本文為翻譯文章，文件段落格式依原始文章編排，中文放在原文段落之上方便大家對照。因為我的英文很破，中文的文筆又不好，所以如果有翻得不通順或翻錯的地方，就再麻煩各位多多指教，直接留言或私訊都可以，請不必客氣。
作者：Daniel Duane | PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2, 2017
翻譯：陳震宇 (若有任何問題請來信：maurice.chen67@gmail.com)
再會了優勝美地。
哈囉，下個名字是？
Goodbye, Yosemite.
Hello, What?
攝於1980年時的阿瓦尼飯店。由於商標爭議，現已被正式更名為偉哉優勝美地飯店。
The Ahwahnee Hotel in 1980. Because of a trademark dispute, it has been renamed the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Credit George Rose/Getty Images
飯店的形象通常不會在我腦海中停留太久，但優勝美地山谷會，還有那魅力無窮的阿瓦尼飯店也會。在 1980 年代，我父親帶我到優勝美地享受攀岩旅行時，我們從來都不曾在阿瓦尼飯店下榻 – 房價實在太高了 – 不過我爸都會多帶幾件乾淨的衣物，好讓我們能夠在附近的常青樹下違法露宿前，得以踏入飯店裡那間華麗而庸俗的 Indian Room 酒吧裡廝混。
我父母甚至還在阿瓦尼飯店慶祝他們的金婚紀念日。最近，由於某些合約糾紛，迫使國家公園管理處必須將它更名為「偉哉優勝美地飯店」，同時也必須將其他四個同樣受到世世代代加州人所珍愛的地點一併更名。對於像這樣精雕細琢但了無新意的更名行動，我通常會感到極為厭惡，甚至憤怒，覺得他們正在惡搞我們的珍貴遺產！
相反地，我很興奮。因為這整起愚蠢至極的事件，正好是國家公園管理處能夠一舉擺脫掉許多如同早期聯邦雕像 (註：Robert E. Lee 將軍雕像移除事件) 一樣缺乏轉型正義的不當名稱的絕佳機會。最好連那些用來表彰為了捍衛蓄奴權益而不惜參與殺戮甚或甘願犧牲的人們的雕像、還有像「阿瓦尼」這種為了慶祝大屠殺而濫用的名字、以及在我們國家公園之下的那些從人民手中偷來的土地，全部都一併拋棄。
HOTELS generally don’t figure prominently in my imagination, but Yosemite Valley does, and so does the glamorous Ahwahnee Hotel. When my father took me on Yosemite climbing trips in the 1980s, we never stayed at the Ahwahnee — it costs a fortune — but Dad always brought clean dress shirts so that we could hang out in the Ahwahnee’s kitschy Indian Room Bar before we slept illegally under the evergreens.
My parents even celebrated their 50th anniversary at the Ahwahnee, so I could be annoyed that the National Park Service recently renamed it the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, an exquisitely vapid choice. For reasons stemming from a contract dispute, the Park Service simultaneously renamed four other sites that have been dear to California families like mine for generations. So I could be outraged: They’re messing with my heritage!
Instead, I’m thrilled. The whole dumb episode is an opportunity for the National Park Service to dump dozens of place names that are the linguistic equivalents of Confederate statues. Much as those statues honor men willing to kill and die in defense of slavery, names like Ahwahnee falsify and celebrate the slaughter and land theft upon which our national parks were built.
大樹旅社一隅，原名為瓦沃納飯店 (Wawona Hotel)。
The grounds of Big Trees Lodge, formerly the Wawona Hotel.
