Preserve... ae Bie. ER sy, As I wandered through the Oregon desert looking for arrowheads it struck me that we have every opportunity now to preserve the present for the future. The other arrowhead hunters told me that the best places to look were around what appeared to be ancient lakes. Campsites. We were looking for obsidian arrow points and the easiest way to find a site is to look back into the sun for the glitter of shiny pieces. I was handed a broomhandle stick minus the broom. Attached to the end of the stick was a brent spoon. This tool was designed to save the back of the arrowhead hunter. The half dozen or so of us slowly moved out through the sagebrush, head bent and eyes sharp upon the ground. At first, (since this was my first time looking for artifacts) i picked up every rock that even vaguely resembled the arrowhead shape. Most of these were pocketed. Virginia, my Snohomish friend from Tacoma, tried to describe the worked edges and told me that most of the stuff I had saved so far had no value. Walking slowly through the desert, the time goes very fast. I thought we had only gotten a good start on the hunt but the group broke for lunch. During lunch those who had found points or pieces showed their find and kept bringing them to me so I would know what to look for. These people told me that they had been coming here regularly over the past seven or so years. In the past, they commented, they were very particular about what they kept and what they considered as not having value, but now they were keeping more broken pieces. Dancers from Intermountain dian Emphasis Week. Page 6 Indian School performe Lunch was over and we returned to our search for the tools of the ‘‘ancients.’’ My friends called the Indians whose arrowheads we were searching for ‘‘ancients."’ I really liked that but thought it was probably misleading, so I asked Frank, Virginia’s husband, how long ago these people were here. I really expected him to say two or three hundred years. But he answered, ‘‘Upwards of 2000 years.” I was surprised and curious” and moved to look harder. Finally, in the afternoon I found ~ a piece. After examining the worked edges and the fine shaping © I was embarrassed. Embarrassed that I had so underestimated the tool making ability of an ancient people. Embarrassed that I thought” all the pieces of broken rocks (and nothing more than broken rocks) in my pockets were possible arrowheads. I emptied all my pockets and started with new respect to look for artifacts.The rest of the.afternoon I concentrated on ~ points and if I did save rocks I knew they were rocks to be polished and that’s all. While artifact hunters wander through the desert, there is a lot of time to think. I wondered how much different these people were than myself or my other Indian friends. Frank told me that he thought many of the ancients must have been left-handed because several of the tools he had found could only have been_used in that manner. That thought stayed with me a long time. I wondered if contemporary Indians would have to be discovered through artifacts some hundreds, thousands of years hence. 4 $C i ed to d hoes a: figes of |