vince pitelka on sun 18 aug 02
Many cultures have used bentonite for medicinal purposes. As an emerging
California hippie, I experienced the joys of mudbaths in the 60s, but we
weren't too picky about the mud we used.
While I was teaching in North Dakota I used to escape the flat tedium of
Fargo (Fuji Film voted Fargo the least photogenic city in the US) and head
330 miles west to the badlands - Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the
Little Missouri National Grasslands. The Great Plains are of course
composed of runoff from the Rocky Mountains, including vast beds of clays.
There has been considerable volcanic activity in the formation of the
Rockies. Erruptions repeatedly deposited layers of ash across the Great
Plains, and over the millenia this ash has broken down to form bentonite,
which appears in thick bulging beds in the vertical erosion cuts throughout
the badlands. It is a amazingly beautiful environment, though perhaps my
impressions are partially in contrast to Fargo, everything being relative.
John Stienbeck said the badlands were one of the few places he had visited
where the night was more friendly than the day.
As clays erode from the landscape, they deposit in beds along the Little
Missouri River, and bentonite tends to concentrate in certain areas. The
river is cloudy with bentonite, and most people do not swim in it, but in
fact the water is very clean. On one of my first tirps to Theodore
Roosevelt National Park in 1991 I discovered the joys of mudbaths in the
bentonite and swimming in the Little Missouri. In the evening after a hot
day the bentonite is warm, and immersing in it is as close to a sensory
deprivation chamber as I have experienced. In the heat of the day, when the
mud coating is allowed to dry completely, a subsequent washing leaves your
skin alive and refreshed.
At the time it seemed that such mudbaths in rural western North Dakota might
be seen as a little unconventional, if not scandalous, so initially I was
careful of my privacy. Then one year my sister and family met me at
Theodore Roosevelt National Park for a few days of camping. They arrived
ahead of me, and went on a short ranger-guided tour. Among the topics
covered were the use of medicinal bentonites and mudbaths by the Lakota and
other Great Plains tribes, and the admission that most of the rangers had
indulged in mudbaths along the Little Missouri. Hey, don't knock it until
you try it.
Best wishes -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@worldnet.att.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/
| |
|
