A Maidu Home
A Maidu Home A Maidu Home Chapter 1 Who Is Cara? When the first warm breeze hints of spring - Yo-meni to the Maidu people - I like to sit near the lake on the Reservation. To be honest, it's not much of a lake. I can easily swim across it from end to end. And when the water laps onto the pebbled shore, sometimes it carries things like an old sneaker or a chewed-up baseball bat, splashing and bobbing like they belong. Still, I sit and imagine I'm at Grassy Lake. Two centuries ago, my ancesto
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A Maidu Home
A Maidu Home
Chapter 1 Who Is Cara?
When the first warm breeze hints of spring - Yo-meni to the Maidu people - I like to sit near the lake on the Reservation.To be honest, it's not much of a lake. I can easily swim across it from end to end.And when the water laps onto the pebbled shore,sometimes it carries things like an old sneaker or a chewed-up baseball bat,splashing and bobbing like they belong.Still, I sit and imagine I'm at Grassy Lake.
Two centuries ago, my ancestors camped all summer long at Grassy Lake,where nothing splashed and bobbed but the salmon.Back then, life and sustenance flourished in the foothills, streams, and mountains.Clear, clean water cascaded down the falls, and fish swam along fresh streams that carved out narrow canyons.
When Yo-meni settles over the Reservation,I try to see in the murky water and hardscrabble grounds the same spirits - kakini - that the old Maidu saw at Grassy Lake.If I listen long enough, I can hear them whispering through the tall weeds that overrun the field behind the school.Mostly though, I just hear a used-up wind, proclaiming its loneliness.
One day, that old wind blew a girl named Cara Persad onto the Reservation.Trust me, this was no cause for celebration. Especially for me.She was going to live at our house "temporarily" and move into my room.
Cara had worn out more than one Los Angeles foster home.When they finally discovered she was one-half Maidu Indian, they shipped her off to the Reservation.Just passed along a problem, if you ask me. But Aunt Flora took her in.She'd taken me in, too, after my dad left, but then, I was family.Anyway, Cara was about to ruin my privacy - and my plans for the future.I'm one year from high school, but it's never too early to plan for Harvard.
When I think about it, I live mostly in my Maidu past and in the future.For a long time now, I've wanted to be a doctor.When people ask why, I give them two reasons.First, I believe it's in my blood. I read a lot. I guess that's putting it mildly.I can't deny my nose is always stuck in a book.That's where I first read about the Maidu women who were doctors - shamans.
