Susan Feathers

The River People

Chapter 2

From the Diary of Victoria Greenway

February 6, 2002

My duties at the Center for Southwest Studies often sent me on interesting assignments. The story that I am about to tell may be the most unusual among them, and, as I look back, it was surely the most memorable. The experience profoundly altered my basic understanding of American history.

The assignment required me to establish relationships with a small Native American nation whose reservation is located near Yuma, Arizona. The purpose was to develop an environmental education program. The type of program was left for the nation to determine should they agree to such a project. The center for which I worked provided technical assistance on matters such as water quality and protection of native species within reservation lands. The education program was another way to engage people to assist in these goals. The irony of this arrangement was not apparent to me right away but dawned over the brief time I had the privilege to meet and talk with the elders and other tribal members.

I eagerly accepted the project, imagining it to be an adventure into a part of the West I had never visited, and a worthy endeavor to foster good relations with a nation whose cultural roots ran as far back as 3,000 B.C. No guidance was offered by my superiors, who hoped I might find success where, apparently, others had failed in the past. That spurred me to try but cautioned me not to plan too far ahead.

~~~

My first trip to Yuma from Phoenix, Arizona began in the sparse landscape of low desert, where creosote, arrow weed, cholla and barrel cactuses dotted flat plains of baked soil covered with mats of pebbles. As the sun rose higher in the sky, and the highway steadily dropped to below sea level, I understood why Yuma was often regarded as a hellish landscape: the heat radiated off everything in shimmering drafts of rising air, sucking what little moisture remained in the soil. The low scrubby plants that grew steadily in this environment possessed superb adaptations that allowed them to thrive there. Dust devils—swirling wind vents that lift desert soil skyward—crossed the highway, carrying skeletons of tumbleweed with them.

On the edge of town, gaudy billboards advertised motels, car repair, and local watering holes where one could hole up with a large ice water or cold beer and delicious Mexican fare. Signs for military bases and directions to several reservations mixed in with my directions to meet David Tejano at The Crossing Restaurant.

The cool and darkened interior of The Crossing was welcome relief from the heat. It buzzed with diners and scurrying waitresses. On the far side of the main dining area a tall, strongly built man stood from behind his table and waved me over to join him. How he knew who I was remains a mystery as I think back about our meeting that day. Put in the context of his life as I later learned about it, I would just say he navigated his waters well.

David Tejano extended his hand, but his handshake was but a soft touch, nothing like the sudden grip Westerners associate with assertiveness. This was the first cultural difference among hundreds of others I would learn along the way.

“Hello. How was your trip?” he asked as we sat down.

“It was easy driving,” I said. “I have never spent any time in Yuma.”

“Most people are just passing through,” he remarked without emotion.

I immediately regretted my comment.

“Are you hungry? I can make some recommendations,” he offered.

“Yes, and please do, I have not eaten since breakfast.”

Thus, our relationship began through a gastronomical introduction to The Crossing, where Colorado River Indian Tribes, Mexicans, U.S. military personnel, snowbirds from the U.S. and Canada, and passers-through comprised the new ebb and flow of a once wild river. Instead of the roiling, swift waters of the free Rio Colorado, Yuma residents swelled from 50,000 to 90,000 residents in the winter before receding during the late spring to its die-hard residents, able to withstand the broiling summer temperatures. The term snowbirds, for those who flew the coop as the sun bore down on the region, was more than accurate. Most of them were seniors with flowing white or silver hair, retirees with money to gamble in the casinos of the local tribes, and the original people of long-standing presence.

~~~

In performing his duties as a social worker, David Tejano held important information about the protocols to observe when meeting with members of the Tribal Council and elders. The population on the main reservation was only 2,000. There were many more below the border where they were known as the Cucapas. He knew everyone.

David’s manners were impeccable. He made sure that I had water first, then suggested his favorite dishes at The Crossing.

“The chili rejenos are almost as good as my mother’s, or, if you like tortillas, try their soft taco platter,” he suggested.

