Sunday, November 28, 2010

A South Fork Indian

charlie two crows said...
I wonder what it was like to be a native american on the south fork in the 1800's. Charlie two crows.

Charlie Two Crows. First, I want to thank-you for all of the fine contributions that you have made to this blog. Then I will try to answer your question.

I want to say that I am no expert. The things that I know about the Indian people are only things that I can scratch up from my childhood memories. Tales that I’ve heard, that were related by the Indian people to the early whites, and history that has been gleaned by surmising. Some that I have learned through this blog.

The 1800’s were a period of great change for the South Fork of the Eel Indian. The Indians started off as people that had maybe only heard rumors about the white man, to being almost completely exterminated by the white man. The 1800’s completely changed the life of the local Native American.

The early 1800’s had tribes that were not yet exposed to the new world diseases. Their culture was intact and functioning. They hunted, fished, dug roots, picked plants, and gathered nuts and berries. They truly “lived off the land”. They moved about within their tribal spaces, hunting and gathering. In the summer the coastal tribes lived along the seashore. In the winter they lived inland in the coastal valleys, like the South Fork of the Eel River.

As all American Indians were, they were highly spiritual people. They believed that animals were directly connected to the people and the land. Many of their stories related how people and animals could change shapes and become the other person or animal. Many of the stories that I heard as a kid were about “Whiptali”, who was a deer-human. Whiptali was very smart, and very evil. He liked to kill men with his horns if he could. The stories goes that Whiptali didn’t like noise or water. And, the big one… he could be invisible! When Whiptali was after you, the only thing that you could do to ward him off is make a lot of noise or scare him off with water.

My Uncle tells a hunting story about when he was a kid. He and a local Indian kid were hunting deer out near Covelo, My uncle said that he heard all kinds of yelling and screaming. As he watched the Indian kid came running down the hill, making as much noise as he could, yelling and beating the brush with a stick. He ran down the hill and out into the creek. My uncle caught up with him and asked him what was wrong. He proclaimed, “Whiptali is after me!”. My uncle jumped in the creek after him and asked: “Where!!!”

I often thought about my uncle's close association with the Indian kids. When he was growing up he believed a lot of the old Indian Spirit stories, much as other children being raised in any other religion or culture, he adopted the culture of the people he was closely associated with. I viewed the Indian Spirits and the Biblical myths as much the same, something to ponder, and wonder where these stories came from. But, I never really believed in them.

Another Indian Spirit story that my uncle talked about was ChinHaHa. He was a bear/man spirit, and just like all of the other spirits he could be invisible. All of the Newcomers tell me that I have my tales mixed up, and this is entirely possible, but I remember ChinHaHa as being a bear. The newcomers tell me that the spirit ChinHaHa should be “the trickster”, the Coyote. The Bear Spirit was “The Grandfather Spirit”. But, I’m used to being told that I’m wrong, so I will tell it they way I remember it, and you can twist it however you will. ChinHaHa was the one that takes things right out from under your nose while you are using them. Sometimes they disappear forever and sometimes he puts them back. That bear follows me everywhere. He hides my keys, the wrenches that I’m using, and sometimes even takes my glasses. Sometimes he returns them as a bigger joke. He is a very funny bear!

So, the Indian people were very spiritual, before the white man came along to tell them that they were wrong. They put the Indian people in school, taught them the white mans language and religion. The whites even beat the Indian kids that tried to stick to their religion or practice their culture. I think that the way they treated the Indian religion, and language, has a lot to do with why I resent the practice of Christianity. Christianity leaves no room for spirit or wonder, they claim that all of the answers are it their Bible. I don’t see how anyone with a truly open mind could believe totally in the Bible. I really think that any religion would have to include respect and wonder for the world around us, much as the local South Fork Indians did.

As the white man’s diseases came, the Indians died off. Many died of diphtheria and smallpox. The Indians would die from as simple a disease as the flu. So many of the Indians died of white man diseases before they even saw a white man. The Indian tribes were almost decimated from disease. The remaining were killed off when the white man showed up. The first of the whites came for the gold. The rest came for the land and the timber. The Indians tried to fight back, but they never had a chance. Some of the white people protected them. Proof of that is that some Indians remain. That would never be true if someone hadn’t protected them.

