The Last of the Bird People

By John Hanson Mitchell

In 1928, Massachusetts water authorities began land takings for the largest public works project in the United States at the time, the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir, in the Swift River Valley. What the authorities did not realize was that, living in the more remote, forested tracts of the valley, there was a secretive band of mixed-race hunter-gatherers who had been subsisting, undiscovered there for more than ten generations. This book, taken from a legal deposition found at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, is the story of the fate of these retiring, peaceable people and the young anthropologist who first contacted them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilderness House Press
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476392844

John Hanson Mitchell

John Hanson Mitchell is the author of Ceremonial Time and eight other books on cultural and environmental history. His early books concentrated on a single square mile of land west of Boston known as Scratch Flat. His most recent book is The Paradise of all These Parts: A Natural History of Boston (Beacon, 2010). Along with his nonfiction work, John Hanson Mitchell is editor of the award winning magazine, Sanctuary, published by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. In 2001, he won a Vogelstein grant for his book Following the Sun. He was awarded an honorary PhD from Fitchburg State University for his work on the book Ceremonial Time, and was given three different grants for Looking for Mr. Gilbert, the story of his discovery of the first African American landscape photographer. He is also winner of the John Burroughs Essay Award for his Sanctuary piece, “Of Time and the River”. In 2000, he was given the New England Booksellers’ Award for the body of his work. Mitchell attended the Sorbonne and is a graduate of Columbia University. A former journalist, he has had assignments in Kerala in southern India and also around the South China Sea, and has written extensively about the gardens and natural history of Western Europe. His book The Rose Café is about Corsica.

Book preview

The Last of the Bird People

by John Hanson Mitchell

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright (c) 2012 John Hanson Mitchell

Wilderness House Press

145 Foster St.

Littleton MA 01460

www.wildernesshousepress.com

Print ISBN 978-0-9827115-7-6

All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this work in any form except as provided by U.S. Copyright law.

For information contact the publisher.

First Wilderness House Printing September 2012

Also by John Hanson Mitchell

The Paradise of All These Parts: A Natural History of Boston

The Rose Café: Love and War in Corsica

Looking for Mr. Gilbert: The Re-imagined Life of an African American

Following the Sun: From Spain to the Hebrides

The Wildest Place on Earth: Italian Gardens and the Invention of Wilderness

Trespassing: An Inquiry into the Private Ownership of Land

Walking Towards Walden: A Pilgrimage in Search of Place

Living at the End of Time

A Field Guide to Your Own Backyard

Ceremonial Time: Fifteen Thousand Years on One Square Mile

The Last of the Bird People

by John Hanson Mitchell

for

Maya

the bird girl

Table of Contents

FORWARD

TRANSLATOR’S PREFATORY NOTES

GLOSSARY

THE DEPOSITION OF JON BARKING FOX

EPILOGUE

FOREWORD

by Terilla Brown

The Disappearance of Minor Randall

This book is an explanation of the abrupt and mysterious disappearance of the former Harvard anthropologist Minor Randall, an affair that caused a stir in academic circles in the late 1920s. It also recounts, among other things, what appears to have been a violent confrontation between a roving band of itinerant people and a local vigilante group in South Florida, an event which I believe must have been covered up by authorities at the time.

The discovery of the evidence for all this came about quite by accident.In the late 1990s, I was doing research for Dr. Lawrence Millman at Harvard’s Peabody Museum on the survival of an ancient ceremony involving a ritual bear language that had been used by the Innu of Labrador. While I was there, I ran across a file concerning an otherwise obscure associate professor named Minor Randall who worked in the department of anthropology and had gone missing in the late summer of 1928, shortly after he was dismissed from the university. Included in the file was a seemingly irrelevant typescript of a legal deposition given at a pre-trial hearing at the Everglades City Court House in Florida, during the last weeks of May in l929. It was not obvious, at first, why this document should have been associated with Professor Randall.

The hearing was connected to some sort of conflict that had occurred earlier in the month on the Tamiami Trail involving a posse or a vigilante group and a band of people, possibly gypsies, whom the posse had been searching for. Exactly what had happened was unclear, but it was obvious that there had been an armed encounter between the posse and the purported tribe, which had been moving southward through the interior of the Florida Everglades, apparently living off the land.

The story was implausible, containing as it did several incongruous situations and events, and I began searching through other records in the file to see if I could find out why the deposition was included in the folder. After a little more digging I discovered other papers — mainly internal memos from people in the department —that indicated that Minor Randall may have been involved in the Florida incident.

One of the most interesting — and unlikely — leads came from a series of news stories concerning a primitive tribe of people in the Swift River Valley in central Massachusetts. In the late winter of 1856, newspapers all across southern New England were reporting the presence of a traveling band of people described in some accounts as gypsies. The group first appeared around Bourne, at the southwestern end of Cape Cod. They were seen again north of Kingston, Rhode Island and they spent a week or two around the Great Swamp, and later within the town of Easton, in Massachusetts. By late spring, they turned north and entered the Swift River Valley, which, before it was flooded in the 1940s to create the Quabbin Reservoir, was a vast empty quarter of wooded hills, streams, and swampy bottom lands.

