Subject: Indian Stories About The Mojave. July 2, 2006.
I've spent a lot of time in the Mojave Desert investigating
things. Here is what the American Indians say about it.
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"AND I WILL SHOW WONDERS IN THE HE-VEN ABOVE...
"AND SIGNS IN THE EARTH BENEATH...
"BLO-D, AND FIRE, AND VAPOUR OF SMOKE..."
-- A-ts 2:19
The author of the following story is a Navaho Indian. He
revealed this tribal se-ret which he learned from the Paiute
Indians, who inhabit the Great Basin and Mojave deserts of
Utah, Nevada, and California.
This native American, who went by the name Oga-Make,
related the following account in appreciation for a story
on the Navaho which appeared in the Spring of 1948 in a
magazine which was carrying numerous articles on the
mysterious "signs" or "fires" in the skies which were
causing an enormous amount of confusion and debate during
that same year, as well as the years following.
The article on the Navaho nation, which appeared in
an earlier issue, told of the suffering that their tribe
had gone through during past winter seasons, and
encouraged the reader****p to send goods and supplies to
help them through the upcoming winter of '48-'49, which
many of them did.
In appreciation of this, Oga-Make related the following
'legend' which told of the secr-t history of the
Amer-cas which ran it's course, possibly thousands of
years before wh-te men set their foot en masse upon it's
shores:"...
Most of you who read this are probably whi-e men of a
bl-od only a century or two out of Europe. You speak in
your papers of the Flying Saucers or Mystery ****ps as
something new, and strangely typical of the twentieth
century.
How could you but think otherwise? Yet if you had red
skin, and were of a b-ood which had been born and bred
of the land for untold thousands of years, you would know
this is not true. You would know that your ancestors
living in these mountains and upon these prairies for
numberless generations, had seen these ****ps before, and
had passed down the story in the legends which are the
unwritten history of your people. You do not believe?
Well, after all, why should you? But knowing your
scornful unbelief, the storytellers of my people have
closed their lips in bitterness against the outward
flow of this knowledge.
"Yet, I have said to the storytellers this: now that
the ****ps are being seen again, is it wise that we, the
elder r-ce, keep our knowledge to ourselves? Thus for me,
an A-erican Indian, some of the sages among my people
have talked, and if you care to, I shall permit you to
sit down with us and listen.
"Let us say that it is dusk in that strange place which
you, the wh-te-man, calls 'Death Valley.' I have passed
tobacco...to the aged chief of the Paiutes who sits
across a tiny fire from me and sprinkles corn meal upon
the flames...
"The old chief looked like a wrinkled mummy as he sat
there puffing upon his pipe. Yet his eyes were not those
of the unseeing, but eyes which seemed to look back on
long trails of time. His people had held the Inyo,
Panamint and Death Valleys for untold centuries before the
coming of the whi-e-man. Now we sat in the valley which
white-man named for Death, but which the Paiute calls
Tomesha--The Flaming Land. Here before me as I faced
eastward, the Funerals (mountains forming Death Valley's
eastern wall) were wrapped in purple-blue blankets about
their feet while their faces were painted in scarlet.
Behind me, the Panamints rose like a mile-high wall,
dark against the sinking sun.
"The old Paiute smoked my tobacco for a long time before
he reverently blew the smoke to the four directions.
Finally he spoke.
"'You ask me if we heard of the great silver air****ps
in the days before wh-te-man brought his wagon trains into
the land?'
"'Yes grandfather, I come seeking knowledge.' (Among all
tribes of my people, grandfather is the term of greatest
respect which one man can pay to another.)
"'We, the Paiute Nation, have known of these ****ps for
untold generations. We also believe that we know something
of the people who fly them. They are called The Hav-musuvs.'
"'Who are the Hav-musuvs?'
"'They are a people of the Panamints, and they are as
ancient as Tomesha itself.'
"He smiled a little at my confusion.
"'You do not understand? Of course not. You are not a
Paiute. Then listen closely and I will lead you back along
the trail of the dim past.
