The professionals have missed it completely

Offering:  The road to the eagle's nest mine

Handful of offerings at house ruins out near Iron Age Mine road

I have discovered
a religion comparable in
size and age to the Jews,
Christians or Muslims that nobody knows is there.

In this religion the religious objects are the objects of everyday use.

Religious objects:  Wash machines,   Dead man well.  (I found a suicide here).

I HAVE IDENTIFIED ABOUT 200 OR SO MINES, WELLS OR CAVES USED BY THE SHOSHONEANS AS PASSAGEWAYS TO AND FROM THE UNDERWORLD.  MOST HAVE CARS.

Offering - The road to Alkali Lake.

THE CARS ARE RELIGIOUS AS HELL.

Offering:  no-name mill, New York Mountains.

 Car and ruins.  Both are broken.  For the old ones I guess.  Don't ask me why.

Offering:  Pole line road. 

The automobiles are meant to take the old ones on worldly travel along desert roads to rest at abandoned buildings like the one shown here.

 

Ruins with offerings.

Offerings are strewn around, inside and out of this abandoned house and are indistinguishable from common trash.

Ruins with offerings.  The road to High Rock.

Offerings:  mostly clothing left inside an abandoned mine bldg one or two  pieces at a time over years.

Offerings. Noname mine building, Sacramento Mtns.

With each offering a prayer is left for the traveling old ones to carry back to God when the old ones return to the underworld through the same mines and wells they left it from --- I think.

Santa Rosa flats cabin again.  Offerings, all.  Including the small stones against the wall.

Mile marker 51 not area 51 out on Nellis Air Force Range back in the 70s. 

The road condition is marked "radiation safe". 

I LIVE FOR ROADS LIKE THAT.

Out there somewhere, along that road in the background is a dry lake where I  found the first enigmatic broken glass and stone clumps that ultimately led me to the personal odyssey I report here.

Above:  Historic gas station along old US route 66 at Cadiz Summit.  Most of that breakage was done by Shoshonean religious acts not vandalism as your first impression tells you.

Same site ca 1940

Above --- The Martin ranch first visit Jan 1998.

The exact same view 6 years later, Jan, 2004.

First they start with the easy stuff by knocking a few holes in the walls including the outside walls even if they are made of concrete block.  Then they knock out all the wallboard and pull out all the insulation .  Then the windows and mirrors and then, seemingly with great relish, break all the toilets and mirrors but not after first filling the doomed toilets with substantial amounts of their own fecal matter (this is not something I've seen only once or twice.  It's universal).

 

MORE MARTIN RANCH OCTOBER 2002

 Offerings Chaco Canyon style (Bud light and a plush rabbit). 

 

With each offering a prayer is left (I think).

 

I have discovered that the minute a building in the Southern desert is abandoned it won't be long before the Shoshoneans find it and begin the process of breaking and burning it.

 

THE MARTIN RANCH AGAIN.  DECEMBER 2005

SAME POLE AS ABOVE THREE YEARS LATER BUT NOW A BROKEN CAR DOOR AND MICROWAVE OVEN APPEAR AT THE SAME POLE WHERE THE PLUSH RABBIT AND BUD LIGHT WERE ONCE SEEN AS OFFERINGS.

 

OFFERINGS CYCLE IN AND OUT CONTINUOUSLY.

THE MARTIN RANCH AGAIN.  DATE SOMETIME BETWEEN 2,000 AND 2,002 

Offering:  Huge, Huge clothing pile.  It's all fresh clothing.  You can see for yourself that it's all fresh clothing. 

Those are religious offerings were placed there just before photo.

THE MARTIN RANCH AGAIN.  DECEMBER 2005

Don't ask me to explain why the Shoshoneans break the toilet offerings into so many tiny little pieces but they seem to relish doing it.  There are about seven or eight recent fragments on that table.

 

Those fragments were introduced.  The original toilet base is still bolted down inside the ruins.

That's an offering folks

Above.  Mill building (newly abandoned) --- First visit --- June 1998.  At this point a small amount of damage has occurred inside the building but the exterior was as yet unmarked.

Above:  Same Mill building --- 4 years later --- Sept. 2002.  Inside of building entirely gutted while religious holes have deliberately been made all around the outside with a combination of shotguns and tin snips to make sure the siding does not get collected by Hispanic scavengers

Above:   Same mill two years later, Sept 2004.  Building is now nearly completely gone.  You can still see the shotgun holes.

February 2005

 

In the past, many places in the desert had many many buildings in them but today look completely empty all resulting from this very ancient religious activity.

 

BELOW - MARCH 1997 

Above:  Ruins with offerings (gas station).  Site name to be withheld out of religious sensitivity.  An abandoned railroad siding along Ariz. and Calif. RR.  Note the blue car.

BELOW

SAME BLDG. 10 YEARS AFTER FIRST VISIT --- OCT 2006

Two cars have come and gone.  All offerings have changed several times over.  The building has been continuously chipped at.  The funny thing about this is this site lies along one of the loneliest stretch of highway in the California desert --- the closest habitation site is over 40 miles in any direction --- 60 miles to the west --- 40 miles to the north and south --- 35 miles to the east.

