A Long Overdue Explanation.

In a comment on my post about "Those Confusing Newcomers."
Charlie Two Crows asked:

“E...... You threw the paint on the canvas. We want to know the inspiration for the painting! So far you haven't explained your true feelings for whipping the dog this long!”

Or should I say Charlie threw down the gauntlet. Put-up or shut-up. There are a few posters on this blog that I can tell spend a lot of thinking about things. They read the whole story and really think about it. Charlie Two Crows is one of them, there are many others that come to mind, who give things a lot of thought, but this is a reply to Charlie.

If this blog is about anything... it is about change. I first started posting this blog with the hopes that I would learn to write. I wanted to make my writing easy to read, easy to understand, and still keep my message clear. Quite obviously, I have failed miserably. I started writing because I wanted to tell the story of the South Fork of the Eel Valley that fits between the early settler period, and the early seventies, when the massive culture changing influx of people moved into this canyon. I viewed that in-between period as the South Fork’s Dark Ages. Not much is known about the dark ages, because not much was recorded about them. We knew who the early settlers were, because they are in the history books. We know the history of the back-to-the-landers, because, for the most part, that is the present culture. What is maybe not understood is, many, many people left this area following the influx of the new people. The culture change was dramatic. It seems to me that people would be interested in that change. More later...

I was raised, indeed, steeped in stories about the early pioneer days. Most of the stories were tales of great heroism about the early settlers that moved out here from somewhere back east. They fought through the Indians on their way to California. They tried their hand at gold mining, failed, or caught one of the life threatening diseases that were rampant in the gold fields. Going back east was not an option! They gave up mining, and moved on to find “their land”, to build a farm similar to old McDonald’s farm, where they had pigs, ducks, chickens, and the rest of the menagerie. They grew big gardens and hunted wild game. They made their own lumber and built their own cabins. They were the Back-to-the-Landers of the 1850s. They were determined to survive no-matter-what. The early settlers fell prey to the native Indian people, and, the all-powerful cattle or lumber barons as well. A settler didn't dare cross one of the local barons, because he would almost definitely end up dead, or run out of the country. Indian depredations were met with a bullet. They didn't care the reason that the Indian person was eating their cow, the settler needed the cow to survive. They didn't have a 7-11 on the corner for a back-up. Those were the surface stories that I was raised with.

Along came the 1960s. A time of great civil consciousness. The children of the late fifties and early sixties set about to right all civil wrongs, I was one of them. Even though many of us in the South Fork of the Eel River had never met a black man, let alone knew one, we were convinced that they had been picked on unfairly, which in most cases, indeed they had been. It was with great joy, and a deep sense of purpose, that we set out to free the black man from discrimination.

Some of the children of the sixties started pointing out how unfairly that the American Indians were treated. As true of any label, a label becomes offensive. I asked a few of my Indian friends what they called themselves. Upon inquiring, most gave some version of; "I was born an Indian, raised and Indian, we call ourselves Indian people. So, I guess that you should call us Indians". The best answer that I got was from a person that is highly revered in the Wailaki tribe. He said, loosely quoted: "The native language and culture is mostly gone, what knowledge that is remaining doesn't define the local natives. I guess if you wanted to label the people that live here, it would be 'Indigenous Person'. Why do you ask White-eye?"

Along about the sixties, the local people had to suffer the wrath of the people without local history, because we were the descendants of "Indian Killers". Our ancestors were labeled as thugs and killers, rapist, kidnappers, and murders. You can only imagine what that did to my newly acquired "civil rights mind". I started trying to find the truth about what really happened. In a lot of cases I found that the stories were indeed true! So, I checked my family to see what they might have done. I checked most of my immediate family, back a few generations, and found that they were some of the "good people" that did what ever they could to protect the Indian people. I fell back into that group of people that were pro-civil-rights. (I still am very pro civil rights) But, something didn't quite settle with me. I checked ALL the branches of my family... and found that many had been killed by Indians, and my family in turn had killed many Indians.

Jack Farley, who lived in Laytonville's Long Valley, claimed that a white mans life was worth 20 Indians. He had a string of Indian scalps to prove his philosophy. Near the end of his life, "Uncle Jack", as he was known, was asked to what he attributed his long life. He proudly proclaimed that it was the friendship and care from the local Indians that keep him alive. He used the medicines that they provided for him, and accepted their care. Today's culture would not understand why the Indian people would care for such a man, who by today's standards would have been considered to be a "murderer". It was "Spyrock", another person with both white and Indian heritage that made the best guess as to why Uncle Jack would be so cared for by the Indian People. He proposed the idea that they respected him as a "Great Warrior". It made me realize that I might have been looking too closely to see that might be correct.