"'When the world was young, and this valley which is now
dry, parched desert, was a lush, hidden harbor of a blue
water- sea which stretched from half way up those mountains
to the Gulf of California, it is said that the Hav-musuvs
came here in huge rowing-****ps. They found great caverns in
the Panamints, and in them they built one of their cities.
At that time California was the island which the Indians of
that state told the Spanish it was, and which they marked
so on their maps.
"'Living in their hidden city, the Hav-musuvs ruled the
sea with their fast rowing-****ps, trading with far-away
peoples and bringing strange goods to the great quays said
still to exist in the caverns.
"'Then as untold centuries rolled past, the climate began
to change. The water in the lake went down until there was
no longer a way to the sea. First the way was broken only
by the southern mountains, over the tops of which goods
could be carried. But as time went by, the water continued
to shrink, until the day came when only a dry crust was all
that remained of the great blue lake.
Then the desert came, and the Fire-God began to walk
across Tomesha, The Flaming-Land.
"'When the Hav-musuvs could no longer use their great
rowing-****ps, they began to think of other means to reach
the world beyond. I suppose that is how it happened. We
know that they began to use flying canoes. At first they were
not large, these silvery ****ps with wings. They moved with a
slight whirring sound, and a dipping movement, like an eagle.
"'The passing centuries brought other changes. Tribe after
tribe swept across the land, fig-ting to possess it for
awhile and passing like the storm of sand.
In their mountain city still in the caverns, the Hav-musuvs
dwelt in peace, far removed from the conflict. Sometimes they
were seen in the distance, in their flying ****ps or riding
on the snowy-white animals which took them from ledge to
ledge up the cliffs. We have never seen these strange animals
at any other place. To these people the passing centuries
brought only larger and larger ****ps, moving always more
silently.'
"'Have you ever seen a Hav-musuv?'
"'No, but we have many stories of them. There are reasons
why one does not become too curious.'
"'Reasons?'
"'Yes. These strange people have weapons. One is a small
tube which stuns one with a prickly feeling like a rain of
cactus needles. One cannot move for hours, and during this
time the mysterious ones vanish up the cliffs. The other
weapon is deadly. It is a long, silvery tube. When this is
pointed at you, dea-h follows immediately.'
"'But tell me about these people. What do they look like
and how do they dress?'
"'They are a beautiful people. Their skin is a golden
tint, and a head band holds back their long dark hair. They
dress always in a white fine-spun garment which wraps around
them and is draped upon one shoulder. Pale sandals are worn
upon their feet...'
"His voice trailed away in a puff of smoke. The purple
shadows rising up the walls of the Funerals splashed like
the waves of the ghost lake. The old man seemed to have
fallen into a sort of trance, but I had one more question.
"'Has any Paiute ever spoken to a Hav-musuv, or were the
Paiutes here when the great rowing-****ps first appeared?'
"For some moments I wondered if he had heard me. Yet as
is our custom, I waited patiently for the answer. Again he
went through the ritual of the smoke-breathing to the four
directions, and then his soft voice continued:
"'Yes. Once in the not-so-distant-past, but yet many
generations before the coming of the Spanish, a Paiute chief
lost his bride by sudden death. In his great and
overwhelming grief, he thought of the Hav-musuvs and their long
tube-of-de-th. He wished to join her, so he bid farewell to
his sorrowing people and set off to find the Hav-musuvs. None
appeared until the chief began to climb the almost unscaleable
Panamints. Then one of the men in whi-e appeared suddenly
before him with the long tube, and motioned him back. The
chief made signs that he wished to d-e, and came on. The
man in w-ite made a long singing whistle and other
Hav-musuvs appeared. They spoke together in a strange
tongue and then regarded the chief thought- fully. Finally
they made signs to him making him understand that they
would take him with them.
"'Many weeks after his people had mourned him for de-d,
the Paiute chief came back to his camp. He had been in the
giant underground valley of the Hav-musuvs, he said, where
white lights which burn night and day and never go out, or
need any fuel, lit an ancient city of marble beauty. There
he learned the language and the history of the mysterious
people, giving them in turn the language and legends of the
Paiutes. He said that he would have liked to remain there
forever in the peace and beauty of their life, but they bade
him return and use his new knowledge for his people.'
Part 1.
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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