A Father's Loving Account of his Son's Unique Wedding Ceremony (true love)
(George has been as a member of our family for many years, and he recently wrote this account of his son's wedding. Having known all these people he speaks of and visited the place he has described, it's an awesome tear jerker for me! Grab some coffee and enjoy this very unique description of true love!)
On August 18, 2007, Josh, my younger son, a gringo fisheries biologist for the Yurok Indian tribe married Tina West, a Mohican who taught and coached track and soccer for six years in Hoopa, joining the Very, Very Strange family with the Wild, Wild West in a wild, wonderful wedding ceremony near the Trinity River, which flows through the Hoopa Reservation. Josh's step-father, Merk, is a Yurok commercial salmon fisherman and holy man. Because Hoopas and Yuroks, neighboring tribes, warred continuously and because the Hoopa, in more recent history, acting as front men for timber companies, bilked the Yurok out of their land, (Hoopas own 98 percent of the Hoopa reservation--Yurok's own only 2 percent of the Yurok Reservation), Merk kept telling everyone: I'm not Hoopa. In order not to reconstitute old war parties or assemble new ones with my letter and in order to protect the Strange and West families, I'll give a true but gentle wedding week summary. If you want to know the wild, gritty details, ask me about it sometime.
Some points of inquiry might be: How is it to see an ex-mate for the first time in twenty-three years, what's a forty-person, twelve mile rafting trip like down the Trinity River the day after a wedding, how did the Wests get to the West, how did Josh met a West in the West, U.N. aspect of the family, normal speech volume, favorite recreation, and is Humboldt County, California, really the Marijuana capital of the universe. Other possible topics: jail time, almost certain jail time except for investigative malfeasance, and is the original fig tree, the one that leafed Eve in the Garden of Eden, still growing in Humboldt County? Of general anthropological interest might be tattoos, Big Rock, differences between the words of a holy man in Native American tradition compared to the words of a holy man in say, Christian tradition. Two people from outside the families you might ask me about are Whiz, Josh's major professor and director of his dissertation at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Jelta, one of Josh's usher-groomsmen. Jelta, who is getting his doctorate in astrobiology, grew up the son of Dutch Medical Doctors who have spent their lives setting up medical clinics in remote areas of Africa. He didn't see white people, other than his family, until he was seven, when his parents took him to Amsterdam, where he saw Star Wars...and everything he had thought about the world was no longer true.
When Jason and I arrived three days before the wedding, Josh and Tina's house was filled with some of Tina's sisters and their children and a high level of energy and activity as Tina and her sisters worked to make the bridesmaid's dresses and gifts for members of the wedding party and for all two hundred guests. People would band together and prepare meals or one person would bravely volunteer to prepare a meal for a wedding party that increased in number day by day, as did the tasty fish. Salmon in the morning, salmon in the evening, salmon at suppertime…if you don't love salmon, find someplace else to dine. And if you require a lot of solitude, you might find another spot. Even without wedding week activities, Josh and Tina have created a fun, loving place, a home that is a community center for family and friends. And animals. The dog they inherited with the place died during puppy birth while they were away one weekend. Only one puppy was birthed and that one, Lucky, raised by Josh and Tina and Jean is an exceptionally happy, lucky young pup.
Josh and Tina's property is bordered on two sides by heavily producing plum and apple and pears trees and Himalayan blackberries, which screen out the neighbors; a thick hedge provides cover from the highway; the fourth side slopes to the Trinity River. A mountain rises above the river, so their property looks out on vastness and seems a lot larger than it is. During the week of the wedding, people slept in all the available bedrooms, in tents, on mattresses under the stars, on the river bank, under the enormous fig tree. I chose, for some Strange reason, to pitch my tent near a fence line by the river, away from everyone. I'd start the day by eating my fill of blackberries, plums and pears. Every morning when I left my campsite, I'd see bear scat about twenty yards from where I'd been sleeping. The bear dumpings were quite impressive, looking like large loaves of dark rye bread laced with blackberries.
On the morning of the wedding, after my hedge-row breakfast of plum, apple, pear and blackberry, I walked to the river and watched a great blue heron lift from the shore. Evidence was the bears had eaten heavily during the night. I had to watch where I stepped. A little later as I stood quietly examining river rocks, I sensed something behind me. I turned to see a grey fox ten feet away. It lifted its nose, lifted it ears, backed off a few steps. Lifted nose and ears again. Backed off a few more steps, looked calmly at me, then turned and walked away. Twenty yards upriver, the fox was joined at a trailhead by a smaller fox. Together they walked upriver.
