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Protecting the Past

Interview with Melvin Brewster, Ph.D. Archaeologist and tribal consultant

Nancy Green: When did you first become aware of Range Creek and the state's acquisition of it?

Melvin Brewster: It was at the end of June 2004, and the way we heard about it was through the media and the newspaper. And what happened was that the Northwest Bend, the Skull Valley Goshutes, the Northern Utes and the Southern Piutes, they each became alarmed that the story had come out nationally and they were advertising artifacts, and they were advertising this land exchange, and there was absolutely no Native American consultation whatsoever.

Green: What was your first reaction?

Brewster: It was, "Here they're at it again". And when I say, "Here they're at
it again," it was the, the Utah State Historic Preservation office, it was the Bureau
of Land Management. And we've always known for many years now that they don't
consult with us responsibly, and so it was more of us realizing that they weren't doing
their job, and they weren't following the laws of the United States.

Green: What are the laws?

Brewster: The law of the United States in that particular law of the land and water
conservation act, states in it that all environmental and all historic preservation laws will
be followed before the acquisition of -- money for -- you know, buying that land. And I
believe they spent 2.5 million dollars to buy that land. The land went into public ownership with the BLM. At that point it was the responsibility of the United States and
Department of the Interior in their trust relationship with Native Americans to
consult with Native American Indian tribes, and these laws included the National Historic Preservation Act, Archeological Resources Protection Act, American Indian Sacred Sites Act, American Indian Religious Freedom Act, National Environmental Protection Act. All of these different acts in a number of presidential memorandum and executive orders and regulations all say that before the expenditure of funds for such a
project -- land disturbing activity, such as a land exchange and transfer -- that before the
licensure or permit, they will consult with Native Americans. And that was never done and the only reason that we were able to consult with them in the end was that we went to the newspapers and started fighting back because they would not work with us.

Green: What happened once the news became public?

Brewster: They started working with us, and we could see that they were very embarrassed.
However, we then ran into another problem with the media because the media didn't
understand the law, and the media also didn't understand the Native American point
of view, and also felt that the Native Americans were biased in acting like victims. So,
what we did was to point out that all Americans had been violated, not just Native
Americans. Because those same laws say that the public needs to be scoped, and the
public was never scoped. And this particular land is so significant to the American people that it should be a National Monument like the Grand Staircase, for example, or Hovenweep or Mesa Verde.

Green: Why do you think the laws weren't followed?

Brewster: It's really important for there to be a large government, and the reason is that the
more people there are in society, the larger government we need. But we need a
responsible government, and the thing is that in small states like Utah, where it's very
conservative, their argument is that we need local control because we better know how
to spend the money. But this is the wrong way to go because usually they want local
control so they don't have to follow environmental policy or historic preservation law.
Range Creek is an example of the Bureau of Land Management working with the state
and the federal government to do a land transfer under the table and not follow the law.
That's why they want local control, so they can violate the law and they don't have the
federal government watch dog making sure that this land and our nation's laws are
protected for all Americans.

They think that environmental laws protecting the environment and
historic preservation laws protecting the archaeological science for the people and the
religious freedom of Native Americans are all unnecessary expenses that are
unimportant. And it's all coming from their own ideology of what is important and what
isn't important. It's very colonialist.

Green: Do you think Native Americans have any voice in Range Creek at all?

Brewster: I think that once I left Utah, the watch dog was gone because many of the
Native people in Utah depended on me to confront federal agencies because it really
isn't their way to confront federal or state agencies even though they're very distressed
at what's going on. So in many ways, when I was in Utah Native people there depended on me to confront issues because of my education, my spiritual background and my experience working in this field.

Green: What was your official position?

Brewster: I was part of the Native American review committee for the State of Utah and I was an official Goshute representative, and I work as a cultural resources and historic preservation heritage advisor to the Northwest Band Shoshone. And at that time I was the tribal historic preservation office director for the Skull Valley Goshutes. I also had written my dissertation on the archaeology of northeast Utah.

Green: So did you get to go into Range Creek?