Credit Preston Gannaway for The New York Times
18 世紀，在西班牙傳教士踏上這片土地前，估計約有 30 萬人居住在加州。到了 1840 年代中期美國軍隊入侵時，拜暴行與疾病所賜，人口數銳減了一半；然後到了 1848 年，一小塊金塊在沙加緬度附近的礦脈中被發現後，便掀起了美國有史以來最大的一波淘金移民潮。
在 1846 到 1860 年間，整個加州的非原住民人口數從原本的 14,000人 暴增到超過 30 萬人。根據墨西哥律法，加州原住民擁有所有既有的權利，然而這些權利在白人入侵後便被徹底剝奪了。1850 年，加州正式成為美國的一州，同年，立法者還立法強迫美洲原住民將孩童的監護權交給白人，同時並阻止美洲原住民參與投票，也不得在犯罪案件中出庭作證，提供不利於白人的證據，甚或列席陪審團；這也是為什麼在 1846 年到 1873 年這段時間裡，白人對加州原住民施暴的案件紀錄會如此稀少的原因。
這些都是邁向大規模屠殺的典型階段，隨後在 1851 年發生的一連串種族屠殺行動，正是最清楚的呼應。當時的加州州長 Peter Burnett 提到，他預期「這場種族之間的滅絕戰爭」將會不斷持續「直到美洲原住民完全絕跡為止」，而參議員 John Weller 隨後也附和「只有讓他們完全消失，白人的權益才能受到保障」。根據一位來自 U.C.L.A 的歷史學家，同時也是讓我受益良多的《美國的種族屠殺：1846-1873，美利堅合眾國與加州原住民的一場浩劫》一書的作者：Benjamin Madley 的研究指出，當年的加州政府斥資相當於現在的 4,500 萬美元組織民兵，發動二十多場軍事侵略行動，屠殺了至少 1,340 位美洲原住民。美軍 (正規軍) 與其隨從人員殺死至少 1,680 人，而由人民組織的義警則屠殺至少 6,460 人。當年的美國國會補助了加州政府絕大部分的支出，因此也形同支持這場種族屠殺的軍事行動。
Before Spanish missionaries arrived in the 18th century, there were an estimated 300,000 people in California. Violence and disease helped cut that number in half by the mid-1840s, when the United States military invaded. Then, in 1848, a gold nugget was found in a stream near Sacramento, setting off one of the largest mass migrations in American history.
Between 1846 and 1860, the non-Indian population of California leapt from some 14,000 to more than 300,000. Under Mexican law, native Californians had established rights, but after Anglo-American foreigners invaded sovereign Indian nations, those rights were stripped away. California became an American state in 1850. That same year, lawmakers legalized forcing American Indian children into white custody and barred Indians from voting, giving evidence against whites in criminal cases or serving as jurors. As a result, there are very few instances in which a white person was convicted of a violent crime against a California Indian between 1846 and 1873.
These are all classic steps in the march toward mass murder, with clear echoes in later genocides. In 1851, California’s governor, Peter Burnett, said that he expected “a war of extermination” to continue “between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct,” and Senator John Weller later said that “the interest of the white man demands their extinction.” Toward that end, California spent the equivalent of $45 million in today’s money on two dozen state militia expeditions that murdered at least 1,340 California Indians, according to Benjamin Madley, a historian at U.C.L.A. and the author of “An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873,” whose work I am heavily indebted to. The Army and its auxiliaries killed a minimum of 1,680 more, and vigilantes murdered at least 6,460. Congress reimbursed California for most of that money, retrospectively endorsing genocidal campaigns.
