h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rita,

I was entranced when I stumbled upon a conversation thread between you and Delicia. I will probably be reading for some time to come, though there was one detail that stood out I need to enquire about. [oooh... dangly participle!] My No.2 son is considering a career in geology and plans to attend a university in Australia sometime next year. Good advice from you? Can I put you two in touch with one another to discuss pros and cons of the schooling and future lifestyle associated with such a career?

Message me or send e-mail direct to [email protected] .
Thanks for any insights you can provide,
B3fB2

I'm not sure what help I could be.

I'm currently enrolled in a graduate program myself so I can't really comment from experience of "the career". As I understand it though, there are essentially three or four general areas that people usually go into.

The first area is related to mineral extraction, mining, oil and gas exploration and that sort of thing. This is where people usually make the big bucks or as big as probably can be made.

The second is environmental or geologic hazard consultation, usually associated with built environment development of some kind. This area usually involves dealing with environmental law or regulation, architectural issues like earthquake codes and the like.

The third is pure research, usually associated with academic issues. This is pretty wide open in subject matter but also limited in paying positions.

The fourth is somewhat interdisciplinary, associated with geophysics, planetary science, paleontology or something similar. If someone has a facility for anatomy and geology, then paleontology would be a natural subject to pursue, for example. Likewise, if someone is interested in astronomy and geology then planetary science might be a good subject as well.

My personal interest is in past and current geologic environments, how geology determines geography and how that affects human life ways in particular, the cycles associated with the creation and development of mineral resources and their uses by humans, and the capacity of human societies to accommodate themselves to the planetary environment. I also have a traditional interest in the earth as a sacred being to who we all belong, but that probably doesn't fall in the category of geologic science.

I think Australia might be a good place to study some things, but as a geologic province it leaves much to be desired. It holds some of the oldest rocks on earth but as a result, it's probably been planed down as much as any region on earth so I would suspect there isn't that much left to study there. I much prefer the western regions of North America because practically every geologic era is represented within a relatively compact area. It is, however, a very complex region. At the same time the generally arid climate means that whatever's there is relatively well exposed for study.

If you think any of this might be of interest to your son, you can suggest he contact me here or at The Range, http://www.cybercomedia.com/~range/ for further discussions.

Thank you for your interest.

Rita,

That's a wonderfully concise and informative synopsis of the disciplines. I'll pass it on to Ryan and, since you seem amenable, I'll suggest he contact you for a more in-depth treatment on the subject, as well as your personal insights.

Bless,
B3fB2

That would fine, if he chooses.

Now, on another matter that's bothering just now, I should confess I've been reviewing your relentless siege of Curious and the insights both you and she have provided seem to answer some questions I could never seem to get answered before, especially about your relationship to the land. I'd suspected it was somewhat, shall we say, casual? You comments seem to confirm that suspicion.

I wonder how it comes about when one is dispossessed to find another home far away? It's very strange to me.

Luther Standing Bear once observed, "The white man does not understand the Indian for the reason that he doesn't understand America." Do you think that you understand America?

"The roots of the tree of his life have not yet grasped the rock and soil." Do you know what that means?

"But in the Indian the spirit of the land is still vested; it will be until other men are able to divine and meet its rhythm. Men must be born and reborn to belong. Their bodies must be formed of the dust of their forefathers' bones." Do you maybe see the difference? Do you think there can ever be an accommodation with these people?

My experience with Curious says no, there can't be, not in five hundred years or five thousand years or even longer. I can't see it happening. Because to Curious, we are all human and, therefore, all the same, which, in practical terms, means all European in outlook or values. Whatever is European is the nature of Man, and the only difference is the level of technology that people have access to. If they can do something, they will and, indeed, under the circumstances, must do it, but I kind of doubt that.