Everything about David was large. His bronzed fingers were notably thick, as he pointed on his menu for me. His thick, dark hair was neatly trimmed, and his dress was casual-professional—ironed by someone who knew how to place a crease. No one ironed their own clothes in Vicky’s world in Phoenix, but the flakes of starch on his shirt collar told her this was probably the work of his wife or maybe even his mother. Oddly, that made her feel good.

Deep lines in his forehead perhaps revealed his age or his work stress, but for the most part he appeared to be in his 40’s.

I noticed as we began to talk about David’s work and the River People Nation that he did not look directly in my eyes as those in my white culture do. Later I learned this was a sign of respect and I adopted the same behavior in meeting and working among the River People.

After the large platters of food were delivered to our table, David began to tell me more about the people of his nation.

“Our people are the ancestral nation of this region,” he said. “We’ve been here for millennia, and our people’s memory goes back to times when this land and its river were entirely different than what you saw on your way down here today.”

He paused to take a few bites, followed by a few sips of iced tea, while I shoveled in cheesy tortillas, hot salsa, and frothy Pacifico beer, not realizing until then how hungry I was, and in need of the mollifying effect of the alcohol. I’d been very nervous about the meeting. White guilt, I guess, was a burden I was carrying with the knowledge that David’s ancestral culture had been all but wiped out by my culture’s dominance over the land and its resources.

“We, like other tribes across this land, grew up with knowledge of the land, its wildlife, its seasons and gifts, and its hardships.” He paused to reflect in silence, then continued his story. We became the River People, living by it, travelling on it, and taking from it the gifts of the creator for our livelihood. Even its mud was used to prevent sunburn and to hold our warriors’ long hair in sculpted shapes. We, like other native people, clothed and decorated ourselves with what nature offered us.

“Perhaps our greatest achievement was how we learned to farm in the floodplains of the river in the late spring after the flooding waters withdrew. The seeds we used conferred great health to our people. If you can imagine it, the river supported forests that grew thickly along the shores. It is said that the forests of cottonwoods and willows, and the mesquites were as broad as seven miles along the river. Imagine that! Game, fruits, and seedpods from mesquite, cottonwood, and willow woods provided many important medicines and materials.” David seemed to drift in his own imagination as he described the land and his people before European contact.

I listened carefully. This man was taking time to help me understand the transformation to present day. I instantly grasped what a gift it was, that he had no obligation to do that, especially for someone representing a culture that had all but destroyed what he described for me.

David continued to present day. The nation was suffering from widespread diabetes, depression, and alcoholism—from generational loss of their lands and the dilemma each person faced about how to live in a culture whose values conflicted with their own.

David was the first college graduate among his people. He had returned to help his people bridge into the dominant culture, to find meaningful work, and to build security for their families once again. It was a daunting task. He referred me to books in the River People Museum and Cultural Center.

“There are a few trusted sources whose work we sell from the Museum. So many have come and taken from us,” David said as he looked up at me. “I wish you luck, Miss Greenway, but you can never tell how it will go. The River People have met with many emissaries such as you, only to have their words and their culture stolen, then printed in some book without their permission. It happens time and time again. So, don’t expect much.”