偉哉優勝美地飯店大廳展示著「泛美洲原住民文化」藝品，但展品都盡量避免讓人聯想到特定原住民族。
The lobby of the Majestic Yosemite Hotel has a pan-Indian motif but avoids reference to any particular Native people. Credit Preston Gannaway for The New York Times
舉例來說，在 1860 年，北加州的罕伯特郡 (Humboldt County) 就有約 150 名維約特族 (Wiyot) 女性、孩童、以及老人被屠殺。根據一位親眼目睹這件憾事的報社記者說：「屍橫遍野，無論男女老幼。有些人的頭部被人用斧頭劈成兩半，有的被人用棍棒砸成爛泥；有些人則是被人用長獵刀戳刺至死或砍殺分屍」。直到 1880 年為止，加州原住民人口只剩下 2 萬人左右。「形容當年這群立法者打造了一部由州政府贊助的殺戮機器，這樣的描述一點也不為過」Madley 教授這麼說。
優勝美地的米沃克族 (Miwok) 幾乎經歷了歷史上的所有階段。數千年來，有上千名的族人一直都居住在這座山谷裡的小鎮中，他們有些人將這裡稱為「阿瓦尼 (Ahwahnee)」。19 世紀初期的一場流行病讓他們的人口銳減，而存活下來的倖存者則翻越內華達山脈，前往莫諾湖地區與帕尤特族 (Mono Paiute) 一起生活。
在淘金熱爆發的前幾年，一名在莫諾湖區的米瓦克部落長大，名為堤納亞 (Tenaya) 的米瓦克人，帶領說著不同語言的莫諾部落與帕尤特人回到了優勝美地山谷。並自稱為阿瓦尼奇 (Ah-wah-nee-chee)。在 1851 年以前，他們一直極力避免與白人接觸，直到一支有著 500 人兵力，名為「馬里坡薩軍團」的民兵部隊，為了搜索一支廣為他們敵人所熟知的部族而進入了這座山谷，並與當地人開始有了接觸；而這支部族的名字在原住民語中聽起來像是「優勝美地 (Yosemite)」，大意是「那些殺手」。
In 1860 in Humboldt County in Northern California, for example, an estimated 150 Wiyot women, children and elderly men were murdered. According to a newspaper reporter who saw the aftermath, “Lying around were dead bodies of both sexes and all ages from the old man to the infant at the breast. Some had their heads split in twain by axes, others beaten into jelly with clubs, others pierced or cut to pieces with bowie knives.” By 1880, some 20,000 Native Californians remained. “It is not an exaggeration to say that California legislators established a state-sponsored killing machine,” Professor Madley said.
The Miwok of Yosemite lived nearly every chapter of that history. For millenniums, thousands occupied small towns in the valley that at least some of them called Ahwahnee. In the early 19th century, a pandemic greatly reduced their numbers, and survivors fled across the Sierra Nevada to live with the Mono Paiute people.
A man named Tenaya, raised in that Mono-Miwok diaspora, led the return to Yosemite Valley by a polyglot group in the years before the Gold Rush. They apparently called themselves Ahwahneechee and avoided contact with Anglo-Americans until 1851. Then a 500-man-strong state militia called the Mariposa Battalion went looking for a people who seem to have been known to their enemies by a local word that sounded something like “Yosemite” and meant something like “among them are killers.”
遊覽優勝美地國家公園的遊客。
Visitors touring Yosemite National Park. Credit Max Whittaker for The New York Times
關於馬里坡薩軍團的事跡，最好的故事來源，就是該軍團成員 Bunnell Lafayette。他曾描述道為了搜索阿瓦尼奇族，他隨著該軍團在凜冽的寒冬裡沿著這座由冰河切削而成的山谷，一路追蹤到山谷的深處。然而，有別於其他成員，他對那些殺手完全不感興趣，但卻對那些川流不息的瀑布與高聳的金黃色花崗岩壁感到心醉神迷。Bunnell 之所以會吸引我的注意，是因為他對優勝美地的美景有著很強烈的反應，只要一有機會，他就會為他所看到的一切事物命名或更名，徹底受到維多利亞時代那種普遍認為非白人人種都是劣等民族的思想所荼毒。
Bunnell 發現了一處悉心打理的居所，有著食物儲藏室，還有悶燒的爐火，但現場只有一名年老孱弱、無力逃跑的婦人。Bunnell 形容她是「獨特而稀有的、活生生的人種學教材」，並對同伴說：「拿點東西給牠吃吧」。
由於意識到讀者可能因為他如此粗暴地對待這位飽受驚嚇的老婦人而有所批判，因此他再三向讀者 (以及他自己) 保證她不是真正的人類：「這個生物完全沒有表現出驚恐的樣子，而且很明顯地，我也絲毫感覺不出她有任何希望、恐懼、喜歡、或討厭的情緒」。隨後馬里坡薩軍團劫掠並焚毀所有阿瓦尼奇族的居所和食物儲藏所，任由這群飽受驚嚇的阿瓦尼奇族人暴露在酷寒的曠野中，獨自面對即將來臨的暴風雪。
The best surviving account of the Mariposa Battalion comes from a member named Lafayette Bunnell. He describes tracking the Ahwahneechee into that deep glacier-cut valley midwinter and — alone in his group of uninterested killers — swooning over the booming waterfalls and soaring golden granite. Bunnell fascinates me because he was deeply responsive to the natural beauty of Yosemite, captivated by the opportunity to (re)name everything he saw and thoroughly afflicted with commonplace Victorian delusions about the supposed inferiority of nonwhites.
