Chapter 7 ~ Page 87
I must make it clear again that I don't dislike people. It is just now and then I have to escape from being confined in the prisons we have built for ourselves. This shouldn't be too difficult to explain. The genius loci of America, at least until recent years, has been one of "elbow room, breathing space, moving on," or "taking a high lonesome." Unfortunately, this notion doesn't fit the modern scene very well, and we often were reminded of this fact in the rudest of ways.
Our day of celebrating independence from a distant power exploiting our country was interrupted by a cowboy carrying a 30-30 rifle, who informed us we were trespassing on corporation land. The terrible part being, he probably was right. Through outright disobedience of homestead laws, the choicest meadows in California's mountains had been grabbed by big cattle interests, who in turn have been swallowed by real estate holding corporations.
I pointed out our maps showed this was federal land. He had one of his own that claimed it belonged to a syndicate of investors from back East. Perhaps one of the principals was a rock star looking for a tax write-off of excess income. Perhaps it was foreign money. Whatever, I lowered myself to ask if we could stay for the night.
He accepted, and in return for this favor, wanted to know if we had seen hide or hair of a mountain lion that had escaped from a trap by gnawing off his own foot.
It just so happened that the day before we had seen a bear, a coyote, and the rarest of all, a glimpse of a cougar. I had wished at the time that the dirt bike rider we had met in Holcomb Valley had been there to witness the tawny colored leap, and listen to the famous cry of that magnificent animal also called a mountain lion, painter, panther, puma, cat, or catamount. But there was no way I was going to share him with our so-called landlord.
All three of the animals we had run into on the trail, were more frightened of us—with good reason—than we of them. I have never accepted that our mountain lions should have the scientific name of hippolestes, meaning, horse killer. They have been known to kill horses. I have seen the bones of wild mustangs in Utah that lay as if the result of a mountain lion's attack. However, I think the bulk of this animals fearful reputation is a result or slander by cattlemen, overloading rangeland, and blaming their losses on wild animals as cougars, bears, and coyotes.
The Chinook Indians of the Northwest believed that the mountain lion had a playful nature, and stories were told of Indian and animal living together as friends. In the trade jargon developed by the Chinooks to deal with Hudson's Bay and Boston Men, this attitude was humorously expressed by this name: hyas (big or large) puss puss.
Our day of celebrating independence from a distant power exploiting our country was interrupted by a cowboy carrying a 30-30 rifle, who informed us we were trespassing on corporation land. The terrible part being, he probably was right. Through outright disobedience of homestead laws, the choicest meadows in California's mountains had been grabbed by big cattle interests, who in turn have been swallowed by real estate holding corporations.
I pointed out our maps showed this was federal land. He had one of his own that claimed it belonged to a syndicate of investors from back East. Perhaps one of the principals was a rock star looking for a tax write-off of excess income. Perhaps it was foreign money. Whatever, I lowered myself to ask if we could stay for the night.
He accepted, and in return for this favor, wanted to know if we had seen hide or hair of a mountain lion that had escaped from a trap by gnawing off his own foot.
It just so happened that the day before we had seen a bear, a coyote, and the rarest of all, a glimpse of a cougar. I had wished at the time that the dirt bike rider we had met in Holcomb Valley had been there to witness the tawny colored leap, and listen to the famous cry of that magnificent animal also called a mountain lion, painter, panther, puma, cat, or catamount. But there was no way I was going to share him with our so-called landlord.
All three of the animals we had run into on the trail, were more frightened of us—with good reason—than we of them. I have never accepted that our mountain lions should have the scientific name of hippolestes, meaning, horse killer. They have been known to kill horses. I have seen the bones of wild mustangs in Utah that lay as if the result of a mountain lion's attack. However, I think the bulk of this animals fearful reputation is a result or slander by cattlemen, overloading rangeland, and blaming their losses on wild animals as cougars, bears, and coyotes.
The Chinook Indians of the Northwest believed that the mountain lion had a playful nature, and stories were told of Indian and animal living together as friends. In the trade jargon developed by the Chinooks to deal with Hudson's Bay and Boston Men, this attitude was humorously expressed by this name: hyas (big or large) puss puss.
|
|
|
Text and Photographs © Barry Murray 1971-2007 Mac&Murray Multimedia