ominous mound: From about 1000 B.C. until 1700 A.D., mainly following the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and later further southeast, mounds--colossal as the Cahokia Mound in Illinois, 100 feet high and covering 16 acres, to mere blister-size--were built, first as ceremonial mortuary centers, later as sites for temples. This contemporary mound of carcinogenic ores, however, doesn't celebrate the Mystery of Death, as the earlier mounds did, but Death itself.

militant meteorology: "The science of weather forecasting has military origins in the Crimean War, when Napoleon III turned to U.J.J. Leverrier (1811-1877), the astronomer who discovered the existence of the planet Neptune, for help." (Gray,1943)

unripe thoughts: In the Tewa myth of "beginning," the people "were living in Sipofene beneath Sandy Place Lake far to the north." When a man was sent by the first mothers to explore the world above, he reported that it "was still ochu, 'green' or 'unripe.'" (Ortiz,1969)

witching hour: "When a suspected witch dies there is usually a severe dust storm within four days, which is the normal length of time it takes a soul to get into the underworld. This (storm) shows that the soul was rejected, and consequently ends its existence as dust and is completely forgotten." (Ibid.)

hoops: "Transformation by passing through a ring is a pervasive element in southwestern witchcraft lore. Many Indians are convinced that by going through a magic hoop or artificial rainbow, witches change themselves into various animals and birds, and it is in this state that they may be most easily captured and destroyed." (Simmons,1974)

protore: Ore that cannot be refined at a profit today but may be profitable in the future.

reservations: Laguna Pueblo was apparently settled in 1699, chiefly by Keresan immigrants, and has a long history of marriages outside the tribe.

Rio Lethe: One of the five rivers of Hades. Lethe contains the waters of forgetfulness.

systematically: Dirt (waste, tailings) "is never a unique, isolated event. Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the by product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements." (Douglas,1970)

boomerang-like: "My Laguna informant said the boomerang-like stick was a hachamuni (usual word for feather-stick offering) for rabbits or jack rabbits, and that when offered it was painted and feathers were attached to it." (Parsons,1918)

erratic: "One only discovers worlds through a long, broken flight." (Deleuze,1987)

reclaiming: A draft Environmental Impact Statement (1985) estimates "The cost to carry out the Anaconda (Minerals Corp., owner of the Jackpile-Paguate mine on the Laguna Reservation) plan to be $54 million, the federal plan $55.5 million, and the Laguna (Pueblo's) plan $57 million. The bearer of the reclamation cost (in any case) would be Anaconda." (Hartranft,1985)

vines: "It is related of Osiris that he led the Egyptians out of the state of savagery and cannibalism and gave them their laws, not only teaching them to honor the gods, but to plant corn, to gather fruit, and to cultivate the grape. In other words, civilization and agriculture are attributed to him. But why precisely to him? Because he is not merely a fertility god in the sense that he controls natural growth. He is this too, but his creativeness includes that capacity without being limited to it." (Neumann,1973)