Tribal land management practices such as periodic burning were simultaneously denied and fiercely opposed by the Forest Service.  In 1918 the local District Ranger wrote concerning local opposition to the newly instituted no burn policy:  

 In this district there is practically no open range, old residents will tell you that there used to be lots of open range and large numbers of stock that had no trouble in getting fed, but the Forest Service has kept the fires out, and now cattle cannot live here on account of the thick brush.  After convincing themselves of this fact, what more logical conclusion will they come to besides burning the area off, as they think, to increase the forage.  It is hard to make people believe something that their own observation and experience leads them to believe otherwise.

 The Ranger went on to advocate as a proposal for elimination of Indian burning, shooting those who he included in the “pure cussedness class” class of fire starters. He recommended,  “the only one sure way is to kill them, every time you catch one sneaking around in the brush like a coyote, take a shot at him.”   

 The relationships of aboriginal Karuk to fire offer insights into the ecological alternatives presently facing many backcountry communities.  In the traditional Karuk account of the origin of fire, Coyote, the trickster god, with the aid of a number of animals, steals fire from a privileged strata of creatures, bringing by thievery the ability to cook and be warm.  Raging at the loss of what had been their exclusive property, the prehuman possessors of fire are transformed into yellow jackets, noted for evil tempers and tenacity of revenge, so great is their outrage at the loss of their exclusive property.    This mythic story shares with others from around the world the theme of fire being obtained by theft; however, in this particular version the theft of fire signals the spontaneous origin of humans and the transformation of the prehuman possessors of fire into "animals and into animate objects" (Bright 1957:196 - 197).  For the Karuk today, linkages, both explicit and mythical, linger between this first, archetypal, stolen fire and life on the River.  These commonplace reminders include the omnipresent yellow jackets and the willow bush, mentioned in the myth as the final vegetative receptor of fire, so close to blossoming into flame that its curling, red leaves appear half-consumed. 

 Ethnographic literature, as well as the memories of people in their sixties or older, tell of the park-like quality of much of the Salmon River country prior to the end of aboriginal burning of the forest.  The miners and later white residents had, with limited purpose, continued Indian burning practices. In locations where Indians had burned for millennia, the miners quickly took up burning for their own reasons, some of which overlapped with those of the Indians. Miners burned to expose the soil for prospecting, and, like Indians, to open the land for movement.  Other consequences included increased browse for deer and the open ground required for hunting.  As recently as the 1920’s much of the land was still cleared by periodic combination of human started and unextinguished lightning fires so that a horse might be ridden from the coast to the Sierras without encumbrance from brush or low hanging limbs. 

   Back to Contents                               <Previous    Next>                                        Page 1   3  4