Bunnell finds well-tended homes and food stores and even smoldering hearth fires, but only one person, an elderly woman too frail to run and hide. Bunnell describes her as “a peculiar, living ethnological curiosity” and tells somebody to “bring something for it to eat.”
Sensing that readers might judge him for mistreating a frightened old woman, he reassures them (and himself) that she is not fully human: “This creature exhibited no expression of alarm, and was apparently indifferent to hope or fear, love or hate.” The Mariposa Battalion then looted and burned every Ahwahneechee house and food cache they could find, leaving the Ahwahneechee in a terrifying predicament with snow on the ground and more winter storms ahead.
從地面遠眺日落時分的半穹頂。
Visitors touring Yosemite National Park. Credit Max Whittaker for The New York Times
幾個月後，馬里坡薩軍團再度回到優勝美地山谷，並俘虜了五個人，堤納亞的三個兒子也在其中。為了紀念這項戰績，他們將擄獲地點附近一處有著三座岩壁的區域命名為「三兄弟岩壁 (Three Brothers)」，並釋放其中的兩名俘虜回去向堤納亞通報。
在這兩名俘虜離開的同時，負責看守的士兵佯稱要釋放另外兩名俘虜，讓他們為彼此鬆綁，並企圖在過程中射殺他們；其中一人逃脫了，另一人則不幸身亡。隨後，士兵也俘虜了堤納亞，並將他帶到他小兒子的屍體旁。很明顯地，Bunnell 的帶隊指揮官純粹是以此取樂，因此也讓堤納亞因憤怒與悲痛而崩潰。
部隊一路拖著堤納亞前進，行軍到了一處環繞著白色光滑岩石的湛藍湖泊，並在湖邊的夏季聚落裡俘虜了更多阿瓦尼奇族人。Bunnell 告訴這位悲傷的阿瓦尼奇酋長，他的名字將被用來為這座湖命名，堤納亞聽到後滿臉疑惑與失望，回道：「它原本就有名字了，我們都叫它派維阿克」。Bunnell 向他解釋為何要為這座湖重新命名：「因為我們在這座湖邊捉到的這群人，這輩子再也無法回到這裡生活了」。
A few months later, when the Mariposa Battalion rode back into Yosemite Valley, it captured five men, including Tenaya’s three sons. In celebration, the battalion named a nearby rock formation the Three Brothers. Two of the captives were sent to summon Tenaya.
While they were gone, guards deliberately allowed two of the remaining captives to untie themselves as a pretext for shooting them. One escaped, the other did not. Soldiers captured Tenaya and led him to the corpse of his youngest boy. Tenaya erupted with a rage and sorrow that Bunnell’s commander apparently found amusing.
The militiamen dragged Tenaya with them as they captured more Ahwahneechee at a summer village by a blue lake surrounded by smooth white stone. Bunnell told the grieving Ahwahneechee leader he was going to name this lake for him. Tenaya looked upset and confused and he replied, “It already has a name; we call it Py-we-ack.” Bunnell explained that he’d decided to rename it “because it was upon the shores of the lake that we had found his people, who would never return to it to live.”
