Toivo Land, WA 98648

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson

~
There are numbers zipped up in code that distinguish a place. A place where the mailman sometimes drives a mile or more to the next box; markers upon a black sea of asphalt, gravel and rain. Toivo lived here, amongst the mapleway and dirt trails- snags of trees swaying in the wind. A psithurism cathedral, with halls that echoed Finnish Polkas in a land of make believe. My Grandfather came from an old world, yet made a new one in the mossy twigs of 98648.

I am the oldest of 10 grandchildren, and arrived into a world filled with imagination and music. My grandfather played the accordion, spoke Finnish when drinking with his brothers and sisters, and loved to tell good stories. My oldest memories are set to the soundtrack of joy, laughter, and the Chicken Dance. Gramps had instruments in every corner and nook- amongst the dusty wisps of paper scrolled upon with poems, music, and blueprints for building. His hands were always inventing something new. When I was 9, he invented Toivo Land.

Toivo was an imaginary friend he made out of sawdust flesh, dressed in cover-alls, and who wore a face of permanent marker drawn upon a milk jug. Toivo always sat on an old Ford tractor that was rusty and splintered (unless he was out and about with the Toivo Land Band.) Toivo was a Magician, and like the Wizard of Oz, Toivo plowed a yellow brick road dotted with hand painted signs, and paved with the falling leaves of Maples, Oak, and Fir. A network of discovery that spanned 3 acres, and a lifetime. Toivo was always busy- this was Toivo’s land.

Toivo: 1) Finnish toivo = ‘hope’, ‘wish’, ‘desire’ 1 a) … with an older meaning ‘faith’, ‘trust’, ‘promise’

 (Photo of Toivo Land Band @ Skamania County Fair Parade, Stevenson, WA. 98648 , cir. 1984)

(Photo of Toivo Land Band @ Skamania County Fair Parade, Stevenson, WA. 98648 , cir. 1984)

~~

The faint sound of Polka seeping from old cassettes keeps time with the machines monitoring his breathing. His heart beats sporadic metronomes to his Covid-19 fever dreams. His fingers fold in on themselves- clutched and cold. It has been awhile since he has held the weight of billows and keys strapped upon his stern shoulders. He is quiet and ready- ready to make music again.

“Thank you,” I sob a hard sentence, stuck in my throat made of his flesh, “thank you Grandpa for always being there, and making our lives magic, and filled with love.”

“Thank you Grandpa for Toivo!”- I strain the words between tears that fall upon my pandemic shield made of plastic.

We lock a gaze of Finnish silence, the kind of silence filled with the solidarity of *Sisu. A stoic tear moves its way down his ageless face of wisdom, and with a side quiet smile, he says:

“It is all I could have hoped for!”

“It is all I could have hoped for.”
———————————————————————————————————————

* Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness and is held by Finns themselves to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English.

Siah | The Long Ago

The Cascade Range, where it crosses the Columbia River, exhibits enormous cross sections of lava, and at its base are petrified trunks of trees, which have been covered and hidden from view except where the wash of the mighty stream has exposed them. Indians have told me, of their knowledge, that, buried deep under the outpours of basalt, or volcanic tufa, are bones of animals of siah , or the long ago.

Where Gods live.

Where Gods live.

Traditions of the great landslide at the Cascades are many, but vary little in form. According to one account, the mountain tops fell together and formed a kind of arch, under which flowed, until the overhanging rocks finally fell into the stream and made a dam, or gorge. As the rock is columnar Basalt, very friable and easily disintegrated, that was not impossible, and the landscape suggests some such giant avalanche. The submerged trees are plainly visible near this locality. Animal remains I have not seen, but these Salmon-eating Indians have lived on the river’s borders through countless ages, and know every feature in their surroundings by constant association for generations, and naturally ally these facts with their religious theories. (MacMurray MS.)

