The following day, the man descended into a broad basin with desert marigolds and globemallow scattered here and there. There were signs of desert larkspur, lupin, and the evening primrose. Peering more closely at the desert floor, there appeared innumerable tiny flowers, hardly large enough to be noticed at all, and easy it would be to entirely miss their humble beauty. They were a metaphor for the entire desert: an understatement of the Divine.
∞
The Mojave, one of the largest bioregions in California, rests contiguous with the borders of Nevada and Arizona, reaching towards the Sierra, South Coast, and Colorado Desert bioregions. It is a land that that holds wisdom, sometimes in stories, and sometimes in the bones of ancient storytellers, discovered and tossed about by coyotes. Such stories, passed on through generations of people, reach back into the time before time. Sometimes, in the afternoon breezes that swept from the Northwest, this man sensed he could faintly hear these stories, telling of how the Mojave people had come to know themselves.
At first, they say, there was only chaos. Yet in a glorious moment from the Earth and Sky, came Matavilya, the Great Spirit, and it was from great mountain Avi kwa’ ame that the two-leggeds came. But before these first humans could begin to learn how to live, the one who was to be their teacher, the Great Spirit, fell by the hand of his own sister, Frog Woman. Upon learning this, his little brother Mastamho took his place and drew a line in the sand with a branch of willow. From this came a river, bringing with it ducks and fish. It was said that this little brother then scraped the mud from the banks of this river and made mountains.
Yet still, the people knew nothing, so Mastamho taught them how to plant, how to build shelter, and how to make fire. He taught them how to know night from day, how to fish, and how to hunt. He even showed them how to count, and gave them the four directions. This, the Mojave people would tell each other, is how the land fell into their hands, the land of the Mojave.
Then others came from far away, with guns that tore holes in the Mojave people from a distance. They kept coming, doing to the desert whatever they chose, ripping away the self-governance the bioregion had known for millions of years.
∞
The sun was beginning to find a foothold at the top of the sky, and the man knew he should soon find shelter, and began searching for an overhanging creosote. Then, he came to a standstill before a wide scar of churned Earth that cut across the wash and stretched in both directions. Tracks from gnarled tires ripped the desert floor, footprints of wild machines that had roared past dragging plumes of dust behind. There was plastic bottle. Just beginning to take a thousand years to decompose. To his right lay an awkward spread of spent cartridge shells from high power rifle, glistening brass beneath the sun, left for an eternity. From a nearby bush came a reflection from an aluminum can, nearly ripped apart with holes from lead slugs now buried in the sand.
He pondered for awhile that in no more than about a scant hundred years, with human thoughtlessness treating the Mojave as a giant trash bin, the desert’s delicate balance and exquisite beauty were deeply wounded. This, the desert would never have allowed had its authority not been wrested by the humans.
∞
The story of human beings in the desert is so ancient, that the exact story is now unclear. They appeared long before all-terrain vehicles and empty plastic bottles. It may be that the human story began when the continental ice sheets were still visible. Or perhaps, humans appeared when Pleistocene rivers drained into lakes that no longer exist, their water eventually descending into Death Valley and into the pluvial Lake Manly. It is seen that the edges of these now dried lakebeds show signs of ancient human habitation seven to twelve thousand years before. It is possible that these early people were following game as the seasons cycled past, or perhaps they had already created a lake or marsh-centered culture.
Though it is a mystery when humans first arrived, petroglyphs left on rocks suggest the earliest may have come 15,500 years ago, a time when marshes and streams still flowed. Then, plants and game were plentiful; mastodons and mammoths lumbered through the greenery along with bison, and fish could be caught with darts. But the climate became hotter, the lakes dried up, and the humans followed the wildlife as it migrated away. Though some continued to follow the game and hunt, others took to farming, and still others to trade between various groups. Many found increasing subsistence in seeds and plants. These were the Mojave.
