Martin’s Backyard — Occupation

Martin Montgomery Sr. lived in Northern California.  A Native American, he never talked much about his people.  Whether anyone knew his heritage — whether he was Northern Paiute, Washoe or from another tribe — I do not know.  I simply  remember seeing him in downtown Chico.  Chico was mostly white back in the 1970s, and seeing this sage-like man all over town somehow captured my heart.

When he moved into my apartment complex on Cherry Street we became friends.  I helped him with life sometimes.  I still remember getting angry once with a doctor when Martin stayed in Enloe, the local hospital, for an illness.  I helped Martin navigate his stay there, but for some reason the doctor thought his hernia was a hoot.  My friend was sedated, and the doctor unprofessional.  I told him I did not appreciate the attitude.  (Not that Martin would have cared much what he thought.)

Several days later, I found Martin feeling much better.  He was talking about the “power food” his friend brought him in a mason jar.  It was brown and thick and made from acorns.  It would make him well, he said.  I asked him how his friend made it, but he wasn’t sure.  Or I forgot.  All I remember is he was out of the hospital in no time, and back on his feet.

“Looks like rain,” I said one day when we were out walking near his new place.  “I should get back.”

He looked up at the sky.  “It’s not going to rain,” he said, “the clouds are too high.”  And he was right.  He had moved into an assisted living facility by then and I often walked over there.

I got to thinking about Martin the other day as I read about the Bundy family occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.  The father, Cliven, and Cliven’s Nevada protest, is shared here.  The article about Cliven, seen in full by following this link, is a never-ending story.  What would Martin think?

I still remember the day he and I were talking, or perhaps siting silently, as we often did.  He said he could not teach me all I wanted to learn — or thought I wanted to learn.  I tried to talking him out of this notion (I am sure I wasn’t happy), but he said what he said, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Days later when I visited, there was another man sitting and talking with him, a powerful man whom I felt uneasy being with.  I got the impression he was not used to people like me (or vise versa), but on reflection, I think I was probably too tired to journey anywhere.  I was unemployed, and usually hungry.  I was thinking about returning home to Iowa.

I never did learn who the stranger was, but when I said goodbye, I let Martin know how much our friendship meant to me.  There was no sorrow in our goodbye, not really, just a melancholy understanding.  It simply “was.”  I have never forgotten my friend.  For Martin held the natural world in high regard, we both did, as many do in the Great Basin.

The Great Basin, the place Bundy and his crew believe they belong.  The place where they do whatever they want.  An area that encompasses parts of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and California.  The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has a home here, in Oregon’s high desert, and was once the Northern Paiutes’ traditional wintering grounds. 

The Northern Paiute lived on the land in light green, and could travel south, past Washoe territory.  (The map is from Boise Aquatic Sciences Lab, in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 legal code.)

The Northern Paiutes are not happy.  Long before the Bundy family, and the gunmen who came with them, claimed the refuge for private citizens, the Northern Paiute lived and worshiped in the Great Basin foe millennia.  In 1996, for example, a mummified corpse nearly 10,000 years old was claimed as an ancestor. 

According to The Times, a British daily based in London, the body was found in Spirit Cave in western Nevada by Sidney and Georgia Wheeler: the dry desert climate had preserved the flesh on the upper part of the body, as well as a fur robe, moccasins, and woven reed mats. 

'''We believe this is an ancestor of the Northern Paiutes,' a spokesman for the tribe said of the Spirit Cave find...."  A calm of ownership that dates back at least 10,000 years.  

To be fair, the mummified remains were also claimed by the Fallon Piaute Shoshone tribe, but the people who represents this area is obvious. Petroglyphs have also been found, and estimated, according to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, dated August 15, 2013, to be 14, 800 years old. Scientists can't say for sure, of course, who carved them, but locals know.

On January 9, 2016, in response to the Burns-Paiute Tribe's news conference, and Harney County residents' public meeting, Governor Kate Brown issued a news released.