The Indians of the South Fork were well known for fighting amongst themselves. There is a “Great Battleground” up on the ridge just north of Bell Springs. There were many legends about Indian battles up there. There were many artifacts that had to do with fighting recovered there, so the legends must be true. As with many stories that I heard as a child, a lot of things went unanswered. I don’t know what they fought about. The best explanation that I got was that “they were bitter enemies, and enemies fight”. What they fought about I can’t began to say, but they fought to the death over what appeared to be a “sport”.

Another battleground was on the Valley in Laytonville. My uncle used to tell a story about a great Indian battle that the Indian people fought. Many people were killed. When one side ran out of arrows they would stand out in the open and dodge the enemy’s arrows until they had enough to shoot back. It sound like great sport and bravery to me. Maybe the fighting was to prove their prowess as a fighter or to prove their bravery. I don’t know. I asked my uncle who won. I got the impression that it really didn’t make any difference who won, it was more about the fact that they fought and proved themselves in battle. He said that if rained they would just go home. “You can’t fight in the rain”.

I’ve heard many stories of the things that the Indian tribes would do to provoke a battle with another tribe of Indians. They would taunt them by killing one of the elders of the tribe that they were trying to pick a fight with, and play with the severed head in front of them. Strangely, as civilized as we think that we are today, we can still see the same sort of things go on. The gangs, drug culture and turf battles today are much the same.

But, of course the white man did show up and ruin everything for the Indian, and much is known about history from that time forward. The thing that still bothers me, is how little we really understand about the motivation of people back then. Jack Farley of Laytonville killed many Indians. It is claimed that he said, “A white man’s life is worth twenty Indians.” He had a string of scalps to prove it. Yet, he was revered and protected by the local Indian tribe. He said, when asked what he credited his long life to, that it was the care from the Indian people, and their medicine that gave him his long life. He killed them, and they treated him like a God! Go figure.

So, such was the life of The South Fork Indian in the 1800's. Do you think that you would have liked to have been to be one???

48 comments:

spyrock said...

i was watching a show on tv last night about the south fork and its clover based economy. it doesnt seem like much has changed from the 1800's except maybe the skin color of the ones out there digging up the plants.
they did mention the fact that there was no law up there, still.
the fed guy was saying that they were being all they could be and that the whole economy up there would collapse if they did succeed in wiping out the clover.
they showed some old timers moving out because the rise of home invasions because clover diggers are growing indoors now and theives might think you are doing it too. it makes one think that the recent defeat of the clover iniative had more to do with economics than health or morality. so what's the difference. you could get killed picking clover in the 1800s and you can killed picking clover today. so what has really changed?

charlie two crows said...

Ernie; I love the stories about your uncle. He understood the spirit. The early life he lived is indian history lost. To answer your last question in the blog, I have liked to be a south fork indian in the 1800's.Not for the Euro interaction, the pristine woods. As a cat field mechanic for 30yrs. I've seen a world of sins in the woods both white and indian.(Hupa Timber).The eel seems to get even with the (new bees )like (64). I hope your family has written history down. Ernie, maybe its time you wrote a book. Thanks charlie two crows.

\ said...

I feel that your Bear/trickster is valid. After all, that's the way you see it. A bear is slower etc. but it's still an animal/energy acting the trickster role in the metaphors. I like that you stick to your guns about it and keep it a bear. I think it works, although likely it's an historically incorrect retelling. But hey, stories change and evolve, that's the human creativity at work.

I'd like to hear some more indian stories from your stash. The story of the boy running and jumping in the river is funny, but funny like a Walt Disney movie is funny. I'd like to read some of the real (--LOL) Whiptali tales --written the way you remember hearing them from your uncle. Or maybe some Chinhaha. They'd be good little inserts in the book you're gonna write ;)

spyrock said...

He killed them, and they treated him like a God! Go figure.

i think i got this figured out for ya. no matter what continent you go to, the shamans use basically the same methods even though they are isolated from each other. obviously, not every white european that came over here was christian. many of them still lived as they had in their own country for thousands of years. the lieutenant you talk about called them lowlifes or buckskin gentry. whatever you want to call them, there wasn't much difference between them and the indians that were already living here. the indians realized that some of these people were just like them and believed in the land just like they did. so there was mutual respect and probably neither one of them liked the christains much because the christians were trying to destroy their way of living. it had become apparent to everyone that the white or red or any other color indigini listened to the land to see what it saying. listening to the land has never been a christian forte. they are more concerned with another world called heaven. of course, when the south fork indians saw the white people destroying the land, they just thought they were crazy.
whereas they had a lot of respect for someone who was a warrior and respected and lived off the land as they did. you can ask any fundamentalist christian and he will tell exactly when they are going to destroy the planet. of course, the planet has its own methods like floods, and ice ages. but who believes what al gore says anyhow. the christians will destroy it first or die trying.