Brewster: We finally were invited to Range Creek after fighting for 2 months in the media. And the media, eventually through an article in Nature Magazine, found that what the tribes and I were saying was true. They found that the BLM had violated many laws, and they had found that what had happened was done under the table, and they had found that the Republican party was doing this thing where they were giving away federal land to states, and they were using the Land and Water Conservation Act. And they were doing it all under the table without following the law. And so the thing is that once this was verified through the media, and once the media started finding out that what I was telling them was true, then the story started to change, and the BLM was then calling the media and telling them that "Hey, you're picking on us," and so the thing is that once this started getting nationwide and worldwide they offered to take us to Range Creek finally.

Green: Take me on a tour of Range Creek- describe what it was like to actually walk on that land for the first time.

Brewster: What happened is that we brought Maurice Frank from the Duck Water Shoshone tribe, Patty Timbimboo Madsen from the Northwest Band, and another tribal representative from the Southern Piute tribe. The Northern Ute tribe was unable to show up for the visit. So when we got to the top of the mountain there, before you go into Range Creek, we stopped and did a blessing ceremony where we sang four songs, and then we blessed everybody with an eagle fan. And while we were blessing some of the archaeologists, they really didn't like it. They felt offended that we want to work with them spiritually before we went into Range Creek. And the whole reason that we had to do the blessing was that we have to ask permission from those spirits to go into that canyon. Cause it's been many years since Native people have been able to even go in that valley, and so during our ceremony and our prayers we asked for permission to go there and we asked for protection and that's what we did. We gave them food and tobacco.

So, when we went into Range Creek we got down in the valley and we stopped and we looked at some rock writing. I prefer not to call it "art" because to Native people, we consider it a sacred writing. Some of the writing we consider is directly from the Creator that was put on the rock, and some of the writing we consider is put there by Spirits. Other writing is put on there by Timbimboo, rock writers. So, once we're able to get down to Range Creek and see some of the rock writing, we were able to notice that it was positioned in mind with geographical features that we call geological hoodoos. And the geological hoodoos are rocks that look like ghosts or spirits or ghouls. And these writings just happen to be triangulated in a way that we call these spots "portals", and these portals go into the spirit world, and the panels themselves depict ceremonial knowledge, and with this ceremonial knowledge are songs and prayers that accompany, ah, paints the way things are drawn, as well as there position on the landscape.

So we have seen things like that and we realized that many of these locations are sacred and that they need to be cared for in a particular manner. And we did observe some archeology sites and some of these archeology sites we observed appeared to be what we call, circles of life. These circles of life are also prayer sites, and some of the granaries we observed on the canyon walls for us looked like prayer cache offerings for spirits. So, you know a, a prayer cache is about this big, and it's up in the middle of a cliff. The Utah archeologists thought that these were caches that were hidden from enemies that were attacking. What we felt, and what we were able to find out from the spirit, was that these are prayer cache offerings, and that they have nothing to do with defense. What they have to do with is like the ceremony I was explaining when we first came into the valley. We offered food to the spirits in each direction and to the ancestors, and asked permission to be there. They offered food in the prayer cache to the spirits for bringing rain, for bringing them corn, for bringing beans and squash, for making sure that tubers grew in that valley and actually saying "thank you" to those spirits for feeding them. That's what these prayer caches are about. They're not about defense.

Green: How do you respond when the archaeologists say the evidence doesn't support that these were prayer caches? Many of the granaries are huge; they can hold 1000 liters of corn or grain.

Brewster: The thing about it is that, they've not shared that data with me. I have not seen these. The only ones I've seen are really small and look like prayer cache offerings that are still done today. I do them myself. Many traditional healers do them themselves today. And we've been doing that for thousands of years in the Great Basin and so the thing is, is that since they've not shared any data with me and they refuse to share data with me. I can't answer that question because I've not seen the data.

Green: What was it like for you spiritually, to be walking in Range Creek?

Brewster: What I felt was that those ancestors were very happy to see us, and I got the feeling that "Grandson, we're very happy that you're here", in that it was almost as if they missed us and wondered where we were. And it was almost as if they felt estranged that this foreign people with the different culture who looked very different than they do, were their doing things that were inappropriate in a Native way -- such as digging into prayer caches that are meant for the creator. In the Northern Uto-Aztecan way, when I say Northern Utah's Aztecan, I am meaning Ute, Piute, Goshute, Shoshone, Comanche, Hopi, when I say Northern Uto-Aztecan or NUA, in our way, we do not dig up archeology sites. We do not dig up prayer cashes. We do not dig up these bundles. We do not dig up burials.