“To members of the Burns-Paiute Tribe and residents of Harney County who seek a return to normal life: I hear you,” Brown said in her news release, “and I agree that what started as a peaceful and legal protest has become unlawful.  It was instigated by outsiders whose tactics we Oregonians don't agree with. Those individuals illegally occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge need to decamp immediately and be held accountable.”

The day before her news release, the occupiers got an earful, according to The New York Times. But even the ranchers spoke up.

How ranchers get to use their lands, and how much government should play a role in that question, was a central theme,” Kirk Johnson reported in The New York Times.

'' 'We need to get together and stand up,' said Erin Maupin, a rancher.  'I just want to let people know that no use is misuse.' ''

But there really isn’t a contest between overgrazing and what the Puiate people call "puha," or power, a traditional belief that everything in the universe has a life force. 

It is easy to see.  Yes, a man who believes acorn gruel can heal, and return a life force to him, is unique in the modern world.  But who will dispute this belief?  A medical doctor who cannot understand, or perhaps men with guns? 

The New York Times said it best, ''…saying that the protesters, in demanding that the federal property at the refuge be returned to ranchers who once owned it, were ignorant of history. If anyone should get the property back, they said, it should be them. Their ancestors were roaming the still wild and empty reaches of what is now called the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge perhaps as long as 15,000 years ago.

'' 'Don't tell me any of these ranchers came across the Bering Strait,' said the tribal chairwoman, Charlotte Rodrique. ''We were here first,'' she added in a news conference on the reservation. ''We'd like the public to acknowledge that.

“Other tribe members, in even harsher denunciation..., said the protesters were a public menace and an insult to the local people.

'''We as Harney County residents don't need some clown coming in here to stand up for us,' said another tribal council member, Jarvis Kennedy, asked about the protest group's leader, Ammon Bundy….''

Simply, he wanted them all to go home.

Mozart and Steppenwolf (The Band, Too)

It was all about laughter and the joyful acceptance and release of the demons... a man born to be wild, with caveats, of course.

“Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes things visible”—Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss-born artist.

In the novel, “Steppenwolf,” a bestseller worldwide, Carl Jung, who advanced the notion of a collective unconscious, took center stage in the novel’s early look at Germany’s pre-Hitler, free-wielding jazz age. Once a protégé of Sigmund Freud, Jung believed a man’s (and a woman’s) inner self harbored both an Anima and Animus: the feminine as well as the masculine side of human nature.  

In the journey of madness and salvation, Hermann Hesse, a popular German-Swiss author, explored the idea when his protagonist, Harry Haller, “rejected” Hermine, his Anima (the feminine side of his unconscious).   

Hesse’s marriage had tanked, and like Haller, the author fought depression. Or, as Haller saw it, the struggle between mediocrity and life, the Wolfe der Steppen (which the rock band Steppenwolf also explored). And while the band’s leader had not read the novel when he changed his band’s name from The Sparrows to a beast, he did, according to historical accounts, ultimately, read “Steppenwolf.” 

The interplay between emotions create a struggle between good and evil, which music soothes and heals.

Haller’s music wasn’t Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” (not available at the time, of course), but Mozart’s music. In fact, Mozart was “immortal,” according to Haller. But readers were also left with the impression that by entering the so-called “Magic Theatre” (For Madmen Only!), a better understanding of life followed. Haller’s guide on this journey was a Jazz musician named Pablo.

“Steppenwolf” was first published in 1927. Unfortunately, the cavalier treatment of Hermine’s death, where life is a journey, and it’s ending a game to reach the perfect state of being, created anger (Hesse disputed this). But for many “baby boomers,” who were born just after Hitler died, the quest to find and accept ones’ Anima (or Animus) played out in the novel like a modern-day Bible story. And for some, the novel’s obsession with Mozart pushed classical music to the fore.

Unfortunately, Mozart does not come easily. For example, boys don’t “do” Mozart, and a blogger still remembers his struggle accepting the sissy music, even after years of Mendelssohn and Beethoven. Without ever even listening to Mozart’s music, it was ipso facto, too dainty. 

