The Tribal Stone:
Finally he reached under the facing of his shirt and drew out a blue-green Stone, attached to a leather thong that encircled his neck. Closing his eyes, he cupped the talisman in his fleshy, pink-white hands.

Minutes later he replaced it--out of sight, although never out of mind.

For this stone was his visible symbol, as well as daily reminder, of the Promise he had made years earlier, a promise which also carried with it a Price. At least, such were his wildly unlikely and unbelievable claims, on that first May interview in 1966.

On completing his own Spirit Medicine and receiving this same Stone from the hands of Captain Spott, the Yurok intellectual Robert Spott had promised to teach his comprehensive Indian knowledge to someone else before his own death. "Robert Spott made his medicine to teach," Harry explained to me, on that first fateful day. As if he expected me to understand, on the spot, all that his words implied, the monumental burden in such a promise.

In contrast, Harry's promise to Robert Spott--and an important distinction for SANDSPIT--had differed. It had taken him the all-important next step.

I promised to make sure that it would be written down. I:81 Harry Roberts

Pass On What You Know:
Over unknown centuries, this blue-green Stone had passed from one Yurok "Man" to the next. It had gathered its power from a lineage of gifted minds. Now it was tuned into its final instruction: "Pass on what you know."

Pegah, Captain Spott's widow, had kept it until Robert Spott returned from France. Later Robert Spott had transferred it to Harry Roberts, the youth whose Indian roots burrowed deep in the distant Klamath earth, but whose White roots--equally tenacious--spread throughout the Napa Valley and San Francisco Bay area, all places south of the Russian River.

There came a moment when I wished I had never set eyes on that crazy blue-green Stone. A moment when I was afraid that Harry was about to drape it around my own neck, when, therefore, I decided I had had enough. When I was getting way too close to terrain I had never intended to traverse--to terrain I had no right to travel. I:82

He Cannot Give It To Anyone:
They are not going to tolerate the likes of Harry Roberts. They are young people. He is sick. I feel sorry for Harry Roberts. Because he can't give it to anyone. Because he is going to have to take his rock back up. And because he is going to die. I:92, Audrey Jones

No One Is Going To Take It:
"I'm going to die with this cotton-pickun rock. I'm supposed to give it to some Indian. Theres no one who's going to take it, learn it. I'm still going to wear that rock around my neck. I'm supposed to take it back up there."
I:92, Audrey Jones quoting Harry Roberts