The wedding commenced with a Native American drumming circle. Really good sounds, deep, resonating. With smoldering sage in her hands, Tina's mother walked down the hill, smudging the area. Barefooted, the bridesmaids, Adena, Clarissa, Thia--three of Tina's sisters--, Amy, a cousin, and Orewi, Josh and Jason's sister, walked down the hill; the groomsmen, Alex, Dan—Josh's friends since high school—Jelta, grad school friend, Clayton, Tina's brother, and Jason walked up from the river; all stood at an arbor made of saplings by Clayton and by Troy, a family friend. Wearing a deerskin jacket, and a smile at least the size of a vest, Josh stood waiting. Barefooted, wearing a deerskin dress, Tina walked down the hill, followed by Razja and Jasmine their two, old arthritic dogs. This wasn't planned (it was the only time while I was there that the dogs ventured in that direction). But somehow they felt the need to participate, and so, barepawed, they walked slowly, purposely down the hill behind the bride.
Tina's uncle, who had been scheduled to perform the ceremony, had a virus, so the maker of the deerskin wedding clothing became the official joiner. Because the Native Americans honor all of creation, there were many references made to the Great Creator and to the Cardinal directions, to wind and rain and sun and to all creatures. Josh and Tina read vows they had written for each other and together they pledged to protect and be of service to the things of earth and river and sky and to their community. Tina's promise to Josh that when they disagreed, she would give him equal time to speak his mind brought out Josh's one southernism: "Y'all all heard that." The wedding ended with an unplanned but beautiful symbolic moment: As Josh and Tina were pronounced man and wife, a pair of wild geese flew directly over their heads.
As part of the wedding ceremony, gifts were given to wedding party and guests. Following the matriarchal tradition, Tina's mother and Josh's mother were given baskets made by Tina and filled with various gifts from the land. Josh's dad, me, and step-father Merk, were given beautiful three-strand necklaces of pine nut and abalone made by Tina.
After the wedding, everyone stood and joined hands. Tina and Josh led in a winding, downhill, uphill dance that made it possible for each member of the wedding and each guest to weave inches apart and thus pass in close greeting. A potluck wine and beer laced wedding feast followed, with the main course, salmon being prepared the traditional way by Merk. The fire pit had been softened and prepared the morning of the wedding. Later the long line of dried wood was ignited and allowed to burn down as Merk and his assistants, many from his family, prepared four hundred salmon fillets, doused them with salt and pepper, and skewered them on thin redwood spits, sharp at both ends, one end jammed at an angle into the earth, the other end bearing the salmon fillet, skin first angled toward the coals. As they cooked they were rotated ninety degrees, then another ninety, then another until they were ready for the wedding party and guests. Because of the cooking heat, Merk, the premier cook, had the usual thing happen—most of his eyebrows seared away.
Two bands and individual singers performed on a stage up near the fig tree. Kegs of beer were scattered about and the air lay heavy with a folksy, weedsy smoke that while not unique to Humboldt County is definitely commonplace there. The party pulsed until three a.m, ending as the wedded started, with the reverberating, uplifting beat of the drum
Tina is still learning about her family; she met her father and Clayton, a full brother four years ago.
I'm just beginning to learn about Tina and her family and about some of Josh's, as well. Tina is beautiful and has a good, fiery spirit that cannot, will not be concealed. This was also the first time I'd met Merk. Merk, I said, I'm Josh's other father. Merk and I got along well, and I was pleased to see his genuine affection and admiration for Josh. Jah Wah, he calls him, is, Merk says, A Man. Jean and Merk's daughter, Orewi, whom I also met for the first time, is eighteen and beautiful, looks, in many ways, like Jean did at twenty-one when I first met her. Jean has built a very nice straw bale studio on an upper corner of the property and has materials on hand for her house, soon to be built.
