California Indian Tribe Conducts War Dance Against Dam

[villager]

Indian Tribe Conducts War Dance in Calif.


By BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press Writer

SHASTA LAKE, Calif. - As darkness fell across the crescent-shaped Shasta Dam, eight barefoot Winnemem Wintu warriors armed with bows began the tribe's first war dance since 1887.


Members of the tiny American Indian tribe began the four-day protest Sunday night to stop a potential expansion of the Shasta Dam, which would destroy sacred sites that had survived its original construction.


"The war dance itself is a message, a message to the world that we can't stand to put up with this again," said Caleen Sisk-Franco, the chief who says she received the protest vision from the spirits of ancestors. "We've already lost too many sacred sites to the lake. To lose more is like cutting the legs off all the tribal members."

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But as the state grows by 5 million people each decade and copes with water shortages, officials said they need more water. Of the potential choices, McCracken said, expanding Shasta is one of the most promising.

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But Craig Tucker, of the environmental group Friends of the River, said a bigger dam would further inundate the Sacramento, McCloud and Pit rivers upstream, jeopardizing world-class trout fishing and whitewater recreation. "Their goal isn't to help the fishery," Tucker said of the dam supporters. "Their goal is to hoard more and more water."


The Winnemem Wintu population has dwindled to 125 members due to a combination of disease, disputes and departures by members who have abandoned the culture. The tribe last held a war dance in 1887 to protest a McCloud River hatchery that captured the salmon it relied on for its way of life.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=US&cat=Native_Americans

[el_gato]

1. The entire history of the U.S. is a history of genocide

and so it continues

[Hekate]

2. Good for them

There's a place in this life for rituals of intention that focus the mind and heart on what needs to be done -- in this case, stopping the expansion of the dam that would destroy more habitat.

As a Californian, I say it's time we made living within our ecological means a high priority and a way of life. When I first moved to the Central Coast there was a slow-growth majority on the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors, and one way they managed that was to control distribution of water meters and to refuse to buy into "state water." We have a couple of dams, and the biggest is at Lake Cachuma.

The pro-growth forces can't see past their dreams of real-estate riches, and they got their way on state water during the previous long drought, when Lake Cachuma was about sucked dry and wells were dug into water so hard it killed my new dishwasher and smelled so bad I had to air it overnight to make decent coffee in the morning. State water was narrowly voted in toward the very end of the drought -- a folly we will be paying for forever without much to be gained, since we are at the end of the pipeline.

Now we are in another drought -- a cyclic occurrence that can be counted on as surely as foresters can count tree rings. California is a mostly dry state and much of the native plant life is evolved to burn; some of the seeds won't even germinate until their shells are cracked by fire.

Yeah, sure, California's population keeps growing. It's doubled in the last 30 years. But to my way of thinking it's about time we let the world know that if they want to beat a path to our doorstep, they should come prepared to live within our ecological means -- and that means, first and foremost, a water-thrifty lifestyle.

Go, Winnemem Wintu warriors.

Hekate

[villager]

3. I agree with everything you say, Hekate...

If you want to come live in California, then learn how to live here. I think the shifting weather though will soon (hopefully) bring some sobriety to the century long drunken real estate binge that's been happening here in the far West...

[soothsayer]

4. Love it! Which tribe was it (maybe in south america) who prayed for

the oil to hide from the white men who were coming to drill for it. This was a very oil rich land, according to all the maps and projections, but they drilled and drilled and found nothing and left!

Same thing in Hawaii where the volcano kept destroying some kind of harmful station----and not the nearby village----every time they erected it, until they finally gave up.