I think it has less to do with nature than nurture, how you're raised. That's what determines these things and I also think that's why there can be no accommodation between our peoples. Why the treaties weren't honored and never will be. Before, that was something of a mystery, because I couldn't figure out why people would do things they admitted wrong and then keep on doing them. But now I think for the first time I'm beginning to understand the roots of the dichotomy and, unfortunately, in that understanding, the hopelessness of it all.

I guess thousands of years of separation have left indelible and contradictory legacies in our respective peoples. It's a wonder the outcome of the recontact hasn't been more calamitous.

Alfred Nobel invented Dynamite and became one of the world's richest men. Dynamite is nitroglycerin mixed with clay. Nobel, who claimed to be a pacifist, also claimed that his invention would make wars inconceivable. The same reasoning was used to justify the invention of nuclear weapons after Nobel's prophesy of doomsday weapons pacifism proved somewhat overly optimistic. Later, after a couple of the most horrendous wars in human history, Robert Oppenheimer could, in a final summation of the events near Alamogordo, only quote Hindu scripture, "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Do you wonder about death? Is death the ultimate conquest that drives these people on their ironically suicidal path of so-called progress? Is this what all the erudition of science and the promises of technology are all about? Does separation from the land cause this obsessive fear of death to overpower the acceptance of the inevitably natural, the rebirth in the dust of your ancestors?

Was death the Creator's egregious error that these people find they now must correct? How many people must die or tribes extinguished so that these people can micromanage the universe? How many will be dispossessed so that a few may pursue this dream of life everlasting in the flesh, spreading over the earth like an oily drizzle but never taking root, the eternal, individual lives of strangers in the land? Strangers to us, to the land, and to each other?

Do you find any of this in the least bit inconsistant or contradictory, rather like the pacifistical reasoning of Alfred Nobel? Or does it seem sensible to you, and if so, why?

Did you know that Nobel suffered from terrible headaches caused by handling nitroglycerin? Did you know that he was compelled to handle it even after developing the headaches in order to treat his diseased heart? Do you wonder why he apparently thought endowing a peace prize would make things right? Do you suppose he believed that controlling this chemical demon would bring his dead brother back to life?

A low explosive requires containment to build the pressure that allows it to burn very rapidly, but a high explosive creates its own pressure uncontained in the open. Do you suppose there might come a time when an explosive of such a nature is invented that is so self-perpetuating that it will never stop exploding until all the matter on earth is consumed? Do you suppose someone is trying even as I write these words to invent that explosive?

Those 17000 pound daisycutters the Americans used in Afghanistan have convinced me that this is not implausible. I wonder what sorts of beasts live in the hearts of the men who pursue such things and can justify the pursuit to themselves and others. I wonder how they can wrestle with such beasts and why?

Sweet Medicine predicted that when the whites came into the country, they would tear up the earth and poison the air and the water, and the temptations and power of their contrivances would convince the people to help them do these things and then the people would forget what Sweet Medicine had taught them. I think that was a true prophesy, don't you?

I apologize for posing these questions to you. You may ignore them if you choose and I won't be offended. I hope you're not offended by my asking, but one can hardly learn the answers if the questions are never asked, and you strike me as a very insightful person who maybe knows something I might need to know.

Thanks for your time and attention. Again, don't feel obligated to answer if the questions bother or don't interest you. I'm not trying to indict you or your people, if you recognize such people as your own. I simply want to know, and whatever I need know will be revealed sooner or later.

Rita,

I believe you may have struck the crux of the matter with your observation. How can anyone feel connected to a greater power if he has no past to claim as particularly his own. When that past is tied into an awareness of the land one inhabits—the patterns of the animals that roam it, the seasonal changes, the very consistency of the soil—there’s bound to be more a sense of belonging to a vaster whole. Perhaps it is the problem of the European cultures (and others that engage in the same activities) brought about by the struggle and strife of war, in any of its incarnations. When those who desire power for themselves resort to stealing, killing, and destroying in order to gain a perceived authority over another, no good can come of it.

