to rest under a small bush. It took about 50 minutes of me sitting still, the morning sun warming my back, but they made a full circle around me. I bade them a good day, got to my truck, and rode down the mountainside