Indigenous cultures | Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

Some tipi rings

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Leslie

The Bighorn Basin holds plenty of old secrets. Prospectors, miners, strike-it-rich schemes. But what stirs my imagination most are Indian signs.

The history of the white man here is short and meager, a mere 150 years or so. Wyoming only became a state in 1890. The Bannock war of 1878 was the last Indian war around here. Truly that wasn’t so long ago.

And although Lewis and Clark came through here 200 years ago, Native peoples have been living here for over 10,000 years, with the population rising and falling with the climate. I went to an interesting talk last summer given by an archaeologist who had a unique way of assessing population correlated with temperature. The time period known as the Altithermal, around 5,000 to 8,500 years ago, saw the fewest people living around the basin. The Altithermal was a dry hot period and many of the native peoples moved higher, into the mountains, to survive. Interestingly, the Altithermal termperatures in the Big Horn Basin are approximately the temperatures we have today, as our own temperatures are rising.

So when I was hiking around the desert last week and ran into some tipi rings, I couldn’t help imagining what these peoples might have been doing and how they were living.

You can see the ring of rocks embedded in the dirt

Tipi Ring

The rocks were used to hold down the tipi skirt. Used over and over again, this location contained four visible rings, high on a hill. Water was far below, although we did find a dry spring along the other side of the hill and closer to the rings. My friend thought this was a hunting camp, since it was small and near in a prominent landmark. And he might be right because the location was perfect for watching game, especially antelope and deer that might pass through.

Just outside of Cody there are a large amount of tipi rings above the Shoshone River. You can tell they are more recent, say 150 years, as the rocks are not very embedded in the dirt. The Crow used to winter down along the river and use the hot springs. The hot springs is now on private land.

Several rings outside Cody

It’s such a nice gift to run into these ancient signs. They should be left untouched as they are part of our story and the story of the Land.

A vision quest site I found

Filed under: Indigenous cultures, Native Americans | 1 Comment »

Our American History

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Leslie

I spent the last month wandering through Southwest Anazasi ruins, specifically around Bluff/Blanding in the Cedar Mesa area. With the help of a guide book, and the local who owned the motel I was staying at, I explored as many petroglyph and ruin sites as I could, given that the mesa had quite a bit of snow and many roads were impassable clay.

This guy never got out in the sticky red clay, even with all our help

Cedar Mesa area is unique amidst cultural Anazasi sites. Its a BLM study area that probably had a population 2-3 times that of today; that would be easily 10,000 people living there. And it shows. Hike down any canyon and you will absolutely see granaries, old stonework and dwellings, kivas. In short order, anyone will be able to judge what topographic features would attract an Anazasi dwelling: south facing cliffs, high alcoves, inaccessible nooks with some access to water. Some of the ruins obviously housed many families, while others were small and may have held only a few. Invariably though, they’d be a kiva always there, sometimes several. These were community meeting rooms and the general size of the mesa kiva seemed like it could house no more than ten comfortably.

Large extensive alcove run

View of ruin approach. The ruin is right at this large pour off, difficult to access purposely for defensive purposes. You can see the ruin on the right side. The left side of the pour off has a small alcove with handprints and grinding stones, below.

Corn grinding stone. A common site within dwelling areas. Also cuts where axes were sharpened

I fantasized that women were grinding the corn, and when their hands got too muddy with red clay, here they went to clean them off. Many handprints also had the familiar spiral inside

I took a lot of photos of walls. I know something about building stone walls, having designed many and used many masons in my work. These walls were very well-constructed. Of course! They’ve lasted over a thousand years. Some built more meticulous than others. Granaries could be quickly constructed, while housing was finer work. Stones were honed for corners. Although most of the finish has worn off, one can still see in places where plaster was applied so that the end product hid the stone work.

This interesting structure was obviously a kiln

Fingerprints are common to be seen on the plaster and mortar work. If this doesn’t connect you with the people who did this work, nothing will.

Here the plaster is still visible

And there’s so much more to Cedar Mesa area–the petroglyphs and pictographs. I took hundreds of photos of writings at many different sites. Seeing so many, I still could not come up with why some sites were picked for writings and others not. There are plenty of perfect patinas for drawings that are empty. Petroglyphs of course were not done in just one period, but a site may contain pictures that span hundreds of years. I found drawings in home dwellings, and more elaborate ones at the very top of a ridge line (on Comb Ridge i.e. the Processional).

The location of this artwork. This is at the very top of Comb Ridge with a view to the San Juan River miles below

A more macro view of the story

This is a small piece of a very large story called The Processional

Petroglyphs seemed to be at prominent places, like when we hiked down to the San Juan River to a wall with thousands of glyphs. Perhaps this was a crossing place, a signpost for travelers telling them about the game or where to go; maybe it was a vision quest site; or a rock that marked territory. Some of the sites are astronomical indicators and these have been documented. I suspect that glyphs contained all these elements depending upon the site. One thing that becomes obvious quickly: white people write their names and dates; native peoples were telling stories about the land, the landscape and the animals. “As if the Land owned us” says a Ute Indian.