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

I’m not sure if you subscribe to the standard King James Bible version of God’s doctrine. It’s a book authored by the creator of our world, written down by a wide variety of men from Middle Eastern culture [not some European land barons] who were faithful to listen and obey, transcribed in several languages, and it has a consistency that cannot be rivaled. When applied, its truth is irrefutable, its promises are guaranteed, and the peace it brings is profound. If more people throughout the ages had applied it as the standard of life, so much death and suffering could have been avoided. As individuals, and as a collective societal group, we don’t always listen to that “still, small voice” that beckons us to do the right thing.

Mat 22:37-40 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Imagine if the Norse, the Celts, the Gauls, the Saxons, the Britons, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch, and other nationalities had actually thought that through. If they’d understood the latter command was just as important as the first. Then their religious pontification would not have been so much “lip service”. If they’d bothered to value the life and the lifestyle of all the other nations they encountered in their explorations, working with them for a synergy of efforts rather than eradicating another culture just because it was different.

Where does this idea of abuse and exploitation come from? You or Delicia [Curious] mentioned it seems to be a typically male way of dealing with the world, especially when the world doesn’t seem to want to be forth-coming with the products of desire. I pasted in the scripture that addresses the root cause of all this prideful, self-serving desire—The Thief.

Isa 14:12-15 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

He wanted to usurp authority not rightfully his to behold and he’s suffering the consequences of his decision right to the end, when he’ll be kicking and screaming on the way to oblivion, trying to drag as many of us with him as he can manage. He’s known by many different names across all our cultures. I call him Satan or the Devil. From my experience and study, that entity’s more real than most care to admit. He’s the one who whispers in men’s ears that there aren’t enough goods for all, so some must do without because the ‘select few’ will take what they need. He prays upon men’s fears, goading them to act scornfully to strangers and even those of their own groups, spreading a systematization of error and scheming to kill any who would oppose it. He delights when relationships, or things built by man, or societies are destroyed. He seeks to defeat the promises of God with his spirit of fear. Contrariwise, God wants only the best for us.

Tim 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Psa 68:19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.

There’s the root cause. And it does shame me that powerful men with persuasive personalities and hidden agendas have listened to that deceiver, who was a liar from the first. Truthfully, I don’t know if I would have joined the brigade of “manifest destiny” and sought global expansion, to the detriment of other nations of people who just happened to have fewer armaments than my own. I suppose I might, and that abhors me. Even though I tell myself and others I’m a nice guy, that doesn’t make it so if I falter in the face of such a decision, and forget to apply what I know is right in the sight of that higher power. God forbid I should forget those lessons, to the demise of even one life.

You asked if I wonder about death. No. I know about death. It’s not a friend of mine. I’ve seen the passing of several members of our family, as well as friends, throughout my lifetime. I’ve also seen the horrors of mass destruction played out for me in bleeding color on a little screen in my own home. What good is any of that? None.

Psa 116:15 Precious [costly; dear; of great value] in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. [anyone who loves God]
Eccl 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
Eccl 3:1-22 [too long to add here, but I’m sure you’ve got access to it]

Once again, the adversary tries to rip off one of mankind’s fundamental benefits—life itself. When a person dies, he no longer has any effect on the living, except perhaps as mulch. He can no longer guide his progeny to worthwhile endeavors, nor share in the joy or alleviate the pain in a relationship with a spouse, or even direct the course of any other human affairs. Game over. You’ve got one shot to get it right and It All Counts for points. There’s more in the scriptures about Christ’s return and some additional work those raised from the dead in new incorruptible bodies [1 Cor 15] will need to do. Plus that bit about living with the Supreme Being [God] for all eternity thereafter [without any more tears], but that’s even farther afield of the topic you proposed.

Do I think God put these kinds of people [mentioned earlier] up to such heinous acts of exploitation? Certainly not! He gives us freedom of will to as we determine to do. It doesn’t mean we necessarily do it right. He doesn’t tie our hands in any matters or relegate us to any particular fate. We make the decisions—good or bad—and reap the benefits or the consequences accordingly. Some outcomes take a while to catch up to us, though. Ever notice that? I believe that’s why some malcontents and evildoers don’t get drawn up short, because they think they’re getting away with something. After all, a lightning bolt from out of the heavens didn’t strike them, so who could have been watching?

