Bringing N-Shong Konk or ‘Good Fire’ Back to the Land
Yesterday, some of the organizers of N-Shong Konk or ‘Good Fire’ prepared for today’s gathering at the Southern Humboldt Community Park. [Photos by Lauren Schmitt]
![Organizers of n shong konk prepare for today's gathering at the Southern Humboldt Community Park. [Photos by Lauren Schmitt]](https://kymkemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20230217_133318.jpg)
Wailaki non-profit, Native Health in Native Hands, is partnering with other indigenous leaders and fire experts who will teach attendees the process of bringing cultural fire back to Wailaki ancestral lands. ![Organizers of n shong konk prepare for today's gathering at the Southern Humboldt Community Park. [Photos by Lauren Schmitt]](https://kymkemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20230217_131152.jpg)
The organizers of N-Shong Konk gathered at the Southern Humboldt Community Park on Friday afternoon, at the location they plan on conducting their first cultural burn.![Organizers of n shong konk prepare for today's gathering at the Southern Humboldt Community Park. [Photos by Lauren Schmitt]](https://kymkemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20230217_130814.jpg)
Members of the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council, the Southern Humboldt Prescribed Burn Association, the Community Park Board assisted in pre-fire prep work at sites of cultural importance to the Wailaki people.
The Community Park has served as an important gathering space for native people for time immemorial and native leadership seeks to restore the land and bolster participation among local residents.
More in the KMUD story from Lauren Schmitt below…
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Happy MahaShivaratri
I like the term “first people” as opposed to Indian (which reeks of the explorer’s lack of knowlege) or native American (as everyone born here is truly just as native.) First gives appropriate honor whole acknowledging that there will be subsequent. Sharing knowledge is always a good thing and the people who do it should be honored.
Here ! Here ! Mr guest, I have the benefit of the Yurok, Hupa, and smaller tribes that have practiced the burning of the understory to keep forests healthy.
Up in No Hum I’ve met and talked with the organizers. What a GOOD thing
It’s about time. Thank you
An invasive species, like the Himalayan blackberry or pampas grass, can reproduce in a geography it was never meant to inhabit … but it will never be native …
Unfortunately for humans that would mean no one is native as none were “meant to be” as in evolved here. All came from elsewhere and the only place humans were “meant to be” by that definition was the middle east.
Just to add to your philosophy, “First People” doesn’t fit either. Nobody spoke English before The White Devil showed up on the continent. I call it “Newcomer Syndrome”. Whenever a Newcomer shows up they have to change everything. They fully believe that the locals are wrong and it needs changing.
Like this blogsite… I had to verify that I’m a “Human” before I could post this. Once I verified that I’m a human it wouldn’t let me post. I changed servers. and asked my dog to post this for me… it worked for him.
Why bother with all this? Fish and game want us out of our lands, and to put us into cities where they can control us. The environmental movement is the enemy, fish and game are the enemy.
ignorance is the enemy. fear is the enemy. self-centeredness is the enemy. cooperation,discernment, pragmatism and sacrifice are the tools we need to grant our grandchildren’s generation even a fraction of the bounty we’ve had.
*Africa
Thanks D’
That’s science for you. It keeps changing. That is, as long as it fits the narrative. If the science doesn’t fit the current narrative the offending scientist’s funding is removed and they are ostracized.
.
Then years later they discover: “My gosh, the Earth really isn’t flat” and the narrative changes.
You lost me there.
Are you suggesting that scientific journals have ever suggested anything other than Africa being the place of origin for humans?
And has science has ever supported the idea of the Earth being flat?
Although the fossil records give Africa the earliest identifiable humans, so far all pre Columbus north american and European humans seemed to spread out from the middle east through India with mixtures of subgroups that did not appear in Africa itself. They carry a Neanderthal mix that is different than Africans. The Neanderthal DNA mix in Africa seems to be because it was carried back into Africa later.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/01/30/new-study-identifies-neanderthal-ancestry-african-populations-and-describes-its
D’
Science is only theory. There is a scientific theory that all life on Earth sprang out of some Primordial Soup, back when Earth’s atmosphere was was quite different.
When did life start, and when does science accept it as Human? And, which species of human?
When I was in school we were taught that Humans probably originated in Mesopotamia, in the Tigris and Euphrates Valley. Which, coincidentally, is the place that the religious doctrine thinks is the Garden of Eden.
Not so recently, a better theory was presented that life began in Africa. It’s a good theory, but still just a theory.
P.S. I don’t believe in anything that I can’t hit with a hammer. Otherwise known as tangible evidence.
Science has never held that humans began in Mesopotamia. If you were taught that in school, you were taught wrong.
You also might be mixing up scientific theory with the use of the word in lay language. A scientific theory is a conclusion which has been substantiated through repeated experiments and/or testing.
in the old days,mesopotamia, the “bread basket of civilization” was as far back in time as we could see.
the human genome wasn’t decoded until the early 1990s. after that, the tech to sequence dna became pretty affordable and we have learned a lot about our origins since then. still more is yet unfolding.
And let’s add: prior to about the 90s, our cultural racism was far too strong to acknowledge we came out of africa. for some people it may still be way too much.
“prior to about the 90s, our cultural racism was far too strong to acknowledge we came out of africa.”
Not to mention that most all mammals have the same basic skeletal make up. That must blow some people’s minds.
Before Jack Ward Thomas…and the spotted owl lie….yes…it was the bard owl all along…
… cold burn fires were in the govt forest prescription. Every winter they would burn. Thousands and thousands of acres….. until the no hand of man option was selected by our 10 liberal federal senators.
Back in the day…say…early 80’s… the tribes..the whites…every body was applying cold burns for forest health and fire prevention.
This is not some new deal that the tribes invented. It’s comforting and empowering…which is fine…but it’s nothing new.
Back in pre white eyes era…the tribes used to burn off brush fields and such in the spring..often with the help of lightning… for better hunting areas and easier passage over ground. Some times to war against tribal adversaries.
Fire in the forest …is just like heroin. It has it’s use…and it has a place. It should not be abused…such as we see now…as they are behind the curve..especially with the drought cycle.
We have had some big burns….old sail ship logs would record fire off the port side….. for weeks of sailing. This was before the timber wars..before any of that era.
tu’invákaamha
Ishi, Last of His Tribe by Theodora Kroeber | Goodreads