The Oldwoods

    Another example of the rich variety of creation myths among the Native American tribes of the pacific northwest is that of the Nameless God. The tribe to which it belonged is colloquially referred to as the People of the Mist due to the fog that would form in the redwood forests where they lived; however, their real name remains unknown. They believed names to have a sacred power over their subjects and were understandably reluctant to give their’s out to westerners. Their deity has no name signifying that none can have power over it. Their reclusiveness, not only from the West but from other tribes as well, means that we know very little about them. In fact, this is the only myth of their’s that is currently know to be in record.

The Birth of the Nameless God

    Long ago before the growth of the forest, the God Which Has No Name created himself out of the strength of the earth and the life of the air. The God was the first to be born into the barren fields and for some time lived alone in peace. For many years it walked the plains, but soon the God grew weary of solitude and yearned for a companion. Out of the dust and mist, the God created the Bobcat. The Bobcat, being made as clever as it was elegant, asked the God why he was born. The God said that it was lonely and wished for some companionship. The Bobcat replied that he alone could not sufficiently entertain such a magnificent God.

    The God thought on this, and then created the Heron from water and grasses. The Bobcat saw this, and because he was jealous of the God’s power, began to plan against the God. The Bobcat said, “If you have two companions then should your creation have none? A bobcat as I is not suited for a heron. Will you make her a companion as well?”

    And on this the God thought and created the Flying Squirrel from the wind and bark. The Bobcat saw this and asked the God, “But then the Heron’s time will be split between you and the Flying Squirrel, and if you create another then you must create a companion for it as well and so on and so forth. Let me aid you. Tell me your name so that I may know your power and create alongside you.”

    And on this the God thought and decided to tell the Bobcat. With his new power, the Bobcat, in his jealousy, created demons to chase after the God’s animals. The God realized that he was betrayed, and in fear of the demons learning his name, struck all of the animals mute so that they could only crow and growl. He raised great redwoods from the ground to protect the animals and grew the forest large so that the demons would lose their way if they ever wandered inside. The God then created Man to live in the forest and keep the balance. For this, the God granted Man speech. Lastly, the God cloaked itself in darkness and hid in the oldest part of the forest where the trees scraped the clouds and destroyed his name.

–– An Anthology of Myths from the Native Tribes of the Pacific Northwest:

Anthony Hopkins

***

    The Oldwoods was, is, and ever shall be a wasteland. Usefulness doesn't really matter to us. We’re so quick to call a strip mine “barren” and “hideous” regardless of how much ore it produces because it’s all about the aesthetics – what we can visually suck from the early morning mist seeping around the redwoods. Gorgeous it may be, but I’m certain that the surreal beauty of the Oldwoods is’t ours to take.

     The name is a supposed haphazard approximation of the traditional name used by the natives. The indigenous tribe was historically reclusive and had a very isolated language. They considered the Forest’s True Name to be sacred and shared it only amongst their shamans and spiritual leaders. When they died out they took the true name with them, and “Oldwoods” was constructed from rumor and whispers.

    I’m not convinced that it resembles anything of the true name. Not enough is known about the Oldwoods tribe. It’s probably why a whole slew of new-age, nature worshiping potheads have founded so many religions based on the Tribe. I’d even go as far as to say that “Oldwoods” was their invention entirely. It’d be characteristic certainly.

    Well, I guess you could count me in with the stoners and shamanists as I found myself knocking on the door of a freshly trimmed log cabin, duffle bag in hand, not long ago. The sign above the door read “New Horizon Oldwoods Sanctuary” in a polite, hand-brushed script. The whole place could have passed for an old miners’ cabin tucked away off a bend in the gravel road out here in the middle of the woods, but on closer inspection the fresh construction gave it away. Too clean, too straight. That and the solar panels covering the roof.

    “Coming!” was the muffled shout from behind the door. I looked down at my feet. Funny how much my boots fit with the cabin – brand new hiking boots. They still had the fresh smell of factory leather. The opening door snapped me out of my preoccupation with their riveted lacing. “Ah, you must be Karl! Welcome to the New Horizon Oldwoods Sanctuary. The NOHS for short.” This he pronounced as ‘The Nose.’ “I’m Nicodemus, by the way. Why don’t you come on in?”

    The main room of the cabin was an uncanny mix of the reception area for a doctors office and ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ There was a stone fireplace set into the far wall and a small reception desk with a laptop near the door. The floor was paneled wood and the log walls were decorated with info-graphic posters about chakras and a stuffed jackalope.