優勝美地的半穹頂村，原名為克里營地 (Camp Curry) 。
Half Dome Village, formerly Camp Curry in Yosemite. Credit Preston Gannaway for The New York Times
換句話說，堤納亞湖 (Tenaya Lake) 的命名並不是為了紀念他，而是為了慶祝他的部落被摧毀。這也就是為什麼這座湖對我如此重要 – 重要到讓我願意將我死後的骨灰灑在那裡。
馬里坡薩軍團於 1851 年的晚期解編，據 Madley 教授的研究指出，該軍團一共花費加州政府 259,372.31 美元的預算，並殺害至少 73 名加州原住民。然而，在 29 年後由 Bunnell 所發表的新書中，卻鮮少提及這些殺戮行動；當時優勝美地的觀光旅遊正蓬勃發展，而 Bunnell 的書中花了大量篇幅描述他所學到的數十種關於溪流、河川、瀑布、和岩壁的原住民名稱，並判定它們都是不恰當的，同時再以英文名稱取而代之。並且，書中也充滿著 Bunnel 對於所有想將原住民名稱浪漫化的人的蔑視，認為他們「只是一群附庸風雅，認為紅種人也同樣高貴的盲目崇拜者」，甚至還指出「現實中」的原住民「拉低了人類的素質水平」。
阿瓦尼奇族的倖存者在一年之內陸續回到優勝美地山谷。他們重建了家園，並且在 1860 年代，當第一間遊客飯店落成時，他們靠著捕魚、賣魚、劈柴、和清理飯店房間維生。
In other words, Tenaya Lake — a place so important to me that I want my ashes scattered there — is named not in honor of Tenaya but in joyous celebration of the destruction of his people.
BY the time the Mariposa Battalion was disbanded later in 1851, it had cost the California government $259,372.31 and killed at least 73 Native Californians, according to Professor Madley. Bunnell’s book, however, published 29 years later when Yosemite tourism was booming, is far less concerned with murder than with how Bunnell learned dozens of Native Californian names for creeks, rivers, waterfalls and cliffs, judged them all irrelevant and replaced them with English names. It is also filled with Bunnell’s contempt for anybody who wished to romanticize Indian names “in their desire to cater to the taste of those credulous admirers of the Noble Red Man,” adding that “the reality” of Native Californians is “graded low down in the scale of humanity.”
Ahwahneechee survivors were back in Yosemite Valley within a year. They rebuilt their homes and, when the first tourist hotels opened in the 1860s, made a living by catching and selling fish, chopping wood and cleaning hotel rooms.
1910年加州優勝美地原住民的一張照片
A 1910 photograph of a Native Californian in Yosemite. Credit Universal History Archive/UIG, via Getty Images
1870 年代，當 John Muir 踏足這片豐美的曠野時，他們也在這片山谷裡。對我個人而言，Muir 是極為重要的，而我也相信他是一位正直的人，但令人難過的是，他對原住民的看法是消沈的，並且缺乏同情心。在他健行旅途中所見到的原住民多半是骯髒而醜惡的，這一點令他印象深刻，而他確信自然界裡沒有任何事物會像他們那樣粗鄙不堪，因此他認為美洲原住民並不屬於大自然。
其他人的感受則迥然不同，甚至樂於付費請這些原住民讓他們拍照留念。根據《被剝奪的野性：被驅逐的原住民與國家公園的創立》一書的作者 Mark David 所描述，早期在優勝美地的特許經營者注意到了這個現象，便開始經營起「原住民荒野生活體驗」的生意，其中包含搭建一些只有在平原部落才會見到，與加州原住民居所風格迥異的錐形帳篷；同時還雇用加州原住民穿戴「全套的平原原住民傳統服飾 – 以鹿皮製成的服裝、軟皮靴、以及傳統頭飾」。就像 Spence 最近跟我說的：「當原住民族碰上資本主義時，就是會發生這種事 – 那些原住民不是被騙，就是被人利用」。
到了 1920 年代中期，造訪國家公園的遊客超過 20 萬人，而 Astor 女士 (當年的一位社交名媛) 開始抱怨優勝美地的住宿品質實在令人難以忍受，於是一間民營的「優勝美地公園與克里公司」開始在山谷內打造一棟豪華的大飯店。我同意知名攝影師 Ansel Adams 的說法「走進阿瓦尼飯店時，一股平靜與優美的感覺油然而生，恰好呼應了優勝美地的精髓 – 那股宏偉而靜謚的氛圍」。但是，我也無法否認這整件事有著某種程度的病態：一群人將一個無人知曉的原住民小聚落徹底焚燬後，又在原址上建造一座飯店，接著再用這群被害者的語言，以這座被他們視為故鄉的山谷的名字，為這間飯店命名；並且，還刻意以「泛美洲原住民文化主題 (Pan-Indian motif)」來裝飾這棟飯店，企圖藉此喚起白人對美洲原住民的幻想，同時卻又極力避免讓人聯想到特定的原住民族群。
They were also around when John Muir led wildflower walks in the 1870s. Muir has been immensely important to me, and I believe that he was a decent man, but Muir’s view of Indians is depressing and painfully devoid of empathy. The Indians he saw on trails struck him as filthy, and he was pretty sure nothing natural is ever filthy, so he concluded that they must not be natural. This was convenient for Muir, because it allowed him to imagine the Sierra Nevada not as a deeply human landscape with centuries of cultural history but as the one thing he craved most, a place of spiritual purity.