An excerpt from ‘The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee’, by James Mooney, Chapter VII, Smohalla and his Doctrine

Shell Rock and the Breaking of Taboo

From the Oregon State Archives “A 1940 Journey Across Oregon”:

“… SHELL ROCK MOUNTAIN, 136.9 m. (2,068 alt.), is opposite WIND MOUNTAIN, which is in Washington. The Indians believed that the Great Spirit set the whirlwinds blowing in constant fury about Wind Mountain as a punishment to those who, breaking the taboo, had taught the white men how to snare salmon. …”

My auntie, Virginia Miller's canoe in the shadow of Wind Mountain. Edwards S. Curtis photo.

My auntie, Virginia Miller’s canoe in the shadow of Wind Mountain. Edwards S. Curtis photo.

Thunderbird

Across many North American indigenous cultures, the thunderbird carries many of the same characteristics. It is described as a large bird, capable of creating storms and thundering while it flies. Clouds are pulled together by its wingbeats, the sound of thunder made by its wings clapping, sheet lightning the light flashing from its eyes when it blinks, and individual lightning bolts made by the glowing snakes that it carries around with it. In masks, it is depicted as multi-colored, with two curling horns, and, often, teeth within its beak.

This Thunderbird petroglyph rests at Horsetheif Lake in the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, in Washington.

This Thunderbird petroglyph rests at Horsetheif Lake in the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, in Washington.


Depending on the people telling the story, the thunderbird is either a singular entity or a species. In both cases, it is intelligent, powerful, and wrathful. All agree one should go out of one’s way to keep from getting thunderbirds angry.

Flesh of My Flesh

“No one must look at the rocks of the bridge. People knew that some day it would fall. They must not anger the Spirit Chief by looking at it, their wise men told them.

'Bridge of the Gods' ca. 1929, photographer unknown.

‘Bridge of the Gods’ ca. 1929, photographer unknown.

The Klickitat Indians had a different law. Only a few men necessary to paddle the canoes would pass under the bridge. All the others would land when they approached the Bridge of the Gods, walk around to the opposite side of it, and there reenter the canoes. The oarsmen always bade their friends good-bye, fearing that the bridge would fall while they were passing under it. After many snows, no one knows how many, the prophecy of the wise men came true. The Bridge of the Gods fell. The rocks that had once been the body of Thunderbird formed the rapids in the river that were long known as Cascades of the Columbia.”

Read more here

Letters from the Ancestors

Written by: James D. Keyser, Indian rock art of the Columbia Plateau

Rock art is one of the most common types of archaeological site in Oregon, occurring from the Portland Basin to Hell’s Canyon and the high desert canyons along the Owyhee River to far southwestern Oregon’s Rogue River drainage.two spirit home Including both pictographs (paintings) and petroglyphs (carvings), the rock art at these sites was created as early as 7,000 years ago until as recently as the late 1800s. Although petroforms—a third type of rock art composed of outlines cut in desert pavement or boulders laid out in the form of animals or humans—are found elsewhere in North America, none has been discovered in Oregon.

Archaeologists have classified Oregon’s rock art into five traditions, that is, spatially broad-based artistic expressions that were created during a defined period of time. The traditions generally follow Oregon’s aboriginal ethnic/cultural boundaries. Thus, the Columbia Plateau Tradition reflects the art of Sahaptian-speaking tribes such as the Tenino, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Klamath-Modoc, while the Great Basin Tradition comprises the art of the Numic-speaking bands of the Northern Paiute. In the river valleys of western Oregon, the few sites that are known represent the Columbia Plateau Tradition and a little-known California rock art expression called the Far Western Pit and Groove Tradition, which is the product of Tututni and Kalapuya artists and probably members of other tribes as well.

Cover to book text is from.

Cover to book text is from.

Biographic rock art is the sole Oregon rock-art tradition that was made by several distinctly different ethnic groups. Occurring primarily in the canyon country of northeastern Oregon, the art was created by Cayuse, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Paiute artists to portray the acquisition of horses and guns and the war honors of important men. This art is known only from the 250-year period between about A.D. 1650 and 1900.