ALL BELOW - SAME BUILDING - 3 YEARS LATER - MARCH 2009

Two new chairs --- special design

Two new dishwasher tubs --- special design

Foreground --- two new toilets shattered and placed together --- special design.

Detail of two fragmented toilets placed together

THIS IS NOT A DUMP SITE.

Rest stop for the old ones.  Toilet.  Typical. 

Offerings include the folded rug, table, pan, cans and bottles and of course, the toilet itself.

(Mine to be left unnamed for sensitivity reasons)

The following is from the California, BLM newsletter NEWSBEAT (Portrait of a Land Abuser, Tina Sibilsky Gromo, July 1989).

"Nearly every day [ranger] Ed Ruth sees damage left behind by land abusers. ... Garbage dumping ... has become an increasing problem in the California desert.  Huge piles of dilapidated furniture, beer and soft drink bottles, plastic containers and paper wrappers litter desert areas. ... What amazes me is that it takes the same or less time to transport the trash to the nearest dump says a puzzled Ruth."

What the puzzled ranger Ruth fails to realize is that those are the sacred offerings of an ancient, secret, underground American Indian religion still practicing out in the California desert to this day.

Old ranch ruins --- El Mirage valley.

Angry letter from Mrs. H. R. Baldwin to Desert Magazine  August 1956 

"During the past seven years we have traveled extensively through the [desert] ... The litter on the highways is a disgrace ... but nothing compares to a scene that greeted us recently.

"The old land mark Coyote Wells was a shambles.  The iron cover to the well was shot full of holes along with the pail at end of the long wire which desert people used to draw water.  Rubbish had been thrown into the well and the sign was torn down.  Only last December we visited this place and everything was intact. ..."

What angry Mrs. Baldwin failed to realize that back in 1956 she had unwittingly stumbled upon a religious practice that endures in the desert to this very day.

     Offering --- religiously broken (killed) welcome mat for the old ones. The 'Jesus Lives' site.

Below:  Offerings for the mechanically inclined.  With each offering a prayer is left I think

Utilitarian offerings.   Waucoba mountain no-name mine.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 1

In the beginning all I knew is that the old wrecked cars had some religious connotation and that I was finding these old wrecks mostly around old abandoned mines and I was sure the cars were religious as hell..

Offering off  Hwy 50 near Austen Nev.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 2

Back then, all I knew was that the Shoshoneans were religiously killing automobiles and I was consistently finding them on and around the tailings of old abandoned mines.

Offering:  Pink tub killed vigorously by multiple gunshots.  Hodge road house ruins. 

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 3

To gather evidence I began a project to visit and photograph all the mine cars I could find.

Offering along the road to highrock.

THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 4

At the time, it never occurred to me that the most meaningful Shoshonean religious artifacts could be found --- inside--- rather than outside the mines.

Offering, incongruity.  Rice, an abandoned railroad siding along the Arizona and California railroad at U S hwy. 62.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 5

I had always felt that going into an old, rotten mine was something like taunting a rattlesnake when you're half tanked up.

Offering:  The road to the Columbia mine

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 7

I was not to be disapointed!

Upon entering, I could see 25 or 30 cans and bottles that just didn't make sense.  There were just too many of them and they weren't all beer and soda cans.  There were mayonnaise and pickle jars and various plastic food wrappers and many other kinds of things that have no place in an old, long abandoned mine.  Some were hidden in nooks and crannies.

Offering The road to Crucero.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 8

Over time I was to find all manner of empty food and beverage containers, mostly beer and soda pop cans and bottles but also such inexplicable empty container types as Tide detergent boxes, Arm & Hammer soda boxes, sauerkraut and dog food cans, Ivory soap wrappers, smoked sausage packages, rolled up socks, candy wrappers, Calvin Klein shorts, ladies sanitary supplies, plastic cups and much more.

Offering.  Scossa  mill.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 9

Directly outside the tunnels (almost always) the first thing one encounters  is a religious hearth then usually broken and burned autos, mattresses, chairs, stoves, refrigerators, beds, cans, bottles., toilets, cartridges, shot gun shells and miscellaneous else.

Offering.  Pick up.  South end of Cuddyback lake.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 10

Cans, bottles, cartridges, shot gun shells and much else will be are arranged in a distinct bread crumb trail inside the tunnel.

Roadside offering.  The road to Hinkley.  Note the Jose Cuervo bottle in lower left corner of the photo next to the couch.  That too is an offering.  It goes with the couch.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 11

Often this bread crumb trail of offerings will extend out the tunnel to an old dirt mining road.  Then to improved dirt roads.  Then along state and federal highways right up to the on ramps of busy interstates themselves.

Offering (a 1950s Chevy).  The road to  the Silver Lake mine.

 THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 12

The cars sometimes are moved around like musical chairs.

Offering.  Incongruity.  Seesaw at religious hearth.  Red mountain head frame site.

THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 13

In some cases I have photographed a virgin car arriving at a mine and then watching the car go through the entire "killing" process over a period of months or years and then watched the same car be moved to some other distant site.