This was my third year of exploration in the Southwest. I highly recommend reading House of Rain by Craig Childs if you are going. It helps to put this great history into perspective. But it wasn’t until I went to Chaco Canyon that the Four Corner Regions all knitted together into an amazing historical tapestry.

Chaco is our greatest preserved heritage in the United States and so few people have visited it let alone know about it. Frankly, I didn’t either. But once I saw it, I understood so much more about the multi-cultural groups bundled together as the Anazasi than ever before. Chaco was at its height around the 10th-11th century. A massive undertaking of architecture in the middle of the desert, the Chachoans built huge kivas and ‘pueblos’. Pueblo Bonito alone has only had 3 acres excavated and they suspect there are over 6 acres. And there are many many more structures here, all aligned astronomically, all built by the finest builders of the land. Chaco is a ritual landscape, a landscape of spirit lines, where geography and the spirit world combine through astonomy.

Yet so few people actually lived here, less than 6,000 at most. Bins of turquoise, corn from 100’s of different regions, feathers of exotic parrots from the tropics, were found. This was a place of opulence where probably a few priests and caretakers lived. Goods came in, but not out. People today have no words nor concepts for that.

The buildings were not built all at once, but over hundreds of years and changed over time. Great roads over thirty feet wide and so perfectly straight they could have been engineered today fanned out across the landscape. If the road came to a cliff wall, they didn’t go around but build steps straight up to the top. These wide roads, sometimes lined with crushed potsherds, connected to Great Kivas hundreds of miles away. They recently found one from Chaco to Bluff.

Although they don’t know what Chaco really was, if you go there when its quiet, like I did, you can feel a lot. Chaco was a great spiritual center; it was the Heart of the Anazasi, where pilgrimages were made, maybe annually or bi-annually. Maybe just once in a lifetime. And when you went, you brought your gifts of corn. Maybe you stayed a bit, especially if you had spiritual prominence in your smaller community, or did a spirit quest. One can imagine great celebrations and games taking place.

Unique corner window where the light shines through perfectly on the winter solstice

Exquisite walls by master builders at Chaco could be over 4 stories high

This is a kiva at Aztec Ruins that was reconstructed.

The largest Kiva at Chaco could house hundreds if not a thousand people

Yet Chaco began to decline, and was no longer the center of trade, commerce, and spirituality somewhere around the early 1100’s and the center moved north towards Aztec. And although drought gripped the region in the late 1200’s, that no longer is the sole reason archaeologists suspect for the regions abandonment. To wander around Cedar Mesa, Mesa Verde, or Hovenweep, it becomes obvious these were a frightened people–building in the most defensible and inaccessible places. Hovenweep with its unique towers is the epitome. The towers are placed at the heads of drainages, protecting their precious water. Cannibalism, decapitations, and other extreme violence is evident in these late periods. Cedar Mesa may have held some of the last hold-outs. Why this happened and what was happening, we’ll never know. But more than drought was going on as this was a land of droughts and people had been living here for thousands of years.

Apart from the specifics of its history, my question when I finally visited Chaco was why are we not teaching this in our American History books to our school children? Why does our history, still, after all these years of increased social awareness, begin with Columbus and. at the most, only a nod to native peoples who were here before Europeans? Is it because we are committed to the United States being only an idea: the idea of freedom and democracy? Is that what we have decided binds us, and so that is what we’ve decided we’ll teach?

America is not a concept. It is the Land and the landscape as well, and if we are to be a people connected to Place, then we must learn about Place and how ‘the land owns us’. And although the Anazasi migrated south, and are today’s Hopi, Zuni, and Puebloans by culture and blood, they are still part of the heritage of our America, our Place. And a Great One; one that we can learn from. By excising this history from our studies, we divorce ourselves off from the long history of our Land and its peoples here. I feel that if our youth integrated these ancient histories as their own, we would all come to cherish not only the ruins that remain, but the Land itself and our connection to its preservation.

Filed under: Indigenous cultures | Tagged: Anazasi, Aztec ruins, Cedar Mesa, Chaco Canyon | 2 Comments »

The Past and the Present

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Leslie

You might say that I’m living a life many of my friends would call simple and rustic. My cabin is small, I’m surrounded by rugged mountains, I hike and live around grizzlies and wolves. The dangers I have to stay aware of are not car break-ins or being mugged on a dark street, but being stuck in a sudden snowstorm on a trail, or spraining an ankle in an area where no one ever comes bye, not just for days but for months or years. Some might say ‘She’s living raw, close to the land’.