The most complete accounts of this so-called band of gypsies appeared in the Daily Eagle, the paper of the now extinct town of Greenwich, which was dismantled to make way for the reservoir. According the story, which appeared in the 1857 August 27th edition, two different local farmers happened upon the group in two different locations.

There were about twenty people of all ages in the band, including babies, children, and old people. One family had a horse and wagon, but most were on foot and were accompanied by a large pack of mongrel dogs. Many of the people, men and women alike, had shoulder-length hair and were dressed in motley, the women in long skirts and blouses, the men in patched trousers and collarless shirts. The children were barefooted and wore loose smocks, much soiled as the article reported. There were said to be four or five colored families, and there was also, the newspaper said, a mix of Indians and whites — a blond woman with a group of tow-headed children, a few red-haired Irish, Azorean Portuguese, and couple of Yankee farmers and their families. The group was led by a gypsy queen, a large woman in a florid turban who answered most of the questions put to her in broken English. The others held back and pretended not to understand the questions.

One of the local landowners had discovered the band camped in his woodlot and asked them to move on, which they did without argument or explanation. Who they were, where they had come from and where they were going, was never detailed in any of the official records or newspaper accounts, and by the autumn, all reports ceased.

The last shred of evidence of the wandering band appeared nearly seventy-five years later, in 1905, also in the Daily Eagle. A short notice in the November 16th edition claimed that two hunters had discovered a young girl, a wild child, sleeping in a rock cranny on Soapstone Hill, far from any human habitation. The family of one of the hunters took her in and was feeding her, the story said. No further information appeared in the records.

Then suddenly, starting in September 1928, evidence of the band reappeared. Clipped together in a separate sheaf, I found more stories that threw light on the situation, including the critical piece of verification — the transcript of the deposition, which contained the curious story related by the deposed, the man who called himself Jon Barking Fox.

Once I pieced together all these documents, I determined that Randall must have allowed himself to be captured by this roving mixed-race band, which by that time — the late 1920s — had been living incognito for generations in the Swift River Valley.

Situations of this sort were actually not an uncommon phenomenon, even in the mid twentieth century. Similar social groups, such as the Jackson Whites in the valleys of the Ramapo Mountains, New York, or the so-called Raggies, who lived on Mount Riga in Connecticut were also surviving in isolated, self-contained situations. Most noteworthy as far as this story is concerned, was a renegade band of Seminole Indians who had cut off all contact with white society in the early 1900s and had moved into the inaccessible regions of the southern Everglades, supporting themselves by hunting and plant gathering.

The Swift River Valley people had also reverted to an earlier tradition and were also surviving by hunting and plant gathering, which is what originally interested the anthropologist, Minor Randall. They had also reversed traditional sexual roles. The women hunted, and the men were responsible for food preparation and child care, even going so far as to suffer birth pangs while their wives were delivering.

Although there appears to have been some conflict within the tribe, the Bird People, as they called themselves, were peaceable, retiring, and non-violent. Their main objective was to remain unnoticed by settled American society. In fact, they believed that the Wasichu — their name for anyone not of their band — could not see what did not move. They thought they were invisible. Had it not been for the development of the massive reservoir project in their valley, they might have gone unnoticed for several more generations, although eventually modernization would have caught up with them.

Or maybe not. Unlike the other isolated societies, the Bird People were nomadic, they moved — silently, stealthily, and constantly — destroying all evidence of their existence before leaving one hunting camp for another.

***

I learned that Minor Randall was a former student and protégé of the pioneering American anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University, who was a bit of a maverick in the field of cultural anthropology. Randall was also an associate of other luminaries, such as Margaret Meade and Ruth Benedict, and the Eastern Woodland Indian specialist Frank Speck, who was also a student of Boas at Columbia. After graduation, Randall worked as an assistant for Boas doing field studies on extant Woodland cultures, mainly a band of Seminoles in south Florida that had cut off contact with the local whites.

Randall apparently fell into a controversy with his department head at Harvard because of his involvement with events surrounding the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir in the Swift River Valley.

The area around the valley was one of the last extant wild tracts of land in the Northeast, dotted with isolated farms, a few towns, and thick, unpeopled forests in between.

It was partly because of the sparse human occupation in the area that the Boston water companies selected the site for construction of the reservoir. In May of 1928, the town of Prescott was disbanded and officially struck from the records of cities and towns of Massachusetts in order to begin the work of clearing the region for the reservoir. Over the next five years, all seven towns in the Swift River Valley were abandoned and razed; 7,500 bodies were disinterred from the local graveyards; trees were cleared from the valley floor, and the Swift River and three other streams in the valley were dammed to back up the waters to create the reservoir.

In the early autumn of 1928, a project surveyor working in the Rattlesnake Brook area in the northern valley found a homemade arrow with a chipped quartz point not far from a hemlock grove on the north-facing slope near the brook. He turned the arrowhead over to his crew boss, who passed it up the chain of command. After some delays in the upper echelon, it was delivered to Minor Randall for analysis.

