Things that we don't know.

I had somebody ask me the other day why I don't do my own research. They wanted to know how I could just believe what the people that write on this blog say. He suggested that when I talk about history, I should do my own research, and only accept “primary sources” of evidence. Huh!

Anybody that comes to this blog looking for hard evidence is coming to the wrong place. My Passion has always been “THE story”- not history. Most history, unless documented by a unbiased historian, on scene at the occurrence, is wrong anyway. Just ask several people that were at the scene of a traffic accident. The story that you will get will always include their opinion. Some will talk about bald tires, some will say they smelled alcohol, some will say the person was just being reckless. But, you understand what I mean. All of the stories that we hear are subjective to the one telling it. But, with enough stories you will get the Idea. It was a bad wreck and a variety of factors were involved.

The stories that we tell about history today are still slanted, and subjective to the person relating them. Back in the '50's the “Wild” Indian was always the bad guy, even the movies that we watched depicted the Wild Indian as the Bad guy. They implied; Thank God we civilized them! Now we can live with each other in peace.

During the '60's and 70's there was a new wave of understanding, a few historians were saying; “Hey there are two sides to the history story”, and they started talking about the strife and unfairness that the Indian people had to put up with. The book Genocide and Vendetta” was a pivotal book in saying; “there is more to the story”. History came out about the Indian Massacres, and how they were put on reservations. It started a whole new era of saying “Let's look at both sides of history.”

Then came the '80's and '90's there had been a large influx of people moved in. They said that they moved up here because the loved the area. Then, they started changing things. They were told that they should know something about the land, the people and the history before they started changing things. To their credit, they agreed. They started studying of history, some of the people came to some pretty strange conclusions. They get back to the '64 flood and conclude that the logging caused the flood, the erosion, and the damage. No amount of telling them about the rainfall can convince them that it obviously rained harder than they could ever believe.
Some of them are content to go back to the logging days, that was when most of the people moved up here. Some get back as far as the Gold Rush with their history. They get as far back as deciding that the Indian people were mistreated. That was very true, but they don't seem to want find the reason that the early settlers were such murdering scum. Seldom do you see any history of Alta California, or of the struggles of the pioneers trip to California.

My point is, that we already have most of history recorded. But, few people try to understand it. They get to where the Indian people were killed, and then they get into the “Oh The Horror" loop, and the white man is the only villain, and they refuse to look at how the Indians treated the white man. That treatment may have had something to do with the way that they felt about Indians. And yes, thankfully we live in peace today, with a common interest in each others welfare.

When I was growing up, I heard many accounts of local history. I also heard many conflicting accounts of the local history. Sadly, I wasn't that interested at the time, other than I relished the chance to hear one of my folks tell a really great story. Now, some of those stories run together in my mind. So, what I ask for on this blog is not science, but good stories, and bad, that other people have heard. I don't care whether they are true or not. Most people seem to come to their own conclusions against all hard evidence anyway.

One of the best stories that I've ever read was The Last of the West, by Frank Asbill. Most “real historians” discount that book as being total bullshit, and not a good accounting of what really happened. The thing that they don't know is, that I am familiar with the kind of person that Frank Asbill was. If he had said that the snow was 40 feet deep, and I had also heard in other places that the snow was very deep. I could easily conclude that they had a very deep snow that year, and I would wonder to myself how deep it really was.

I know that the story in Asbill's book has many mistakes, and most of them are easy for me to see. What you might not understand, is that I know where all of the places that he wrote about are. I also know who all of the people that he wrote about are. I have heard many variation of the same stories from my own family. I recognize the “Bigger Than Life” way of telling stories that the Old-Timers had. They thought that if they made their story good enough, that somebody might pass it on.

Most all of the stories about history are from twice told tales. Frank Asbills book was simply an exaggeration of the many stories that he had heard, and he especially liked to exaggerate about himself.

This blog is “my own research” I have made no bones about saying that a lot of it is “Bullshistory”, and you will have to come to your own conclusions. If I tell a tale about history, I try to make it known if it is unverifiable.

I want to hear are stories that start with “ya'll aint gonna believe this stuff, but....
Then, tell me a story. We won't believe it anyway.

Now, to get to the point of this whole thing, now that I have made my disclaimer. The following is complete “bullshistory”, and has nothing to do with reality. The following is from my “Bullshistory", passed down through generations of bullshiters that liked telling stories:
Robin asked me about arrowheads, and wanted to know about whether or not the Laytonville Indians had Obsidian.

Robin, this has been a long time coming, but here it is. I'm going to root for the home team here( the Laytonville Indians) I've always liked to build things just a little better than people expect me to do. I think that most people like to rise above. I think that the Laytonville Indians were the same way. Chert makes a far better arrowhead than Obsidian glass. A chert arrowhead is strong and hard to break. I don't think that you could shoot an obsidian arrow head without breaking it. The Conocti Indians probably didn't have much access to chert so they used what they had, obsidian.

Obsidian, because it is easily worked was a good choice for the Conocti people. It is quite beautiful, and there became a competition to built the most beautifully worked objects. Obsidian became popular because of it's beauty, and it became valuable because of that. Obsidian also made sharper knives because it fractured cleanly and sharply.

The Cahto (Laytonville) Indians were not good friends with the Pomo (Conocti) indians. Before the white man showed up to take all the blame, the Pomo were the dirty rotten genocidal bastards. The Cahto people would sit around their campfire and talk about “The Horror” of how the Pomo and the Yuki would cut the heads off their people, and kick them down the path. They talked around the campfire because they didn't have blogs back then. Unless you count the smoke signals.

Anyway, the Cahto were poor people much like Laytonville people today, and they couldn't afford obsidian. Plus, they probably didn't want to make contact with the southern Indians. So, not much obsidian is found there today. Most of the Obsidian was packed there by white people, like Ed downing.

That's my total bullshistory, what's yours???

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