Other tourists felt differently and gladly paid Native Californians to pose in photographs. Early concessionaires took notice and sponsored Indian Field Days that, according to Mark David Spence, author of “Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks,” included Plains-Indian-style tepees bearing zero resemblance to Native Californian shelter, and Native Californians paid to dress up like Plains Indians in “full Indian costume of buckskin dress, moccasin, and head decoration.” As Professor Spence told me recently, “That’s what happens when race meets capitalism — native peoples are either trapped in or exploiting that process.”
By the mid-1920s, when park visitors exceeded 200,000 and Lady Astor complained that Yosemite’s accommodations were intolerable, the private Yosemite Park and Curry Company began to build a luxury hotel. I agree with the photographer Ansel Adams that “on entering the Ahwahnee, one is conscious of calm and complete beauty echoing the mood of majesty and peace that is the essential quality of Yosemite.” But I also think there is something inescapably sick about a hotel on the site of a torched town copping a little mysto-Indian vibe from the word used by the arsonists’ victims for the valley they called home, and deliberately designed with a pan-Indian motif meant to conjure white fantasy while avoiding reference to any particular Native people.
優勝美地「搖晃小橋步道 (Swinging Bridge Trail)」的風景
Along the Swinging Bridge Trail in Yosemite. Credit Preston Gannaway for The New York Times
Adams 完全沒有意識到這些事。他的攝影作品造就了優勝美地在美國人心目中的形象，但在他的作品中卻鮮少出現優勝美地的原住民。他曾描述阿瓦尼飯店有著「絕佳的原住民主題」，甚至更進一步讚美「其設計有著高雅的品味與洗練的風格；為堅持原住民風格與其精髓，他們將原住民族那些繁複難懂的象徵符號集於一身，成就原住民風格的典範」。
1927 年，阿瓦尼飯店開始營運，而園方也開始將附近的原住民聚落視為亟欲拔除的眼中釘。於是很快地，他們便開始計劃以一座「優勝美地原住民聚落」取代它，企圖以聯邦政府的角色介入，決定這個原住民聚落應該要有什麼樣的外觀，以及哪些人才有足夠的資格被稱為「優勝美地原住民」並居住在這個聚落裡。到了 1930 年代晚期，這個聚落只剩下 57 人，分別居住在 15 棟小木屋裡。
即便是這樣的規劃，也仍然令園方無法忍受，因此在 1953 年，他們乾脆直接下令，只有園方的長期員工才能在園區內定居。當時只要一有人遷出，該處的小木屋便會被立刻拆毀，以確保不會再有人遷入。優勝美地原住民聚落的最後一棟殘餘建物在 1969 年被拆除；而附近最靠近的一棟殘餘建物是一間文物館，理應展示阿瓦尼奇部落在種族屠殺前的原始樣貌，但不消多說，這裏甚至連一個真正的阿瓦尼奇族人都沒有。
人們對於「阿瓦尼 (Ahwahnee)」這個名稱的憤怒，始於 2015 年。一間持有政府特許執照，負責營運園區內許多飯店、餐廳、以及店舖長達二十多年的「德拉威爾北方公司 (Delaware North Corp.)」，在 2015 年失去了經營權，轉由「愛瑪克 (Aramark) 公司」接手 (其實誰輸誰贏都無所謂，兩邊都一樣是拿著特許經營權在國家公園賣漢堡賺錢的黑心商人，都一樣有罪；也許這樣是未審先判，但反正連最高法院的大法官 Burger Court 都是這樣了，所以這根本就是一場鬧劇，沒人在乎)。政府指稱，德拉威爾北方公司秘密註冊了阿瓦尼飯店與其他幾處地名的名稱，導致政府必須額外付費才能繼續使用這些名稱，因此政府決定重新命名，並一腳踢開德拉威爾北方公司，這起糾紛目前已成為聯邦訴訟案件。