In truth, however, it can be hard-hitting and personal. For example, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 is cringe-worthy (for it was indeed written with an individual in mind — possibly after a row with his father).

Interestingly, one definition of Animus is hostility (reflected in the killing of Hermine). Thus, conflicting doubts about Mozart and the avant-garde of the Weimar Republic, which was disturbingly chronicled by George Grosz, may well have helped create a rage that Haller struggled with on his journey. 

For after all, would not Mozart have been for wimps? How could he be divine? Indeed, this frustration, in part, explains the internal conflict and why Haller sought to destroy Hermine,¹ a woman who came from the wild, jazzy lifestyle Pablo had shown him — more masculine, yes, but a sure ticket to hades, according to many at the time.  

“I understood it all,” Haller said after ‘killing’ Hermine. “I understood Pablo.  I understood Mozart, and somewhere behind me, I heard his ghastly laughter. …  One day, I would be a better hand at the game.  One day I would learn how to laugh.  Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.”

Hermine’s death is troubling but symbolic. The “Magic Theatre” explored a man’s emotional struggle in fantasy.

Today, of course, Jazz is not seen as it once was, and Mozart’s music is for manly men, too. Still, it’s not easy to sit and watch, or more importantly, actually listen to an entire Mozart piano concerto. And if there is any doubt, the one shared here (at the end of the article) is a particularly challenging work of classical music. 

Even the encores are remarkable in this performance, but try watching the entire video. Yes, it can be difficult. Still, how could it drive one to madness? Hermine’s death in the novel is troubling but symbolic: The “Magic Theatre” explored a man’s emotional and mental struggle in fantasy.

Interestingly, this on display in the Mozart video shared below between two women, whom the videographers record with delight.² As Klee, the Swiss-born artist, said in German long ago: Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar. An insight that no doubt, intrigued the wolves. 

Viewer beware: the Wolfe der Steppen ignores the emotional side of pleasure at his peril.

Viewer beware: the Wolfe der Steppen ignores the emotional side of pleasure at his peril. He can learn to accept his anima, of course, the reality of his feminine side, primarily through insights found in Mozart’s emotionally fulfilling music. But it is not easy, as the murder of Hermine suggests.

According to Hesse’s Haller, living life to its fullest was also meaningful. It’s why Haller wanted to be “a better hand at the game.” It was all about laughter and the joyful acceptance and release of the demons that kept Haller from emotional fulfillment, a man born to be wild, with caveats, of course. Like harmless, playful videographers. (Or, maybe not....) ³ 

Footnotes
¹ It should be noted that individualization, often absent in German Pietism (the religion of Hesse’s family and native Swabia), was a luxury Hesse had to fight for as a young man. Some writers, Christoph Gellner on a web post, for example, have written the possible genesis behind the biblical character, Cain,  shows a radical flight against repression (an original rebel as it were). 

Thus. it has been theorized, Hesse, standing against the mind numbing repression of individuality found in Pietism, created his life and works.  The “evil” of Jazz and its “lifestyle,” thus, could well be fictional motive for murder to a man torn between the divine of Mozart, and the “degenerative” nature of Jazz. As history has shown, Hitler, and others, had a problem with “degenerate art,” and even the corresponding lifestyle found in Jazz saloons. 

² This performance is remarkable, but has been continuously removed. If gone again, due to “multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement,” hopefully, a copy will be posted legitimately (which, I believe, has finally happened). However, another, which is not as high quality, is also complete and includes the second encore, which is perfect for a post-Wolfe der Steppen practice session. 

³ A cellist is a stand out for the Wolfe der Steppen here. Even though heavily edited now, her faux pas still shines. The concertmaster notices the faux pas, and while the two are obviously friends, her reaction is unmistakable. It is an emotionally-charged, brilliant performance throughout. It channels Mozart’s last piano concerto perfectly; the orchestra’s emotional connection to the master who wrote it, a perfect written goodbye performance (in this blogger’s opinion). Even the bounders reveal themselves in the shadows of its splendor.