Robin Shelley said...

Maybe "revering" A.J. Farley was a form of self-protection... sort of a be-my-slave-&-I-won't-kill-you-&-tan-your-hide-or-molest-your-children kind of deal.

Ben said...

Ernie... I don't have any real arguments with your picture of Indian life. I really like your description of war and arrow dodging. That was certainly part of warfare. Scalp dances also happened. The most frequent ceremony was probably the Flower Dance for a girl reaching womanhood. Various trade fair ceremonies happened to allow trading and to arrange marriages in a culture which forbade marrying even a distant relative. A ceremony to "fix the earth" probably happened in the fall.
In May, the local Indians left their river towns and moved to the hills for the summer. They burned large areas of the country to create an open and fruitful environment. The land looked very different in those days. We get stories that the Indians were sedentary. In fact, they would hunt elk by chasing them to exhaustion, often for several days. They were in great shape. They wore little or no clothing in summer and deerskin robes in winter. Hair in for cold and hair out in rain. They loved their families and were always ready to revenge an insult or injury.
They believed the Earth itself was alive and the word for a hill or mountain was "standing ground". They believed in prayer and the power of prayer. They believed that Spirit would help if they cried and their songs often sounded like sobbing. They believed that to have long life and happiness one must follow the rules.
Coyote was a very, very important being but there could be, and were, many Creators and many creations and that was fine. The idea that Coyote or Bear represented a specific ideal is not an Indian idea at all but rather our attempt to fit Indian culture into our own.
Indian culture and the way an Indian thought was so different from our own thinking that we can have little real understanding of their mind. For them, every moment, every experience of the world and life had a meaning profoundly different from our own idea of what is alive and what is not.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Ben,
Thank-you for Chiming in. Possibly my largest frustration is the people that judge what happened in the past by our understanding of today.

You said: “Indian culture and the way an Indian thought was so different from our own thinking that we can have little real understanding of their mind. For them, every moment, every experience of the world and life had a meaning profoundly different from our own idea of what is alive and what is not.”

Their belief system was important to their very survival. I should also add that few people today would understand what made a white man of the mid-1800’s tick. Life was very different back then. It was in fact so different that it is beyond my comprehension and ability to judge them. Many settlers lived in terror of a few very powerful whites.

Robin,
I think that a lot of the relationships back then was an application of what is known as the “Stockholm Syndrom”. That is where a captive agrees with, and takes on, the cause of the people that are holding them captive, the people that they fear the most.

spyrock said...

like susie says the earth my not only be round depending on whom is doing the seeing as the indians saw the mountain as "standing ground". thanks for pointing that out ben. i read the book and didn't catch that. i understood it as them standing on their ground from my preconceived conditioning. so much of it is a different way of seeing, dreaming and fixing the earth. when i was a boy in spyrock the most sacred thing i saw was a white deer and the way they talked about hunting the white deer. sometimes you don't know why things are special until years later. like fixing the earth with the white deer dance.

olmanriver said...

Thank you Ben!

I sure am hearing a lot of voices calling for you to write a book Ernie?!

\ said...

Strangely, as civilized as we think that we are today, we can still see the same sort of things go on. The gangs, drug culture and turf battles today are much the same.

I should also add that few people today would understand what made a
white man of the mid-1800’s tick.


Good points. We are all human. The academic approach is fine for gathering facts, such as dress, costumes, games, territory and migration etc., the outer forms. But for any real insight into the mind of the indian of the past centuries, it takes a lot more than merely stopping short and being baffled as to their way of thought in order come to an understanding.

One must go much further than mere study of the indian's habits and outward display. One must get inside of the indian's mind. That takes a different kind of discipline, a different kind of viewpoint, than one finds in those taking a scholarly approach. Like Spy said, "it depends on who's doing the seeing".

Anonymous said...

Susy, you lost me here. For the first 20 years of my life I was not aware of gangs, drugs or turf battles. I grew up in Southern Humboldt County and must have been on a different page than what you are referring to.
The only drug I was aware of in my childhood was heroin and, that was at the Garberville Theater back in the 50's when I saw a movie about Chicago or New York. It was more of a fantasy to me that reality. My realities didn't show up til the Great Influx.

