Power of a Mountain

 

(Birch Mountain, right, March 2026)

 

When I was still a young man, I saw Birch Mountain in a dream. It said to me:
"You will always be well and strong. Nothing can hurt you and you will live to an old age." After this Birch Mountain came and spoke to me whenever I was in trouble and told me that I would be all right. That is why nothing has happened to me and why I am so old now. —Jack Stewart

 

In 1926-27, in Owens Valley, anthropologist Julian Steward listened to and recorded the life story of Jack Stewart, an elderly Paiute man. His Indian name: Hoavadunuki’.  Jack Stewart born in his mother’s village, tovowahamatui, now Big Pine, and lived there at the time Steward heard his story, noting, “The data presented in Jack's life demonstrate primarily this importance of the vision. he is evidently of a mind predisposed to hallucinations, interpreted as supernatural communications.”

 

Julian Steward continues: 
Although the irrepressible dreamer had many visions, this one which brought him his "power" was the most important. Birch mountain, pa'o'karanwa (pa'o, rocky, karanwa, boulder) or sunuyüsi’, is one of the most magnificent of the Sierra Nevada peaks as seen from Big Pine, rising to more than 14,000 feet, or more than 10,000 feet above the valley. Success in hunting, fighting, traveling, and even in gambling are assured him by his power, Birch Mountain. 

 

 

This petroglyph, a loose drawn style on a sloping crevice on a rock rim facing Birch Mountain.  A rim with dozens of other petroglyphs. Follow along with the possibilities as I speculate.

 

I see a spirit figure. Below two upright ears, which shape a head, two arms extend. One downward emitting or contacting supernatural power through the hand.  The other arm loops down entwining body-like. Upper left, a vaporous cloud of energy animates or is animated by the figure. This is not a logical event. A vision; this description is imaginative representing, I suggest, a quest for contact, or indeed power’s actual arrival.

I do not suggest there's any direct relationship between Jack Stewart's dream of Birch Mountain and this petroglyph. His story provides no account of petroglyphs.  It is an alignment of geography that provokes an alignment of action and belief.  A way of turning toward.       

 

Photos: Inyo County, California, southeast of Big Pine, facing Birch Mountain.

March 2026, Douglas Beauchamp

 

The thin snowpack of the eastern Sierras continues to melt away this pivotal year of global heating.

Carbon in the atmosphere is the highest since 30 million years ago. 

Groundhog Day: In rock rim country

 In those days there was lots to eat, but they destroyed it. They used to get game easily, but Coyote and Wolf made it hard to get food. Wolf went hunting. He was going to hunt groundhogs. He went and stood under a rock cliff. He said, "Rocks, come after me,’ and all groundhogs came down to him. Then he killed what he thought would be enough for a meal and went home. Coyote was his brother. He was home, and he asked him, “How do you kill so many like that? Then Wolf told him how he did it. Coyote thought he would try. He did what his brother had told him and got many groundhogs. Then he ate them, and afterwards he stood there and said the same thing again. Then all rocks rolled down after him. That's how Coyote spoiled easy hunting.

—Daisy Brown, told in her Northern Paiute language, Summer 1930, Fort Bidwell, Surprise Valley, CA. Interpreter: Nora Henderson. [1] [2]

In the Northern Great Basin, Groundhog seeing Shadow is not a concern. Survival — and the good life — compel action and hibernation. Basic, yes? A lot like Human — and Wolf and Coyote. Yet, an ontological issue complicates. One of identity. Is Groundhog actually a groundhog? Wildlife biologists say no, there are no groundhogs (Marmota monax) in the Great Basin. Oh yes, they concede, there is a cousin — Yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris).

Have Wolf and Coyote been let astray? No, it's common out-West for these high-rock marmots to be called groundhogs. Something to do with whites from the East occupying country and translating Gidü or Kidü to how they remembered. Yet, I believe Groundhog and a groundhog hold close in the mythic realm of the real. As Coyote is ever-greater-than-and-the-same-as a coyote.

At times, when I am studying rock rims in high country for petroglyphs, a small furry head and nose will pop up over the edge, curious. Stare at me, an intruder, quickly disappear. Yellow-bellied marmot prefer to be near rocks. Rocks shelter burrows. Wolf and Coyote know this. Too, I’ve seen Coyote out there, loping along, hungry, going somewhere. Above photo: Marmot top center, dot petroglyph far right.

Shadow? Yellow-bellied marmot has Shadow, as do we all, however until emerging from hibernation in late Spring it lingers in dreams.

Rock-dreaming

NOTES

Photos by this blog's author at a rock-rim-place in the Warner basin watershed, SE Oregon. Click to enlarge.  (Note:  This is a re-post from five years ago, in the spirit of deja vu... )

[1] An excerpt from a longer story about two brothers, Coyote and Wolf, going hunting. This story is one of six variations of this theme each by a different Northern Paiute speaker. Five contain a groundhog sequence. In some versions Coyote is killed by the rocks (and of course comes out alive); in some his tail is cut-off. The stories were solicited and transcribed, with some grammatical corrections, by UC Berkeley graduate student Isabel T. Kelly and published in Northern Paiute Tales, The Journal of American Folklore Vol. 51, Oct-Dec 1938.

[2] Daisy (Limpy) Brown was born in the Warner Valley about 1870 according to Kelly. She provided many stories in Kelly’s Tales and was an important source of knowledge in Kelly’s 1932 Ethnography of the Surprise Valley Paiute. Brown was the aunt of Nora Henderson of Alturas who served as her interpreter.

[3] Gray wolves living in North American today came from Eurasia between 70,000 and 24,000 years ago; https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12765. Wolves were extirpated in the Northern Great Basin by the 1920s; efforts to repopulate remain contentious.