About such unconscionable acts of exploitation, you mentioned Sweet Medicine having prophesied just such a thing. He gave your people ample notice of something that was impending. Did they heed what he said, or was he ignored like so many other seers throughout the ages. What good is the prophecy if it does not allow one person, or an entire race, to benefit from the ‘heads up’ so it can be circumvented? Granted, people can be pretty thickheaded at times—witness a similar example of the children of Israel wandering in the desert wilderness for forty years—but surely some more positive action could have come of it.

Your additional comments? I’ve got to post this before it becomes a full-blown dissertation. Besides, it addresses the main points you made. Now talk to me further on these things from your perspective.

B4

Thank you for responding so thoroughly.

I must confess that I was flabbergasted to read this though, but my friend, Rusty, says I should just blow it off. She is more religious than I am. She says you don't understand and it won't make any difference if I try to explain what this religion of yours has done to our people. She says it only makes for bad feelings. But I still want to try and I hope you won't feel too badly because I am telling you what I truly believe.

In the beginning, we had the land, and your people had the Book. Now your people have the land, and we have the Book.

Rusty says that YWHW's (pronounced "adonai" by the rabbis because it is not allowed to pronounce that name for which reason it is rendered "LORD" in the King James translation) problem was that he thought he was God.

In the beginning the people called him Elohim, which is God in the plural and the Elohim, the gods, dealt with all the people having created all of the heavens and the earth and everything that dwells upon it, but later, when he thought he was God, he told Moses he was the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And later still he commanded the children of Jacob, Israel, hence Israelites, to destroy the towns of the Canaanites, utterly, every living thing therein. This was part of his covenant with them to deliver up the land to which their recognized title among other people was nothing more than a burial ground bought from a Hittite.

In the beginning women were respected, but later their inheritances were appropriated by the men in the patriarchal line and they were made subservient to the men in everything, even as the so-called Apostle Paul says. And by what authority was this done? By the will of God, which these men claimed that they knew.

The Bible is a very big and diverse book. A person once told me that I should respect the "family values" of this book, but I had to ask the person which family values? There are over 600 in all and no one, I think, has ever kept faithful to those 600 plus laws. How could they? They were imposed by a self-admitted jealous god, a god of punishment and fear. There is little difference between this god and Lucifer. They are like the Aztec god in this respect, vengeful, degrading, demanding, and blood thirsty. Guilty of behavior that is considered reprehensible in humans. What kind of father sacrifices his own son to assuage his selfish wrath that it won't be turned upon all humankind?

Did you know there are no words for guilt or freedom in the Lakota language? Neither word was required until this religion of yours was imposed. Are you aware of how this religion of yours has taught people to loath their own bodies and natures? The very behaviors that allow us all to reproduce? It has taught them to fear death because in death comes ultimate punishment, the fires of Hell which are the wages of sin.

In our way, religion doesn't even exist. What we have instead are different ways of dealing the powers of this world and if you don't want to do it a certain way, no one forces you to. Because no one claims to know the mind of God or the True Faith. The Creator has always been a mystery described with words that have no meaning. And all things are sacred, even the white man is sacred.

But children especially are sacred because in being born into this world they are given the power of life or death and the challenge is to teach them to use it wisely and responsibly. No one can take away their sins. Whatever they do the consequences belong to them and their families.

In this sense there is no sin or salvation. There is only compensation, and the restoration of the balance with all living things. And everything is alive, even the rocks, which are the bones of Iyan, the oldest creation among us. Iyan's name is even a part of our name for "woman", wiyan, and for the Thunders, wakiyan and the children are taught to respect the Elders. But no one tells a Lakota what to do. This has never been acceptable.