But frankly, even way out here in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the wildest place in the lower 48, I feel inadequate, modern. Sure I could probably survive for three or four days in a pinch out in the back country. I take provisions and precautions for that. I carry a satellite phone. I bring bear spray. I even know some wild foods that could tide me over. But my upbringing and my life experiences have never prepared me for living like peoples here did hundreds of years ago. That is cultural knowledge that was passed down generation to generation. The Native Americans who overwintered for 5000 years at nearby Dead Indian Campground passed on their life skills as well as their intimate relationship with the Land–lifestyles that have been lost forever.

Those skills are not learned by a single individual in a single lifetime. Just as much as evolution is physical, those skills were a cultural evolution, breathed and lived by a community. Larry Todd described to me that by even the very early 1800’s, the life skills and the community of the Native Americans at Dead Indian had already begun to dissolve. Around here, that was about the time Lewis and Clark came to town. Their expedition is still the best description of the land and the way things were ‘pre-white’ man. The land may have not changed much, but the cultures were already disintegrating due to disease and other factors.

300 year old wikiup standing till 25 years ago when destroyed by cattle

You know how your grandparents or parents talk about the past, their past, in a longing way. That is how I feel, but in a way that goes much farther back to an America that was ‘discovered’ long ago. Long ago, in the 1800’s, an idea was floating around to give Native Americans the land west of the Missouri. That, of course, was never Thomas Jefferson’s vision.

I must admit, I am weighted down with a longing for a past no longer present. I envision the days when bison roamed freely here, when the beaver and the mink were so plentiful that people were able to trap them in the hundreds. When there were more animals than people. When animals whose mere presence in the landscape today is so controversial, such as wolves and bison, were sacred to the peoples.

In each new landscape I consider “What must this have looked like hundreds of years ago, before the white men made their mark here. What were the native trails like?” I walk what appear to be these pristine mountains and listen hard for ancient echoes of songs, murmurings of people long dead who knew the ways of living with the earth much better than I will ever know in my lifetime. Their songs long gone, I wonder how we can learn the secrets it took so long for them to discover and pass on.

I am obsessed with the past and how that past might be brought into this present time. My friends tell me it will never be again and to move on.

I conjure up dreams of how to fit ‘wildness’ into the puzzle of modern existence. Do we set aside large tracts of unmanaged lands with uncollared wildlife, leave them uncharted and unmapped, to enter at your own risk? Or is our hope in the advocates of green renewable city living, where most of the population will live, work, and grow their own food, leaving the large acreage of rural unfettered areas? Unfortunately, the politics of wilderness seems to always involve an uphill battle, with the needs of wildlife superseded by human needs and greed.

A mere 'blip' of the Bison there used to be

Sensitivity. It is a attribute we must all strive to cultivate as human beings. What we can do is walk lightly, live in wonder, become increasingly aware that all life is conscious, alive, and part of our connected existence. If each one of us were to make that our task, then the earth might become renewed again, full of wild existence, of which we are a part.

Filed under: Indigenous cultures | Tagged: ancient united states, Dead Indian Campground, Native Americans | 3 Comments »

The babies and Medicine Lodge Park

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Leslie

Birds several days ago

Here are the baby bluebirds several days ago. Now here they are today. Boy do they grow fast.

Bluebirds today

Last week I took a trip to Medicine Lodge State park near Hyattville. A well-tended State Park, the spot is an oasis in the Big Horn Basin. This site was excavated in the 70’s by George Frison. Its a continuous occupation site of over 11,000 years! Here are a few photos.

The stone wall palette

Fat marmot

Filed under: Bluebirds, Indigenous cultures | 3 Comments »

Tipi Rings

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Leslie

I thought I’d do a short post on a few teepee rings I’ve seen. The other day I was in Cody with some time to kill. I’d heard there were tipi rings on the north side of the Shoshone river by Trail Creek. A friend told me the historical wisdom-lore was that many tribes gathered there during the winter months to camp by the hot springs. Most of those springs are now either extinct, buried under the damn, or on private lands. In fact, the bulk of the rings, apparently 100’s of them, are on private lands going up the traditional passage of Trail Creek.

Walking along the shores of the Shoshone River (called the Stinking Water River before it was changed due to popular [and probably economic] demand) you can still occasionally smell sulfur . The rings are obvious, easy to pick out. They’re incredibly close together; some even still have fire rings in the center. Compared to the rings in other places, these looked fairly recent, maybe 150 years old. Why? Because the rocks are not very buried.

Cody tipi ring with fire ring in middle

Another view of several rings outside Cody

This is an excerpt from Plain Feather about the death of Crow Chief Sits in the Middle of the Land while Plain Feather was camped outside of Cody:

“About a year after the big battle on the Little Bighorn (1876), a small band of Crows went hunting from the Yellowstone to the Stinking River…The band reached the Stinking River a short distance below where the city of Cody now is located. Here Chief Sits in the Middle announced that he was going south to a valley where there were still some buffalo left. The other group decided to follow up the Stinking River to the big mountains where there were plenty of deer and bighorn sheep.