My heart sank. Suddenly, the nature of this meeting seeped into my awareness: two nations were meeting across our table. I felt like an ambassador, and David, one for his people. I fully realized how delicate and important this work would be. My curt nature with my director a month before made me ashamed. Perhaps he too had not really grasped the meaning of the opportunity to meet with leaders of one of our nation’s original peoples. They had no reason to do it, no reason to trust me. Yet, a hand had been extended by David Tejano.

~~~

I followed David’s vehicle to the reservation. We traveled through back roads among numerous canals lined with orange and almond groves, then out onto country roads that cut through broad agricultural fields of broccoli, lettuce, and corn. It was beautiful in its own way. Colorado River water, diverted by the canals, ran blue and bubbling through the fields.

At the entrance to the main reservation a large tribal seal showed a tall fisherman spearfishing along the river. This was the homeland of the River People. Green lawns in front of the Cultural Center and Tribal Headquarters were planted with rose bushes now in full bloom in shades of red, peach, and yellow. A ramada made of mesquite wood and woven with willow and arrowweed for shade stood outside the main doors of the museum. I noted the beauty and heard the quiet statement it made. There was a feeling of honor about it, like rising from the dust; a sturdy tree would flower there one day.

I parked outside the headquarters next to David. My first meeting would be with the environmental engineer, a non-native employee from the state, who advised the nation about the condition of its natural resources. David left me with Bill Sherwood and told me that it might be possible to get me on the Tribal Council’s agenda later that week. I thanked him and he left. I watched as he walked across the road to his office, his dark hair shining in the sunlight: he to his work, and me to mine.

The River People: Chapter 2

Copyrighted by Susan L. Feathers, Author

1998 Tempe, Arizona

Vicky Greenway finished her last lap with a sprint to the finish. She pulled herself onto the pool’s edge like a sleek otter flows onto an embankment. Basking in the hot Arizona sun, she pulled off her swim cap, releasing her long ebony hair to tumble down her back. Vicky studied the other swimmers in numerous lanes across the university’s Olympic-size pool. Her mind rambled over the morning’s surprise meeting with her director at the Center for Southwest Studies where she served as an Education Liaison.

“How would you like to blow this joint for a very unusual assignment?” her director asked with a wry grin.

“Oh, Lord,” Vicky intoned, wondering what thing she was being offered that no one else wanted to do.

Vicky was the junior employee at her workplace—the “go to girl” her male colleagues had tagged her, which Vicky translated to “the fall girl”.

“No, I really mean it,” her boss emphasized. “This will take you to the Lower Colorado River valley near Yuma to work with a small tribe—the River People.”

Vicky stared into her director’s quizzical face. She was concentrating on Yuma.

“Isn’t Yuma where we send hardcore prisoners to roast in their jail cells?” She recalled that Geronimo had been entombed there as punishment for outwitting the U.S. Cavalry.

“That was then. Now it is a huge sprawling Southwest city.” He emphasized Southwest as if to remind his employee this was official business. Gerald Abrams watched the thunderclouds roiling across Vicky’s beautiful face, the sparks of lightning glistening in her brown, almond-shaped eyes. He’d once had a huge crush on her until she’d made it perfectly clear that affairs with married men were not in her repertoire of relationships.

“Sounds like I am being banished to a god-forsaken dusty town to do something no one else wants to tackle. Could I be wrong?” Her sharp wit ignited over her desk. Gerald knew then that she would take the assignment because Vicky Greenway loved a challenge. She’d said it herself: her best assignments possessed cognitive dissonance. That penchant for unruly situations resulted from years of teaching middle school students.

“Okay, let’s review this ‘opportunity’ as you put it,” Vicky said, sitting straight up in her leather office chair and leaning on the glass-topped desk. “There is no river in Yuma now, and I’ve never heard of the River People. So why is our center suddenly interested in them?”

Gerald crossed his legs, wrinkling his pressed Dockers and showcasing the worn edges of his running shoes. Dress at the center was casual, a reason Vicky liked working there. She was an athlete, a runner, swimmer, and lately a rock climber. In her late 30’s she was the picture of health in her running pants, tight yoga top, and flip-flops. She delighted the all-male staff, most of whom were pushing 50.

“That’s the crux of the matter, Vicky,” Gerald said. “The changes in that imperiled river are mirrored in changes the River People are experiencing.” He paused with furrowed brow and a pensive stare at the floor. “There is barely a drop of Colorado River water flowing past or through their reservation for people known as the River People. Their history reaches back at least 1,000 years when that river was wildly carving a path to the sea. It’s an extraordinary transformation that includes the destruction of habitats as well as lives.