The Rattlesnake Brook Point, as it came to be called, was a mystifying object. For one thing it was related to projectile points used by Pokanoket tribe in the Cape Cod region during the Contact Period, in the seventeenth century. But it had a number of anomalies which confused Randall, not the least of which was the fact that it was attached to a freshly-stripped hickorywood arrow shaft and was fletched with the feathers of a red-tailed hawk. It was clearly the work of some contemporary individual who had made a lot of arrowheads and knew how to knap stone.

Randall was sufficiently inspired by the workmanship in the arrowhead to do more research. He spent several weeks hiking in the remote, as yet unsurveyed sections of the valley, searching for more artifacts. At the end of this period, he discovered a deerskin cap decorated with grouse feathers. Later that fall, in the mud beside Rattlesnake Brook, he found the barefooted print of a child. He subsequently came to believe that there was a group of aboriginal people living somewhere in the valley.

It was at this point that Randall got himself into trouble.

He took the information to his department head and asked his superior to join him in a campaign to have the area declared a sanctuary, or at least declared off limits, until they could find out who it was who was living in the valley. Randall's superior not only refused his request, he covered up the evidence and, after some further squabbling — much of which appears to have been related to the recalcitrant nature of Minor Randall himself — began proceedings to have Randall taken off the project. Ultimately he was removed from his teaching position.

This act only served to encourage the ambitious young anthropologist. There appears to have been some more wrangling between Randall and the Harvard officials, and then, in the summer of 1928, without telling anyone where he was headed, and armed with notebooks, trinkets, and enough food and gear for the next three months, Randall set up camp in one of the wildest as yet unsurveyed sections in the northern end of the valley. In the autumn, most of his gear was found by construction workers on the Quabbin project.

He himself was not seen again.

Search crews scoured the area of the valley where Randall had camped but found no further evidence. Then in October of that year, a forest fire of suspicious origins started in a section of the valley just north of the clearances. The search parties presumed Randall had had a hand in the fire and had perhaps perished in the conflagration and called off the hunt. Or so they reported. In fact, officials seem to have spent the rest of that autumn and winter investigating his disappearance.

What follows is an edited version of the original transcript of the deposition that I found in the folder. At very least, the document throws some light on the story of Randall and his association with the people he purportedly discovered.

TB

Cambridge, MA, 2006

TRANSLATOR’S PREFATORY NOTES

Everglades City Court House, Florida

The Deposition of Jon Fox.

July 20, 1929

He was one of those old men who seem to grow more womanly with age. He had silky white hair that fell to his shoulders, smooth, tanned skin with fine wrinkles and black, almond-shaped eyes. He was dressed in the striped coveralls that had been given to him by the posse, since he had been nearly naked when he was picked up. There was a leather thong around his neck with a cluster of black feathers tied around a roll of white paper. Other than that he had no possessions and no identification.

He appeared to be blind and needed assistance navigating, but when we led him into the room for questioning, he came along willingly and took a seat under the lights, as instructed. After I asked him a few preliminary questions and clarified a few regular phrases that he employed, he seemed more than disposed to talk.

The old man said he was the last survivor of the incident that had occurred two weeks earlier on the Tamiami Trail and that since he had nothing left to live for he would tell us everything. He delivered his testimony with a smug, private grin, however, as if he were holding something back.

He spoke in a high, lilting voice, in an eccentric mix of Algonquian and English, plus some words in Spanish, Portuguese, and French – camion for truck, as an example, or, in Algonquian, witeo for constructed houses, or nippe, for lake. The name Wasichu, which he employed frequently, I have calculated to indicate anyone who was not part of his band.

Since Jon Fox utilized many words and idioms that were inventions of his own vernacular, or a nineteenth century adaptation of the L-dialect Nipmuck Algonquian language that I am not entirely familiar with, I have included a few of these expressions in the transcript of the deposition without translation, just to convey an expression of authenticity to the voice of his testimony. In other cases, I have encountered words that must have been distinctive to his people and bore no relationship, as far as I could determine, to words in any other language. These I have translated through contextual analysis of the interrogation. Furthermore, Mr. Fox’s word selection for certain modern-day inventions, such as the bulldozer, were so complex, I have simply tried to replicate their meaning, with more or less equivalent English terms.

It appears that Mr. Fox was viewed, even by his own people, as something of a fabricator, or at best someone who was senile and confused about the nature of reality. For example, no one in his band, except perhaps his granddaughter, Chanterelle, seemed to have believed his assertion, as stated at the beginning of his testimony, that he was able to fly, or be in two places at once. And no one seemed to have acknowledged as truth some of the tales he told as a result of his visionary travels.

It is to a certain degree probable that Mr. Fox invented at least some of the information included in this deposition, and it is likely, as the reader will see, that he purposely confused the ending of his story in order to subvert the true account of what actually happened. For this reason the information herein must only be accepted as true or false according as the reader believes or disbelieves the narrator’s version.