My family was with this latter group. That evening we made camp at the forks of the river just above the narrow canyon where a dam is now located. Towards evening we sighted two horseback riders galloping in our direction. They were messengers from the other group. They announced that the great chief and his wife suddenly became ill and soon died. They said we were to hasten over there. It is believed that they died of pneumonia.

Immediately teepees came down and we were soon on our way. We arrived early the next morning, just in time for the burial. The bodies, strapped in robes, were taken to the rimrocks of the valley and put into a ledge and then covered up with slabs of rocks. The burial mourning followed, with men and women wailing. They recounted the many great things that the chief did for his people for many years. At that time he was the Chief of All Chiefs, reigning over the two main bands of the Crow Nation.”**

(**Note: In the late 1960’s, the Chiefs’ remains were relocated from nearby Meeteetsie to the Crow Agency in Montana.)

Now compare those rocks with the rocks in the rings below. These rings were along the Bighorn River in Bighorn Canyon. The rings are right beside the main road, which follows the ancient travel route of the Crows.

Another view along Bighorn canyon

Big Horn Canyon rings

Here are some much older rings near the town of Clark.

Clarks fork tipi rings, much older

I spent a few hours walking along the plateau near the mouth of the Clark’s Fork Canyon, an area where tribes traveled for the fall Buffalo hunt. There are rocks galore there, and although I could pick out some rings, they couldn’t be photographed as they were very obscure and some of it might have even been my vivid imagination. Most of the rings seemed much smaller, probably no more than 6′ in diameter compared to these larger rings. But the setting was right–on the table above the river with a wide view of the surroundings.

I love finding these rings. They spur my imagination and kindle a sleeping spirit. The very soil emits stories I’m awaiting to hear.

Filed under: Indigenous cultures, Pryor mountains | Tagged: Chief Sits in the Middle of the Land, Clarks Fork, Cody, Crow Nation, Native American Culture, Pryor mountains, Teepee rings, Tipi rings | 4 Comments »

Indigenous peoples, old and new

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Leslie

Mesa Verde, Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients, together, all tell a story of what the Land and the Life around the Four Corners was 1200 or more years ago. Over 30,000 people lived in the surrounding valleys and mesas, much more than today. Their culture and architecture slowly evolving and developing, its thought they depleted their resources, leaving it devoid of trees, soil fertility, and game. With a severe drought of over 20 years setting in, they all had to move on to greener pastures. Sound familiar?

I really was at Mesa Verde. Proof.

Wow

Another dwelling site

Photo taken across the canyon. How did they get they there, let alone build it?

Traveling to Hovenweep, the road was incredibly beautiful. I slept under the stars at the Monument, dreaming powerful dreams of eagles and hawks. The Monument is primitively developed. A walking path takes you around to each ruin. If desired, you can drive further east to several out building ruins off dirt roads and trails. These buildings, although constructed around the same late period as Mesa Verde (and not occupied for more than a generation or two), are architecturally very different. Their purpose was unknown, but to me they appeared as fortresses, possibly lookout towers to alert the villages of approaching marauders as food and resources became scarcer.

All buildings were built on rock ledges overlooking canyons

My very favorite. The boulder is gigantic its built upon

Nearby, the fairly new National Monument, Canyons of the Ancients, doesn’t even yet have literature, nor thankfully, roads. There are over 4000 archaeological sites scattered throughout BLM managed land. I drove up to Lowry to view one of the premier ruins, which was fully excavated in the 30’s. These ruins are from an earlier time than Mesa Verde and Hovenweep and were clearly living quarters, with one of the three underground kivas surviving intact.

Description of ruins at Canyons of the Ancients

My favorite was a nearby extremely large kiva. Clearly this kiva was used ceremonially as a gathering spot for clans and families from all around the area. To get to these ruins, you drive a lonely dirt road through pastures and farmlands. Nobody was there, as opposed to Mesa Verde where the walks were led by rangers with many visitors participating.

Central gathering Kiva

I had the wonderful opportunity to sit quietly, alone, and feel the powerful energy of that large kiva, letting my imagination fill in the gaps of wonderous gatherings of song, dance and ceremony. That is my favorite site.

After I left Hovenweep, I headed for the Navajo reservation where I spent the night (which I’ll describe in a separate post). I told a Navajo woman that I’d come from Mesa Verde. We talked of these magnificent buildings and experienced builder. I told her I wondered about how theses ancient people were able to climb down from the mesas to the buildings below (rangers say it was by handholds they made in the rock).

“Some people say they could fly.”

“That’s probably the best explanation I’ve heard”, I replied.

