By Carolanne Wright
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World
The Dann sisters, Carrie and Mary, are two Western Shoshone elders who live on ancestral and environmentally sensitive lands of Crescent Valley, Nevada. From time immemorial, the Shoshone peoples have lived in a balance of stewardship and reciprocity within this environment. As part of their core values, the Shoshone believe life is a prayer and offer small ceremonies for everything taken of mother earth. The sisters were told by their grandmother that there are nature spirits everywhere. And each time you eat a grain of rice, a grain of wheat, you are eating this thing we call life — don’t waste it.
Unfortunately, Shoshone reverence for the natural world lies in sharp contrast to the desires of the United States Government and its corporate masters. In 1863, the U.S. government, along with the Shoshone nation, signed the “Treaty of Peace and Friendship” in Ruby Valley, Nevada. At the time, the Shoshone laid claim to 26 million acres of land in Nevada. The treaty between the government and the Western Shoshone nation allowed for settlers and ranchers to have access to the land, but did not include land title. Nonetheless, all of this changed a century later due to a coveted and ecologically devastating resource: gold.