Oregon

\ said...

Oregon, I watched this one when I was in Santa Cruz last summer. It's good for a laugh. Did you ever see it?

Anonymous said...

Susy, you always make me smile.
No, I didn't see any movie that scary at Garberville Theater. I know if those "tuff's" showed up in Garberville they would have got hurt by the local kids.
I do remember the Jitterbug though.

Oregon

\ said...

LOL! I'd like to see Oregon walk that faux greaser, James Darren, up and down the block with his Humboldt fifties fists. Only in a movie, of course.

olmanriver said...

One must go much further than mere study of the indian's habits and outward display. One must get inside of the indian's mind. That takes a different kind of discipline, a different kind of viewpoint, than one finds in those taking a scholarly approach.

So true Suzy. And I wonder if it is even possible anymore.
The temptation to project and "romantically" conjecture must be resisted, as there is just so much we don't know.

I read the Cahto myths, found on their Cahto.org website... and my brain goes cross-eyed trying to get it. I don't. I have read every Joseph Campbell book on mythology multiple times and I still don't grok many of the local myths. Maybe it is my tired brain, and cultural bias, but it is very inscrutable to me. And I don't mind leaving it that way.

Don't get me going on how the academicians studied our area.
An excellent starting point would be Tom Keter's thorough All Those Things That You're Liable To Read In The Ethnographic Literature,They Ain't Necessarily So.

\ said...

So true Suzy. And I wonder if it is even possible anymore.

Yes it's possible. When one has surpassed an initial academic type skepticism and truly committed oneself --then the supernatural helper appears. One has to throw skepticism to the wind, or at least suspend disbelief, that's a key. The information that unlocks the stories and myths is available to you, but you must be very receptive. There are substances and techniques to enhance one's receptivity, but basically it means intense listening. One must be free of preconceived theories, ego and private agenda. Then the helper will tell you what you need to know. But the approach that says the indian mind was too different from the modern mind for us to understand won't get you anywhere but stupid.

olmanriver said...

Thanks for the affirmation of possibility. I have been sick for days, so I suppose I carried some weary I can'tism over into the thread.

Of course cultivating a deep receptivity is the way... absolutely a good reminder to read your words.

My experience with entheogens has brought me 'helpers', peak experiences, direct apprehension of 'separate realities', etc...
Maybe I should ask for an interpreter of the Cahto myths next time in. Good suggestion.


While I liked what you said, I am not sure that just getting rid of all of my egoic and cultural preconceptions is going to reveal to me how the Indians viewed these story/myths. Couldn't hurt though, and is undoubtedly a good path to getting me past my current grok block.

I haven't really immersed myself in the Athabaskan myths much, truth be known, just some cursory read throughs where my accultured brain didn't penetrate much.


Of course cultivating a deep receptivity is the way... absolutely a good reminder to read your words.

Re:redundant said...

oops

\ said...

I haven't really immersed myself in the Athabaskan myths much, truth be known, just some cursory read throughs where my accultured brain didn't penetrate much.

-who knows what's worth what to who's penetration, LOL, but Suzy 2cents says she likes to start at the flower/fruit, mmmmmm, and work towards the trunk and roots. Start by getting totally immersed, via some non-logical mysterious way ... totally immersed in one story, or maybe in one fragment of a fragment of a story, so that it becomes seen from the inside out, so to speak, and then one's way of seeing alters the rest of the over-view. Get totally immersed, if it so happens to happen mysteriously, in one note, one beat, of the song, and start with that and understand that, that that that that that, then broaden out, rather than going from some preconceived large overview and working towards details.

\ said...

Riv, what i meant to say is that the story immerses you. It acts on you, if you are receptive, rather you trying to understand it. The story already exists, not in books, but it exists in the blood and in the spirit of the human, isho. It is accessible, but it is not dead material set in stone, it is alive and it acts on the perceptive listener. The story is alive, not dead words on a shelf, it can snare you. What is object and what is subject? The helper is supernatural. The story has the power to choose. If it so chooses it can let you inside of itself. You can pray, you can cry when you pray, you can fast for 54days on water and light, but will the story choose you? And what story, anyway, that's the real question.

huggles,
s

olmanriver said...

Love it when you talk like that Suzy... I clipped a paragraph from my wordliness about your vajra insight, and ability to take things to a deeper level that is so refreshing.
You have made the task of approaching the stories easier for me no doubt.