Emile le Clerc

GLOSSARY

By way of background, I am including herewith an annotated glossary of certain words and phrases such as the frequently referenced noisette and veronica. Note that some of my interpretations are taken from conversations I had with Mr. Fox about social traditions and will not appear in this deposition. They are annotated in the glossary below.

Aberginian — The original people of the Cape Cod tribe, including the matriarch, Jenna Crow. Mr. Fox used this in reference to the language spoken by Minor Randall, which I gather was antiquated and used only on occasion at formal diatribes.

Aunums — Used occasionally in reference to the dogs. Also dog meat.

Calumet a pipe

Cram — Kill. This was quoted from Minor Randall by Mr. Fox. Apparently an older term not in common use at the time of the deposition (1929).

Cudah — Turtle. Cudah is an African word. It derives either from Yoruba or Ibo.

Hub — Come on! Let’s go! Watch out! Also quoted in the deposition from Minor Randall. Probably antiquated.

Inyame — I don’t know which plant this is, but it was clearly a tuber of some sort that seemed to prevent conception. Inyame is an Azorean Portuguese word for yam, or a winter squash, but which species is in no way clear. (I believe many of the people in Mr. Fox’s band may have been descendants of Azorean whalers, picked up as crew members by the outbound cruises of Yankee whale ships from New Bedford)

Nickesquaw — a virgin or pre-menstrual girl. Young girls in the tribe wore their hair cut in bangs, I gather. After reaching menarche, they parted their hair in the middle and wound it in elaborate coifs. (N.B. Judging from the Fox deposition, it seems that the Bird People had abandoned the Algonquian tradition of sending their women off to separate dwellings during menstruation.)

Noisette — The ingredient of some sort of commonly eaten gruel or samp. I am guessing that the noisettes were hazel nuts, which were a common foodstuff among the Eastern Woodland People of the Contact Period.

Ottucke — The adult deer. Jon Fox also referred to deer as cerf, periodically, the French word

Ottommaosocke (sp?) — I believe this is a tobacco or smoking material of some sort. Used interchangeably with kinnikinnick, which is a mixture of wild, aromatic herbs that the people would commonly smoke when they were relaxing, or before or after an important event, such as a birth or death.

Otucat — I believe this is steatite, or soapstone, and the origin of their name Otucathcol, which I have translated as Carving Stone Hill, the hill where the people often went to collect steatite and to which Chanterelle would periodically retire.

Sachem, Sagamore, Saunk — These words were used periodically by Jon Fox but I do not think they had the same connotation of power or leadership that the words in traditional

Reviews for The Last of the Bird People

[peripa_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Last of the Bird People was an interesting read. I was under the impression that it was non-fiction and was a touch disappointed that it was, in fact, a novel. As a novel, though, it was fine. It was interesting enough to keep me reading and the historic aspect was fairly well done.

[murphywaggoner · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel is presented as a historical report on events related to the disappearance in 1920 of Minor Randall, associate professor of anthropology at Harvard, the sighting of a nomadic tribe in Massachusetts in 1857 and later, and events along the Tamiami Trail in Florida around 1929. The main story is a deposition by the police of one of the members of the tribe, the Bird People. He tells of the history of his people from the coming of Minor Randall, their relocation to Florida traveling along the Appalachian Trail and then down through Georgia and Florida, and the ultimate battle between his people and some Floridians as they try to cross the Tamiami Trail.I think the idea of a secret tribe of people living among us undetected in the 20th Century has the same appeal for me that the existence of Sasquatch has for modern day pseudo-reality television viewers. In some ways this could be considered a Utopian novel describing a society of multi-racial, multi-ethnic people who build and maintain the community in peace. However, that peace is disrupted by the U.S. government when they invade their remote valley to prepare for building a dam to create a lake.The telling of the story by Jon Barking Fox, an older member of the tribe and father of Randall's lover, is presented as a deposition. Fox is the sole survivor of the Tamiami Trail massacre, or at least that is what the officials believe. Fox's narrative includes elements of magical realism as he describes the abilities his people have acquired from the animals. He includes the history of their tribe from their beginnings near Cape Cod to their move to Swift River Valley. Mitchell's background in anthropology is evident in the detailed and interesting descriptions provided by Fox of the culture of the Bird People and how that culture changed by necessity as they traveled south and incorporated Randall's knowledge of the world.Told as an historical record, with reports, statements and depositions, I would want the dates to be accurate, but at one point the story says that 1909 is 75 years after 1857. I tried to reconcile this error, that is, decide what the author meant to write, but I couldn't. The first few sections were very confusing in that way. On the other hand, as you might expect of a real historical record, many questions are left unanswered. Reading and reviewing the glossary provided by Mitchell was useful.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting look at a tribe of multi-ethnic people who live outside of civilization in the 1920s. As their home is destroyed to build a reservoir, they are forced to relocate. Thus, we have a story of a quest for a new homeland and we see the members of the tribe evolve and change on their journey. The premise is intriguing -- living away from society in a more peaceful, albeit primitive, style. There is a Harvard researcher who joins the people, and we see him evolve and become more assimilated with time. Not a great book, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.

