#Travel

This past Spring I went

This past Spring I went driving through the American West. One of the places I visited was the Craters of the Moon National Monument. It’s in south central Idaho near Arco (The first city in the world powered by atomic power). The Craters of the Moon lava field covers 618 square miles and has more than 25 volcanic cones. It also has 60 different lava flows. The Presidential declaration which named it a national monument said it “…has a weird and unusual landscape peculiar to itself…” {{<figure src="/images/cratermoon1.jpg" title="" class=“align-right” >}}.

4-6-01 (Shoshone-Bannock Museum, southeast Idaho)

4-6-01 (Shoshone-Bannock Museum, southeast Idaho)

I asked the lady at the museum for examples of Shoshone writing and she said they didn’t have any. She proceeded to explain why.

“Writing is about preservation, speaking is about what is happening right now. The Shoshone didn’t worry about the past or the future. They were focused on the very immediate problems of the day.”

The fascinating ramification has been that they could not prove legal claims. When the Shoshone told the US Government that they had been on the land for hundreds of years they had no way to legally prove this. They had no documentation to back it up. The woman I spoke with was still bitter about this. I think this incident, and hundreds like it, typify the power of “Manifest Destiny.” It’s amazing what you can do if you know you are right.