When we pray, therefore, we don't tell the powers what to do or attempt to conjole or bribe or beg them to do our bidding. We express our needs to them, that is all, and affirm our relationship to them as our relatives.

None of this is in a Book. It requires no missionaries to spread it all over the world or the threats of eternal torment. It lives in the hearts of the people who follow it because it has worked for thousands of years and hundreds of generations informed by the empirical experience of our ancestors, from who we are made and who live, not individual eternal lives in bodies raised incorruptable at the last trumpet, but in the flesh, blood and life of the tribe and in the earth and sky as well.

This is like the "creed" that so infuriated the Puritans that they set fire to whole villages and marveled at the wonderful work of their god. I think maybe these atrocities spring from the very religion you espouse so eloquently. I think the self-loathing it inspires leads to great injustices commited in the name of the LORD.

If there truly is a satan, an advisary of all life, then this LORD has identified himself with that satan by his actions and commandments. And he scares the little children with his threats and makes them show profound disrespect for all creation, inspiring them to attempt to "perfect" that corrupt creation in order that this LORD will find them worthy of salvation from his wrath. That seems like a truly hideous protection racket.

All I can say is your people had no right to scare the little children this way and still don't. That God is just gives us cause to rejoice but it apparently gives your people cause to dispair and to grovel before the Most High begging for mercy and redemption and then turning around and commiting more heinous things for which further forgiveness must be craved. And all of it then becomes God's will and, therefore, God's fault.

What else could these people have done after all? They merely followed the cravings of their sinful natures, deceived by Satan, but if they confess these sins and affirm their faith in Jesus, then God will forgive them through Jesus Christ, their Savior and Redeemer, who will lead them into life everlasting.

If God made such egregious errors in creating this world, why do you listen to him? It is foolish to listen to foolish talk as it is foolish to argue about God so I will stop being foolish for awhile, except I should add that Sweet Medicine was a Tsistsistas, a Cheyenne. We have relatives among those people. That's how I know about him.

You asked if the people believed him. Maybe now you know that no one was compelled to believe him or anyone else and many didn't. But the whites that came into the country were compelled to believe in their prophets and they did the will of their god for which I'm confident they will be justly rewarded in time.

Rita,

You’re right that I don’t completely understand your lifestyle, except as you’re able to explain it to me. The picture you paint of that once great society is truly remarkable. It's a shame it was dismantled, and in such an insidious fashion--in the guise of cooperation and friendship.

What ‘religion’ has done to your people is inexcusable. Please understand that 'religion' frequently has nothing to do with the will of God. Our forebears didn’t apply the Word of God correctly. Shame on them. Neither you nor I was there to convince them to conduct themselves better. What a loss.

All we can do is pick up the pieces and try to come to some reconciliation. I believe I see part of your frustration with the whole situation, though. The United States, as a government entity, will not quickly or easily change tack to accommodate a single category of people housed here. Even if it was their house to begin with.

Have we definitely come too far and too fast to stop for a moment and reapportion the living space for everyone's benefit? Would you be a spokesperson for a program that helps your native people move back into areas they've been pushed out of, as well as helping those living there find suitable places to start new homes? Is it a matter of assimilating the native Indian population into this society that insists on sprawling across this particular landmass, depending on technology for all its solutions? Or should we consider readjusting the viewpoint of that society, helping it to find some balance in coexisting with the land and creatures that surround it?

If we're to understand each other in the context of this day and time, what can each individual do to persuade the greater mass of mankind here to reach out and DO Something Right for a change? Share time, thoughts, stories, hopes, dreams, lives, property, responsibility?

You're making some attempt. That's good. I don't know the full scope of your influence, yet I'm certain you will have a good impact.

May there be peace in your journey, light upon your path, and a gentle wind to bolster your progress,
B4

I think you hit on it in one word you used, "share".

