P: Pacata-Mu to Pur-Un-Runa 223
Pimugnans
Original name of the southern California coast Gabrielino Indians, mixed
descendants from the lost civilization of Mu.Pipestone
A national monument located in the south west corner of Minnesota memo-
rializing the Great Flood from which the ancestors of all Native American tribes
descended. The area was carefully chosen, not only for its abundance of pipestone,
but for waterfalls symbolizing the deluge and unusual rock formations resembling
human heads and profiles suggesting the flood survivors.
Petroglyphs here and at nearby Jeffers confirm the version told to George
Catlin, the early American artist and first white man to visit the site. It received its
name after an easily quarried and malleable stone fashioned by Indian carvers
into calumets, or “peace pipes,” and known as catlinite, after Catlin. Shamans,
tribal spiritual leaders, told him that very long ago the ancestors of humanity lived
in harmony with themselves and the immortals in “a great lodge” at the center of
an island far over the Sunrise Sea to the east. For many generations, human
beings were virtuous. But in time, they grew corrupt, contentious, and arrogant.
To punish them, the gods threw a terrible flame from heaven onto the island of
offensive men and women.
Their “great lodge” was utterly consumed, but the fire spread to other parts
of the world, threatening to destroy the innocent animals, as well. They prayed for
salvation; the gods heard them and extinguished the conflagration by sinking the
whole island beneath the sea. Only a relatively few honest persons survived. As
they floated in the ocean amidst the wreckage of the “great lodge,” they prayed
for rescue. In answer, the gods commanded a horned giant to rise from the bottom
of he sea. He scooped up as many people as he could, but there were more than
anyone expected, and he could not carry them all.
The gods ordered a colossal turtle to assist him. It swam over to the giant,
and the remaining survivors climbed upon its shell. The turtle swam to the west,
the giant wading after. Eventually, they arrived on the shores of a new land,
where the people found refuge. Ever since, in memory of their salvation, Native
Americans continue to refer to North America as “Turtle Island.” For the next
several generations, they wandered across the unfamiliar territories, until they
came to what is now the south western corner of Minnesota. They were halted by
the Great Spirit, who told them that they had arrived in the most sacred place in
Turtle Island. Here he had transformed the flesh of their relatives, drowned during
the Great Flood, into red stone.
The survivors were to fashion it into objects commemorating that calamity.
Most important of these items would be a pipe. Its bowl would represent the
female principle; its stem, the male; and tobacco burned in it, the passion of
creation. “Whenever you smoke the pipe,” said the Great Spirit, “remember the