: Wow

: My very favorite. The boulder is gigantic its built upon

: Central gathering Kiva

: All buildings were built on rock ledges overlooking canyons

: Another dwelling site

: I really was at Mesa Verde. Proof.

: Photo taken across the canyon. How did they get they there, let alone build it?

: Description of ruins at Canyons of the Ancients

Filed under: Indigenous cultures | Tagged: Canyons of the Ancients, Hovenweep, Mesa Verde, Native American Culture | Leave a comment »

Blackfeet, Wolves and emblems of the Spirit

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Leslie

I just finished reading a wonderful little book by James Schultz. Schultz lived with the Blackfeet Indians starting around 1880 and took an Indian wife. He learned their language and soon, as a very young man who came out from the east coast, became accepted into the tribe as one of their own. He, along with his friend George Grinnell, helped advocate for Glacier to become a National Park, and wrote many books about his life among the Indians and the wilds of Northern Montana. He’s providing me with a vivid sketch of life in Montana at the close of the 19^th century, the final days of the free lives of the Blackfeet , as well as the last days of the Buffalo. With the recent delisting of the wolves of Montana and Idaho, and the hunts that are now taking place there, here’s a little gem of a quote from Blackfeet and Buffalo: Memories of Life among the Indians: “The big, bad wolf? No indeed! I once had a pet wolf, as good a friend of mine as any dog I ever owned. But before I tell of him, I must say that, so far as I can learn, the wolves of North America never attacked human beings. There was good reason for it: game animals and birds, were everywhere so plentiful that they had no need to attack their great enemy, man. The Indians have no tales about big, bad wolves. They frighten their children into good behavior by threatening them with the bear. Until the late 1870’s wolves fairly swarmed upon the Montana plains; their long-drawn, melancholy howls were ever in our ears. But lone hunters, both Indian and white, when caught out at night and far from home, lay down to sleep without the slightest fear of them.” On of the most intriguing observations about the Blackfeet is contained in the following quote: “The Blackfeet Indians, and perhaps many others, have a peculiar habit of going up on high hills and bluffs conveniently close to camp and sitting there motionless and rigid as statues for hours. Near the close of the day seems to be the particular time for indulging in this practice. Why they do so is a mystery. I have often asked them the reason, and have invariably received the reply, Kis-tohts, meaning “for nothing.” Sometimes I have hidden myself in the coarse rye grass which grows so tall and luxuriantly in the river bottoms, and with the aid of a powerful field glass have closely scrutinized their countenances, but to no purpose. The expression of their faces never changed. Their eyes had a far-off dreamy look which could not be interpreted.” Schultz speculated that maybe they were thinking about the passing away of the life they once knew. But I have a different notion. Living so close to the earth, these people keenly observed not only the animals and their movements, but the whole non-human processes–the weather, the sky, the stars. All was observed in a contemplative disposition of openness. In their deep observations of animals, they not only learned about them for their hunt, but noticed their simplicity and ease of contemplation. Animals were direct representations of spiritual communications and powers and so they were highly venerated and used ritually and contemplatively for various purposes. They were emblems, doorways to Spirit. In fact, they were a unique display of what was beyond the human, rather than lesser than human as we rate the animal world today. Going and sitting on a hilltop, motionless at dusk, was a form of communion, as natural as the elk lying in the grass still and silent, or the spider who patiently sits in its web. It was setting aside time, after the safety and the needs of the body were taken care of, to drop into contemplation. Living with the Land as they did, there is a natural rhythm and pulse that overwhelms the body and mind when it’s still. I believe they were just responding to that natural pulsation of contemplation that was everywhere around them, including in the animals. This is the kind of sensitivity we need today in our conversations about our ecosystems, the wolves and bears, the elk and deer and the whole animal world, including ourselves. We are upside down. We are not the ‘managers’. Animals and plants are not just ‘resources’ to be exploited and managed. At one time, 100 years ago, the idea of game management was a necessity when we almost slaughtered much of our animals to extinction. We saved our game by setting land aside, establishing hunting regulations, careful management, and educating generations of biologists. But it is a new day and a new paradigm is needed. I don’t know the answers, but I do know where we need to begin from. Our conversation needs to start from the assumption that all life is conscious. That’s not an airy fairy granola eating notion. That’s the logical application of Einsteinian physics. And looking at animals as emblems of the sacred is a good place to start.

Filed under: Indigenous cultures, Wolf | Tagged: James Schultz, Native American Culture, Wolf | 4 Comments »

Only the wind sang

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Leslie

Yesterday I met Larry Todd over at the Dead Indian Campground site. Larry is an archaeologist working mostly in the Greybull area. I contacted him several months ago because he was in charge of the dig in the ’80’s at the Bugas-Holding site, a Shoshone winter campground 400 years old. I had many questions, and Larry graciously invited me to walk around the Dead Indian site with him after he finished an outing there with Cody Middle School.

