on the cover / By Heidi Walters

Fixing the World

But the California condor likely ranged widely across North America in prehistoric times. After the mass extinctions of large vertebrates 10,000 years ago, the California condor retreated to the West Coast. Some scientists think a few condors lingered around the Grand Canyon area, also, and maybe in some other inland states.

The California condor appears in a lot of tribal cultures. Helene Rouvier, of the Wiyot Tribe, says condor feathers are part of the traditional doctoring regalia, much of which, however, was lost to pilferers but which they’re trying to regain.

The Yurok word for the condor is prey-go-neesh. They say there is a place on the Klamath River called “Condor where he sits.” Yurok Bob McConnell says condor feathers traditionally were used in the Jump Dance and White Deer Skin Dance, both part of the tribe’s late-summer world renewal ceremony — which, said McConnell, a deer skin dancer, is intended to restore the world for everyone, not just the Yurok. But for a long time the tribe hasn’t had fresh condor feathers to use. Like the Wiyot’s, much of its regalia were taken away to museums. And although some have been returned, they’re contaminated with toxic preservatives.

“We bring those feathers back, and those feathers are taken to the ceremony,” said McConnell by phone a couple weeks ago. “And they get to watch the ceremonies, because we believe there is a spirit associated with each feather in the regalia. But they don’t get to participate. So there’s kind of an unfulfilled capacity.”

With the return of the condor, and new, uncontaminated feathers, those spirits could participate again — although the tribe wouldn’t kill the birds to get the feathers, said McConnell.

Richard Myers, a Yurok tribal council member, is one of the Jump Dance participants who sing and fast for 10 days. By phone a couple weeks ago, Myers recounted how surprised he was 20 years ago when the tribe was reviving its ceremonies and an elder from Pecwan sang a condor song.

“It was the first time any of us had ever heard it,” Myers said. “We didn’t know there was a condor song. And we thought, what happened to the condor?”

Someone gave Myers fresh condor feathers four years ago, and he saw his first condor a couple years ago at Pinnacles National Monument, a condor release site. The elder who sang the condor song has passed on, but now one of his grandsons sings it. So pieces of the bird are slowly coming back.

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