The last piece of information we know is that as the Native Americans destroyed all the large mammal populations across the continent, they began to adapt to root and grass processing. Great Basin Indians, unlike their coastal or Cascades cousins, lived in harsh conditions which meant foraging and hunting consumed much of their lives.
We gave up on dung-watching, and began our way down the steep, grassy hill. These steep hills were once the domain of cattle; in fact almost all of Southeastern Oregon is cattle-grazing BLM land. But in 1999, Oregon's cattlemen lost the right to continue to graze on over a million acres of these steep hills, because by the 1990's, cattle grazing had polluted the complex riverine systems of the Owyhee, disturbing fishing areas, creating massive erosion problems and threatening unique plant species.
The Owyhee flows north and covers the corners of three states, beginning in Nevada, then Idaho, and finally through Oregon, into the Snake River.
Now these hills are protected as critically sensitive areas. There have been repeated attempts in recent years to make the Owyhee a national monument. Part of that goal, many cite, is to include better protection against these native sites being vandalized.
After twilight, we return to the truck, and then back to camp. We gather some wood, make a small fire and pull out our backpacking guitars.
I pick along to Hans' playing, but my mind keeps wandering, and I say: "So an Indian or two would sit there at that hunting camp, waiting for an elk, but it's a long process of waiting, so they sat around and crushed seeds and stuff in the mortar."
Hans explains that it would be interesting to learn what grasses and sedges might have actually been used in Indian flours. He says there are hundreds of such plants in Oregon. "If you would go out and try to duplicate an Indian flour," he said, "it could take a whole year just to find the right plants."
Of course, we don't even know if the mortar was used for flour at all. "How do we know what time period those stone tools are from?" I ask.
Oregon is a good place to ask such a question, because the state’s culture, which places a priority on locally-grown, raised and hunted food, also is aware of its Native American past. Still, Oregon's common interest in its prehistory is symbolic at best. Powell's, one of the country's largest bookstores, takes pride in its large Pacific Northwest and Native American sections. Despite this, the books that look at Oregon's Native Americans historically are few and far between.
Neither of us have the answer to the stone tool's age, because we have already exhausted our Native American knowledge. The stone tools could have been made anywhere from 5,000 years ago to 100 years ago, as far as we're concerned. But answering that question fills my mind.
I tell Hans that Jane and I had recently been to the Warm Springs Museum, a casino-funded building north of Bend that celebrates the Native American history of that region. "Something about the place really struck me," I explained. But we let the subject go, and play a few more notes.
The next day, we drive south along the Idaho border. We had decided to buy our older brother a birthday present at the farthest possible corner in Oregon. That farthest corner is a town called Jordan Valley, population 239. The town is alive today with a cattle auction, and a rodeo. Deeply tanned men in cowboy hats loiter around the gas stations - they have come from as far as Wyoming to compete in the rodeo.
Cattle fill dozens of trucks, which fill the air with moos and groans.
Jordan Valley maintains its Basque, frontiersman, and even Native American roots fervently. When you compare Jordan Valley to Ontario, it is as if these two wildly different towns are from different continents. Jordan Valley is filled with potted plants and fresh grass and lively street banter.
We walk into the antiques shop, to buy a birthday present for big brother.
We reject the cowhide lamp, the Mickey Mouse salt shakers and finally come to agreement on a ceramic squirrel, holding a raspberry. A dollar fifty, says the cashier. We ask her about the rodeo. She says that the Jordan Valley rodeo “doesn’t apply to modern rodeos.” She says, “It’s a wilder rodeo, without all the safety nets of other rodeos. That’s why fellas from all over come this way.”
She looks embarrassed selling us a ceramic squirrel. She says, “Make sure you come back for the next rodeo!”
We continue south, and then southwest, to the town of Rome, which is a convenience store with bathrooms. The bathrooms are so small, that I have to sit in the sink to piss. At a table, we look at our gazetteer maps, and Hans points to a small lake at the lip of the Alvord Desert. He says it’s stocked with trout each year. We’re going fishing.