So the thing is, is that when archeologists come into an area and they dig up a burial, they dig up an archeological site, they collect projectile points and other tools off the surface of the ground, and they go into a prayer cache and start digging around, when those spirits see people doing things like that it's alarming to the spirits because we do not do things like that. It's not in our culture. We understand where we come from spiritually, and we understand that because of our ancient wisdom that comes from thousands of years of living in the Great Basin and that particular area. It doesn't come from us poking around and describing artifacts and things materialistically.

So what I felt was that those ancestors were happy we were there, and what I felt that those ancestors were feeling about people poking around there were that "Why are these people violating these sacred things that were given over to the care of the Creator?" When something is given over to the care of the Creator, it can never be taken back. So, when the mainstream culture members came in there and they started poking around at the archeology and doing what they do materialistically without spirit, they were essentially desecrating what was left as our inheritance as Native Americans. They were desecrating our inheritance, and they were desecrating the future of our children. In effect they were committing genocide on them.

Green: How were they committing genocide?

Brewster: Because the thing is that if we are not allowed to keep our temples, our cathedrals, our mosques. If we are not allowed these things sacred -- our churches, which are the rocks, the rock writings, the archeology sites, the geological hoodoos, the lakes, the rivers, the streams, the mountains. If we are not allowed to keep these places sacred, and if we're not allowed to go there to pray, if were not allowed to go there and take care of it in the way we've been taught and we're not allowed to show our children these things -- and the mainstream culture goes there and erases our history through science. Then essentially they're committing genocide against us. Because they're erasing our past and our future generations will never be able to go to those places because they will no longer be there. They will be erased by mainstream culture.

Green: Do you see a way for the spiritual and the scientific to coexist?

Brewster: What I do is qualitative work. So, I realize that there are times when mainstream culture has projects we can't stop. So what I do is I go in there and I record things in a spiritual way. I'll use the sweat lodge. I'll work with traditional healers. I'll consult the spirit through traditional ceremonies. I'll consult the archeological record of what's already known in a mainstream culture sense, and I'll work with the spirit to arrive at a conclusion about what's in the area. And so how I work at preserving things is qualitative as well as quantitative. But it's more qualitative that gets the central truth rather than a descriptive truth that's tested by a simple hypothesis. What I do is start with a conceptual whole that comes from Native American thinking and then I add data to that whole. I don't start with a little simple hypothesis that if this is this and if I can do this then I'm correct. I start with a big whole and I add to it.

I think the scientific verifies the oral tradition of Native people of Utah in that area, and any place I've ever worked; science verifies what we're saying. Everything I've ever read in the Bible, everything I've ever heard Buddhist's say or Muslims say seems to be the same spiritual core that was taught to Native people. When I look at human evolution and I look at the oral tradition of Native people, it's verified for me. And when I look at the oral traditions of the Native people and I look at the archeology, it's verified and it's astonishing to me how some mainstream archaeologists don't understand that "hey, it's verified". It just behooves me how they don't get it.

Green: What do they contend?

Brewster: They contend in the Range Creek area that Fremont are different people and that Piutes, Shoshones and Utes and Goshutes ran the Fremont out of there--out competed them. Basically we out ate them and they were no longer able to survive in that area, and we took over. And for me that's when they recreate themselves in the archeological record because of their recent history of manifest destiny and their belief in it--their belief in progress. So, their scientific belief in progress that comes from Christianity -- that everything is going to get better and everything is going to get better with science. We're going to make life more secure with science. They recreate themselves in the archeological record, and instead of seeing that their recent history of driving these contemporary Native people out of their homeland and taking their land, they reverse this and make it look like the very people they drove out of their homeland, drove these peaceful, highly advanced Fremont out of their land and I just think that that's crazy and impossible.

The Fremont would obviously have to have had more people. They would have to have more advanced weaponry. They would be more highly organized and when it comes to war-type scenarios the NUA. The Northern Uto-Aztecans, were not a war-like people until the Europeans arrived.

So the thing is, is that what I see with the Fremont is that I do see connections with Mexico. I see connections with Zuni and Hopi, but I also see connections with the earlier desert culture pattern that was first identified by Jesse Jennings from the University of Utah in 1958. And not only do we see Fremont type artifacts and subsequent systems in that area, we see a continuing desert culture pattern that went on for 10,000 years in that area. So the thing is that I think that there are southwest influences that come north and even go all the way into western Montana, but you have to look at western Montana, it's Shoshone.

