From the Associated Press

Forest Service worries about environment, violence at peace gathering
By Don Thompson, Associated Press

MODOC NATIONAL FOREST — Lucky Sunshine Day says he arrived at this year’s Rainbow Family Gathering “a moon cycle ago,” measuring time much as he has the last 20 years of his life.

He spent much of his youth traveling aboard a Rainbow bus with his parents, Flower and Two Rock. To reach this year’s Gathering, he hitched a ride deep into the woods of Northern California.

“It’s about love, it’s about community, it’s about family,” he said. “We’re here to restore the earth to its natural state.”

This year’s annual peace Gathering got off to a bad start when one participant beat another nearly to death with a shovel for driving too fast through a campground. …

The counterculture festival reaches its high point Sunday when more than 10,000 self-described hippies from at least 40 states and eight nations are expected to hold hands in a circle, silently praying for world peace from dawn until noon. …

“Everybody with a bellybutton is a Rainbow. Some people just don’t know it yet,” said Sarieah, cradling her 2 1/2-year-old daughter Zakiaya on her hip. …

Elsewhere, as the full moon came up the drums came out, filling the woods with a hypnotic tribal beat. Rainbows consider themselves a tribe, or a gathering of tribes, and have drawn much of their language and tradition from American Indians.

Yet their choice of a site drew protests from the Fort Bidwell Indian Community Council, which worried diggings of latrines in particular would harm ancestral artifacts. …

The Rainbows have no leadership, only unofficial elders and organizers, and decide everything by consensus at council meetings. Most refuse to acknowledge they need a permit to freely assemble on public land.

“Whenever there’s a problem, we deal with it. We call the sheriff,” said Kalif, the head gatekeeper. …

Kalif turned in his longtime friend, Harry “Hugs” O’Neill, 47, of Whitehorn, on June 22 after O’Neill allegedly used a shovel to smash the windshield of a pickup truck and beat the vehicle’s two occupants. O’Neill remains jailed on felony assault and battery charges.

Christopher Witcher, 47, of Roan Mountain, Tenn., nearly died from injuries that included a punctured lung, ruptured spleen and head injuries, police said. Kelly Cook, 44, of Brosnan, Texas, suffered a head wound but later returned to the Gathering.