我由衷地希望德拉威爾北方公司輸掉這場官司，但我也希望國家公園管理處繼續使用這些新的名字，無論它們看起來有多荒謬，並趁著這一次機會，把剩下的那幾十個名字都一併改掉。我第一個贊成將「堤納亞湖」改為「派維阿克湖」，將「優勝美地山谷」更名為「阿瓦尼」，並在公園豎滿新的歷史銘牌來記述過去那些史實，例如：「1851 年，美國民兵在這裡從背後射殺了堤納亞的兒子，任由他在這片草地上流血致死，接著再將堤那亞拖到現場目睹愛子的屍體，愉快地看著他悲痛欲絕的樣子」。
彌補過去那些種族屠殺和侵佔土地的歷史錯誤，或許不比推倒維吉尼亞州夏洛特維爾郡一座公園裡的 Robert E. Lee 將軍雕像 – 藉此彌補數百年來的蓄奴政策 – 來得重要，但它或許可以幫助我們擺脫過去那些以白人至上的意識形態所幻想出來的歷史，並以更符合普世價值的歷史紀錄取而代之，更遑論那些都是史實。而這些行動，也將讓我們更了解過去那些屬於我們彼此所共有的歷史記憶。
當然，上述這些史實如果沒有加州原住民的貢獻，就會顯得毫無意義。例如 Mark Minch，一位加州大學河濱分校的英語系教授，協助我看出在 1851 年，由一位白人士兵所記錄的一些原住民名稱的可疑之處。而這些名稱的變化除了減輕殖民的愧疚感之外，幾乎沒有其他作用。另外我也從 Bill Leonard (堤納亞的後裔，同時也是「內華達山脈南部米沃克族」長年的領導者) 那裡得到類似的回應。
Adams felt nothing of the sort. A man whose photographs defined Yosemite in the national imagination and yet rarely included Yosemite Indians, Adams wrote of the Ahwahnee that “the Indian motif is supreme,” adding, “The designs are stylized with tasteful sophistication; decidedly Indian, yet decidedly more than Indian, they epitomize the involved and intricate symbolism of primitive man.”
By the time the Ahwahnee Hotel opened, in 1927, park officials saw the nearby village inhabited by actual Indians as an eyesore. Soon they were planning to replace it with a Yosemite Indian Village, which put the federal government in the silly business of deciding what an “Indian village” ought to look like and who qualified as sufficiently “Yosemite Indian” to live there. By the late 1930s, that village amounted to 15 tiny cabins housing 57 people.
Even that arrangement annoyed park officials enough that in 1953 they decreed that only permanent park employees could be residents. Anytime someone moved away, that cabin was demolished to make sure nobody else moved in. The last remnants of the Yosemite Indian Village were destroyed in 1969. The closest thing remaining is a life-size museum display meant to look like a pre-genocide Ahwahneechee village, without any actual Ahwahneechee, needless to say.
The recent furor over the name of the Ahwahnee began in 2015, when a subsidiary of the Delaware North Corporation, which operated the park’s hotels, restaurants and shops for more than two decades under a government concession contract, lost its contract to Aramark (no tragedy there — the burgers were criminal). The government says Delaware North quietly registered the trademarks for the names on the hotel and the other places and is now demanding payment for their use. The National Park Service came up with new names and told Delaware North to get lost. Now there’s a federal lawsuit.