In the beginning there was much land for farming and much game lived upon it. The waters were pristine and the sky was bright and clean. The forests cloaked the land like a luxurious fur. This was true even though the land had been inhabited by people for thousands of years, at least as long as the continent of Eurasia had been inhabited by people.

When the whites came, they were in a bad way, but the people fed them and helped them to be healed, and taught them how to grow crops and shared the land with them. But it was not enough for these people. They wanted more and they didn't want to share. They wanted everything for themselves and people who had lived on the land for generations were in the way and still are. They poisoned the air and the water, tore up the earth and leveled the forests, and even sacrificed their own children's health to feed their greed.

Much of the land that was taken in this fashion is still unoccupied. It is called Trust Land and is administered by the National Park Service, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management among other agencies. It also includes the reservations upon which the people try to survive.

Restoration of this land requires that no one be dispossessed or displaced, yet even so, they won't give it back or even share it in most instances. Always there is the need to go to court to establish entitlement to everything and the lawyers become rich in the process.

The government offers money to extinguish the prior claims and forces the people to take the money in lieu of the land. This is because, I've been told, the whites fear they will be treated as they have treated others, forced to return to England, Sweden, France, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Spain or wherever they came from unless their titles are rendered "unclouded".

If the people resist, the government sets up its own governments over them, elective governments established under the IRA, the Indian Reorganization Act. These governments are dominated by "progressives", the people you think of as assimilated into the modern culture. They are elected because the traditional people do not vote. They do not participate in something that was forced on them and they express their dissatisfaction by non-participation. Their votes are simply, "no!" Conveniently, these votes go unaccounted and unrecognized.

Each new program devised by these governments of occupation do two things. They make the people more dependent on the dominant culture and they alienate more land. This is not the same thing as sharing.

I don't think the whites know how to share because they identify such sharing with the evils of the godless apostles of international communism among other things. Just as they refuse to admit that the terrible tragedy of 9/11 was brought on by the rage of some muslims at the American meddling in the affairs of others and their insatiable greed for the resources of others, so they refuse to relinguish their greed for the land and resources of the people they have already conquered, primarily through fraud and genocide.

Just as they "reorganized" us, so they reorganized themselves under the fiction of one nation under God, indivisable, with liberty and justice of all. This simply can't happen by only recognizing one of anything, one god, one people, one nation, one liberty, one justice. That's the problem and their belated attempts to pay lip service to diversity don't resolve it.

It would be nice if we could convince enough people to do the right thing, but the temptations to do wrong are too strong. Even so, the balance of the world will be restored, if not out of respect, then out of regret, but it will happen. This is also a true prophecy.

I love you as one of the many diverse and wonderful creations of this world, even though at times I may not like what you or your people do, you are still one of my relations, my relative. If you can teach your people to learn to share, to play fair, to take turns, to tell the truth, then that will also help my people and your people to live and prosper for generations to come in balance with all of creation. That's the best we can hope for.

Once my people had a dream and it was a beautiful dream, but the dream was broken along with the sacred hoop that surrounded and sheltered them. The dream died in the blood-drenched mud of Wounded Knee Creek in a freezing blizzard not so long ago. My grandparents knew a few people who survived it. The threat of massacre is still very much with us whenever the police or National Guard gather on the reservation boundaries along with FBI, to coerce us into doing whatever they want us to do at the time.

But these agencies are used to intimidate your people as well. When you protest the war, they gather to "kick ass and take names" and to support the misguided vigilantes who hurl insults and beer bottles at you.

These agencies conquer by dividing the people over useless distinctions like Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians or Greens or Communists. To that long list of trivialities they've recently added "terrorists" and "islamic fundamentalists".

As a relative of a people called savage and accused more than once of terrorism, I find the whole contemporary situation just a little laughable if it weren't so incredibly stupid, self-serving and hypocritical. We know who the real terrorists are. We've been subjected to their terror for hundreds of years.

You know who they are as well, but I think you fear them too much to do anything about the problems they pose, or to risk losing your place on the ladder of success. We all pretty much want to live unmolested in our own land to evolve within our own cultural traditions, but this apparently is too much to ask, an unreasonable demand, so we will have to leave it for the world to "adjust".

