Archaeologists found what they believe to be human bone where many within the Donner Party met their end. That's about as newsworthy as someone finding the carcass of a chicken in the dumpster behind Popeye's. Near Donner Lake, people ate other people. In the 157 years since, various observers have tried to deny or excuse what occurred.

"If some of the bones are human," the Associated Press report contends, "they would be the first physical evidence to back up survivors’ accounts that some members of the Donner Party resorted to cannibalism to survive being trapped in snow during the winter of 1846-47." Say what? Rescue parties found boiling hearts and livers, human corpses with their flesh stripped, and faces stained with human blood. Finding human bones near Donner Lake today will neither prove nor disprove what undeniably happened more than a century ago.

Harassed by Indians--Diggers--who killed their livestock for fun, and later trapped in the Sierra Nevadas in brutal snowstorms in the winter of 1846-47, the Donner Party suffered from bad luck. They also made their bad luck. Ever been told, "Don't take shortcuts"? The Donner Party were told this, but they didn't listen.

Starving and trapped in the mountains, some of the overlanders resorted to cannibalism. Of the eighty-one human beings within the Donner Party, only forty-seven survived. Children ate their own parents. Pioneers plotted to kill and eat the Indian guides. The trapped resorted to praying to Baal. Some remained in the mountains for six months.

"The general public understands the reasons for cannibalism now," a descendant of the Donners told the AP. "They realize the pioneers had no choice. What would you do in that situation if you were starving and had kids to feed?"

Well, I'd like to think that I wouldn't cook them somebody's brains and liver. Some died rather than eat their friends and family members. Others fled. Still others dined on humans. They had choices. Some chose good. Others chose evil. William Eddy ate grass and escaped to find help. Lewis Keseberg devoured human beings despite fresh horse meat being readily available. "Oh, it's too dry eating," Keseberg complained of horse flesh. Human "liver and lights were a great deal better, and the brains made good soup," he maintained.

"The Donner tragedy illustrates a perennial truth," Frank McLynn observes in his excellent book Wagons West. "There are almost no depths of infamy to which human beings cannot sink, but they are also capable of godlike courage, nobility and self-sacrifice."

Dostoyevsky wrote something to the effect: "Man can get used to anything . . . the beast!"

Without realizing it Iron Maiden touches on the Donner Tragedy in "Run for the Hills". The symbolism is very heavy.

White man came across the sea
Brought us pain and misery
Killed our tribes killed our creed
Took our game for his own need

We fought him hard we fought him well
Out on the plains we gave him hell
But many came too much for Cree
Oh will we ever be set free?

Riding through dustclouds and barren wastes
Galloping hard on the plains
Chasing the redskins back to their holes
Fighting them at their own game
Murder for freedom a stab in the back
Women and children and cowards attack

Run to the hills run for your lives
Run to the hills run for your lives

Soldier blue on the barren wastes
Hunting and killing their game
Raping the women and wasting the men
The only good Indians are tame
Selling them whisky and taking their gold
Enslaving the young and destroying the old

Run to the hills run for your lives

Which is better: Wasted Years or Run to the Hills?

The words to that tune are true enough. White Europeans have brought much pain and misery to the peoples they’ve conquered and the native Americans, like all beaten people, have the right to be p’ed off.

However, the ‘Indian’ tribes who inhabited this country before and during the settlers were not generally a quiet, peace loving people and certainly practiced their share of barbarism against their own kind and others.

Things like cannibalism and mass murder were not past many of them.

The revisionists would have us believe different.

It’s interesting how Hollywood of the 30’s right on up to the 60’s depicted the good guys always as the settlers and soldiers and the bad guys exclusively as the heathen red skins. Then, things started changing and flicks turned the tables on the good/bad guy roles right on up to the ultimate ‘White man bad, Red man good’ movie, Dances with Wolves. Except for the hero, it always showed the soldiers as dirty, stinking and vile people. The Indian, of course, was presented as clean, civilized and noble.

On a whole, this is not that historically accurate.

Great question Dan. Both songs are appropriate. I am going to have to say "Run for the hills". I prefer songs with allot of verbs in them and I think "Run for the hills" has more verbs than "Wasted Years".

The Donner Party was an unfortunate tragedy. Almost as interesting as "The Jimmy Drohan Pilgrimage: The quest for Rawson Road."

Amazing what mankind will forgive, isn't it? More moral relativism?

Sorry, sometimes one must make sacrifices for their beleifs, no matter the cost(Pat Tilghman).
People tell me that stem-cell research might find a cure for these illnesses I have. Sorry, but I am not a hypocrite, life is life, period. And if the day comes that they do find a cure...if that cure comes from stem-cell research, I will NOT partake.

Like I said, life is life. The Donner's were wrong.

Sorry to pick on you, Mike, but this will not pass: "It’s interesting how Hollywood of the 30’s right on up to the 60’s depicted the good guys always as the settlers and soldiers and the bad guys exclusively as the heathen red skins."

I wonder how many Western movies from the 30’s through 60’s you have actually seen, because the majority of them (especially the bigger budget ones) were much more morally complex than you allow. They also tended to be more morally complex than most Westerns made since, which tend to be simply anti-Westerns.

In old Western films, the most evil people are usually white guys. The Indians are usually portrayed with some barbaric and some noble qualities. The fate of the Indians is almost always painted as tragic. Also, Indians are not portrayed as all the same – some are shown as more peaceable and others as brutal warriors. I tend to think this is a rather realistic picture. Indian-haters and white guys exploiting the Indians, etc., are usually portrayed as idiotic jerks.

You find the same mixed portrayal of Indians in Radio Westerns during the same period.

I’ve heard many teachers bloviate on the image of Indians and whites in old Westerns, and I must say that this oft repeated slander of old Hollywood is simply false.

John Ford Rocks!

I have to agree with Molly. The paradigm western for me is "The Searchers" (1956, John Ford, dir) which I have to list in my top five films of all time. Everyone should see it if they haven't. You can definitely point to even earlier films than this to see portrayals of Indians which don't fall into a ham-fisted moral "black and white" simplicity but "The Searchers" is the best of them.

The "Diggers", the Indians who Dan refers to (who killed the Donner's livestock for fun), are also a morally complex group. Diggers were bands of individuals who formed together after being kicked out of their tribes. They were known to dig up human graves and mutalate the bodies! Although they terrorized the Donners, one group gave pinenut mixtures to the travelers of the party who were sent to get help. This gesture let Eddy, the hero of the story, survive to get help and save the remaining half of the party.

Important to note about the Donners- you were more likely to survive if you were female over the age of three or if you were a married man.

Thanks for the interesting comments on the diggers.

But, Keseburg: you disgust me.

Fair enough Molly. Just meaning to point out that there are good and bad in all groups of people and revisionist history should not exonerate a group or race of people from wrong doing.

History can provide facts but cannot provide intent or much information about a culture’s personal perversions and / or preferences.

That’s why I like to give all parties the benefit of what we know scientifically and don’t necessarily believe what modern day story tellers would like us to believe unless based on fact.

Much like what Michael Mooron’s new movie is trying to do.