by Peter A. Belmont / 2011-06-03
© 2011 Peter Belmont

RSS Recent Essays (All Topics)   •(12/23) How did we get to October 7th? •(11/23) Our Political Habits Are Ending The Human Race •(10/23) Sketch of Israel-Palestine History •(10/23) Whoever controls the discourse controls emotional reactions to reality •(08/23) Russia On Trial •(01/23) The Purpose of "Conservatism" •(10/22) The project of returning the earth to the cockroaches couldn't be in better hands! •(05/22) Abortion, The Constitution, And The Supreme Court •(03/22) The Problem of Climate Change Framing or Discourse or Understanding •(06/21) Israel-Palestine: If not apartheid, then what? Many Israeli (and non-Israeli) Jews seem to carry a fear of annihilation around with them, as a turtle carries his shell. It serves with them as an excuse to annihilate another people, the Palestinians, in part by murderous barbarity but chiefly by destroying their connection to their ancestral lands—through military and non-military violence, settlement, wall-building, and rather outrageous changes to the landscape via building of outsized housing complexes and outsized roads. The Palestinian people seem not to fear annihilation (although well they might fear permanent loss of their ancestral homeland), hoping that the murderousness and land-hunger of the Israeli Jews might someday abate. Here are some words for both peoples to ponder, about a people that was in fact annihilated.

”Ishi—Last of his tribe” (Theodora Kroeber, Bantam Books, 1973) is a fictionalized account to the true life of the last remnant of an American Indian tribe, wiped out by American settlers until only one remained, Ishi. I have always found this story very moving, a warning to us all of the deadly implications of untrammeled “progress” and expansion, of ever-increasing environmental degradation, global warming, over-population, and all the other plagues by which “modern” industrial mankind threatens—first “lesser” tribes and peoples and then—himself.

Original Peoples lived, often, with little knowledge of Others, calling themselves “The People”. They lived in balance with their circumstances—food and weather—and had rich traditions, histories from the creation of the world—as they knew it. Modern mankind—having to a large extent lost all sense of balance or of living as a part of nature rather than as a dominator and destroyer of nature—has lost a lot. Part of what we have lost is dignity.

When Ishi’s tribe went into hiding—seeking to live as long as possible without contact with or detection by the on-rushing Americans, thus seeking to avoid extermination—there were a Grandfather, Grandmother, Mother, Uncle, Boy (Ishi) and sister-cousin. Forced to leave a long-time camp (village), they moved into a cave formerly used by a grizzly bear. Cave life was hard, and in a short time, the Grandfather and Grandmother died. Four were left. Ishi and his cousin were not to marry, due to tribal custom.

To loose the Old Ones is hard, very hard. They were Ancestors, as they said, in life as in death. Long before their time, came the First People—the Beginners. Now, after their time, no others came. There remain only four—a Mother, an Uncle, and two Cousins. These are the People who must live without Young or Old, without hope—the Ending, the Last People. Jupka [an early god] made this World for the People, but Jupka turned himself into a butterfly long, long before the enemy came here: he knew nothing of the no-color saldu [hairy white men with horses and guns].

She may no longer be young in moons, but my Cousin is to me as she has always been. Her cheeks keep the toyon berry color; her hair is smooth and shining as when grandmother rolled it for her; she walks straight and light of foot as is the way of Yahi women; her voice is soft as the quail—sigaga sigaga she calls to me.

Since many moons we go together when we are away from [the cave]. If I hunt, she goes over the hill and does a woman’s task until the kill is made. We gather acorns together and firewood, and we plan together each day where we shall go; what we shall do. She fills the moons of my days.

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