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Lucy Thompson (1853-1932) http://tinyurl.com/LThompson

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The Lonesome Wilds

From To the American Indian, 1916. Read Online Download PDF	Reader: Jessica Teeter
keywords: women, first nation

Archetypal stories tell of the dual nature of human beings, attracted by wilderness and rooted in culture. The story's the same in California.

Born in the Klamath River country, Lucy Thompson preserved tales of her native Yurok people. One of these tells of a family's struggle between the appeal of village life and the irrestible calling of wild nature.

She remembered the day and place where she had promised to meet her husband and return with him to their home, but she refused to go and meet him at the appointed time and place [. . .] One day he managed to attract the attention of his little son [. . .] He directed the son to go and tell his mother to come to him, as he was waiting for her. [. . .] Studying the boy's face for a few moments, she replied by saying that he could choose between her and his father [. . .] The boy at once preferred his father and bid his mother farewell. Father and son returned to their hiding place, and the mother, who had once cheered them in the lonesome wilds, never saw them again; they had gone out of her life forever, like a dream that had come and gone, and faded again, with the closing day, back to the primeval redwoods, where you may see father and son staying together among the mystic shadows of dreamland mountains.

Lucy Thompson recorded her stories of Yurok culture in the 1916 book To the American Indian.

–Contributed by Meghan Bass.