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Adventure Guest Blog: Sacred Soil

Forrest Borie – traveler/adventurer/writer and The Adventure School guest blogger, contemplates a relationship greater than commerce with the land on which he is currently living/learning.

“To you, this is just dirt, but our people lived on it, had ceremonies on it, were buried in it,” LB says as he looks over the rich black soil piled at his feet. The soil came from a desecrated gravesite.

“The integrity remains in this soil.”

Two long black braids of hair hang before LB’s rotund shoulders. His torso is heavy and his legs thin and athletic. We are at an isolated power station called Balch Camp. Before the arrival of Europeans Balch Camp was a meeting place for regional tribes, including the Paiute, who lived on the other side of this impassable mountain range.

LB walks over to a greater pile of soil. It stretches twenty feet long by ten feet wide. A loose blue tarp billows over the soil like a sail and the eagle feathers tethered to his baseball hat whip across the brim.
All this soil was taken from a trench dug to fit a sewage line. The trench was dug without notifying the Mono Indians. Eight or so feet down, the workers struck a body. They left the body in the open for two weeks and piled the soil up where we are, on a tall hill beside a massive pipe at least ten feet wide. There is more soil piled down by the trench, on which all work halted. It has been patched with plywood and is surrounded with yellow tape. Much of the soil has already been sifted for artifacts and human remains that in a Western mind infuse an archaeological site with meaning (arrowheads, leather pouches, etc…). The artifacts and remains now sit in a drawer over at the Forestry Service offices awaiting repatriation (return to the gravesite). The Mono Indians are stonewalling that effort however. They won’t accept only a partial repatriation.

“All this soil should be designated as a sacred site,” LB says, flicking one of his braids over his shoulder. Together, the artifacts, the remains, and the soil constitute the archaeological site. One aspect cannot be separated from the others without compromising the site’s holistic nature. That is, to rebury artifacts in the same spot with a new batch of soil is pointless. Not only was this soil part of a gravesite, but people lived on it, had children on it, they ate on it, slept on it, and performed ceremonies on this soil. These acts of living, performed without respite for thousands of years, have turned the soil the deep brown color, the same tone as LB’s complexion.

“Midden soil,” LB says.

As neither the tribe nor the power company are willing to compromise, this soil is still baking under the blue tarp. It’s hard to say which party is making the process of repatriation more difficult as both are working in the shadows. The power company is trying to register Balch Camp as a spot of historical importance for the state of California, which would pave over its true indigenous heritage. Meanwhile, the tribe is working to register all of Balch Camp as a sacred site, which would force the power company to leave, taking all their buildings and their power station with them. This pile of black soil rests between this tension, its essence and heritage the true mitigating force between the parties disputing over Balch Camp”.

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