Older article (published in 2014) but worth sharing again.
Lawrence Gross (he’s a scholar and a Native person) talks about “Post Apocalypse Stress Syndrome” where he says that Native American people have “seen the end of our world” which has created “tremendous social stresses.”
California Indians often refer to the Mission System and the Gold Rush as “the end of the world.” What those who survived experienced was both the “apocalypse” and “post apocalypse.” It was nothing short of zombies running around trying to kill them.
Think about it. Miners (who were up in Northern California, where I am from) thought it was perfectly fine to have “Indian hunting days” or organize militias specifically to kill Indian people. These militias were paid. They were given 25 cents a scalp and $5 a head. (In 1851 and 1852 the state of California paid out close to $1 million for the killing of Indians.)
In effect, for a long time in California, if you were an Indian person walking around, something or someone might just try to kill you. They were hungry for your scalp and your head. They had no remorse. There was no reasoning with them. And there were more of them then there was of you. Zombies. But even worse, living, breathing, people Zombies. Zombies who could look at you and talk to you and who were supposed to be human. Keep that in mind. The atrocities of genocide during this period of time were not committed by monsters — they were committed by people. By neighbors. By fathers, sons, mothers, and daughters.
In The Walking Dead the survivors resort to hiding. Sometimes they go in to town and barely survive an attack as they try to steal food or gather supplies. Sometimes they turn on each other. Sometimes they lose people they are close to. Sometimes they have to kill to stay alive. The world is in chaos. Everyone probably has high blood pressure. They probably don’t sleep much. They probably don’t get proper nutrition. They probably get sick and die of the flu, because it’s hard to get medicine and rest and get better — when something is out there constantly coming after you, trying to kill you and everyone you care about. (The zombie-pocalypse sounds eerily similar to California Indian history.)
How long until you tell those zombie-pocalypse folks to just “get over it already?” How long until you tell them “it was a long time ago?” How long until you tell them “it’s not worth talking about. It doesn’t affect me! I wasn’t there.” How long until you pretend like it’s not still a part of future generations? How long until you try to erase that the zombie-pocalypse ever happened?
This is a great piece. I really appreciate how Cutcha Risling Baldy used a popular story as a connection to an event in our past that would give the survivors all similar pain and trauma. Then connecting that to a sense of time that we can more easily relate to. 100 years is a long time in the individual scope, but tying it to generations Great-Grandfather, makes it so much more tangible.