I have long realized that we do not have the knowledge, or the understanding, to make broad and sweeping judgements about the early people that occupied this valley. However, people that have recently moved here, or have recently become aware of what happened to the Indian people, have absolutely no hesitation to pronounce that the early settlers were evil, greedy, or pathological. I've been a student of this valley, and the people that live here, long enough to at least suspect that was not the case. I have often suggested that they were doing what they thought that they needed to do to survive. One of the survival tools of those days was to project a tough-as-nails attitude, that included doing anything that they needed to do to maintain that image, that might include killing people.

The local Indians were known to provoke fights fights amongst adjoining tribes, for no better reason than to prove their bravery in battle. Most people today would not understand the Indian culture's need to prove their bravery, but I've heard many stories about Indian bravery in battle that just don't make good healthy sense.

The culture change that the whites brought the local Indians was dramatic. The whites killed most of the stubborn old Indians that didn't want to adopt the white man's ways. They killed the Indian because the Indian  people yearned for the canyon to renew to to a time that had no more white men. Many of their prayer ceremonies were about praying for the white man to be gone. The Ghost Dance that the local people did was to pray for the white man to go away. The white man saw this dance as a "War Dance". One of the last Indian massacres was at Wounded Knee Arizona in 1890. It was because the Indians were dancing the Ghost Dance, praying for the white man to go away. They were killed for their prayers. The Indian People were not respected when they asked the white man to free them to live the Indian way of life in the hills. It was simpler to just kill them, I guess.


The influx of the back-to-the-landers, in the late 60s and early 70s, was much the same as the influx of the white man in the 1850s. I’ve said that before, and have been met with the same indignant opposition that I always get when I try to discuss the culture shock that came with the new people. The comment has often been: “There was a big difference, the people that moved here in the 1970s didn’t kill everybody that got in our path like the white man of the 1850s did!” The other “big difference”, that most of "the indignant" fail to recognize is: The local people of the 1970s didn’t kill the new people either.

The Indians that didn’t want to leave their ways behind, and stop going-on about the life that they lost, were simply killed or made “to get over it” by putting them on reservations. Their children were put in schools and told to forget about their Indian ways, to leave the Indian culture behind, and adopt the white man ways. They were trained that they were much better off now.

The white man knew little, and cared less, about the Indian culture. The Indians were trained to “get over it”. I see much the same with SOME of the new people that moved here. Some didn’t really give a damn about the people that lived here. They changed the names of our plants and places. They roundly condemned everything that we thought was important. They thought that we were foolish, and said so.

Some of the people that moved here were “good people“, same as some of the whites that came to California in the 1850s. Some of the back-to-the-landers joined fire departments. They built schools, health care facilities, parks, and community meeting places. They joined service clubs and they honored the local people. They even recorded some of the old-timers history. Most of the people that moved here were “good people”. By FAR the most of them were. But, they displaced the local culture with their own culture. The people that didn’t like that were told to “get over it”. Most of the people that weren’t about to “get over it” moved away. Sold out and left. It was easy for some because they saw an opportunity to sell their land to the newcomers and get out. Good-bye.

Some of the newcomers that moved in, I’d say about the standard  10%, came with their carpet bags in hand, ready to cash in on the big local crop that was valuable because it is illegal. They didn’t give a damn about the law, the local culture, or even the other new people that had moved here. They are still with us.

Some of the good people that moved up here, cared about, and cared for, our precious canyon and the environment. They grew a small amount of marijuana to pay for their land and care for their families. They recognized the medicinal value of the herb and promoted it as medicine. But they didn’t destroy the land.

Others pack tons of fertilizers into the hills, and stream off all of the water to their plants. The river has become so dry and polluted with fertilizers that it kills animals that try to drink from some of the backwaters. The indoor grows leak diesel and crankcase oil into the ground and creeks. I can’t believe that the good people, in any way approve of those methods.

Some of us have an attachment to the canyon that we live in, and an attachment to most of the people that live here.  Some of us had already been building schools and hospitals and parks, and belonging to service organizations. Some of us had a big personal investment in our community. Some of us didn’t want to leave.

So, when I yearn for the old days and the old ways. It’s just my harmless little “Ghost Dance” that doesn’t really hurt anybody. Some would say that the Indian people are far better of now than they were before the white man “gave” them everything. Some of those good Indian people might argue with that idea. Some would say that I’m a lot better of now that the Back-to-the-Landers gave me everything. Well….

I think that people like Charlie Two crows and Spyrock may understand my feeling of loss, but I know that not many of the people that moved in here would understand, because not many of them knew what was here before. The only thing that I would ask them to do is to look around you, and look at some of the bad that has happened, along with some of the good. So-Hum is not all roses, albeit we have some damn fine people that live here. Some are just a little more sensitive than others, but I intend to keep writing about the changes that I see. If the changes that I see don't really apply to you, don't take it personal. And, if they do apply to you, don't take it personal.