Mr. Willard Rhodes, Itsatawi – Pit River As California burns in the summer of 2018 I remember the words of a Native American Elder. I met him 20 years ago at the gathering of the Pit River Tribes below Mount Shasta, California. Mr Willard Rhodes told me the story of Coyote who seduced the people into violating the laws of Nature and of right living and how Old Man, the Creator, responded.
It reminded me then – and even more so now – of the African American spiritual God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time! With one important difference.
In the story told by Willard Rhodes the Creator punishes transgressions by sending first the ice and then the flood that we know as Noah’s flood. However the fire next time will not be set off by the Creator. The fires that can destroy the earth will be ignited by Coyote and by the people in a terrible act of self-incineration.
I recorded Mr. Willard Rhodes in the summer of 1998 at the summer camp of the Indigenous Environmental Network. Tribes from all across the US and even as far as Mexico and Canada had come together to take a stand against the geothermal development, that was planned for the sacred Medicine Lake on the flank of Mount Shasta.
For almost 2 decades the lake in the extraordinary landscape of volcanic fields – source of pristine waters, has remained protected from drilling. It is under renewed attack under the Trump administration and the US Department of Interior.
Willard Rhodes passed away on September 12, 2006. To this day he is missed by the Pit River Tribes and his family.
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