Lassen County Times from Susanville, California • Page 11

wv wm Lassen County Times, Chester Progressive Iuesday, Dec. 24, ml Westwood PincPrcss Remembering Roxie: The legacy of a Maidu legen s'lifi LTV- it a si. Jf and landed on the back of her head," Marvin said. "She dropped ilui cane and stood there flailing her arms at the rooster, all the while shouting 'I'll fix-um "I remember just laughing and laughing to see her fighting w.ih that rooster, but you know "She ate him for dinner that night." Marvin said that that is how he would like his great grandmother to be remembered: "As a woman who loved life, a woman who loved people, and as a woman who loved and worshipped her Maker. "She was special," he said.

"We feel honored that Roxie Peconom Creek is going to be named for this wonderful lady." When it looked as if she might be dying, his son, Dr. Fred Gray Jr. came out to the house, diagnosed the flu and prescribed treatment. Roxie lived for eight more years. The grizzly bear was long gone from Lassen County by the time Roxie neared the end, but the spirit that enabled her to fend off that early attack stayed with her right up her final days, Marvin said.

One of his most vivid memories, he said, is watching Roxie as she gathered fresh eggs from the hen house each morning. By then, she had passed the century mark and was blind and using a cane. "One morning, just as she entered the chicken coop, a bantam rooster flew off the roof of the coop -J i mmjf If Roxie Peconom lived all 108 years of her life according to Maidu beliefs and traditions, including the gathering of willow branches from alongside creeks to make baskets. The U.S. Forest Service has proposed naming one of those streams Roxie Peconom Creek in her honor.

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Their 12 children always came first in their lives, even as John lay dying from an outbreak of smallpox that swept through' Lassen County just after the turn of the century. John knew that Roxie was afraid she wouldn't be able to raise the children by herself if he should die, and he told her not to worry, Viola said. "You take care of them on earth, and I'll be waiting to take care of them on the other side," he promised. Roxie believed in that promise, and after John died she spent the rest of her life caring for not only her children but also her grandchildren and great grandchildren. "I remember when she used to lake me with her to visit Old Lucy," Viola said.

"Old Lucy," whose real name was Lucy Norman, was a Pit River Indian well known around the Susanville area. Born in the early 1800s, she died in the 1930s at an estimated 125 years of age. She and Roxie were great friends, and Roxie found time nearly every day to gather apples and oranges from the grocers in town and take them along to give to her grandchildren while she and Lucy sat on the dirt floor of Lucy's tent and talked. There was only one problem. "Old Lucy didn't speak Maidu and Roxie didn't speak Pit River," Viola said.

"They had to speak English just so they could talk to each other." Marvin remembers how his great grandmother made him toast and fresh com bread, even alter she was in her nineties and had lost her eyesight. "She always touched my face with her hands and then, after putting her hands all over me, she'd say, 'You're Viola's boy, aren't Roxie', "who Marvin say's Tchcw where all the sacred sites were and where the most powerful medicine could be found, went to a doctor for the first time when she was in her eighties. She and Dr. Fred Gray Sr. quickly developed a mutual admiration for each other's skills.

NO ONE deserves to be ABUSED Shelter Support Available Call: Crisis Line 257-5004 24 Hours Collect By Joel Stovall News Editor The Indians came from as far away as the Nevada Territory. They were Washos and Paiutes, and they traveled the foothills below Thompson Peak and Diamond Mountain, headed toward the area now known as Willard Creek. They made the long journey each spring to barter with the Maidu, to exchange such goods as obsidian and pine nuts for acorns, roots and willow branches. One day, while gathering roots in the Willard Creek area in preparation for one of these gatherings, a young Maidu woman and her child encountered a large grizzly bear. The bear decided to stand its ground rather than run away but the bear didn't know that it had just met its match.

The woman was Roxie Peconom. Determined to protect her child, she grabbed a log, thrust it into the campfire and used her torch to hold off the bear which obviously had no idea that Roxie was destined to live on this earth for a total of 108 years. Today, 30 years after her death in 1962, Roxie's destiny is about to take another turn. Next month, the California Resources Agency Advisory Commiptee on Geographic Names is due to take action on a U.S. Forest Service proposal to name a stream after Roxie.