I dearly hope Delaware North loses, but I also hope that the National Park Service sticks with the new names, however ridiculous — and, while they’re at it, changes dozens of others. My vote would be to change Tenaya Lake to Pywiack Lake, relabel Yosemite Valley itself Ahwahnee and sprinkle the park with new historical plaques saying things like “On this spot, in 1851, American militiamen shot Tenaya’s son in the back, let him bleed out in the grass, then dragged Tenaya up to have a look and enjoyed watching him weep.”
That wouldn’t right the historical wrongs of genocide and land theft any more than removing a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville, Va., atones for centuries of slavery. But it might help replace the white-supremacist fantasy version of history with a version more aligned to universal human values, not to mention reality. It would also enrich our understanding of our shared history.
Of course, none of this will mean much without input from Native Californians like Mark Minch, an English professor at the University of California, Riverside, who helped me see the dubious value of Indian names as recorded by a white soldier in 1851 and the likelihood that name changes would do little other than soothe the colonial conscience. I got a similar response from Bill Leonard, a descendant of Tenaya and a longtime leader of the Southern Sierra Miwok.
1866 年由 Currier & Ives 平版印刷工作室所製作的「優勝美地的美洲原住民」，背景為新娘面紗瀑布。
An 1866 Currier & Ives lithograph depicting Native Americans in Yosemite, with Bridalveil Fall in the background. Credit Currier & Ives, via Library of Congress
Leonard 先生提醒我，他只是群體中的一個個體，無法代替其他族人發聲，然後委婉地向我解釋，我的所有論點其實都不是重點。他說，更名「並不會讓我們覺得好過或覺得重要 – 事實上，我們的大多數人並不太在乎別人要用什麼名稱去稱呼事物」。Leonard 先生更想談論「內華達山脈南部米沃克族」耗費數十年向聯邦政府爭取族群認同的行動。而盤踞在 Leonard 先生腦海中的另一件事就是交通。「如果你想找出減少遊客數量的方法，我會很開心」他這麼說道。「優勝美地裡的人實在太多了，我們甚至連進去都無法，所以我們根本不在乎誰要用什麼名字來稱呼什麼東西，因為我連個車位都找不到！」或許那真的是奢望。
加州州長 Jerry Brown 最近邀請了 Madley 教授到沙加緬度的國會大廈，向大家介紹他在美洲原住民種族屠殺議題的研究成果，而加州的國民兵團司令官也邀請他對現在的加州國民兵發表演說；洛杉磯甚至還將哥倫布紀念日改為原住民族日。然而，優勝美地國家公園管理處卻連進入園區的私家車數量限制都不會認真考慮 – 我猜大概是因為那樣會影響某個人的漢堡銷量吧。除此之外，你覺得國家公園是為了什麼而存在？
Mr. Leonard reminded me that he’s just one guy and can’t speak for others, then gently explained that my whole argument felt beside the point. Renaming, he said, “is not going to make us feel any better or more important — the reality is, most of us could care less what they call things.” Mr. Leonard preferred to talk about the Southern Sierra Miwok’s decades-long campaign for tribal recognition by the federal government. The other thing on Mr. Leonard’s mind was the traffic. “If you want to figure how to get rid of some of the tourists, I’d be happy about that!” he said. “There’s so many people in Yosemite we can’t even get there. So we don’t care who calls what anything! You can’t even find a parking spot!” That may be too much to ask.
Gov. Jerry Brown recently invited Professor Madley to present his work on the California genocide at the Capitol in Sacramento, and the adjutant general of California has invited him to speak with today’s state militias. Los Angeles has even changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. But the National Park Service won’t seriously consider limiting private cars in Yosemite — because, I presume, that might slow the growth of somebody’s hamburger sales. And what else do you think national parks are for?
Daniel Duane 是三本優勝美地相關著作的作者，目前正撰寫另一本關於內華達山脈的書籍。 如欲追蹤紐約時報「觀點 (Opinion)」專欄，可造訪 Facebook 或 Twitter (@NYTopinion)，亦可註冊為會員獲取 Opinion Today 的最新動態。
Daniel Duane, the author of three books about Yosemite, is writing a book about the Sierra Nevada. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 3, 2017, on Page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline: Goodbye, Yosemite. Hello, What?. Today's Paper|Subscribe
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