It’s the summer of 1979, and I am in Utah driving Norman, a young Paiute fieldworker to Indian Peaks, a sacred Paiute site.A converted Mormon, Norman says he has given up Paiute superstition. But as the hours pass, he talks of spirits in nearby Fish Lake, ancestors who watch over us, rains that come from proper incantation.
He asks about Judaism, and I tell him of my desert ancestors, discoverers of that oneness of things we call God, and of our own sacred words. I tell him how our numbers, too, like those of the Native Americans, had been diminished by senseless hatred.
We finally arrive and park near a small, hilly rise beyond which a great escarpment looms. “Ah,” I say, looking at the large cliff. “That must be Indian Peaks.” Norman pauses, deciding whether to trust me with a guarded truth. “Yes, to the White Man.” he says. “To the Paiute, that is the sacred mountain,” pointing to the small rise.
As our eyes meet, I suddenly understand. In the desert, the small survive.
And there we stood in silence and hope, two descendants of desert peoples, pondering both the Maker of All Things and the power of the hilly rise, the still small voice, the rare moment of connection. All, sacred things.
Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D., is a sociologist in the Departments of Psychiatry, Medical Ethics, and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