Next to a creek and protected by mountains, Dead Indian is a 5000 year old winter campground site that had continuous use. It is one of three archaeological sites in the Cody area on the National Historic Landmarks, the other two being the Horner site and Mummy Cave. Larry explained that some areas were early Archaic, some middle, and some late, depending upon the topography. The lower levels around the creek were the latest periods. He said that when they began work, the entire area had so many artifacts they had to choose specific areas to concentrate on. The work was done in the 70’s, before he was around to participate.

Topography of the mountains around Dead Indian Historic Landmark

We walked over to a large plateau, an early Archaic period. Larry painted a picture of a campsite with upwards of several hundred people, living in family groups–a small Wyoming town so to speak. People living in pit houses that came here winter after winter to hunt the game that was plentiful. Mostly deer and sheep were killed at this site. Their tools were made from local materials, sharp and new in the fall, but dulled by spring through continuous retooling. By spring it was time to gather and trade for new raw materials for arrowheads and other necessities.

Looking into Dead Indian Valley

In this early Archaic period, the big game were gone and more intensive hunting and gathering was necessary for the equivalent quality of nutrition. People were settling down for longer periods and returning to the same sites. Deer, much easier to herd and more predictable than elk, were the main large food source, along with sheep. At Dead Indian, large ceremonies were conducted in honor of this food source.

Larry told me that the Bugas-Holding site was like a still image. It was used for the duration of one winter only. Here at Dead Indian the story was more like a novel, with many chapters. He thought Dead Indian might have gone through periods of heavy use and lighter use. Having been used continuously for so long, probably many different periods of histories and stories had taken place here.

Slot Canyon in Dead Indian

Dead Indian Creek and slot canyon

Larry talked about the interactions between the land and the peoples. By the time Lewis and Clark appeared–what we mark as the first interactions with white men in the West–many Native Americans had already been decimated by disease and the landscapes they had shaped were already changed. The wilderness white people saw at that time was imprinted in their minds as what the land always was. But really it was just a snapshot. To live winter after winter in these mountains takes an enormous amount of religious, and traditional, training and knowledge. These practical skills are a cultural phenomenon, passed on generationally. Thousands of years of accumulated wisdom had been decimated through disease and warfare in a short time. Larry thought that by the time Lewis and Clark came, enough of that knowledge had been wiped out so that fewer and fewer people could live in these mountains. The land itself had changed in response. What white men saw as wilderness, was a degeneration of the land through non-use.

Our idea of wilderness is non-use. Looking east across Yellowstone lake in winter

I mentioned that in Australia, after 60,000 years of aboriginals working the land with fire, botanists weren’t sure if the plants had adapted to fire because of human intervention or vice versa. He told me that Bison antiquus was a good example of that here. Bison antiquus, the ancestor of our modern Bison, was much larger than today’s Bison and died out about 10,000 years ago. The theory goes that the smaller, lighter, and more streamlined buffalo could run faster, giving them a decided advantage from the top predator, man.

Modern day bison

As we walked around the site, Larry bent down and showed me how almost every square inch, to the trained eye, contained evidence of habitation. Chippings from chert, quarzite, chalcedon, pieces of bone, a sheep vertebrae–all this he found within a few square feet. I hadn’t seen anything until he pointed it all out. I could feel the vibrancy of the culture once there. We talked about fire and how it can clear a site. He said that a fire can come through, clear all the duff and topsoil, and the site is exposed just how it was left thousands of years before, including fire pits, chippings and all.

“Its like someone’s found an original map or book that’s going to unlock all these new secrets. But before we even have a chance to organize and fund an archaeological expedition, the looters are there within weeks, days. The site is stripped and the information is lost forever.”

We walked back to the road while Larry told me a story about Bison, his specialty. He said that Native Americans didn’t always use all the meat. It was common to just take the prime parts after a kill. One time he was talking with a Blackfoot elder about ancient hunting methods. When he came to the part about how they left parts of the kill, a student listening nearby said “They wasted parts.”

“Would you take all of it?” asked the elder. “Would you be that greedy?”

The student replied, “I wouldn’t waste anything. I’d take it all.”

“You whites are so greedy. You wouldn’t leave any meat for your brothers–the wolf, coyote, raven.”

I looked back at the site. Only the wind sang. I tried to imagine what once was.

Filed under: Indigenous cultures | Tagged: Aboriginals, Australia, Buffalo, Dead Indian Campground, Fire, Native American Culture, Sheepeaters, Wyoming | 1 Comment »

Clark’s Fork hike and the vilified wolf

Posted on May 16, 2009 by Leslie

The dump is just up the road about 20 minutes. Its an auxiliary dump, meaning its for locals and basically a large canister with a locked fence around it. The whole idea is to prevent bears from getting in, and to help locals with their trash and bear management. Last year though I did see a horse that was dumped off there outside the bear management fence. Although the bears couldn’t get into the trash, they sure did get into the horse, along with the wolves.