Then came the Europeans. A Spanish padre, Francisco Garcés, picked his way through and across the desert to establish mission churches elsewhere, and was killed by those for whom he was bringing his Roman Catholicism. Later, Mojave Indians are thought to have joined in such attacks as well. In response, Moraga led a ‘punitive’ expedition against the Mojave.
For human to prey on human does not speak well of humanity, and yet it is much of the history of the people of the desert. Ewing Young and a large party of trappers terrorized Mojave village, and Jedediah Smith, who had passed by peaceably once, returned to Mojave village only to be attacked in return, leaving 10 of his party dead and two women captured. However, compassion and trust were not entirely absent: Kit Carson and a more than a dozen others, starving and thirsty, were brought lifesaving assistance by the Mojave, and later in 1831, a party of 20, starving and thirsty just like Kit Carson, were also saved.
Criminals often sought refuge on the desert. Then came a gold rush, and prospectors came and went. Authority over the Southwest was assumed by the United States after a treaty with Mexico. Completely ignored, the longest desert residents, the Mojave, were understandably implacable over the supposed United States authority, just as they had been with Mexico’s original declaration that the land was theirs. The idea of Mexico then, somehow giving it to the United States, was incredulous.
Mutual animosity and deaths among natives and non-natives alike, continued to wax and wane through the Civil war. It was known that those who fell to Mojave warriors were first downed by a club that struck from above, and when the body began to tumble to Mother Earth, a second strike came from below, smashing the jaw. Prisoners of the Mojave were tattooed with a warrior’s ownership, kept as a slaves, and eventually sacrificed to serve warriors who had moved from this life. Gangs of horse thieves, secessionists and criminals conspired to make the desert an especially dangerous place.
Things continued to change: mining, railroads, and then cars and a paved highway appeared. Military bases were created. General Patton rolled his tanks and spent munitions over the Mojave to train troops during WWII. A policy to eliminate coyotes was enacted, along with a rash of innumerable other insults to the desert ecology. Large areas of Mojave wildlife and plants were being affected. That night, the man on his vision quest went to sleep beneath the thunderclaps of fighter planes on maneuver. The desert was no longer silent.
∞
In the morning, the man awoke and went to an open area he had noticed the day before, to consult with the elders there, if they would show themselves. Calling in the directions he lifted sage to the sky in gratitude, and offered sweet incense to the ancestors of the land. The spirit of the North was particularly helpful, explaining to the man was a seed, growing quietly, preparing to give up what was tired and should be returned to the Mother.
Taking his rattle, he retreated a short distance away, and tracing a circle on the ground, sat within to rattle until they would show. After awhile he began to see shapes appearing before him. One was seated, as if he had been there a long while and simply waiting to be seen. He was an old man, with white hair, a Native American, and clearly a chief. Behind him stood a woman, and to his right, a younger man. Clearly these were people for whom this was their home.
Respectfully, the man got to his feet and slowly approached the three. Bowing his head briefly in respect, he seated himself in front of them and asked for their help: “Please,” he implored, “Help me see! Help me open up this walnut shell around my heart. Help me become the seed that awaits the spring!” The native elder replied evenly, that the work would be difficult but that the man must keep going. Even the man’s wife, he added, might leave him. There was silence, then he continued: there would be nothing to fear. Then the old man then said nothing.
The man waited, and wondered if this meant it was time for him to leave. As he stood up, the old man began to disappear such that the desert hillside could be seen directly behind him. With surprise, the man could see figures appearing in the creosote, sage and rock. Watching these, he understood: in his life ahead, he would meet with obstacles, yet these could be walked around or stepped over. If he chose, he could take an easy, well worn trail that wound towards his future, but the most direct route would be straight. There were many paths and no shame in sometimes following the paths of others who had already faced and moved through the obstacles that lay ahead.
Now with much to think about, the man stepped back, and thanking them, returned to his circle, and rattled as they disappeared from his sight.
∞
To be continued...
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