Victoria Greenway was getting over her initial skepticism. Maybe this was really an important assignment, one where she might learn something new while helping in ways yet unidentified. But still, that did not answer her initial query: Why me?

“This kind of relationship building takes someone who can tolerate ambiguity, and who is patient beyond what males are capable of.”

Greenway laughed out loud. “What a copout!” she said.

The two were silent, Vicky staring at Gerald, and he looking back but not directly. “There have been a small number of university professors and researchers who have gone to the tribe to make oral history recordings, to conduct environmental impact studies, etc., but they’ve all come home like defeated troops. The River People are wary, as expected, but it goes beyond that. The River People are known as the only tribe among the Colorado River Nations who resisted attempts by the government to herd them like sheep onto one reservation, as if all nations were the same.”

Vicky liked that. Her government had wreaked unforgiveable violence on Native Americans.

Gerald continued, “With disrupted ways of life, the level of poverty is high, and now diabetes and alcoholism are rampant.”

Another silence. Vicky was confused. “But that is the work of social workers and medical specialists,” she said. “What exactly do you want me to do down there?”

Vicky was beginning to back away from the assignment, sensing that her director really had no plan.

“Well, I’ve been in touch with the EPA official based at the reservation. He described many issues in habitat restoration for which we both discussed the need to engage the members of the tribe to help manage it.”

In the ensuing silence, Vicky heard the conqueror voice again. The “help manage it” bristled inside her. Shouldn’t they be asking the River People what they needed?

“Let me get this straight,” Vicky said. She stood up to rearrange her seat cushion.

Gerald could see storm clouds gathering over Vicky’s brow. Before she could launch a counter to his idea, he asserted, “Vicky, we need to go there to ask the tribal council permission to talk with the elders, to explore whether they might participate in the efforts of the EPA biologist, and maybe even bring along the youth to learn about caring for the habitat.”

Now the nature of the assignment became clear. Vicky was shocked Gerald would even consider such a plan.

“Okay, again, let me get this straight. We destroy their habitat by damming the river, running them off their tribal lands, lands on which their people have lived and thrived for a thousand years, and now you want me to go there to ask them to help clean up the mess we made?”

Greenway’s cheeks flushed with red as her outrage grew. “Oh, and, gee I forgot, we ask them to do it when they are very sick and depressed about what has been done to them? Are you kidding?” Now Vicky was yelling, while standing behind her desk with her hands on her hips.

“Well, no! Hell, no!”

That was how Vicky took the assignment to accomplish the impossible, the improbable. It was just the kind of work Gerald knew she could not turn down. A military brat who had learned to land on her feet anywhere and get along with everyone, and a woman with a big heart and superb skills in project development. The director of the Center for Southwest Studies had found his emissary in Miss Victoria Greenway.

The River People

Chapter 1

“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.”
Aldo Leopold, from the Foreword to A Sand County Almanac.

20,000 – 3,000 B.C.

The River People came from the north, over the land bridge between Asia and North America during the ice age. They were part of the Pacific Coastal language group that may have mixed with later groups from the plains. About 3,000 B.C., some of the River People migrated south. They eventually settled alongside a mighty river, so powerful and turbulent, it carried canyons to the sea. It flowed red and fast at its origin, reshaping jagged rocks to smooth boulders while carving its bed in the soft red and yellow limestone of canyons with each passing year.

There were many tribal groups that took up residence on this river. From time to time they warred among themselves to gain more land or to protect their hunting grounds. Eventually, territories were established and the River People came to occupy the portions of the river where it channeled into thousands of inlets, lagoons, and estuaries before giving itself to the sea: the delta.

For millennia, a riverine way of life was lived by the River People, adapted to fit the river’s seasonal flows and natural resources, such as the rich silt left behind on the riverbanks as spring floodwaters receded. The River People farmed in these muddy recesses, rich with minerals. They grew many varieties of beans, corn, and grains, melons and herbs. The rich soil and seasonal floods supported the growth of forests of mesquite trees, tall cottonwoods, and tangles of willows that provided a natural habitat for many animals and birds. The leguminous mesquite trees dropped thousands of seedpods each season. The bitter-tasting beans were roasted and ground to brew a drink, while the pod was ground into a sweet tasting flour. In modern times this flour was discovered to naturally maintain a person’s blood sugar level.

