The Native Americans tried to warn them to stay away from the land, but the white men just laughed. The generations that followed them laughed and as the days grew colder and the land grew leaner and the people of this land for generations beyond knowing became thin with bitterness. They no longer believed in treaties or promises, handshakes or friendship.

The greed and selfishness of men of these men from across the Atlantic was unchecked by the civilizing forces of home and hearth, mother and father, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles. The Golden Rule of the Bible was easily forgotten by the white men, even if they too were seeking freedom from oppression. Some of them became the oppressors.

In their bitterness, some of the people who had been here since before the invasion of white people decided they were no longer guardians of the land and their unknown brothers. So they gave up the land they had stubbornly held on to as a trust given to them generations ago. Some of the former guardians warned the buyers that there was bitterness in the land and nothing but tears, horrors and hardships awaited those who planted anything in these sacred grounds. Some were too bitter to do so and swallowed those words of warning.

Those who had already found death on earth spoke the secret: Bury something there and it will come back to life. The dead would return to their loved ones. There were those who spoke of it as a warning, some of whom were believed too drunk to know what secrets they divulged. A few laughed the ugly guffaws of revenge the next day. Too many white people believed the original guardians to be inferior beings, ones who did not understand the meaning of civilization and would never, even with the proper education, reach the same intellectual level as white men. Such people would never know the best way to use such powers.

The land was sacred and became known as an ancient Indian burial ground. Even the wild animals knew better than to wander on to the land. The deer, the elk and the wolves stayed away, but that wasn’t enough to warn the white men for soon these guardians of nature were all gone and the land became filled with mice and rats and rabbits and those were swept away by poisons as houses were built closer and closer to these sacred grounds.

Nature had a way of taking care of things. Nature would eat away the flesh. The Native Americans of the region held that a proper burial  was offering the body to the vultures, flies and beetles. The bones were picked clean and then the bones became food for others. The Native Americans of that area did not bury their dead at these portals to hell–no matter how tempting it was because they understood.

At the sacred spot of bitter earth, they buried the dead of their enemies.  And when the dead rose, they returned to their tribes and loved ones, poisoned with murderous rage.  The guardians would hold torches and chant as the dead rose and follow a respectful distance behind the living dead as they made their return journey home.  The guardians would chant a song of victory and pound on drums to drown out the screams of their enemies. The enemy’s settlement would have to be burned down and all of the living dead accounted for and incinerated.

There was not just one, but several of these portals, but as the great white invasion swept away the guardians, evil was allowed to escape. Never ignore the wisdom of the old ways. Some things must change, but not everything should be swept away by the new and modern. Some day, the guardians will again arise and all will listen to their wisdom and evil will again lie silent in the bitter ground and peace will be restored.