Another car on the road to silver lake.

THE ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR - 14

Another way in which the cars are often "killed" is by dynamite.

 

Offering (car) religiously killed by dynamite:  Bullfrog Hills.

END ETIOLOGY OF A DEAD CAR. 

BEGIN THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

One of the first things California archaeologists noticed when they first started studying the desert were piles of broken pottery clearly placed alongside many old desert foot trails.

Offering.  Bagdad.  A poorly spelled abandoned railroad siding along Burlington Northern and Santa Fe railroad paralleling old US 66.

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

They immediately recognized these fragment piles as religious in nature and started calling them "trailside shrines".

Offering.  Skidoo, Death Valley.

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

Basically my discovery is that the Indians have never stopped making the old trailside shrines only now, instead of leaving out little piles of pottery along side old desert foot trails the old shrine making behavior has morphed into leaving modern beer and soda pop cans along side today's roads, highways, railroads and interstates.

Offering.  Minietta mine.

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

It's still the old prehistoric religious behavior.  The religion hasn't changed, only the times and the technologies have.  They still make the shrines only today they're made with modern broken cans and bottles instead the pottery fragments of old.

Offering:  The road to the Virginia Dale mine.

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

When the white man came some of the old foot trails naturally morphed into wagon roads.

Offering.  The *******  **** mine.

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

Alongside one old wagon road I found things like 1800s type cans and bottles, pack equipment with old square nails and other pre---1900 articles.  Only later, I realized that I had been seeing the 1800s version of the old prehistoric  trailside shrine religion.

Offering off Nevada state Hwy. 6

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

Then with the 20th century, along came the automobile.  Old wagon trails morphed into graded dirt roads, then into highways and ultimately into interstates and the old religion never missed a beat as it just kept adjusting to technological changes as they came and went all the while retaining the ancient behaviors faithfully but secretly.

Offering.  couch.  The ***** ****** mine.  That's a very old sign.  Nobody uses the word pad anymore.

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

Below:  The 21st century version of the old trailside shrines.

                                  Roadside offering.  The road to Goldstone.  (The road is faint and to the right).

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

It's the landscape stupid!!!

Offering.  The road to Hector.

THE DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

It's the whole Goddam landscape stupid and everything in it is religious as hell and all the Goddam offerings on it are a Goddam 4,000 thousand year old religious monument spread out across the whole Goddam states of Nevada and California and the Goddam Ph. D. ladies down at UC anthro have never fucking figured it out

Noname mill:  Death valley.

END DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT ITSELF

Why don't I tell a sailor standing out on a street corner?

"Lady in the grass".   Roadside offering somewhere out in Nevada.

Offering.  The road to the Eagle's Nest mine.

When I tell professionals what I've found they just look through me as though they were staring at a speck of fly shit on the wall behind me.

                 Ruins with offerings.  New Dunn.  (Abandoned railroad siding)

First off, if an Indian knew he wouldn't tell me.

Offering.  No-name mine,  Funeral Mtns..

THE HOPI HAVE A SAYING --- THOSE THAT TELL DON'T KNOW.  THOSE THAT KNOW DON'T TELL.

Offering, incongruity:  Television.  Abandoned ranch house in the Toiyabe Range.  Television?  You can't even get radio out here.

Indian practices were banned by the US government while children were taken from reservations, shipped off to government boarding where they were systematically Americanized and punished if they so much as spoke their native language.

Ruins with offerings:   Big Smoky Valley.

All of that is plenty of reason for an active, last standing ancient American Indian religion to go completely underground.

Offering: broken and burned.  No-name mine, Cuprite Hills.  (CLOUDS ARE REAL !!!!! ).

THIS HAS GIVEN THE SHOSHONEANS THE ABILITY TO PRACTICE THE OLD RELIGION SECRETLY IN REMOTE PLACES IN THE DESERT TO THIS VERY DAY.

Offering, incongruity:  Bar stool.  Site to be left unnamed for sensitivity reasons.

The tree of shoes.  Offerings all.

Blythe World War Two temporary Air Force base abandoned in 1942.

NOTE THE TOILET

Same site later.  The shoes are gone.  The toilet and everything else is gone and all the old stuff replaced by a footstool.

They keep this up, bringing in new stuff and taking out the old.  It's a merry-go-round.

 

The funny thing about this site is that this is a very, very lonely place.  There's not a lived in habitation site any closer than 40 miles in any direction (60 miles to the east)  This is in no way a dump site.

The BLM and Forest Service do not normally clean up refuse messes on private property.  Mostly mines, railroads, transmission lines and abandoned homesteads where offerings can remain for many years.

Offering.  Scossa.  (A long abandoned historic mining area in rural Nevada.)

I see it all as a priesthood maybe.

I call them medicine men or holy men.  I have bumped into a few out there.  They're Indians, mostly men, but sometimes a woman maybe.

Offering:.  The Jasper Queen mine.

                      Anthropology is (almost always) wrong.

            Offering:  Coffee pot with weed bouquet. Santa Rosa flats cabin.