The river supported many varieties of fish, which the River People learned to spear and net with skill. Salmon, chub, mullet, and native trout provided lean protein, while the creatures in the mesquite forests—deer, wild turkey, quail, rabbit, and fowl—provided fatty proteins for quick energy. On the lagoons and in the marshes, the geese and ducks provided more delectable meals. Nothing was better than a succulent goose roasted over the burnt embers of mesquite logs, under long clear nights when the River People enjoyed telling stories, singing, and dancing.

Much of the River People’s ways and means were established by trial and error, preserved in their stories and songs, and handed down from grandparent to parent to child. It was a certain kind of wisdom about how to live on the lands on which they worked, loved, and thrived. And so it was for thousands of years and hundreds of generations of the River People.

Held vs State of Montana: First Constitutional Trial for the Climate

Our Children’s Trust, dedicated to supporting youth who are grieving for their rights to health and safety in their future, will represent youth in Montana who will challenge their State to provide means to a safe, sustaining future. Go here today to watch the trial and through June 23. Bookmark the page. Stand by youth. Follow the links to raise your voice on their behalf and support their case. Update: Bloomberg Article, June 9, by Jennifer Hijazi.

June 13 Update from Democracy Now

June 14 Article Summary of Trial by The Guardian. Excellent article.

Also, today’s testimony included tribal officials and tribal youth. Their remarks are very pertinent and provide guidance to all of us regarding climate change. See the Our Children’s site for the trial. Scroll down to Updates.

Will our youth have their basic right to life and limb supported? Or will the old, oily gears of a technological-capitalist system deny them even this simple right? It has come to this. We must listen to our youth. Abandoning their plea is a death wish of the greatest magnitude in human history.

Photo by Susan Feathers, Virginia Beach, Tidewater Community College

This alive, breathing Earth

Emergence Magazine offers humankind art, essay, and consistently inspiring programs that draw us to our true nature.

This Sunday’s essay by David Abrams is a sterling example of the treasures you might find on their website. I recommend signing up for the weekly emailed link to stories. It has buoyed me up from the seas of concern that constant immersion in roiling human culture erects between our real lives and manufactured realities that are mostly untrue or at least of little use to us.

Abrams draws our attention back to where we live, who we are, and the daily examples of life breathing with the planet.

Creative Ways to Use Your Voice

See the link below for five platforms Global Citizen has created, from making a poster digitally or freehand, to a hopeful poem, to other actions that can capture people’s imaginations and work together to create a safe, just future. I want to personally thank Global Citizen for making simple ways for all of us to join in the chorus to protect this planet and Her peoples. Women across the world in particular face injustices and are disproportionately impacted by climate change and by poverty and abuse. The conditions of women are a reflection of how we treat the Earth Herself. Let’s do better!

GLOBAL CITIZENS FIVE CREATIVE WAYS TO USE YOUR VOICE TO POWER OUR PLANET

For writers and for imaginative people in general, Grist Magazine has a short story contest (deadline coming up soon) to win $3,000 for a winning story from the year 2200. Lesser amounts are awarded for the next three story winners. Also, listen to the stories from other dreamers of a hopeful future. They are masterful and full of great ideas and predictions and references to the past that will catch your attention. Read stories from the 2022 contest.

Grist Magazine Short Story Contest: IMAGINE 2200

Halleluiah, by Mary Oliver

Everyone should be born into this world happy
     and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward  it.
Halleluiah, anyway I'm not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
     almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
         and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
     is ever that easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I'm sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.

Mary Oliver

American Democracy is Important to the World

Evan Mawarire, Former Political Prisoner,
Speaks at Georgetown SFS 2023 Commencement Ceremony

American Democracy at Risk?

If you study history, you cannot miss numerous signs of a weakening. Attempts to weaken our democratic way of life, our democratic norms and policies, and even the institutions that for the last 236 years (since the passage of the Constitutional government in 1787) have been the envy of the world, are assaulted by ever growing forces for authoritarian rule much as they did in Germany. These forces gnaw at the three branches of government, the voting system, the Bill of Rights and Amendments refining how the nation is continually tweaking its laws to become “a more perfect union.”

A pack of wolves at the neck of the nation.

