WE HAVA-HISTORY

The Past—may hold the answer—Who are we?

Article from the Today’s Daily News, July 16, 1995 by Elizabeth Laden

                  During the spring and summer of 1995, dozens of public and private meetings have taken place throughout Lake Havasu City in which residents have argued, come together, broken up, made peace, produced new ideas and shot down old ones.
              Over and over again one question was asked with such passion and wonder that it seems vital it be answered.
              The search usually began with —”Who are we, anyway?”  It is followed by, “What is Lake Havasu City?  What do we want our community to be: do we agree with the plans that are sitting around, collecting dust in offices we’ve never been in? Should we be writing a new plan:  “Do we need a Plan?”  And it always came back to the heart—”Who are we?”
              A proven way to zero in on how to answer that question is to search the past, follow it to its roots.  This is a story following that path.  It begins with the mystical vision story of Rose Cassata, a Mojave Indian.  Rose died in a Phoenix nursing home in 1985.
          Maria Cassata, her 28-year-old granddaughter, lives in a recreational vehicle and travels around the Southwest to flea markets, where she sells Indian jewelry and rugs.  In her spare time, she does home study in archaeology.  And she gathers people around her RV and tells the numerous stories Rose and other Mojave and southwest Indians have told her.  She says she may write them down some day.   She is staying in Yuma with a friend of this writers, Coyote Little Deer, a Crow Indian archaeologist, when she told this story. 

The Prophecy:  Rolling the Rocks
              Grandmother Rose sat on the hill for several minutes, getting her bearings and waiting for her breathing to slow down.  She was in her mid-20’s and not a grandmother yet, but she already had ancient, seeking eyes, filled with wonder and wisdom.  Those probing eyes slowly absorbed the spectacle of Lake Havasu.  Its blue-green color still amazed her, as she could remember the russet gray of the Colorado River before the dam was built at Parker to tame the river.  What a contrast that blue was to the taupe and brown and gun metal gray of the hills and mountains around it.
          Several weeks past, the Holy Spirit had urged Rose to go to that place, but  it took  planning to finally get there.  The trip involved a dusty trip in an old truck from her home near Parker, an unsteady boat ride cross the lake, and then the climb to the top of  Spirit Mountain.  It was July, 1945. It was hot.
              The Great Spirit had brushed the sky with beautiful clouds.  There were giant thunderheads, wispy white puffs, like thin gauze, and torpedoes on the way to outer space.  The wind rolled across the rocks, brush and dried grass, and embraced Grandmother.  It twisted her long braid, swirling her long skirt around her bony legs, and made her thirsty.  She sipped water from a metal canteen.
              Rose believed the spirit led her there to seek a vision for the people of the Colorado River, and when she shared that belief with her grandmother, she was encouraged to go.  To prepare her, grandmother taught  Rose the ancient rolling rocks ritual the women of her secret medicine society used when they sought help.
              Evening began to close in on Spirit Mountain.  Rose watched the sun drop behind one of the thick torpedo clouds,   and felt the wind pick up and the rocks, no longer bleached by brightness, turned pink and mauve, green and yellow.  The sun sank further and balanced itself on the tip of the mountains.  The clouds in the eastern sky turned orange in the north; and in the south they were purple. 
              She began to gather the rocks.  She needed twelve of them.  They had to be the same size, picked up in three batches of four.  They had to be of a size that two together would fill the area of her hand.  Following her grandmother’s instructions, Rose let the Spirit take her to the rocks.  She simply walked around the top of the mountain until a rock seemed to jump at her, and she picked it up.  It didn’t take long.
Rose then made a circle with the 12 rocks, spacing them evenly and making the circle just large enough for her to sit in its center and be able to easily touch the rocks.
              She faced west and waited.  Now the sun was down and the sky was rimmed with soft  pastels: yellow,  green,  pink,  violet.  The
wind howled in her ears, calmed down to a friendly hum, and picked up again.  Rose prayed for help and wisdom.
              Suddenly she became acutely aware that it was time to make the rocks roll.  As instructed, she picked up the first four, two in each hand, balanced them in her palms, and pointed her fingers to the earth just enough so that the rocks rolled off and down the mountain.  She heard them roll, their sound solid and sure beneath the wild wind noises.  When they stopped, she rolled the next four, waited and rolled the last of them.
              Now she prayed with all her concentration, keeping her eyes shut tight as she was told to do.  She prayed a good hour, until her mind’s eye saw a lightning bolt flash against the darkness behind her eyelids.  It was time to look.
              Rose opened her eyes and saw what her grandmother had promised.  All 12 rocks were glowing.  The rocks had sponged up the energy of the earth and sky and stars.  The energy they had absorbed “knew” what the place would be like in the future.
              Rose asked to see.  The scene before her changed.  It was unworldly, like a film stuck on fast forward.  Her vision began.
Rose saw the hills before her that stretched out to the lake covered with houses and roads.  She saw tall green trees and the lake covered with boats moving faster than some airplanes she’d seen.  She heard crying and screaming and the deafening noise of thousands of machines.
              She saw hordes of people talking to one another but not understanding anything that was said, like the Tower of Babel she’d read about in the Old Testament.  She was filled with fear and desperately searched the scene for a face she knew.  She saw no one.
She looked for a coyote or lion.  Nothing.  A deer, sheep, donkey.  There were none.
              Out of the din of screaming, confused voices, she at last heard a voice of one of her people.  It was a firm yet kind male voice.
              “Our  people are no longer here.  They are gone from the Colorado.   Any who have remained are like clams in a thick shell.  They do not speak even to one another.  They no longer share  their   wisdom.  You are one of the last who will ever roll the rocks.”