If we look at cultural elements that come from Northern Shoshone, we see that in Promontory Shoshone. We see gray ware pottery that's made exactly like Shoshone's in Fort Hall. We see that in various places and locations in Utah. The same kind of gray ware pottery that's constructed the same and made exactly the same way as Shoshone in Idaho and around the Great Salt Lake as we do in places like Range Creek. We see the same projectile point technology. We see a little bit different type of basketry. But we don't see many studies that look at the similarities in the basketry. We see the bulk of studies looking at differences. But we don't focus on the fact that they both make rabbit skin blankets. They use rabbit nets. They use duck decoys. They make the same projectile points. There are very many similarities and there are many continuities, just as many as there are discontinuities, that show that there's cultural continuity between contemporary Northern Uto-Aztecan peoples and Fremont.

Green: So in simplistic terms, do you feel like you have the answer to what really happened to the Fremont?

Brewster: I'm sitting here.

This goes back to another spiritual core teaching that came from the same Creator and the circle of life teaching that we all come from the earth and that we are all related. I don't believe in matrilineal DNA studies, but I gladly gave [researchers] some of my hair because I know I am related to these people. I know that it's just going to prove our oral tradition and it did prove our oral tradition because, not that I trust the data, cause I think empty DNA data is very flawed and it's going to be 50-60 years before they ever work these puzzles out. But the thing is that I am lineage C, Wizard Beach man that's 10,000 years old is lineage C, and this is 90 miles from my house in Nevada at Pyramid Lake. 15% of Great Salt Lake burials are lineage C. If I look at my own Piute stories from Nevada, and we talk about some of our people leaving to be with the buffalo, are those my relatives? And so the thing is that, who are the Fremont? Where did they go?

They're the Shoshone, they're the Ute, they're the Goshute, they're the Comanche, they're the Hopi, they're the Zuni. And though Zuni speaks a different language, they're closely related because they've always been in the southwest. The closer you get to the four corners, the more relatedness you get to Hopi and Zuni. The further north you get, by the time you get to Range Creek and north of that, you're probably dealing 80-90% Numic people's like Shoshone, Goshute, Comanche, Ute, Piute.

Green: So, you're all one people?

Brewster: Oh, yeah. And we include the white people, the black people, and the Mexican people in that too.

Green: Let's get back to Range Creek Canyon. You were describing how it was a very special place spiritually. Why is it so special?

Brewster: Range Creek is something that I call a, a power spot. Beneath, Grandmother Earth is like a, a matrix and if you look at, you know, like, say you're looking in the, you know, a computer board, mother board and there's like a matrix of wires there and soldering, within the earth's, Grandmother's landscape there's springs, there's canyons, there's geological hoodoos, there's caves, there's gathering areas. These are what I call power spots and so when you look at Range Creek and the little I've looked at it, I've seen various power spots in Grandmother Earth's sacred matrix. Now I'm not speaking for the Ute tribe or anybody here, I'm speaking for myself when I say this. A long time ago some people thought of Grandmother Earth as Grandmother Spider Woman and inside the earth this matrix is a web of life and where this life touches, where, where it reaches in the power spots, such as the geological hoodoos or caves or where the rock writings are or so on, is where it connects with the Creator. That's why people have written on those rocks in those locations. And that's why it's important for Native people to understand why that portal is there.

Because we believe, you know, especially the way I believe in the Ghost Dance Way with what Wovoka said, is that we're going through a transformation that the world is changing and that through all the extensive pollution, the pumping of water out, the pumping of oil, the dumping of pollution all over, that soon the earth will shake people off of it's back. These portals are important for Native American people because we believe things like this have happened before, that the world has ended before, it's in our oral tradition. So sites like this are important to Native people because these are the sites that teach us how to protect ourselves in the future and how to protect our children. They teach us how to educate our children because they tell us how to behave. They tell us about the past, the present and the future and I know it's hard to understand, but Native people in America have been working this way for thousands of years.