The world will adjust too, even if it requires that layers of ash be deposited all over the face of the earth as predicted by the Paiute prophet, it will happen, one way or the other. And people will belatedly learn what real civilization is compared to the bogus variety we've been compelled to endure.

A man from Missouri once remarked to me, "Every dog has his day." I think this wild dog of colonialism is going to see nightfall pretty soon. And if he's still around in the morning, he will be a good deal more humbled I think. A little humility can be a good thing sometimes, don't you think?

Thank you for listening and may your god and your sweet Jesus finally give you the peace you crave and teach you the true meaning of charity.

One more thing I forgot to mention, but, as a geologist I'm cognizant of a Mohawk prophesy that may be pertinent to the discussion.

In the old days, the world was inhabited by monsters, but the Thunders drove them from the face of the earth and will keep them underground until the bad times come. Then the monsters from under the earth will emerge to vex the people.

I wonder if this bad time is our time when uranium has been mined to make those weapons of mass destruction we are hearing about? Certain foolish but very clever people have released a terrible monster upon the face of the earth. Who knows what havoc will occur along with the havoc that has already happened?

This is a big problem for which the solution eludes the best minds of our generation. When the American government refuses to disarm, it can hardly expect others to do so, yet that is precisely what it demands. It is time, I think, to put the monster back underground and stop this nonsense.

Rita,

Do any of the Indian nations have remembrance of a time when the continents were broken asunder, separating the land mass of Pangea into its component parts?

B4

Pangea began to break up during the late Triassic-early Jurassic. There were no indians around then, just dinosaurs and a few mammals, reptiles and amphibians on the land. The dinosaurs were very powerful creatures who maybe can speak to us even now about how things have evolved, how one can follow the road of life.

The Hopikuh remember islands sinking in the ocean, one after another, maybe the islands created by the plumes that the oceanic plates move over leaving strings of seamounts in their wake that record the movement. You can see it in Hawaii. Once the volcanoes become inactive the sea beats down the islands until they disappear under the waves. It doesn't take very long really, maybe a few hundred thousand years, if that.

They also recall the origin of the earth in fire, like the fires that created the San Francisco mountains where the Kachinas live. And of course the former worlds are underneath this one just as the geologic record suggests where it outcrops here and there.

Geology is an observational science and indian people are no less observant than whites, maybe more observant since whites only became cognizant of this process within the last few hundred years. The Hopikuh also knew that the earth rotates on its axis seemingly suspended in a void below the eighth and ninth worlds. The Lakota knew that the air and water that sustains us came from the rocks, the bones of Iyah, the oldest creation.

Perhaps the eastern tribes knew that the continents drift like a turtle swimming in the ocean covered with mud. If this process could be deduced in the 20th century, why not earlier?

The chief obstacle would have been the European religion that asserted that everything was created at once in a week and nothing changed after that. People knew better but they were afraid to challenge the doctrine of the Church. Who could blame them when you consider how the Inquisition worked its terrors? Did not Galileo deny the evidence of his own eyes to avoid those terrors? There were no such terrors among the indian people until the whites came with their Church and Inquisition.

So, I don't think the people recalled when Pangea broke up but they wouldn't have been surprised to learn of it. The dinosaur in their blood would have told them something of the earth's power in that era. In the times no one remembers very clearly now, the animals would have spoken to the people and the people would have understood the language.

But then the people learned about the magic of witchcraft, of manipulating things here and there, small things for selfish reasons, and showing both fear and disrespect for the earth and the Elder Powers, and, when that happens, the earth turns her face away and lets the people starve and die of thirst. That's what is happening now with the greater witchcraft of our own day that seeks to take everything without giving anything back, leaving it for future generations to pay the debt.

The world is always changing, always in motion, a very amazing creation to behold in its beauty and balance, don't you think?