    “Nice place,” I said.

    “Thanks. Here at the NOHS we, ah, cater to all your spiritual needs. Heck, we even have a sweat lodge down the way. I mean, there are a lot of different schools of New Age thought out there. We tend to focus on the teachings of The Tribe, but we certainly don’t dismiss anything,” said Nicodemus.

    “Makes sense. Given the location, that is.”

    “Oh certainly, the energy here is unbelievable. It’s no wonder that this is where the Tribe chose to live. Ah, but I don’t want to bore you with a dissertation on our philosophy just yet.”

    “Oh no, I would love it actually. Lemme fish out my recorder,” I said. He motioned me over to a couple of wooden chairs around an end table and sat down as I searched through my bag.

    Nicodemus was a very tall and very thin man who seemed to constantly shake as if he had just downed one too many cups of coffee. He had coarse sandy-orange hair and a thin goatee. A cross section of a geode hung from a leather string around his neck.

    I started by asking him for a little about himself. The piece I was writing was a pathos/ethos piece after all. He doesn’t say much though, just stumbles over a few memory snippets. He went to a college not up to the caliber he wanted but dropped out anyway; got a job working as a cashier in a New Age crystal shop; went to a Native American spiritual healer (who was really only one sixteenth Native American) and witnessed the power of ancient spirituality; saw the need for “spiritual cleansing” in people; and the rest is history.

    I finally got the idea that he wasn’t the one who handled the marketing when I asked him about the business itself. He kept tripping over his words and apologizing good-naturedly as he tried to explain the ideology behind the NOHS. It was almost disarming, and his earnest convictions about New Age made you feel like you should give the whole thing a try just for the heck of it. He finally gave up on playing public relations when I started asking about the land contract. He admitted to not being the best one to explain it and asked if I would be OK talking with his partner about that. I agreed and we set off down the road to the main campsite.

    “She’s really much better at the organization than I am. Ah, really the whole ‘business’ side of things actually. I’m more of the spiritual guide, I guess you could say,” said Nicodemus. We had just finished walking to the camp. “I’ll go inside and get her, you can sit on that bench over there if you want.”

    The camp was nice enough. A couple buildings were situated in a semicircle around a gravel roundabout and in the center was a large fire pit and some benches. Everything was framed by the massive redwood trees that consumed the horizon. It was quiet save for the background chatter of birds, silenced once or twice by the occasional eagle cry. I couldn’t see anyone walking about, but judging from the steam rising out of the wigwam-style sweat lodge I could guess where they all were.

    “Hello there! You’re Karl I take it?” said a female voice behind me. I was modestly startled by suddenness of it; I hadn’t even heard the door open. I turned around to see an average enough looking girl with an angular face and long black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

    “Yes, nice to meet you,” I said shaking her hand.

    “Well, I’m Lydia. Do you wanna come inside? Nic tells me you have some questions about the land contract.”

***

    I suppose I’ve put off explaining the land contract and why I’m in the middle of the pacific northwest for long enough. It’s a cliched story, really; your basic feel-good save-the-rainforest type deal. The NOHS managed to lease out some government land in the woods due to some odd clause in the state legislation that permits non-profit to lease such reserves for “environmental and or historical research.” They snatched it up believing that their specific patch of land was the homeland of the Tribe and the ground was therefore sacred. A plan to construct a highway through the area made it’s way onto the State’s House floor and was about to pass when the politicians realized the land was being leased. As you could imagine, this lead to a bit of an industry versus environment standoff. Looking back, I could already hear the victory cries of self-identifying environmentalists who’ve never actually planted a tree in their life celebrating when the bill was inevitably shot down. It wasn’t even that well-supported, but the public’s attention is fickle, and the magazine I was working for at the time wanted to run a big story on it. The plan was I’d stay with the NOHS for a day or so and hear them out, then I’d hike off into the center of the Oldwoods and camp out for a couple days to “embrace the nature” or something saccharine like that. I was all for it. As a fresh-out-of-college, green party wannabe working for an environmental magazine, I couldn’t get enough of the whole connecting with mother earth concept. And as a tenderfooted gullible idiot, I soaked up Lydia and Nicodemus’ garbage about the Tribe like a boy-scout on a snipe hunt.

    I won’t go into detail of my time spent at the NOHS. Nothing against them really, I just don’t find their gross misappropriation of everything from Chinese to Native American culture entertaining anymore. I’ll just continue my tale, starting with my trek into the Oldwoods.