I have to giggle because I was watching the Bill Murray xmas movie Scrooge and while I waited for your response, I saw the scene with the Christmas fairy who coos, slaps, pinches, headbutts, and toaster punches Frank to get him to face things... all the while smiling sweetly. I couldn't help make a bit of an association though you didn't do any of that here.
grinning with you, not at you, olriverman

\ said...

:)

olmanriver said...

(:

Ben said...

It is the story that heals...

Robin Shelley said...

Try as he might, the white man can never be Indian.

Anonymous said...

I have read these posts a couple of times and all is interesting to me.
I had a cousin that was my age and we had been together from day one. We shared everything. I don't think twins could be any closer. Through the years we shared more campfires than I can count, walked through canyons and over ridges together and as we got older we did it all over again horseback. When we were 12 or 13 years old we walked to Harris from Garberville 3 times at night through the upper Tooby Ranch, once to Fort Seward and two times to Dos Rios from Laytonville. During those walks we talked about all the things we thought important at that time in our life. We killed deer, quail and a few salmon together. The point here is, if anybody asks me or John about our life experiences together you would get two different answers and points of view. So I ask, how the hell do you think you know how an Indian or group of Indians thought over a hundred years ago?
This is a question for all, not just anyone in particular

Oregon

Anonymous said...

uh-oh,
Should read "how the hell does anyone think they know how an Indian or group of Indians think?"

Oregon

Jim Baker said...

Oregon, you have just put into a few well-chosen words something that any psychologist would tell us about the sciences of sociology and anthropology. That is, there is great variation among individuals of the same sociological or cultural groups. You're not really on intellectually firm ground to think you can infer what an individual may have been thinking or doing simply from studying the general characteristics of any particular group to which he/she may have belonged. This is just as relevant today in relationships between individuals of different groups as it is in trying to reconstruct the history of what was going on between individuals in our local area 150 years ago.

Thank you, Dr. Oregon for your insight. Sociologists, anthropologists and historians take note.

Robin Shelley said...

Or humans and animals.

Ross Sherburn said...

Oregon,I've been on all those roads you mention,but never walked them!!!Most of the time I was in a new International pickup,sold by Speed.

olmanriver said...

Yay, Dr. Oregon!

spyrock said...

In 1502 the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African slaves. Opponents of their enslavement cited their weak Christian faith and their penchant for escaping to the mountains. Proponents declared that the rapid diminution of the Native American population required a consistent supply of reliable work hands,

oregon makes a good point. most of the history of native americans has been lost or destroyed by the spanish fathers and later on by christian missionaries. many of the tribes passed things down orally and when the elders died so did many of the stories. i was lucky enough to meet an indian medicine woman who was 97 years old who had been taken from the taos pueblo to the missionary school in sante fe as a little girl. when they cut off her braids her mother wouldn't let her go back. suzy archeletta could very easily tell you what she thought over and over in case you didn't understand it the first time she said it. when i heard chester, a navajo elder, tell the story of how his mother was the only one who survived from his family that were killed by soldiers after they left the reservation, he ended it by asking "why". suzy has passed on but chester is still around. but i have heard what indians who lived a hundred years ago thought. suzy was easy on me because she loved my dove. she thought i was a local from espanola and told me to take good care of her friend dove. chester flat out made me cry during the break after his speech as i walked out to the edge of the cliff and back. one of those gut wrenching things that has a life of its own.
so i'm in the opinion that most people don't want to know what the indians who lived a hundred years ago thought about anyway for obvious reasons. it is very difficult to find this kind of information. there are very few books out there and they are hard to find. ben has pointed out several of them on this blog. there is a lot of interest in the mayan calender as of late and the popul vuh, a book about the indiginents that escaped being burned by the spanish fathers. maybe modern technology will uncover some new ruins and information. but right now, oregon is right. we have just about wiped out most of the evidence that would give us some idea of what an indian thought even only 100 years ago. about the only place i've seen this kind of information other than in a book is on this blog. it may be bullshistry. but if it strikes a nerve, wear it.

\ said...

Or humans and animals.

-we poor ignorant modern humans, lacking in pertinent facts and deprived of solid information, can only try to imagine what the buffalo thought when they saw the locomotives coming across the plains.

Anonymous said...

Suzy, you silly girl. The buffalo didn't think in terms like locomotive, it was iron horse.