I really don’t know many people up in the Crandall area yet, nor do I know too many of the hikes. I hiked with the wolf study gals last fall there a lot, but mostly that was through brush directly to GPS sites where their collared wolf had lingered for more than an hour.

So I stopped and introduced myself at the Hunter Peak Ranch. Its an old dude ranch that now mostly houses guests and horsebackriding. The owner, Shelley Cary, was very gracious and I talked for a while with her and her family. They serve dinner to guests and outsiders with advance notice. Something good to know for any guests I have. They also had some great ancient photos on the walls of homesteaders from the Crandall area. Several names I’d heard of. One of them, Norman and Mrs. Dodd, homesteaded in my area. Apparently people always had to refer to Norman’s wife as Mrs. Dodd. They lived ten hard miles from the meeting house, which was a one room schoolhouse, and came by a team of mules pulling a buckboard. Another photo was of the old post office, a long wooden building in disrepair.

I took a short 5 mile hike along the Clark’s Fork trailhead. The Clark’s Fork trail is well marked and well used by horses. Its in open sagebrush, so if a hiker does encounter a bear, there’d be plenty of room to move.

Geum triflorum. Prairie Smoke

Claytonia lanceolata. Spring beauties. Edibles. Purslane family

I’ve been on this trail before and knew of a wonderful secret spot where the river drops into a gorge.

Lunch spot

I wandered off-trail to the waterfall.

Allium. Wild onion. Spicy addition to lunch.

There was plenty of moose sign in the willows around the river, as well as a pair of nesting ospreys. Koda and I sat and hung with the fish hawks for a while. The female was sitting on her nest, although she took some time out to try and scare me off. The male sat nearby with a piece of fish in his talons.

Female sitting on her nest

Male osprey nearby nest, with fish in talons

There’s always a plethora of anti-wolf talk in our area. Besides aggrieved hunters and ranchers, I once talked with a woman whose parents ran an outfitting company. She was only 16 and hated wolves. She told me a story about how they had taken their supplies in the fall up to a campsite in anticipation of bringing some hunters up there the next day. They’d left three dogs with the supplies, alone, overnight, way up near the Yellowstone border. This was something they were used to doing, for years. But this year was different. When they returned the following day, one of their dogs had been killed by wolves.

After lunch, on the way back to the trail, I ran into a fellow resting his horse. I introduced myself and found out he was a local.

“Find any horns?” he asked.

Horns refers to antlers. People around here spend lots of time looking for antler sheds in the spring. They can be worth big money.

“Nope, wasn’t looking for any.” I replied. “But I did find a pair of nesting ospreys and moose sign.”

“I saw four wolves up on table mountain. They’ll eat your dog, you know. Just like that.”

“Yep, that’s why I keep him on that electronic collar. We have an agreement he and I. I protect him from wolves and he watches for bears.”

“Those frickin’ wolves, they’ve ruined everything. There used to be so many bull elk here. I wish they’d never put them here.”

“I like them.”

“They’re everywhere. They ran after an elk right through the trailer park the other day.”

I didn’t think he heard me so I said it again. “I like them here.”

“There’s no more moose anymore. They’re history. They’ve frickin’ ruined it all. Things used to be good.”

“I seem to be seeing a lot of moose this year. Maybe their numbers are coming back.”

“Oh, where you live maybe, but not here. Wolves have ruined it all. Last year we found three bull elk kills up Crandall creek. They just hone in and kill them. There’s no more left around here.”

I didn’t bother to tell him that I knew the elk study coordinator had hiked up there this winter and taken samples of the bull kills he’d seen. He said their marrow was like jelly, an indicator of poor health. I mentioned all the grizzlies in the area.

“Oh, those grizzlies don’t do much. Its those damn wolves.”

That’s a typical conversation I’ve had many times. There is a lot of animosity and anger about the wolf introduction. These are people who live on the land and know the land, at least in a certain way. They know where the wolves are denning even though the Game & Fish keep it secret. They see grizzlies when they’re out. They feel comfortable in the outdoors, but they have been used to not having wolves around for a very long time. And they resent having to take them into account now.

