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The Clan of One-Breasted Women
The following is an excerpt from, The Clan of One-Breasted Women; the epilog of, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, written by Terry Tempest Williams ...a powerful personal account of a woman's family life experience with radioactive fallout from the Nevada test site. "I belong to a Clan of One-Breasted Women," says Terry. "My mother, my grandmothers, and six aunts have all had mastectomies. Seven are dead ... I've had my own problems: two biopsies for breast cancer and a small tumor removed between my ribs diagnosed as a borderline malignancy." The Nevada test site was illegally created on the Shoshoni ancestral lands stolen by the U.S. government in violation of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley which it signed with the Shoshoni guaranteeing the sovereignty of the Shoshoni people over their traditional homeland, Newe Segobia.)
One night, I dreamed women from all over the world were circling a blazing fire in the desert. They spoke of change, of how they hold the moon in their bellies and wax and wane with its phases. They mocked at the presumption of even-tempered beings and made promises that they would never fear the witch inside themselves. The women danced wildly as sparks broke away from the flames and entered the night sky as stars.
And they sang a song given to them by Shoshoni grandmothers:
Ah ne nah, nah ... Consider the rabbits
nin nah nah ... How gently they walk on the earth
Ah ne nah, nah ... Consider the rabbits
nin nah nah ... How gently they walk on the earth
Nyaga mutzi ... We remember them
oh ne nay ... We can walk gently also
Nyaga mutzi ... We remember them
oh ne nay ... We can walk gently also
The women danced and drummed and sang for weeks, preparing themselves for what was to come. They would reclaim the desert for the sake of their children, for the sake of the land. A few miles downwind from the fire circle, bombs were being tested. Rabbits felt the tremors. Their soft leather pads on paws and feet recognized the shaking sands while the roots of mesquite and sage were smoldering. Rocks were hot from the inside out and dust devils hummed unnaturally. And each time there was another nuclear test, ravens watched the desert heave. Stretch marks appeared. The land was losing its muscle.
The women couldn't bear it any longer. They were mothers. They had suffered labor pains but always under the promise of birth. The red-hot pains beneath the desert promised death only, as each bomb became stillborn. A contract was being drawn by the women who understood the fate of the earth as their own.
Under the cover of darkness, ten women slipped under the barbed-wire fence and entered the contaminated country. They were trespassing. They walked toward the town of Mercury in moonlight, taking their cues from coyote, kit fox, antelope ground squirrel, and quail. They moved quietly and deliberately through the maze of Joshua trees. When a hint of daylight appeared they rested, drinking tea and sharing their rations of food. The women closed their eyes. The time had come to protest with the heart, that to deny one's genealogy with the earth was to commit treason against one's soul.
At dawn, the women draped themselves in Mylar, wrapping long streamers of silver plastic around their arms to blow in the breeze. They wore clear masks that became the faces of humanity. And when they arrived on the edge of Mercury, they carried all the butterflies of a summer day in their wombs. They paused to allow their courage to settle.
The town, which forbids pregnant women and children to enter because of radiation risks to their health, was asleep. The women moved through the streets as winged messengers, twirling around each other in slow motion, peeking inside homes and watching the easy sleep of men and women. They were astonished by such stillness and periodically would utter a shrill note or low cry just to verify life.
The residents finally awoke to what appeared as strange apparitions. Some simply stared. Others called authorities, and in time, the women were apprehended by wary soldiers dressed in desert fatigues. They were taken to a white building on the other edge of Mercury. When asked who they were and why they were there, the women replied, "We are mothers and we have come to reclaim the desert for our children."
The soldiers arrested them. As the ten women were blindfolded and handcuffed, they began singing:
You can't forbid us everything
You can't forbid us to think...
You can't forbid our tears to flow
And you can't stop the songs that we sing.
The women continued to sing louder and louder, until they heard the voices of their sisters moving across the mesa.
Ah nenah, nah
nin nah nah ...
Ah ne nah, nah
nin nah nah ...
Nyaga mutzi
oh ne nay ...
Nyaga mutzi
oh ne nay ...
"Call for reinforcements," one soldier said.
"We have," interrupted one woman. "We have ...and you have no idea of our numbers."
On March 18, 1988, I crossed the line at the Nevada Test Site and was arrested with nine other Utahns for trespassing on military lands. They are still conducting nuclear tests in the desert. Ours was an act of civil disobedience. But as I walked toward the town of Mercury, it was more than a gesture of peace. It was a gesture on behalf of the Clan of One-Breasted Women.
As one officer cinched the handcuffs around my wrists, another frisked my body. She found a pen and a pad of paper tucked inside my left boot.
"And these?" she asked sternly.
"Weapons," I replied.
Our eyes met. I smiled. She pulled the leg of my trousers back over my boot.
"Step forward, please," she said as she took my arm.
We were booked under an afternoon sun and bused to Tonopah, Nevada. It was a two-hour ride. This was familiar country to me. The Joshua trees standing their ground had been named by my ancestors who believed they looked like prophets pointing west to the promised land. These were the same trees that bloomed each spring, flowers appearing like white flames in the Mojave. And I recalled a full moon in May when my mother and I had walked among them, flushing out mourning doves and owls.
The bus stopped short of town. We were released. The officials thought it was a cruel joke to leave us stranded in the desert with no way to get home. What they didn't realize is that we were home, soul-centered and strong, women who recognized the sweet smell of sage as fuel for our spirits.
nin nah nah ... How gently they walk on the earth
Ah ne nah, nah ... Consider the rabbits
nin nah nah ... How gently they walk on the earth
Nyaga mutzi ... We remember them
oh ne nay ... We can walk gently also
Nyaga mutzi ... We remember them
oh ne nay ... We can walk gently also
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The True Essence of Civilization
Chief Standing Bear, The Land of the Spotted Eagle, 1933
True, the white man brought great change. But the varied fruits of his civilization, though highly colored and inviting, are sickening and deadening. And if it be the part of civilization to maim, rob, and thwart, then what is progress? I am going to venture the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization. – Chief Standing Bear, The Land of the Spotted Eagle, 1933
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