User:Olompali

Olompali is the name of a branch of the Miwoks, a Native American tribe that first inhabited the area under my home town of Novato in Northern California. The Olompali largely disappeared due to diseases brought by European settlers that they had no immunity to. Their surviving DNA, if any, is mixed with that of other North Coast tribes, plus Spanish, Mexican and European, and is now scattered in small tribal reservations and non-tribal communities north of here.

Before this region was diked and levee'ed by white farmers, it was largely inundated with brackish water during the wet season, winter-spring, which supported a large variety of wildlife. The Olomopali found a rich living in the wetlands, snaring the abundant ducks and netting salmon. A large population of migrating ducks still winter here, and local mallards nest here year-round. The salmon population is struggling to make a comeback.

An encouraging recent trend is to open 100-year old dikes and levees, allowing freshwater runoff to mingle with the saltwater of San Pablo Bay in the wet season. This promotes the resurgence of birdlife and fish species. It's not so easy to bring back an extinct culture, however. Among the most fragile ecosystems on the planet is human stuff: language, artwork, music, how people think and perceive their world. Once these have disappeared, all that's left is artifacts and a memory - if that.

The Miwoks made ceremonial headresses from the quills of the primary feathers of flickers, the large woodpeckers common in the oak uplands of the Olompali homelands. These headresses, wide ribbons of flicker quills, are unique in the Americas, strange and beautiful. The Miwoks also made extremely fine basketry, weaving the topknots of quail into geometric designs on the baskets. The weave is extremely smooth and tight, almost as fine as woven cloth. Some of the baskets could hold water without leaking, they were so tightly woven.

A historic Olompali camp is now a California state park. Earlier this site housed a utopian commune and later members of the Grateful Dead. Though not a communard or a Deadhead, Olompali's timeline well represents my wide interests: history-science-heritage-language-nature-birds-spirituality-music-art-technology.