Earth is our home: July 2008 Archives

We just got hit by a earthquake.  It was supposed to be a large one, they say 5.8, which is supposed to be a big enough to shake the groceries of the shelves in supper market or the books of my shelves, crack the street, and put it a scare into people.

The news report says the center of the quake was 45 miles Southeast of us.  We are getting after shocks right now.  

I am relatively new to Los Angeles, I experienced quakes when I was a young adult in San Francisco but it has been a few years.  When it first hit I thought "there is a bear on my porch."  I spent three years in serving a church in rural Quebec, and I had bears on the porch every once and a while.   Guess I embodied the experience of bears shaking my little house.

Native American Indians considered tobacco to be a sacred drug to be used only for ceremonial purposes.  The way the conquering peoples have come to use tobacco violates its purpose and spirit. Perhaps cultural misappropriation is fatal.

The Hurons tell this story:

When the land was barren and the people were starving, the Great Spirit sent forth a woman to save humanity. As she traveled over the world, everywhere her right hand touched the soil, there grew potatoes. And everywhere her left hand touched the soil, there grew corn. And when the world was rich and fertile, she sat down and rested. When she arose, there grew tobacco . . .

When all was water, the animals lived above in Galunlati but it was very crowded and they wanted more room. Dayunisi, the little Water-beetle, offered to go see what was below the water.

It repeatedly dived to the bottom and came up with soft mud eventually forming the island we call earth. The island was suspended by cords at each of the cardinal points to the sky vault, which is solid rock.

Birds were sent down to find a dry place to live but none could be found. The Great Buzzard, the father of all buzzards we see now, flew down close to the earth while it was still soft. He became tired and his wings began to strike the ground. Where they struck the earth became a valley and where they rose up again became a mountain and thus the Cherokee country was created.

The animals came down after the earth dried but all was dark so they set the sun in a track to go every day across the island from east to west. At first the sun was too close to the island and too hot. They raised the sun again and again, seven times, until it was the right height just under the sky arch. The highest place, Gulkwagine Digalunlatiyun, is "the seventh height".

The animals and plants were told to keep watch for seven nights but as the days passed many begin to fall asleep until on the seventh night only the owl, panther, and a couple of others were still awake. These were given the power to see in the dark and prey on the birds and animals that sleep at night. Of the plants, only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly, and the laurel were awake to the end and were therefore given the power to be always green and to be the greatest medicine, but to the others it was said: "Because you have not endured to the end you shall lose your hair every winter."

Men came after animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was born to her and thereafter every seven days another until there was danger that the world could not keep up with them. Then it was made that a woman should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since.

From James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee 

I live in Southern California, so this article in Indian Country Times was very interesting to me.  There is much agriculture in Southern California, but it depends on massive amounts of water that is brought in from elsewhere.  People build homes in valleys and on hills that are vulnerable to wild fires.  This is a region that needs to begin to revision itself for a sustainable future.

 In one of the most barren regions in the world, an indigenous farmer, Jesus Leon Santos of Nochixtlan, Oaxaca, Mexico, using ancient Mixteca traditions helped to conserve more than 4,000 acres of farmland, prevent massive soil erosion, increase local farm productivity, create more economic growth and, among other things, plant 2 million trees. 

For these efforts and others, was awarded the $150,000 Goldman Environmental Prize for sustainable development for 2008.  Here is what the award givers have to say:

"Jesus Leon Santos leads an unprecedented land renewal and economic development program that employs ancient indigenous agricultural practices to transform this barren, highly eroded area into rich, arable land,'' according to the Goldman Award press statement. ''With his organization, the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca [CEDICAM], Leon has united the area's small farmers. Together, they have planted more than one million native-variety trees, built hundreds of miles of ditches to retain water and prevent soil eroding, and adapted traditional Mixteca indigenous practices to restore the regional ecosystem.'' 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia• 

The Three Sisters are the three main agricultural crops of some Native American groups in North America: squash, maize, and climbing beans (typically tepary beans or common beans).

In a technique known as companion planting, the three crops are planted close together. Flat-topped mounds of soil are built for each cluster of crops. Each mound is about 30 cm (1 ft) high and 50 cm (20 in) wide, and several maize seeds are planted close together in the center of each mound. In parts of the Atlantic Northeast, rotten fish or eel are buried in the mound with the maize seeds, to act as additional fertilizer where the soil is poor.[1][2] When the maize is 15 cm (6 inches) tall, beans and squash are planted around the maize, alternating between beans and squash.

The three crops benefit from each other. The maize provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles. The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants utilize and the squash spreads along the ground, monopolizing the sunlight to prevent weeds. The squash leaves act as a "living mulch," creating a microclimate to retain moisture in the soil, and the prickly hairs of the vine deter pests.

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