[19vatermit64 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought this book was a documentary or history. I was wrong. I have been trying to avoid reading novels because most of them include scenarios which I try to avoid. It is sad to turn the page in a book and discover the main protagonists going at it like a couple of chimpanzees in a monkey house. So when I realized that the cover of the book had the word 'novel' on it - in plain sight, I might add - I set my face like flint and began reading very carefully.What I read was actually quite good. The book suggests that this was a real event, told in the form of a deposition made by one of the characters in the story. We follow this tribe of wild people as they move from the Northeast United States toward their goal, which is the Everglades in Florida. The story is reminiscent of the Book of Exodus, where Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. Like Moses, the leader of this American Exodus is an outsider of sorts, and has to deal with the various factions of his band of men, women, and children. In addition, I kept thinking back to a blogger whom I used to follow as he hiked along the Appalachian Trail. I would love to take a trip like that, and this book rekindled that yearning in me. I wish that the author had left off the Epilogue.There are other things I found interesting in this book. Of course two of the characters have relations, but details are thankfully spared by the author. What struck me was that afterwards the woman searched for a tuber, or root, in the forest which can be used as a contraceptive. Actually, it seemed to be more like an abortifacient or 'Plan B' kind of drug. The man, once he understands what she is doing, asks wistfully if she does not want to have his child. The author really brings out the feeling ot the man in this scene, as he realizes that this woman only wants him for one thing and no more. Usually it is the man who is seen as treating the marital act as only a phyisical encounter rather than intimacy between a man and a woman.Would I read it again? Probably not, but I would look into some of the other books by this author.

[madhatr-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was a pretty short read. Like many other reviewers have stated, at first I had a difficult time telling if this was a work of fiction or non-fiction. The story seems plausible and the historical details paint a pretty convincing picture. In the end I had to do some Google work to discover that it is a work of fiction. I thought it was an interesting story. I enjoyed the young anthropologist's assimilation into the Bird people was interesting to follow. I also thought the decline of the people, from a people who stays well hidden and honors nature in their kills to that of a people who take more risks and kill more wantonly, to be interesting. I thought this book was a good read if you enjoy historical fiction.

[virginiagill · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It took me a long time to wade through the very short book. The premise was interesting and I expected to be both fascinated and excited by it. Neither proved to be true. I struggled to care and understand the people being written about and found myself just wishing I could sit down with the author and ask questions rather than reading the book. Disappointing at best.

[jeanomario · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I appreciate good writing, the craft of well-written fiction, in particular. The story is somewhat believable, enough to keep my interest along the way, though it was a bit slow at first. Also interesting is its physical attribute of size and color style being similar to a National Geographic magazine. That is fitting and connective, given its subject matter.

[phranchk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book was an easy read and entertaining, but there were so many implausible ideas throughout the book that I found it really hard to enjoy. There trek sounded impossibly easy considering the facts. Though there were hardships along the way, it certainly seemed a highly unlikely story. I believe part of it was that it seemed like a hurried story with much of the description missing. The writing itself was mediocre, and I think the story itself makes for a good outline of something bigger. This easily could have been turned into a much longer novel with vivid imagery of the world that traveled through. Instead it only touched the surface and seemed to rushed. The story was interesting enough to keep going till the end, but I think it could have been so much more.

[woodsathome · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Let there be no doubt this is a novel, entirely fictional, it says so right there on the cover. I, of course, still doubted. Maybe it was that all of the author's previous works sounded so factual. Maybe it was the publisher - Wilderness Press. Or maybe it was just so well written, interesting, and different that I just couldn't believe it wasn't at least fact based. But no. Believe me I checked. I spent inordinate amounts of time obsessed with checking. It's more than a little ironic that a far fetched story so well written it doesn't actually require a suspension of disbelief to believe left me actually unable to believe it didn't happen. Enjoy.

[june6bug · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating tale of the last of an isolated, rag-tag band of wilderness dwellers, tracked down by a determined anthropologist as their forest territory is about to be flooded by a new dam. The Bird People, as they call themselves, appear to be descended from a mix of Native Americans, escaped slaves, and unhappy colonists, and they have lived hidden away in remote regions of Massachusetts for generations, having very little contact with the outside world and uninfluenced by modern technology. This novel tells of their difficult journey to find a new home, more remote than the last, where they can continue to live as they wish, in seclusion from the rest of American culture.

[dr0hypercube · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'll let others give the brief synopsis and cut directly to my impression. I really enjoyed the language given to the characters by the author - it mirrors the tribe itself in being a bit of this and a bit of that. And the narrator's (Jon Barking Fox) cadence and phrasing are just formal and stately enough to remind you that you're both reading a translation and that the translated language likely hasn't changes at it's core in generations. A great tale of ferality - being rejected by and rejecting the dominant culture. I'm going to pass it to a friend who will, I think, love it.

