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from: Alexandra Fuller

On the Run

Posted Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002, at 5:07 PM ET

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Today's audio update: Alexandra Fuller revisits the land of trophies in Wyoming

If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I did not come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me back.
—from "Who Says Words With My Mouth," by Jalal Al-Din Rumi

The morning horseback ride.

In the morning, we saddle up a couple of horses and head out for a ride—it seems a pity to leave the Willow Creek Ranch at the Hole-in-the-Wall without getting at least a little saddle sore. The ranch's main cowboy, who accompanies us, is a Mexican whose name I understand to be O'Hooligan (but I don't think it is). He doesn't speak much English, and my Spanish is limited to the beer list at the Vista Grande Restaurant, but we still manage to agree with each other (at least I think we did) that there are a lot worse things a body can do than travel this country on the back of a horse.

That having been said, there are only so many days in a row a body can expect to live without beer. So it is with mixed emotions that I hug Gene farewell and head, with all due haste, to the nearest bar en route to Thermopolis.

Kaycee, Wyo.—or what is left of it after the flood of two months ago—is home to the Invasion Bar and is the current reservoir of an ever-diminishing pool of genes passed on by the famous outlaws (or, as they call them around here, "alleged rustlers") of a century ago. Gene has told us that "the residents of Kaycee are all related to the rustlers, and since then they have all intermarried." Which might explain why hardly anybody in this town, that I can see, has a gluteus maximus. This is pancake-ass country.

The residents of Kaycee still refer to the cattle barons of a hundred years ago as "the invaders" (even though the cattle barons were here first), and I have the uncomfortable sensation that tourists fall under the same label. We shuffle into the bar (dimly lit, no windows, football on an oversized TV screen) and order a couple of Coors. (This goes against the grain, but what to do? Microbrews have not yet reached this part of the world, and it's my bet that it'll be a cold day in Zambia when they do.) In the absence of an actual shootout (in fact, the cowboys here look downright sedated), we finish up our beers and head for Thermopolis, home (as massive writing on a hill on the outskirts of town declares) of the World's Largest Mineral Springs (which, if you ask me, is just their excuse for having a town that smells powerfully of rotten eggs).

We eat at the Safari Club—a place that should be avoided by vegetarians (I am one) at all costs on account of the hundreds of dead animals adorning the walls and the mass-murdered salad bar. No matter, we drink wine and leer at the pretend stuffed rhino and for a moment all is right with the world. Until morning that is.

I have a small, celebratory release-from-dry-ranch hangover, but I am an African and used to such hardships. I manage to feign a steel gut and can ignore my headache until Christian and I are inspired (having seen the old Hole-in-the-Wall Bar now in the Thermopolis Museum) to visit the Wax Museum. It is I who insist on the visit (having developed a posthumous crush on Butch Cassidy, whose waxen image is rumored to lurk within) but Butch is just a teaser at the Thermopolis Wax Museum. The winner of the most-riveting-in-show ribbon is an exhibition of a doctor, scalpel in hand, leering over a dead man under a sheet. The write-up reads (in part): "Dr. Osborne pickled, dismembered and skinned the body [of outlaw, George "Big Nose" Parrott]. The skin was tanned and made into a medicine bag and a pair of shoes. The shoes were on display at a bank in Rawlins for years. His skull was cut in half. Half was used as an ashtray, half as a doorstop."

That's all it takes. Hangover or not, Christian and I are driving a day out of our way to a bank in Rawlins to see what kind of people can skin an outlaw and exhibit the shoes made from his hide in the town bank until well into the 1970s.

Check back tomorrow for the next stop on the Outlaw Trail, leather-loving Rawlins, Wyo.

well-traveled
entries
123456789
from: Alexandra Fuller

On the Run

Posted Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002, at 5:07 PM ET
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Alexandra Fuller is the author of the best-selling memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood.
Music heard in the map feature: "The Last Steam Engine Train," by John Fahey, The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites (Takoma TAKCD-8909-2) (p) 1999 Fantasy Inc. © 1967 Tortoise Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved.
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Notes From the Fray Editor (Notes From the Bog):

Many residents of the Southwest spoke up for various parts of the contemporary scene there. The usual move was to call Fuller a second-tier cultural prostitute herself (selling her experience to Slate). The two posts below also attack Fuller, but from opposite sides. Gloria Tagai says that Fuller has been misled and is misleading others. The information in the article is wrong. Ernest, who grew up on the Navajo reservation, thinks Fuller has mischaracterized her exchange with Rose Yazzi as "prostitution."

Remarks From The Fray:

I am a Navajo woman. I am wondering where the writer received her information. What is "Teehindeeh" (she says it means "bog hole")? I tried to decipher this word and then asked an elder who had no idea what I was referring to. Who is Chief Hoskinini? Again, I tried to decipher the name and again referred to an elder. We were both puzzled.

This white African of British descent, who attempts to portray herself as worldly sophisticated traveler, has instead been sadly misled by her "guide". She states, "To pay for glimpses into something I can never hope to understand or assimilate in an afternoon can only be degrading and demoralizing to both parties." If she felt as such, why write such a horrific piece of trash?

It has been she who has been degraded and she should feel demoralized for offering such an article without validating the facts. I shudder to think of how many Americans are reading this article and take it for truth. As a closing remark, dream catchers are not native to Navajos, so the belief that it "prevents evil spirits from entering from Mother Earth" is not a Navajo belief. And what was that about the poles and the umbilical cord in a hogan?

-- Gloria Tagai

(To reply, click here.)


So why is being (even briefly) introduced to a new culture a negative? Why is it "cultural prostitution" for age old customs to be shown as they have always been practiced? Travel to Shiprock New Mexico during the festivals and see the Navajo Dancers perform. These people have to fight every day to keep at least the essence of their old cultures and traditions alive...and it is a worthwhile fight. I do not see these attempts as "prostitution". I think the author should stop looking at the world through the myopia of cynicism and instead try looking at it from the perspective of a child...untainted by past experience.

-- Ernest

(To reply, click here.)

(10/25)

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