The morning after the wedding, some forty of us got together for a twelve mile rafting trip to the confluence of the Trinity and Klamath Rivers. The plan had been to chase Tina and Josh downriver, the way cars chase after the bride and groom, and then have them continue alone down the Klamath. I started out in a raft with a set of oars womaned by Orewi. There was one other similar raft and perhaps five "paddle" rafts, each having a guide in the stern and six paddlers, three along each side. Three or four, including Jason, chose to snorkel pretty much the whole distance so they could watch salmon and trout sweeping along beneath them. One of Josh's friends makes his living as an underwater photographer. He wore a wet suit and had what was to me the strangest camera rig, long,eel-like, capable of bending this way and that and positioning the camera, which could also easily change angles and positions, behind rocks, in crevices, etc. One of the rafts must have had some problem with balance and ballast—why else would a keg of beer have been lashed to its bow?
It must have been hot there in the river because from time to time, the snorkelers would be cooled and replenished by having beer transferred from keg to their bodies' engines via the snorkel's above-water air hole. When we'd slow to scout the rapids, the guides used a primitive navigational instrument made of paper and herb, which, after the introduction of fire to one end, commenced to send up smoke signals. The navigational instrument was passed from guide to guide and was used, as best I can determine, by one guide putting the unlit end into the mouth, taking a deep breath, and sighting down the length of the cylindrically wrapped paper while the other guides read wind speed and river flow patterns in the swirls of smoke. This took great deliberation as evidenced by the fact the instrument had to be passed from guide to guide before they gathered enough inhalation (Hoopa word for information) to be certain of how to run the rapids. The navigational instrument also, logically enough, increased the confidence of the guides because by the time they finished their scouting, there arose a loud chorus of laughter and high-pitched, though still confident giggles. By the time they finished scouting the navigational instrument had been all but completely used up so the last sightings must have been difficult. We stopped for lunch and story-telling along the river. During our trip, we saw three bald-eagles. The guides, because of their experience on the river and because of their use of navigational instruments, saw, I am certain, much more.
The next afternoon, Josh, Jason, Orewi and I took a short, though steeply rising road that took us from near sea level to 4,500 feet. We ended up some fifteen miles away from the nearest house and then walked along a trail, then cross country, reaching an elevation of 6,000 feet where we built a fire against an outcropping of stone, which jutted out above a glacial meadow and lake. There we had a bit of food, and watched the sun set over the Pacific, thirty miles away. We stayed until after dark and, because there was an illuminating half moon above us, we walked back through that bear and mountain lion country without the aid of flashlights. When we got back, Jean had prepared a down-home meal which included creamed corn and fried okra.
Jason's knowledge of the area made the return from Humboldt County pleasurable. He drove us through groves of redwoods, along famous highway 1 running for hundreds of miles above the Pacific. We watched seals play along a stretch where the Russian River empties into the Ocean, entered San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge, ate in China town and visited with his friends at Berkeley and in the Berkeley Hills.
On the way out we had flown Southwest Airlines from Louisville to Phoenix to Orange County to Oakland. The return, for some reason, took us to LAX, then St. Louis and Louisville. Jason said it was one of the most scenic flights he'd ever been on—we flew for a bit over the Pacific, over the Mohave Desert and Death Valley, Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, over Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon and, in southern New Mexico, over Shiprock, which rises 2,500 feet above the desert floor and served as the genesis for Navaho creation myths. Sometime after that there was the bonging sound of the intercom: This is your captain. I want you to look out the window. You'll see something you'll never see again in your life. Jason and I both had window seats on the left side of the plane. We stared. People from the right of the plane, having obviously not spotted that unique thing, leaned over us, seeing if our portals opened to the magic place. After a while they returned to their seats. Nothing more was said. For a fleeting moment I thought terrorists had taken over the plane and that life was the thing we would never see again. This is the time, I thought, to share something profound with Jason, but I remained silent. After we landed, Jason said he wondered if the captain was going to crash the plane. I wonder how many other passengers had those thoughts. Fifteen minutes after the captain's announcement, a steward walked down the aisle. What was the captain talking about? I asked. The steward smiled: Look out the window and you'll see something you'll never ever see again in your life….and, of course, it was the way the clouds were just then, the way the sun was, the mix of passengers, the moment. It took me back to the Trinity River, to Josh and Tina standing at their wedding arbor. Of course, I don't and won't see everything the way it was at that moment, but I see enough to remember fondly, to appreciate that moment of wild geese blessing the union, and to be honored by being there.