Cave Rock

[allthumbs]

muffy, do a google search on cave dwellers.

[sk]

most I could come up with so far is that there were cave dwellers in the grand gulch region of southeastern Utah.

 

still woild be interested in learning about their beliefs about climbing rocks

[AA]

Muff, I agree with you- closing Cave Rock will only set precedent for who knows how many other closures for similar/other reasons... I just think the 'just assimilate them' attitude doesn't really need to be brought into it...

The cave dwellers I believe were the Anasazi people (I think- anyone else remember?) and from some of my readings I believe some of the SW tribes did even climb some cliffs, albeit not the same as today's form...

[sk]

Much agreed AA I do not think assimilatin is good. I greatly respect and have studied a little of native american history and culture, and find the conection with nature inspiring beyond mesure.

 

respect is a good thing, but I still want to climb

[fern]

still woild be interested in learning about their beliefs about climbing rocks

 

I think their (Anasazi) beliefs about anything are a mystery because they disappeared several centuries before european contact and they had no written language.

 

Completely off topic, but in the Yukon the pre-European people have passed down some pretty unusual beliefs about glacier travel. For example you shouldn't fry bacon on a glacier or else you might get eaten by a crevasse or cause a surge.

[sk]

Thank you Fern, for your imput....Not being an archoligist of any sort, I know NOTHING.

 

I believe what I was thinking was the cliff dwellers. It 's too bad that there may be no information to be had

 

I am sort of offended that the artical said that it was especialy offensive that women were climbing

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

"Two things:

 

DFA you're fucking idiot (I know this isn't news to you). Your logic sucks; just because a few people lived in the area a few hundred years before we came doesn't mean they own the whole fucking West. Besides, they lost and we won: to the victor go the spoils, plain and simple. Go ahead and flame me, I don't fucking care."

 

 

Man, you're bitchy lately; what's up with that?

 

DFA isn't going to flame you, despite your decision to grill the Doctor. This isn't some case of "a few people lived in the area," this is nations of people who have systematically been lied to, stolen from, murdered, and crammed on to some of the most worthless tracts of dirt our fair nation has to offer. Now, they ask for a little respect of an area they consider holy, and it's way too much to ask? Bugger that, hoss. One crag (a sport crag, no less -- since when are you so concerned about sport climbing?) at Lake Tahoe, which is surrounded by climbing and close to world-class climbing and bouldering in several directions, and it's too much. They're infringing on our rights as climbers. Rock climbing as we know it has been around for what, 40 or 50 years? And this somehow trumps hundreds of years of native tradition? Shit, you yourself are against adding a bolt to an established climb as it would ruin the route's character and natural difficulty. Yet you can't see the reason in closing a crag to maintain something of cultural importance; a culture that's damn near gone?

 

Ahh, the Monday morning debate. Fabulous.

[freeclimb9]

hundreds of years of native tradition?

Wrong. The Washoe have some beliefs about the lake itself, but the rock crap is new. Their 1500 member tribe is trying to limit access to public land. That's un-American, in my view. Much like the increase in fees at MORA is un-American.

BTW, at Devil's Tower there was no worship there prior to about 15 years ago. And the climbing restriction is voluntary.

[RobBob]

Native tradition horseshit...I don't live in the United States of Native America! And I'm tired of wasting too many of these on 'em.

 

[allthumbs]

Here's a concept for the poor Indians. They get fancied up and hit the bricks to find a job like the rest of us. This country is so diversified ethnically now, that I don't want to hear, "Oh we can't get hired because we're not white."

 

There are jobs out there folks, you just have to get off your lazy asses and go get them. Incidentally, if someone shows up for an interview with me with tongue and eyelid rings and wearing some fucking weird punk outfit, I'm going to show him the door. You want a job, dress, act and look like you mean it.

 

If the Indians are working they can move off the reservations if they want. What's the big problem?

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

You and RobBob are right. Indians are poor and lazy, we took over their land because they were too weak and stupid to defend it adequately, and what's left of their culture and traditions should die ASAP so we can get on with our all-important pursuits of acquisition and contrived recreation.

 

Onward the white man and glorious homogenized monoculture!

[Greg_W]

That's bullshit, DFA. Let's see, we won the war, and then gave the losers ALL SORTS OF FREE SHIT!!!! That's guilt working, plain and simple. Enough is enough. Preserving tradition and such is good, but at the exclusion of others exercising their rights sounds sort of extreme. Why cannot there be balance? I would say that the situation at Devils Tower is pretty balanced (for the time being).

 

Oh, and I don't buy the line that "it was their land and we should give it back." We won fair and square.

[Jim]

Live, consume, be silent, die.

[sk]

Does my 1/32 cherakee blood give me rights to climb where ever the fuck I want????