A free press that serves the governed (not the governing) but the people, is considered the most influential function to maintain a “government by the people and for the people.” The right has denigrated the free press ever since Donald Trump began that assault out of his own fears that they reveal him for what he is: a power monger and usurper.

Since the rise of populism in the U.S.A., we have witnessed a steady erosion of the branches of government, none more than the Supreme Court, and the inability of the House and Senate to carry on a decent discussion that is not a screaming match or one of slander and derision, back and forth.

The voting system is being steadily eroded in red states by removing Electors and casting doubt on the most critical tool the citizen has for guiding and providing the necessary oversight of government: his, her, or their vote. Gerrymandering has rendered many voters vote meaningless by redistricting to water down majority voting blocks. This has been egregiously utilized by Republicans.

Citizens have lost reproductive rights, gender identity rights, and protective justice in employment and higher education, even in sports. Every social and political area of our civic lives is being reduced with very judgmental policies and denigrating language for the citizens denied of their rights. Attacks to weaken environmental protections unleash forces that will impact water, air, and general health and the wellbeing of our people and their homelands.

What is more disturbing is the way that authoritarian forces are using Christianity as a weapon against people who have been targeted by the populist doctrines. This is an old play from the books of our worst characters and history. Use Christ to shame and denigrate people into submission. He must be packing his bags to leave town about right now. Or maybe He’s long gone from their ranks. Serves them right.

Donald Trump has been the agent with the greatest force influencing Republicans and all sorts of fascist fringe groups to cobble together his “base” – an apt word. He is an insurrectionist and a danger to democracy. He has openly joined with other authoritarian leaders around the world.

A friend of mine sent me a link to an insightful article by a historian who in studying the roots of the Civil War, discusses similar forces and tactics arrayed over time, and the “group think” that developed among slave owning states and voters. Referring to the Bible was a prime tool to justify injustice.

I urge all of you to read it and to send it on to your friends and others in your sphere of influence. Our democracy has never been at a greater risk than it is now. Only we can stop these forces. It is up to you and me.

On the American Battlefield Trust webpages: “Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought” – Address to the Charleston Library Society, January 25, 2011. The article is by Gordon Rhea. The American Battlefield Trust.org.

Hope in Youth Leadership

If you are feeling overwhelmed by climate news and the threats to our democracy, NextGen America and Our Children’s Trust will hearten your spirit.

NextGen America supports the Youth Vote. It made a huge difference in the 2020 election – the fight to save the soul of America and is now gearing up to influence the vote in 2024. Their mission statement is, “NextGen America’s mission is to empower young voters to engage in the political process and ensure our government is responsive to the largest and most diverse generation in American history.”

In a zoom presentation today with Doug Emhoff encouraged us to make sure the vision and investment in America through the Inflation Reduction Act is widely understood. We need to show how it is making a difference in our lives. See the Rewiring America Guide to the IRA below, a handy guidebook to understand the great deals that are now possible for families and individuals as well as businesses, nonprofits, and states and cities. It is massive in its impact IF AMERICANS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT. We’ve got ten years of these programs and their savings with this long lasting program. The money is available but only if each of the stakeholders from individual citizens to families to governments take advantage of it. In other words, Biden and Harris have made the Clean Energy Transition possible but we have to be the agents of change by buying an EV, making our appliances and homes more energy efficient, and helping our communities convert to more renewable power until we make the full transition. Please share with your family and friends.

Another very hopeful youth-led group initiative is Our Children’s Trust which support youth taking their governments to court for violation of their rights to a safe and healthy future. *Coming up June 12, the first constitutional trial is happening in Montana. The implication of a rule in their favor can have a massive impact on moving our slow acting governments to make serious, demonstrable actions toward a safe environment for the young generations here now and those coming behind them. Be sure to view it and share with your friends and family to make people aware of these eloquent and brave youth who are pushing adults in power to do the right thing for theirs and future generations.

Below is the Guide to the IRA for citizens. Download it for your own information and use for your family, neighborhood, business, and community.

Rewiring America Go Electric Digital Guide Download