    It is peculiar how the woods managed to swallow up sound. The moments I had spent on the porch waiting for Lydia had been misleading because as soon as the sweat-lodge session ended the camp erupted with shouting patrons. Half of them were tourists using the NOHS as an excuse to “experience” the wilderness of the Oldwoods, but here, only a mile in, everything was back to an acoustic calm. It was like a lull in a passionate rock song where you can hear your ears rushing in the silence.

    As I pushed though the damp moss and leaf litter I found that the awe at the sheer size of each behemoth tree I passed never lessened or wore off. There’s an old legend about the redwoods that says the trees used to be giants who were so tall they couldn’t see their feet. They got into an argument over who had the most toes and stood around for so long trying to count them until they all turned to wood. In that sense, I guess there is some merit to the name “Oldwoods.” It’s rumored that the oldest redwood in the world is somewhere in here. A group of scientists announced that they’d found it the other year but didn’t disclose the location in fear of vandalism. I wonder if I’ll come across it.

    Eventually, I got to where I figured was as good a place as any to set up camp. I fell asleep, and the next morning I was woken up by the light patter of rain on the roof of my synthetic blue tent. Everything was damp and muggy like waking up in a cold sweat and the sun had only just barely begun to rise. I fumbled about to my flashlight, flicked it on, and pondered over whether or not I should even bother going outside in the rain to get my food. Last night I had tied it up a branch so bears couldn’t get to it. It wasn’t long till my dry tongue in need of coffee decided for me, and I threw on some shoes. I attempted to unzip my tent even though I couldn’t quite feel the zipper with my numb fingers in the morning cold and managed to undo the front flap, only to step out to a dark shadow standing a meter in front of me.

    I froze. My eyes adjusted and I was able to see the shadow staring back. It was a bobcat. He looked at me with large grey eyes for a beat before turning his whiskered head and walking away. I don’t know why, but I decided to follow him. I guess you could call it intuition, but I think I just wanted to get a better look at a creature I’d never seen before. In retrospect, I could’ve gotten bitten for harassing a wild animal like that but I digress.

    I pulled myself free from the tent into the morning mist. It was thickest in the dawn right before the sun cleared it out. I could just make out the trunks of the closest redwoods – massive burgundy and umber pillars of wood wrapped in flaking conifer bark. I swam though the mist as best as I could in the direction I saw the bobcat go off in. My toes started to freeze as the water in the leaf litter soaked through my shoes. I tucked my hands into my pockets to ward off the ever present cold and pulled my jacket tight to keep out the rain. That pitter patter of drizzle was all that could be heard. Everything, even the birds, was silent.

    I walked on, completely forgetting about my breakfast hanging in a tree back at camp. I forgot why I was walking, even. Surely I had veered off course from the bobcat long ago. The woods was calming in a way, but the silence was uncomfortable – like I had just said something out of line at a party. I kept walking, maybe because I wanted to get away from the quiet, or possibly get closer to it. Maybe I just wanted to see the next redwood pass out of the mist like a spirit and marvel at it. Maybe I secretly liked the cold.

    I lost track of time. I think it was only a half hour, could be more. I don’t know. I walked and walked and still heard nothing. At this point the rain had stopped but the sky was still overcast and the morning sun was weak. Silence came down from the sky and grew out of the earth. I honestly felt like the entire world was being held up by the redwoods above me.

    I walked into a clearing and saw the Nameless God.

    It stood nearly fifteen feet tall, black as a panther, thin as a pine tree. It resembled a deer but with it’s back sloping up towards the shoulders so it’s slender legs were significantly longer in the front, and its head sat on a long tapered neck. The God had two pure white eyes and looked at me with an unbroken stare. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I was terrified.

    This was everything that Nicodemus tried to distill into marketable crystals; what the politicians wanted to envision in their road bill; what the hippies hope to find in the thank-you letter from the origination they donated to; what the bobcat looks for in its next meal; what the Tribe looked for in their stories; and what I was supposed to capture in writing.

    When it finally left all the feeling had gone from my legs. I don’t now how long I had been sitting there; I don’t even remember sitting down to begin with. I did notice the birds chirping again though just now. Isn’t it funny how people some people think birds sing for them?

    Whether it was a natural beast or something else I don’t know, and I never will. The next day I left the Oldwoods and told the magazine I couldn’t write the piece after all. They said they would fire me if I didn’t have it in my next month.

    I’m job-searching right now.