[mossagate · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this as part of Library Early Reviewers and what an enjoyable adventure this was to read! If you've ever thought to yourself "what would it be like..." to go native, or just live off the grid this gives some insight. The ending is a bit ambiguous but overall I decided I like it that way, it's horrifying and hopeful all at once. Not many authors can pull that off.

[andrea58_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Disappointing read, I found it a bit repetitive and slow. Weak character development and pondering story line. I had hoped for more.

[acdunbar · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as part of the Member Giveaway/Early Review program on Librarything.com. Though initially skeptical because of the cover (which bears an uncanny resemblance to National Geographic), I found this book to be a wonderful and unusual surprise. As a student of Anthropology, I greatly appreciated the way in which Hanson Mitchell imbues the text with the core tenants of anthropological studies (tolerance of difference, appreciation of others' culture, immersive research and study of alternative lifestyles) through a historical fiction lens. He manages to relay much about the discipline of anthropology without ever becoming didactic or moralizing. The novel takes shape as a legal deposition which has been "discovered" by a Columbia University anthropology professor. The introduction, translator's notes, and glossary provided at the beginning of the book caused some initial confusion - they were so well-written that I thought perhaps the book was true! Though fictional, the novel is clearly based on Mitchell's years of experience, who has obviously performed research in these and other areas. But to the point - the novel (relayed via the deposition of an elderly Indian man, Jon Barking Fox) tells the story of a young anthropology protégée "gone rogue" in his attempt to study a secluded group of Indians in the Swift River Valley of Massachusetts. Threatened by the presence of Wasichus (white men), the Indian band, led by the anthropologist, travels along the Appalachian Trail in search of a new home. Throughout the course of their travels, the anthropologist and the Indians slowly adapt to each other and form a sort of hybrid society wherein the anthropologist is no longer completely white, but not exactly Indian, either. The transformation of both is fascinating and disturbing, as is the ending of the book. Overall, a lovely and unusual read that contains an interesting look at human nature and adaptability. My one suggestion? Change the cover!

[ryan1adams · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found it difficult to get into the feel of the novel, though I'm not exactly sure that I can pinpoint why. However, I like the general concept of a "native" tribe lasting up to near present day and discussing the interactions with the normal people in society. If you're interested in native American or aboriginal writing, I believe this is worth your reading.

[onionspark · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Interesting concept, but ultimately the story just didn't appeal to me that much. I did like the unreliable narrator - could John Barking Fox really see what was happening far off? Was Chanterelle really fathered by a bear? No, but his insistence that these things are true made it interesting. This story reminded me of Big Fish in that way, where the telling of the story is improved by the narrator.

[kristinmm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a very interesting concept for a novel, that a tribe of aboriginal people would still be living unknown in relatively modern times and in close proximity to civilization. I found it believable enough that a young anthropologist would then find these people and want to help them continue to live their private way of life. He actually leads them down the Appalachian Trail and further south to the Everglades to escape the encroaching development in New England. The deposed elder, Jon Barking Fox, states that he is the only survivor of an altercation that the story ends with but I'd like to think that he lies and some of the tribe lived and met up with the Seminoles to learn a new way of life in Florida, as evidenced by the silent green-eyed man seen at the end of the novel.

[mary6508 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel actually read like a documentary. But a very well written and interesting documentary. I really appreciated this device of the author. I found myself having an emotional connection to these aboriginal people who had supposedly been living in undeveloped tracts of land for many generations. While I don't think that would be possible in America today, the period in this novel makes it seem very believable. In the beginning of the book, it seemed hard to follow some of the reasoning and ideas of these people, but as the reading went on, everything seemed to be explained. And I do appreciate an ending that leaves you room to think about how you believe it really ended.

[cwflatt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very quick easy read. Fun and exciting all the way through. Let's your imagination go wild with belief that tribal people could still exist in the wilds of North America. The passion of a man to save a people and their way of life, and not to take advantage of them abuse them and force them against their will. Love on several levels. Truth, fiction, legend, mystery all in one little book.

[ravenaier · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a free copy of this book through Librarything in exchange for an honest review. It took me awhile to get into the book, but once I sat down and really delved into it, I couldn't put it down. The idea of the possibility of such a tribe existing in our modern world is so intriguing. The way the author shows everything and explains it from an aboriginal point of view was very creative. Most of the times I could figure it out, other times I was left scratching my head till Tracker explained it to the tribe. Seeing our world from a non-technological tribe's view, I can see how it would be terrifying to them.While I didn't really have any emotional connection to the characters, I didn't need one. I really saw it as just one person's view of a series of events. The only time I really had one was the end, where it was really left open to reader interpretation. Did the tribe survive or not? Were they betrayed?