So Range Creek is a number of significant portals. Though when I say portal, I'm talking about when medicine men and women go into altered state consciousness, they need to be in a spiritual landscape where their spirit will be allowed to travel into different dimensions. So when these medicine people are working in a place like Range Creek, which is much like Mount Sinai, where Moses went on top of the mountain in altered state consciousness and seen a burning bush, or when Jesus went out in the desert and prayed for, they say, 40 days and nights. It was probably 4 days and nights without food or water, and talked to various spirits and got various spiritual messages. Range Creek's significance and very many other places' significance, is that there is a glimpse at archeology that hasn't been messed with. But in order to honor the archeology in a good way, the State of Utah and the BLM and University of Utah, they need to bring in Native consultants that are very well experienced at working with the spirit.

They also need to incorporate Native thought into their research designs and modeling of what's going on at those sites. If they don't do that, they're committing genocide on the Native people because they're giving us a lop-sided view that's materialistic of a people that aren't materialistic. They're giving us contemporary mainstream American view that's materialistic. They're giving that view and putting it on people that are earth people. They're spirituality is based on the earth. It's not based on how much you can own and have. It's just the exact opposite.

Green: Is there a way then that the archaeology and artifacts can be treated or should be treated?

Brewster: There are ways that the artifacts need to be treated in a responsible way and that involves ceremony. And I'll, I'll give you an example, at Promontory Point in the Great Salt Lake area for example, hundreds of moccasins were pulled out of that cave. Those moccasins were put there in a prayer cash bundle for something we call "the little people". Those things were dug out by Julian Stewart and now they are at the University of Utah and they're on display. The University of Utah has no idea of their spiritual significance and has no understanding of it. They even think that the moccasins are not Shoshone, and because they're not Shoshone they have a right to do this--they're preserving culture. And since they're not Shoshone, as Americans, they have a right to keep it in the museum and display them. And I've spoken with some Northwest band Shoshone and they said, "Well, you know what? My Auntie makes moccasins like that, we've always made moccasins like that." When Julian Stewart interviewed Northwest Band Shoshone in the 1930's, one of the old men that was born in a cave, maybe a mile from Promontory Point, said that, "We made moccasins like that."

But the thing is, is that in order for white archaeologists, mainstream archaeologists, to move things out of caves and disturb them--they need to work closely with Native spiritual people that know how to work with the spirit. And they have to provide them with the time and the patience to do this, because in order to do it right at Promontory Point, they have to pay the Northwest Band Shoshone to make new moccasins and they have to pay a traditional healer to go in there and deactivate the prayers that have been made in that cave in that spiritual portal. They have to be able to go to that museum and deactivate those projectile points. Deactivate all those different things that they've taken out of things, which is an extensive job, because they are put in there with different prayers, songs and ceremonies, because native people change through time. We don't stay the same. Each traditional healer has his own songs, her own songs, her own prayers, her own ways of doing things that are handed down to her. These things change through time.

So for Native people, when we deal with the spirit, it's going to be extensive work for us to understand what people have done in the past, because we've got to create new ceremonies, new songs, new ways of understanding what our people did in the past, because we never had to do that before, because these things are being ripped out of the ground. And so getting back to Range Creek, if they dig something up there, if they remove a burial, if they chip paint off of rock art, we've got to go in there and pray for those artifacts and deactivate them. They do not know what they've dug up. They do not know what they unleash when they dig it up. You know, they're just being scientists and being objective. However, when certain tragedies occur in their family or they start acting materialistic and angry and filled with rage and things cause Native Americans want to consult with them, that's something we call "ghost sickness" and the way we deal with that is spiritually and that's how Range Creek needs to be dealt with.

Green: So how do you reply to some of the archaeologists who say what you are describing spirituality, it is not science, and they are also saying we're not digging up anything.

Brewster: How do I know what you are doing when you have lied to us so much, how do I know what you are doing. We need monitors out there to watch what you're doing and if you can't understand the spirit and you want to work with Native Americans and you want to work with our people, I urge you to go to our ceremonies. I would be more than happy to bring you in the sweat lodge. I'll be more than happy to take you in the mountains on a prayer fast. When you go through the prayer fast and the sweat lodge, when you do without food and water and you talk to me about, then I want to hear you tell me you don't understand.

