High Desert, Endless War
Time came to leave Zion, Heather and I chose not
to go out the same way we came in. There lay the graveyard of Grafton, both literal and figurative.
Been there, done that.
Even if we hadn't, taming the American West is foundational national
myth celebrated in story, song and (especially) movies, even
before the culturally formative 'Golden Age of Television' came awash in "adult
westerns."
That story is in our bones. By now, it's in everybody's
bones.
So on our way out of Zion we chose the back door, traveling
up and over the towering canyon all the way to high desert, specifically in
search of a far older story than the one peddled so avidly to crowds of tourists below.
No one knows how many people lived in what's now the United
States prior to it's appropriation by mostly white people. Seems likely some millions of just plain
folk making their way, much as they had for millennia by then.
What's reasonably true is by 1890, the robust and diverse population
that had evolved and by & large thrived here for untold thousands of years was
cut down to about 250,000 native souls. The official census tells us so.
The causes of this horrific decline were myriad. White folk
brought a variety of foreign diseases with them and people not accustomed to
living with those died in droves. No vaccines or mask mandates in those days, alas.
Of course, diminishing/diminished resources are commonplace
to the story of Western Civilization. We levied what was newly 'ours' with a
vengeance and from that the land of the free carved a new cultural empire that supplanted the old.
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Mesabi Range, MN
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But the concerted, century's long genocide waged by mostly white
folk against an entire people they'd later see fit to romanticize as nobly savage, that was Modern Civilization's
long game showing its cruel hand.
Thankfully, we didn't completely succeed
in cancelling the older culture.
That doesn't mean some folk aren't still trying.
Agawa Rock is among my favorites sites on the Superior Basin. When I
learned there was rock art @Zion, I put that on the list. Considering it's Zion freakin' National Park, it
figured to be easy.
In the end it was, but only
because a fellow traveler pointed us the exact way. There's no parking lot to speak of, just a wide
spot on the shoulder of the road. The trail's not marked. That and general
ignorance is maintained for the site's protection.
Though Zion was to us an utterly alien landscape, as in the
Superior wilderness, we were never alone.
A short walk in and we found the greater perspective on
human history that we'd sought. A story so enduring that when considering mythic cultural status, it
puts both colonialist claptrap and two-gun slingin' cowboys to shame by its continued existence.
Yes, to 21st Century eyes the story carved in stone by
our continental predecessors can sometimes be obscure. I mean…
Early American peoples weren't homogenous. They didn't
always 'get along.' They were just folk, after all. And despite the perhaps
unprecedented natural wealth of their continent, it's then and now a hard land to
thrive on.
Sustainable success is a mean taskmaster.
At Zion, I was struck by similarities between these
petroglyphs and the pictographs at Agawa. Admittedly, the ungulates are different.
Then there's that canoe. Don't see many of those on sand.
Just the same...
Reconsidering Zion reminded me yet again of how naturally rich
and diverse this great land was/is.
Also that Western Civilization was
constructed not of whole cloth but on an accumulation of those cultures that preceded
it, and we collectively depend on that perennial nourishment still.
Traditionally, failing cultures tighten their grasp on history's
narrative. It's a fool's errand. Story doesn't go anywhere.
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| Ontonagon County, MI |
Except that's why today there's no trail marker to the deeper human history of Zion, from before anyone thought to call it that.
Somehow, an age old narrative predating the most recent by a considerable wide margin manages to offend and/or frighten some
people to no end.
Must be powerful stuff, right?
On a national upswing, the populist impulse to cancel history is simple arrogance. Cultural dominance on such a massive scale as ours breeds presumed ownership
right in. I'm quite sure if there is a god, it believes in its prerogatives.
Maybe even takes those for granted.
On the nationalist downslide, consider the collective obligation to name that
same arrogant impulse for the raw, grasping fear that it plainly is.
An enemy, of anything resembling liberty.
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| Houghton County, MI |
There's only one earthly story and we're all in it together.
Then, now, whenever. Ungulates included.
And that transparent fact makes some clowns just want to
watch the circus burn.
Not even counting the daily news, having once discovered the truth painted on a ruined sacred stone, I must take it as given.
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| Houghton County, MI |
