Every Thanksgiving, many Native Americans observe a National Day of Mourning. I am reflecting on their immeasurable loss today while on sacred land.
Rock is our planet’s chief historian.
It has preserved for us a timeline of creation, from the eons of the dinosaurs to the millennia of man. Its scars tell of cataclysms: asteroids that fell from the heavens and volcanoes that erupted from the depths. More relevantly to the story of our species, the rock shows our evolution, from the rudimentary tooling of the ancients to the industrial achievement of the moderns.
Like any good steward of records, rock is fair and balanced with its accounts: It’s quick to remind us how far we have come, but it also doesn’t hold back all that we have lost along the way.
This is the second year in a row that my brother and I have traveled to the American West during the Thanksgiving holiday. While many families gathered together for their customary meal and fellowship, we have been in the desert, studying rocks touched by spirits of old.
Nevada’s Valley of Fire and Grimes Point Archeological Site contain petroglyphs left behind by Indigenous hunting parties thousands of years ago. The meanings of the carvings will forever be uncertain. The translations have partially disappeared with time, an unyielding force that even the rock can’t overcome. They have also been washed away by the negligence of our progress, particularly the so-called manifest destiny of the conquering white man.
Today not far from both locations in the Nevada desert, the distant descendants of the ancient hunting parties are holding their own day of remembrance. It’s not a celebratory occasion complete with turkey and pumpkin pie. Instead, it’s more of a funeral; a time to reflect on all that is now gone.
Thanksgiving marks a National Day of Mourning for Native Americans across our great land, an annual event aimed at educating the public about the veiled belligerence of celebrating the 17th-century arrival of Pilgrims to Plymouth Harbor. As the white man proceeded to spread his empire from one shining sea to the other, the precious cultures and traditions of Indigenous peoples were largely wiped away.
The carvings in the desert rock remind us of our collective loss, unsolvable mysteries that shroud a crucially important chapter of the human story.
Like Native Americans on our nation’s Thanksgiving, I have always felt sadness in lonely corners of the American West. Some would dismiss the emotion as a manifestation of the remoteness, but I believe it’s something more. There’s a uniquely strong connection out here between those of us in the mortal realm and the ones who came before. My feelings are further confirmed today as the sun fades low in the Nevada sky and the desert shadows – the eternal companions of the rock – dance across the rugged terrain.
American poet Walt Whitman wrote, “I contain multitudes.” While I am not part of their bloodline, the Ancients, whose tragic enigma of existence is diligently preserved by the rock, and I, the culmination of the thousands of generations that preceded me, are together in the twilight.
In this moment, standing on their sacred ground, I help carry their sorrow.
Related Content
– Click to read my feature article “Alabama: The Mystery of the Welsh Caves” for more on the centuries-long struggles of Native Americans.
– Click to view my high-resolution photo collection from the Valley of Fire.
– Click to read my feature article “Nevada: TOPGUN and My Grandma’s Legacy” about my family’s connection to the legendary U.S. Navy fighter pilot school.