The previously unnamed 3 12-milc long stream flows in an eastnortheast direction from Fredonyer Pass. The waters of Roxie Peconom Creek join with those of Willard Creek near the ceremonial site of the Maidu Bear Dance, not far from where a brave young mother once defended her child from an attack by a grizzly. Remembering Roxie Viola Williams and Marvin Benner of Susanville, Roxie's granddaughter and great grandson, know the bear story and a great many others first hand. Viola spent much of her childhood in Roxie's -company, and she remembers her grandmother Bear dance The coming together of the Maidu, Washo and Paiute Indian tribes that Roxie Peconom experienced as a young child was more than just a chance for the Indians to barter goods. It was also a time to offer thanks to Kadyapam, the Creator, for having made it possible for the tribe to survive the winter.

And it was an appeasement to the grizzly bear and rattlesnake spirits, the most powerful of all animal spirits, so that the tribe might again receive favorable treatment from them during the forthcoming year. After the greetings and opening I tJ 1 monument to Peter Lassen alongside Wingficld Road, Roxie grew up in the traditional Maidu lifestyle. She was there when the Washo and Paiute tribes came to the banks of Willard Creek to barter with the Maidu. She knew and got along well with Peter Lassen, Isaac Roop and the other white founders of Lassen County. She watched as her tribal traditions lost out to more modern lifestyles, and she was still here when local Indians interested in reviving the annual ceremony now called the Bear Dance needed to know what it was really like.

"She told them, but only after she made them promise there would be no drinking," Viola said. And therein lies the one of the secrets to Roxie's long and joyful life. "She lived an honest life, she had great common sense, and she believed in her Maker," Viola said. The Bear Dance, as the Maidus' annual spring ceremony is called, is based on what was first and foremost a spirial related story). disputes, and the people could start the new season with love and friendship for all.

This is the ceremony Roxie Peconom knew as a child. After several years of neglect, interest in reviving it picked up, and Roxie and her memories were instrumental in making sure that the ceremony was observed according to Maidu tradition. Today, the Bear Dance takes place at Willard Creek every spring and is enormously popular, not only with the Maidu, but with Indians from throughout North America. lie iltli a I telling the story of how the Maidu were amused when the first white settlers attempted to cross what came to be known as the Susan River in their wagons. "The Maidu knew where they could cross," Roxie would say.

"But we had too much fun watching them to tell them right away." Many years later, long after those early settlers had passed away, Roxie still found the white man amusing. "The white man is crazy," Benner remembers her saying. "You're supposed to sleep at night not play baseball." She loved hot, strong coffee --until she discovered the white man's Coca-Cola. Benner said Roxie quickly got hooked on the carbonated drink, which she said "Brings up the bad air." It was mat kind of gentle humor, coupled with her common sense observations on life, that characterized Roxie Peconom. Born sometime around 1850 (written records were not kept and no one is exactly sure when) near the present day location of the LASSEN TRAINING EMPLOYMENT CENTER, INC.

Is seeking applications from individuals representing the public and private sectors for membership to the Lassen TEC Board Directors. Lassen TEC administers the JTi' Program in Lassen County. Individ -interested, or wishing to obtain additional information, should contact Janice Kaber, Sn" Main Street, P.O. Box 1090, Susanville, CA 96130. 916-257-5057.

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. has spiritual meaning I 1 2225 A if LAB ON it is Years Computerized ir Contact it MEDI 1825 prayers took place, it was time for the Wahdom buyam, the Bear Dance. One person was designated the bear and, dressed in a bearskin, he would lead the others, who carried wormwood branches as symbols of friendship and peace, in prayer and dance. At the conclusion of the dancing and prayers, the bear led them to a nearby stream where the wormwood was tossed into the water, after which everyone washed their faces. This symbolized the throwing away of all bad feelings, the washing away of grudges and MARTIN G.

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