[anna_in_pdx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Several years ago I read a book called Mutant Message Down Under and took it very seriously. It was a book told from the point of view of a woman who met a group of aboriginals in Australia and went on a walking trip with them. I did not understand that it was a novel. I thought it was real. I was really uncritically swept away by it. Then, a while later, I was searching for more by that author and discovered that the book was a work of fiction, and I felt kind of cheated, the way my son felt when he saw the "mermaid" special on Animal Planet and believed in mermaids for the short amount of time between his seeing the special and doing a Google search with me and discovering the sad truth.This book is sort of on the same type of wavelength in that it is about a group of nomads who still live a nomadic existence in 20th century America. It's evocative and sweeps you along, if you are the kind of person I am who is already romantically ready to be so swept. However, though the novel uses the narrative device of an oral history taken down by authorities, it says "novel" on the front so that a person like me will not be so easily fooled.Fooled, I was not. Charmed, yes. I love books like these, and I love the fact that they offer modern humans a poignant reminder that there are other types of lifestyle possible to humans. This atomized but convenient and comfortable life we live is not all there is. One of the most interesting things about the novel was the group dynamics. i have always imagined that tribal and nomadic peoples have a rigid set of rules respecting elders and their ways and so on. But it did not occur to me that I am projecting my own cultural values (Western tradition having so many centuries of authoritarian tradition, even though I don't share these values in the here and now, I still project them on anything "old fashioned") on a society that might very well have been much more egalitarian than what I would have assumed. And if it were so egalitarian, the down side would be that no, elders would not necessarily receive respect from other members of their group, but would be seen as silly or slow or living in the past (much like I am afraid so many of our own young people see their own grandparents or other elders). And that is how the novel went. The protagonist/narrator is the elder, and people ignore him nine times out of ten. I would like to believe in such a story, and hope that there were people like this in the early 20th century and that they found sanctuary in Florida after a trek along the Appalachian Trail, led by a gone-native anthropologist. It would be great to believe such a thing. I am glad I was able to embrace it at least as long as it took to read this novel.I am off to read more by this writer. Thanks to the early reviewer program for an unusual, and compelling, read.

[mckait · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Last of the Bird People is a peculiar, but intriguing story of a group of hunter gatherers who were found living in Massachusetts in 1928. There was a public works project at that time, construction of the Quabbin Reservoir, in the Swift River Valley.The story began with the disappearance of an anthropologist who had found what he believed to be signs of such a group in the area where the reservoir was to be created. Preparation had already begun, towns had been abandoned, cemeteries had been respectfully moved. The young man, by the name of Minor Randall had become convinced that a group of people had managed to find a way to survive outside of the so called civilized world. He went to Harvard University, and asked them for support in locating and learning about these people. Apparently, the administration there had some serious doubts about his story, and no love lost for Randall. His persistence in his quest for support ended up with is losing his position at Harvard. Because this had become more than just an intriguing mystery to Randall, but something of a quest, he assembled some food and necessary items for an extending stay in the area where he believed this group to be living. He set up camp and watched and waited. His vigilance paid off in the end, when he was captured by the descendants of Jenna Crow, or the Bird People. What happened thereafter is what makes up this story. It is a transcript of the deposition of John Barking-Fox, as told to the authorities who took him into custody after finding him near Everglades City in July of 1929. He claimed to be the only survivor of the group who left their home in Massachusetts, led by the man they called Tracker, otherwise known as Minor Randall. The story is somewhat difficult to follow at first, as it is written in the vernacular in which it was told. This was a mixture of Algonquin, English, French, Portugese and other words never before encountered. Persistence pays off, however as with continued reading, the story flows along more comfortably. It is well worth the effort to learn what Jon Fox has to say and to learn the fate of the Bird People. At least, their fate according to John Fox.

[fmgee · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book tells the story of a group of hunter gatherer people who live in the Swift River Valley. Due to the planned formation of the Quabbin reservoir the people are forced to flee. The book tells the tale of this search for a new home. I had some trouble with the book, it was a little weak on the history of the people which I found very confusing and wanted answers to. I found the story of the travel easy enough to follow but there seemed to be a few too many things unsaid.

[bella55075 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I won this as a Library Thing's giveaway,To be honest I didn't like the book. I finished the book but it was a struggle. I just couldn't get into the story. It has action but it seemed so dry to me.

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Unusual. It was interesting, and I did appreciate the setting -- natural and organic. I had no problems with the writing style, so that's great. As the "deposition" of an elder of the tribe, the perspective is unique. He tells the story as one long tale (pauses, but no breaks), with some 'visions' conveniently providing him with knowledge of scenes he could not witness. It's a bittersweet story, because the Bird People are sympathetic, but any contemporary reader will know there lifestyle is doomed. A simple yet important story.

Reviewed for LibraryThing Early Reviewers

[nettie195 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this an interesting and intriguing read – something quite different from the types of books I usually gravitate toward. It was a little difficult to get into – it started slowly and was written in the dialect of the last surviving member of the Bird people tribe- but eventually the dialect becomes familiar. Jon Barking Fox chronicles the fate of his people as they travel to find a new home. The novel feels real in its telling; the cover mimics a National Geographic magazine, maybe we are supposed to believe it all really happened.

[weeziesbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Last of the Bird People by John Hanson Mitchell is a fascinating novel. Mr. Mitchell has been previously been know for his writing of non fiction books. In this short novel, he writes of the “wilds” near Boston in the Swift River Valley in an area that became known as the Quabbin Reservoir. The book idea was taken from a legal deposition located at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. It is about a young anthropologist Minor Randall who disappears from Harvard without notice or warning and following a dismissal from Harvard. In the beginning of the book there is an excellent foreword by Terilla Brown discussing the background behind the disappearance of Randall, followed by a translator's note then a glossary as Chapter IV starts with the deposition of Jon Barking Fox. II found it interesting that it was important for me to read the glossary so that the story flows more smoothly.This story is told about and also narrated by Jon Fox, who is purported to be the lone survivor of the “tribe” in the Swift River Valley in Central Massachusetts, the composition of which were people of mixed-race origins where they are referred to as “the last of the bird people.” They are peaceful people in a small community of travelers, who choose to stay away from general society and live a quiet life of hunting and gathering. Much of the story is focused around the clearing of communities and wildlife in the vicinity of where the tribe lives, and the building of a dam in this area, to make room for the building of the Quabbin Reservoir. The story was interesting and I look forward to reading some of Mitchell’s non fiction books.

[raucousrain · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is clearly stated that this work is “a novel” – a piece of fiction. However it is so well researched and written that I had no problem believing that it could have happened. And that is what made it fascinating -- not just the intriguing story itself interspersed with historical facts, but how it stimulated my own thoughts about how such a group of people might have been living just beyond the edges of suburbia during the first half of the Twentieth Century.It is a fairly quick read at under 200 pages, with plenty of dialogue. I found the story to be fast-paced tale with interesting and believable characters. Best of all, I thought the life-death decisions the individuals made along their journey to be quite thought-provoking.

[niecierpek · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love legends and stories that have roots in native traditions of the land. This book tells a story just like that. It's late 1920s in Massachusetts and an anthropologist, Minor Randall, seeks out a group of elusive forest dwellers to warn them of a planned flooding of their land for the Swift River Valley dam. Once he befriends them, he attempts to lead them undercover out to safety to Florida’s Everglades along the Appalachian and Tamiami Trails. The group is of mixed origin- predominantly Algonquian speaking but with European blood mixed in. The tribe itself is anthropologically very interesting. Not only do they comprise of people of different ethnic origin, but they also have a democratic tribal structure with a matriarchal slant. After the founder of the group, a matriarch named Jenna Crow, the group has female leaders warriors and males who take care of children and food preparation. Inevitably, the women bear children, but it’s their husbands who feel the birth pains. The members of the tribe also seem to take heterosexual or homosexual partners as the circumstances arise without much ado about it. The book recounts the group’s dramatic, eventful and colourful journey south while showing their rituals and way of life. The story really engaged me- I found it quite delightful in its portrayal of the characters and customs. It came so much to life for me that I was wondering if it wasn't based on real life events, even if only in some part.Reading the book led me on some of my own discovery trails as well. Couvade is a practice/syndrome in which the husband of the woman feels the pains and sometimes post partum effects as if he were bearing a child. I have never heard about in Native North American tribal cultures. Not that I know a lot about Native American cultures in general anyway. So, I did some research, and it turns out that the custom was indeed practiced by some North and many South American native cultures. I tried, but wasn’t able to find the names of the tribes who practiced it in North America. Anyway, our little tribe from the book is of mixed origin anyway, so it was interesting to find that the Basques of Spain and France practiced it for centuries as well. One of the sources claims that it has been much more prevalent in societies in which women enjoy a higher status than men and are one of the ways for men to claim paternity in absence of more formal laws. Which would be congruent with the image of the tribal structure presented in the book.In general, gender and sexual roles seem to be much more laid back in Native North American cultures than I ever suspected. Quoting after The Gendered Society by Michael S. Kimmel, there were sometimes three and sometimes four genders recognized in Native American tribes. The Navaho in particular had one gender for masculine men, one for feminine women, and one for people whose gender remained ambiguous. It could be decided that the gender was ambiguous when the baby was born or the person could decide by herself or himself later. The gender like that was called nadle, and the person used to perform the tasks of both genders and dress in clothes of the gender whose tasks they were performing, though they were treated more often as women and addressed as such. Contrary to our patriarchal society’s expectations, it was a promotion rather than a demotion as women in the Navaho society enjoyed a higher status and had more rights than men including the right over property, sexual freedom, and authority to mediate disputes. In addition, nadles were free to marry either males or females without any loss of status. Some native American cultures recognized four genders as they had male and female berdaches. Berdaches were males who dressed in women’s clothes and performed female duties. In some Crow tribes these were males who simply did not want to become warriors. On the other side of the spectrum, there are examples of female berdaches among the Nahane. If the family had too many daughters, one of them was designated to become a warrior. She would wear a pair of dried bear testicles tied to her belt, wear men’s clothes and perform male duties. She would most probably maintain lesbian sexual relations as well.Endlessly fascinating.