In the Land of the Grasshopper Song
by Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed
reviewed by Catherine Anderson
In 1908, Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed, life partners from the age of sixteen, traveled from their home in New Jersey to the Klamath River area of Northern California, known locally as “the Rivers.” They went as field matrons for the then-named Office of Indian Affairs. Ostensibly, their job was to provide a civilizing influence on the native Karuk people, to be exemplars of Christian piety and domestic virtue.
The story of their adventure, In the Land of the Grasshopper Song: Two women in the Klamath River Indian Country in 1908-1909, was first published in 1957. A second edition was published in 1980; and a new Forward, Introduction, and Afterward were added in a reissue by Bison Books in 2011.
Like most field matrons, Arnold and Reed really did not know what they were getting into. They asked for the hardest assignment. They began their journey into Indian Country on horseback in the pouring rain, never having ridden before. As they ride over the mountains, their whole world seems to disappear, and they enter a whole new one. They quickly abandon many preconceived notions as well as some of their Eastern clothing. They adapt to their new situation with a clear sense of respect for the people with whom they have come to live.
Their tales of subverting the conventional views expected of them are humorous. One shares their sense of triumph as they learn how to ford rivers, cross swinging bridges, and mount a horse “the Rivers way.” Without making a big to-do about it, they refused to abide by the conventions of their positions as Victorian Ladies and as field matrons. Instead, they experience a kind of reverse acculturation in which they place the Karuk values and perspectives above the ones they were supposed to be teaching. Their stories of relationships, conflicts, and interactions with the Karuk Indians are full of humor and humility, as when, after an incident in which they offended someone, they admitted that they needed to “mend their manners.” They take in stride that Essie has three husbands, that Indians may enter their house at any time, and that they are still expected by the Indians to teach Sunday School. They are also keenly aware of their inability to provide legal redress for wrongs committed against the Karuks. When they leave the Rivers after spending two years there, the mountains seemed to close behind them.
As I read an early edition of this book, I kept thinking that these women were probably Quakers. They make no mention of it, but something of the “Quaker Gestalt” seemed to come through. It was only several years later, reading the newest edition, that I found out that they were indeed Quakers and in later times, members of Providence Meeting in Pennsylvania.
They returned east and became active in a variety of activist and progressive programs. They managed a major cooperative organization in New York City, went to Nova Scotia to help finance and develop housing for coal miners, and helped lobster fishermen in Maine start credit unions. Arnold was active in the Friends Indian Committee where she developed lectures on Indian rights for schools and community organizations.
This book is a gentle story, almost a tale of time travel. It’s the kind of story one reads for comfort and for insight. More than forty years ago, I lived in the Rivers region for one summer. Many of the places described in this book are places I remember, and reading it was like visiting again. Then, when I finished the book and closed the cover, the mountains closed behind me, bringing me back to the present.
Although In the Land of the Grasshopper Song was written from a white perspective, remarkably, it now holds an important place in Karuk tribal history. It has become a resource for family, community, and tribal stories, portraits of a time gone but not forgotten.
Andre Cramblit says in his Foreword to the most recent edition, “As a member of the Karuk Tribe I have a personal attachment to this book. . . I often recommend it to friends so they can get a basic understanding of what life was like for my people shortly after contact with Western society. This is the rare book that presents a Native people without romancing, objectifying, and stereotyping the subject. It is not a story to be told, but rather the reflections and observations of two visitors to an extraordinary new land.”
Catherine Anderson is a member of Berkeley Friends Meeting (PacYM). During college she spent one summer doing geologic mapping in the Scott Mountains, a part of the Klamath Mountain Province.