It's very extensive and harder to understand than being objective. It's much harder than doing math. You go without food and water for 3-4 days and you're in prayer and you're working with things like petroglyphs and you're working with an experienced person that knows how to get at these things. You're not going to be able to say that you don't understand after that.

Green: There is also the delicate issue of finding human burials in any archaeological site. When they find remains, what should be done with those? How should they be treated?

Brewster: I think they should go out there with a bulldozer, you know like with a one of those arms that can dig and dig down 20-30-40 feet and put those remains down there. And leave them in situ. Bring Ute, Southern Piute, Hopi, Goshute traditional healers in and let them pray over it and put them way down there, don't go put them in the University of Utah. You know at a limited level, they can analyze the burial, but as far as them, you know, drilling holes in those bones for DNA and taking a piece of the bone for radial carbon date and grinding it up and curating it at the University of Utah, I think that's out of the question. I think we already know so much about burials that it's ridiculous at this point to continue to do that. So I think that they should leave things in situ and if need be, bury them onsite 20-30 feet down.

Green: Why is it offensive to do studies on the bones?

Brewster: Because, we believe that we're part of the earth. And we believe that when your earth is, when your deposited in the earth and songs are song over you and prayers are given to the Creator that the care of those bones are given over to the care of the Creator and you can never take things back. And so Native people, when the bones of their ancestors are taken out of caves and out of areas, we believe that this causes that turmoil in our communities--that this causes self-hate which we know comes from the way that we've been treated by mainstream culture. In general, that the way that the dominant elite maintains itself was by treating people in a certain way to make them feel inferior. At this point, people treat each other that way without the dominant elite even doing it out of self-hate. We believe that this comes from the desecration of the sacred geography in America.

Green: If you could have anything you wanted, what would you wish for the future of Range Creek? How do you think that land should be managed?

Brewster: I think it should be a National Monument and I think it should be managed by the federal government for all Americans and I think that if there's any research done there that that research should be done by various institutions across the United States that Utah, ah, University of Utah does not own Range Creek that they don't own exclusive rights to work at Range Creek, that native American monitors and consultants be allowed to work at Range Creek and be funded to do so that scholarships be started at the University of Utah for native students to become archaeologists that Native American people be allowed to access Range Creek for ceremonies, such as the Ghost Dance, Sun Dance, for working with the rock art, for working on healing, for doing vision quests, for doing prayer quests, for doing quests to get spiritual power. And that whenever archeological reports are written up that Native Americans are consulted that they're able to review the work and add to it. And that there even be funding for Native American people to write their own reports at Range Creek. Only then can all Americans be honored.

Right now only rich people in the State of Utah and sick managers have been honored. The whole rest of America and poor people in Utah have not been honored. Every time a report is written and it's written from one person's point of view and one bias, everyone in America is cheated. Because that's what I call national mythology and Americans have been raised on myth. In order for us to dispel prejudice and bias and control by a dominate elite. We need to provide the American public with the, more of a qualitative truth, because there's many truths for many people. We need to find that central truth and get it out there for Americans, so they can make a decision.

Green: You've commented on how few Native American archaeologists exist. What motivated you to become an archaeologist?

Brewster: The reason I became an archaeologist is all of the contemporary problems with Native people-- the alcoholism, the anger, the self-hate, the jealousy. My Grandma told me the real old Indian people were really good people. And when I moved to the Reservation-- I'm ¾ Native, I'm northern Piute and Chippewa, and I was beaten frequently for being White. And my Grandma told me the old Indian people were good people--they helped each other and they weren't like these people today. So I decided to become an anthropologist to help my people, to help learn about where we came from and that eventually grew to where I realized that we need to protect sacred sites, gathering areas, burials, archeology sites, and we needed to be able to interpret them from our own point of view to help our people.

I've been doing this work for 17 years, longer than that, 18 years professionally and so the thing is, is that getting states and the federal government to comply with their own law and to work with us is a battle. And getting academic institutions to hire Native Americans, especially if they have a Ph.D., is a problem, because they're not hiring us. I know of one individual that's got an honorary Ph.D., who was hired. But the thing is, is that they're not hiring Native American people at academic institutions, unless they're a conformist. And to do this work, you can't be a conformist because you have to have a spirit of advocacy for your people. So the reason I ended up doing the work I do, I believe is that the Creator put me on this path and because he's put me on this path. I refuse to change this path.