Golden One

Ja-Ha-Bich! From 'the news'

I learn Your age-old name,

Your blessing called a curse.

Burying Your fertile cycles

in mountains of blame,

they call You bitch,

and witch, and worse.

Some greedy men of Jarbidge

would turn

heritage to rubbish, garbage,

trash Your treasure,

gold to dross, to please a boss.

They turn away, throw away,

make Your world their sewer

(honey-pot their sexist joke.)

Recycler! Renewer!

You are 'away;' and here and now,

there is no other.

Arsenic and old race Mother! Shoshone!

Surely they know You:

Honeyed Shining, Jar of Sweetness!

Some take You wrong, in shame.

Their blind fears shovel lies, raping earth.

Mother, they call You monster in their whining.

You endure, sure, pure,

gold mine of our inner knowing!

Gold nugget tears

are flowing from Your eyes.

You are wise and strong:

sunrise, pouring daily daisy gold.

spilling moonlight’s coins

from sacred loins. Old One!

Where are Your golden shining womben,

Your protectors?

You call to all Your children, call to us

to stand with You, adoring.

You are wild and true and free,

bitch-birthing beauty for the future’s sake.

We are with You

in and for Your wilderness,

where we belong, where we long to be.

SF Chronicle, March 6, 2000 p.1 Jarbidge, Nevada, by Carl Nolte

"Tiny Nevada town pitted against

US Forest Service, Environmentalists”

“The Indians thought this place was cursed, and maybe it is.

A thousand years ago, a monster the Shoshone people

called Ja-Ha-Bich lived here; a hundred years ago,

the beautiful and rugged Jarbidge mountains

were full of gold."

Native American Ethnicity Gathering

at UNLV.EDU Las Vegas, Nevada April 28, 2018

“The 10,000 year old stories and songs of the Shoshone

people are literally the unwritten history of the west.”

Ian Zabart, Secretary, Native Community Action

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018