Oregon

Robin Shelley said...

Or gorillas.

spyrock said...

The railroad brought so much change at a rapid, exhilarating rate. It meant change in the lives of Indian people, white settlers, even the game in the area. In a way, it was the mark of an era, an era that meant perhaps even national completeness. It was a change beyond the control of the Indian, beyond his comprehension. And, such change was beyond the control of the white man, too! Perhaps, it takes a long time for two such different people to live side by side. When you think about it, a hundred years is not very long -- and that was the 20th century. Perhaps, in the 21st century, we are supposed to live and work together.
i drove that road from laytonville to dos rios. that's a long walk. but back in the prespeed days, my grandfather carried my mother on horseback from the indian hospital at covelo 15 miles and across the eel to spyrock. i rode that train from willits to eureka along the eel that went by dos rios and spyrock too. maybe that train scared all the salmon away. maybe the salmon thought that eel train was moby dyck, u know, the white whale, sorta like the white buffalo living up thar in ashland, oregon.

\ said...

-yes, of course, the iron ... it all depended on what side of the hammer you were on.

Anonymous said...

http://www.simmonsgames.com/research/authors/USWarDept/ORA/OR-S1-V50-P1-C062R.html

charlie two crows said...

Spy: You mentioned popul vah.It reminded me that few years ago,while working for a mine. I found an office of (inquisition) in Lima Peru run by the red hats in Rome. It has been there 400 years. They said it was not working in an active capacity. It gave me cold chills. Maybe the Mayans did know what is coming.

spyrock said...

According to the Popol Vuh, a book compiling details of creation accounts known to the K'iche' Maya of the Colonial-era highlands, we are living in the fourth world.[28] The Popol Vuh describes the first three creations that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous creation ended at the start of a 14th b'ak'tun.

The previous creation ended on a long count of 12.19.19.17.19. Another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the 14th b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012.

According to Native American oral traditions there are four cycles of aproximately 26,000 years in which the Indigenous peoples trace their heritage from the Pleiades Star system. Each period is considered as a World Cycle. These 26,000 year cycles were divided into 5 subperiods or SUNS by the Mayas. We are now completing the 4th WORLD / 5th SUN. Each subperiod / SUN consisited of 5,2000 years of 360 days each. Or 5,125 years of 365.25 days.



The beginning point of this 5125 year Great Cycle began in the year 3113 B.C. If you add 5125 years to this beginning date you get 2012 A.D. and the alignment of the winter solstice marking the end of the 5th SUN and the 4th WORLD. From here we potentially shift into the transitional phase leading into the 5th WORLD. This is a most important date with many people becoming aware of its potential significance and leading to much speculation as to what it entails.

so now you know what the indians think.

charlie two crows said...

PROGRESS
THE SOUTH FORK STORY.
By Ernie Brancomb.

charlie two crows said...

SPY; In your last quote, you said now we know how indians think. If that was for me. To tell the truth I've always known. My 85 year old half cherokee half Apache mother reminds me every day when I call her. They say her mother was a shape shifter (wolf and raven) I would like to discuss that story with you sometime. Thanks for
listening.
P.S. My loving mother is the only person in the world I fear. If she has a knife its all over.

spyrock said...

she don't need a knife. just intent. she probably loves you. that's why you are still around.

spyrock said...

hey, everybody in my family that was from covelo still calls them diggers cept me.

Anonymous said...

Spy,that's what I call the ground squirrels.

Oregon

olmanriver said...

Hey Ernie, you will like this confirmation.
When I first ran the name Whiptali past my long term Cahto Rancheria friend, he didn't recall hearing the name. Today when I asked again, his son spoke up and said that he had and thought it was in the language of the Northern Pomo. He called his mother and she reported that Whiptali was a birdman, what we call shape-shifter, and was a devil, or malevolent spirit, whose prescence you can feel.
I hope this gives you a big smile.

olmanriver said...

Suzy, spammers are taking over our comments...
Ink and embroidery is using your words, and California Health Plans re-uttered mine.
This is sinister.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Sorry about that OMR and Suzy. I deleted the spammers comments. They're gone, so nobody even knows that they were there.

It seems to me that they should just start their own blog, instead of high-jacking other people's.

Spammer are pretty stupid really. Just because someone is duped into looking at there adds doesn't mean that they are going to buy their crap. Most people, including myself, make a point not not buying spammers crap.