The struggle was never resolved, through difficulties, through conflicts within the tribe, through changing times, through the arrival of gold mines that scraped and developed and polluted their valley and pumped out its water and flooded the Dann family cemetery. I was sad about their stalemate and the government’s war of attrition and grateful for my time with them. But the larger shift taking place made me hopeful as never before. I saw the power of people on the margins to change foundational stories, saw something absolutely unforeseen emerge, saw how, as those changes spread, signs and
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