 

I don't think any culture needs to be assimilated. But I still want to climb. All Land is sacred and realy if you study the culkture, they did not believe in owning land... so please make it make sense to me that if you can not posses something how is it that you can SAY or DETERMIN what otheres can nor can not do there.

 

MHO if the rock did not want to be climbed it would kick everyone off and any one who climbed there would die.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Greg, we hardly gave the losers "all sorts of free shit." The natives have been stuck with a bunch of barely livable dirt that most people wouldn't want to put a parking lot on. Shit, some of the land that was given them has even been flooded by dams, forcing them onto even shittier land. It's not like they all have mansions in Del Mar and free use of Air Force 1. It's not guilt, it's fucking outrage.

 

As far as our having taken the land "fair and square" (ha ha -- not), do you feel that standard should be applied everywhere, or just to the fragmented remnants of subjugated cultures? If DFA brings 50 armed people to your house, kills your family and fences you off in the corner of your back yard, is that fair because superior might made it so? If the government takes your property to build a freeway through it, is it tough shit for you? If they come through with tanks and drive you out, leaving you no recourse; oh, well, they took it, so you're out of luck?

[allthumbs]

That about sums it up hoser. To the victor go the spoils.

[Greg_W]

Dr. Fucking Abhorrent - If the land that we gave them (in some sort of "imminent domain" deal) was so horrible, why don't they pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get out and make a better life? Probably because the Federal Government says that if you leave the rez you don't get the free shit. So they have made a choice to stay and live in squalor and get free shit as opposed to making a successful life for themselves through work and personal improvement. Sounds a lot like a very bad welfare program and it should stop. We are not helping them through our government's actions.

[Greg_W]

If DFA brings 50 armed people to your house

 

You would not live to see the implementation of your plan; you would be the first to die. Actually, I don't think you have the balls, you might scratch that precious Outback of yours

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Does my 1/32 cherakee blood give me rights to climb where ever the fuck I want????

 

No. But maybe it should give you something to think about as far as being run off your land and left with nothing. DFA's fractional amount of Cherokee blood makes him think that maybe, here and there, it might be a nice show of humility on the part of our arrogant nation to make a few concessions to Native Americans. You wouldn't hammer out an aid line on a mosque, you wouldn't chalk up and boulder inside a Buddhist temple, you wouldn't put up routes in a church; why not acknowledge that the same thing has basically been done at Cave Rock, and do the respectful thing and leave it alone?

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

You would not live to see the implementation of your plan; you would be the first to die. Actually, I don't think you have the balls, you might scratch that precious Outback of yours

 

It's a humble Legacy, you bourguois swine-pig, you're the one with the leather seats Out-in-the-back-parking-lot-of-the-mall yuppiemobile. Get it straight, honky.

[RobBob]

I have a business friend who is 100% indian, and whose family was so screwed up that he still tells people he was an orphan child, even tho he's over 60 now. Very successful businessman, civic leader. Everything he has and is, he made and shaped by himself. He did it, and he is quick to tell anybody how we honestly do live in the land of opportunity. He also used to tell me that he often would jump people of other minorities when he heard them whine, calling Bullshit on it.

 

The world's not fukkin fair, but God knows this country offers you an opportunity to be what you want to be. I think it's as close to nirvana as anyone can ask for, if those people who are at the bottom can rise several notches by sheer hard work. I believe that frankly a whole lot of people resent the idea that they might have to work 20-30% harder than others in order to move up.

[freeclimb9]

You wouldn't hammer out an aid line on a mosque, you wouldn't chalk up and boulder inside a Buddhist temple, you wouldn't put up routes in a church; why not acknowledge that the same thing has basically been done at Cave Rock

You don't know what you're writing about. There's an interstate highway that goes through Cave Rock, and the Washoe don't worship there. Nor do they acknowledge any religious significance to Cave Rock in their tribal publications.

[Dru]

Ive never nailed a mosque or a synagogue and have not free soloed a stupa but I have buildered a few cghurches and anyone else who likes buildering would do the same so dont spew that you wouldnt climb on a Church BS. Churches were made for climbing on...look at all the gargoyles etc on some of the medieval cathedrals that you can barely see unless you climb up on them.

 

I also point at Mt Tatlow every time I go by

[allthumbs]

RobBob is right. People from all over the world come here to work and make a new start for themselves. For Indians or African-Americans to constantly piss and moan about their sorry plight in life is horseshit. People can really make something of themselves here if they're not lazy. Fuck anybody that's too lazy to better themselves!

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

OK. The Washoe don't do anything with Cave Rock, and they don't hold Cave Rock as a religious or culturally significant site. If that's actually true, then maybe the whole thing is bullshit. But if it is true, what good would it do them to tie up a bunch of time and resources just to stop people from climbing there? It doesn't make much sense that a tribe of 1,500 would just arbitrarily go to the trouble of keeping people off some rock if it didn't mean something to them.