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Invoking the Spirits of Our Ancestors:

Mojave elder Llewellyn Barrackman vice!chairman of the "ri#e a#out the importance of the

songs$ %"he songs help to protect our lands$ "hey are a map of our sacred territory$ &e sung the

songs at our gatherings to educate people and to protect ourselves$ 'ach song tells a story$ Our

(reation Songs come from Spirit Mountain and tells a#out the Almighty$) Mojave Bird Songs

and (reation Songs are #oth real and metaphorical maps of ancestral territory that lead the

ancient traveler to places of food water medicines and sacredness where teachings reside in the

rocks$

"he intimate dance #etween land and culture is still practiced in the *orth American Southwest

where patches of wildlands and pockets of native peoples survive$ +ederal land use policies and

decisions have often failed to comprehend this connection or have sought to su#vert it$

"he loss of language is an intimate destroyer vanishing story meaning perception and spiritual

knowledge$ +or people with oral traditions the loss of language is like a fire in the li#rary

leaving pieces of an intricate pu,,le$ But somehow language stories and songs endure$ (ulture

#earers teachers artists and ethnographic recordings provide a map that new generations can

sing giving new meanings to old traditions new life to ancestral guides$ "he songs descri#e the

personal the natural and supernatural landscape in a multi!dimensional reality that Salt Song

singers say ena#le them to fly from place to place$ Like the hot spings at -oo .a Bah flowing

through desert rock the songs nourish healing and transformation$ "he last four Salt Songs aid

the spirit into the ne/t world !! a sacred ritual performed for one and as a service to the whole$

"oday the songs are providing the gift of unity connecting the past with the present uniting

peoples people with the land and the land with our future$ 0

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%&e1ve #een here for thousands of years) an elder e/plained %And even if you move to Ohio or

2enver or wherever you move the &estern Shoshone will still #e here #ut what the 3nitedStates will leave for us is polluted land) 4interview 55 Octo#er 5667894. 7508

%"he stories that have surfaced however are powerful #ecause they portray athoroughly humani,ed version of the reat Basin that counters popular percep!

tions$ "heReno Gazette-Journal issued a series of articles on the Shoshone %Spirit

;un) an annual event during which tri#al mem#ers travel a 57o!mile encirclementof the *evada "est Site to make visi#le their opposition to the

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an assurance derived from his 4or her8 epistemological system that

removing the gravel will affect the tortoise$ 4Stouffle @58

&estern science is #ased upon an epistemological premise thatknowledge a#out the world and its components derives from evidence that

one component is measura#ly related to another$ 4@58

western scientists and American Indian people havediametrically opposite views of the world$ "o western scientists the world

as a whole is not confidently understood #ut gradually #ecomes known #y

analysis of the interrelationships of its components$ "o Indian people thewhole world is confidently known #ut the interrelationship #etween some

of the components may not #e understood$ 4@>8