Its a most controversial matter, wolves. I tend to be on the side of the wolves, but I also am sympathetic towards the ranchers. I feel that its’ important to work with ranchers and begin to develop practices that protect their livelihood. I also know that these large ranches are one of the last ways we can protect the land here. If the ranches and ranchers are not taken into account, if they loose their land, then those large tracts will be sold and chopped up for development. That in itself is even more of a death blow to wildlife, especially grizzlies and wolves. New ranching management practices are critical for wildlife protection as well. As one of the wolf researchers said to me last year “Something’s got to change. There’s just too much killing going on” in reference to all the wolves killed by Wildlife Services in retaliation for calf predation. (For a video of wolves in my valley, click here)

Wolves on carcass

In contrast, I was reading in the Wind River Reservation Wolf Management Plan about how some of the elders of the tribe view wolves. There is controversy on the reservation as well, the report says, because many Native Americans have livestock. But there is magic, wisdom, and most importantly, respect, communicated in their ancient views. Here is an excerpt from that report.

Traditional views recognize wolves as kin, as strong, as deserving of respect and placed here by the Creator for a purpose. The Shoshone word for wolf means “big coyote.” Wolves lived a long time, were very smart and observant, and listened well. When wolves appeared in a vision, one was to follow what the wolf showed you. The wolf was secretive and special and used to talk with people through telepathy. Wolves were helpers. Wolves were sacred and to be left alone, however sometimes people had to kill them. People were to be careful around them. Wolves could teach virtuous things to people. They were an example of how to care for family members because they took good care of the young as well as the old. The packing behavior of wolves showed people that they should not go out hunting alone. Wolves also showed people to use the entire game animal (the meat, bones, hooves, marrow, skin, etc.) – not to waste any of it. Wolves wandered to wherever the food was, like earlier people did. They did not know boundaries. Now wolves are being confined to certain areas like Native Americans have been confined to Reservations.

Filed under: Indigenous cultures, Wolf | Tagged: Bears, Eagles & Hawks, Native American Culture, Wolf | 3 Comments »

Teepee Rings and the Spirit Wind

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Leslie

Someone gave me one of those mid-range expensive weather stations, the kind with an indoor readout that talks with an outdoor unit. It also talks to a satellite for date, time, and moon phases. There is a feature on it that tells you a forecast: an arrow up or down, sun or clouds.

This morning I looked at the forecast on the readout. It featured clouds and the arrow was down. Ten minutes later W___ called and asked about a hike today. I looked at the readout and the arrow was up.

Frankly, that about says it all for Wyoming weather. JB, my 84 year old neighbor, tells me the old saying is “If you don’t like the weather in Wyoming, wait 10 minutes.” I think my digital weather station feels like its riding a bucking bronco sitting on my window sill forecasting mountain weather.

W___ and I decided to meet down the mountain and go for a hike out near the mouth of the Clark’s Fork river. The Clark’s Fork barrels down the canyon from the Beartooths, carving a deep gorge over a mile deep in places from the high plateau where I live. Chief Joseph led his people through here, pursued by the army, fleeing to Canada. The reason he knew the area so well was because the Nez Perce had been coming here every fall to hunt buffalo. By 1840, the buffalo had disappeared from Idaho. The Nez Perce had to decide to either change their diet or migrate yearly to Wyoming to hunt. They used traditional trails through the park and into the Great Basin of Wyoming. Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River

Today was incredibly windy. The winds were traveling at breakneck speed down the canyon. Sometimes gusts blew me off my feet. Huge clouds of water blew like ghosts off the river. W__ said it was a ‘spirit wind’.

We park at the end of a dirt road that once was a Ranch. W__ tells me that about 12 years ago there was a large drug operation at the ranch, the owners were busted by the Feds, and because it was a Federal operation the ranch became federal property. Eventually the state took the ranch over. Now, its just old buildings boarded up. We walk around in the hurricane force wind. The main house is all boarded up, but several cabins are still open. Most are filled with packrat items, but others have old signs and refrigerators in them. One is filled with rolls of carpet. The ‘drug ranch’ sits on the flat sagelands, next to the river, with old Cottonwoods surrounding it that some previous owner planted. Its a perfect movie set. The story goes that one of the druggies got out of prison early and went back to the ranch in the night to dig up drug money that they’d buried there. Koda’s running around like crazy after jack rabbit scents. I humorously instruct him to ‘Look for the money, Koda.”

The river, once roaring and wild, settles down here at the mouth and swings gently along a wide, broad plateau. We walk much further down the old dirt road, off the ranch, and towards the mountains. W___ points out the numerous teepee rings. At first I can’t see them well. They’re old and the rocks are deeper in the dirt than ones I’ve seen before. I kind of have to squint, unfocus my eyes and let my mind flow. Soon, I’m spotting them too. Their openings are to the east. A few even have old fire rings in the middle. We’re at the end of the plateau where W___ tells me the rings are large. I ask him why some of the teepees are smaller and some are larger. “I’m just guessing here, Old teepee rings. Can you see them? but my theory is that the larger rings were for families that might have stayed longer; whereas the smaller teepees were temporary hunting parties.” I like to try and imagine the community spirit that once was here, bustling with excitment and activity for the fall hunt. Its in sharp contrast to the drug ranch of secrecy and isolation.