The subject matter of rock art in the Columbia Plateau Tradition is primarily humans, animals, and geometric designs, one of the most common of which is tally marks—a horizontally oriented series of three to more than thirty short, vertical, evenly spaced, finger-painted lines. Despite its limited subject matter, Columbia Plateau art functioned in several ways, including as a commemoration of the acquisition of spirit power during a vision quest and as a shaman’s ritual expression of power.

Yakima Polychrome designs and the closely related imagery of the Columbia River Conventionalized Style of the Northwest Coast Tradition served in healing and mortuary rituals and were used to witness mythic beings and places. Some images of animals and hunters in the Columbia Plateau Tradition were painted and carved as hunting magic. In the Klamath Basin, art in the Columbia Plateau Tradition has several stylistic expressions, but current research suggests that all of them were the exclusive purview of shamans.

Columbia River Gorge

Columbia River Gorge

Rock art in the Northwest Coast Tradition is limited in Oregon to a site at Willamette Falls, a few sites in The Dalles-Deschutes region, along the lower Deschutes and John Day Rivers, and in one rock shelter near the head of the North Umpqua River. Images are mainly of fantastic spirit beings, represented either by elaborate faces with grinning, teeth-filled mouths, concentric circle eyes, and exaggerated ears and headdresses or by owls, lizards, snakes, and water monsters. These spirit beings include some named beings such as Swallowing Monster, She Who Watches, Cannibal Woman, and Spedis Owl, but the names and identities of many others are lost in time. Ethnographic sources indicate that these images were made by shamans in their curing and mortuary rituals and to witness mythological happenings.

Far Western Pit and Groove Tradition rock art is found from the southern Willamette Valley near Eugene into the Umpqua and Rogue River drainages, where it occurs as cupules—shallow dimples—and simple geometric forms pecked and ground into streamside boulders. Known as Baby Rocks or Rain Rocks, ethnographic sources indicate that these simple petroglyphs were carved both by shamans accessing and using supernatural power to call the salmon and communicate with the gods and by women who wanted to bear a child.

Vantage, WA.

Vantage, WA.

Great Basin Tradition rock art has both the broadest statewide distribution and the greatest number of Oregon sites. Found across the southeastern third of the state and along the Snake River from Ontario, Oregon, to Clarkston, Washington, Great Basin imagery is dominated by abstract symbols such as circle chains, grids, zigzag lines, nucleated and concentric circles, curvilinear mazes, and dot patterns. Many sites also have cupules pecked into rock surfaces. Stick-figure humans and lizards, deer, and mountain sheep are the primary representational images, but these almost always occur as only a few figures at any one site, even those with hundreds to thousands of geometric designs.

Certainly much Great Basin rock art was made by shamans who were acquiring or using supernatural power, and much of the geometric imagery may have been generated in the artists’ minds by stimuli experienced during a trance. Other Great Basin imagery, however, is likely to have been made in conjunction with subsistence activities during the seasonal round of these high-desert hunter-gatherers and likely had a broader function as part of the rituals associated with subsistence.

Soon we will be ghosts.

“…. They didn’t sign away their rainy Eden or sell it, die in warfare, or move to reservations, not until twenty-five years after the catastrophes that swept most of them away. It wasn’t smallpox that laid them low. Suddenly most of them were simply gone. The Wapato Lowlands in particular were empty and silent. Did
12697363_1109859742359005_2764864803838113474_o God call them home? The few survivors walked away dazed. Took to speaking other languages. Were replaced by strangers. After a few decades hardly anyone remembered that they had ever been there.”

Read more of “She Who Watches — Tsagaglalal By Rick Rubin” here: http://www.ochcom.org/chinook/

Listen to the story, ‘She Who Watches — Tsagaglalal’, as told by Ed Edmo:

‘Graffiti’ of the old ones

“I am now old. it was before I saw the sun that my ancestors discovered the Wah’-tee -tas, the little ancient people who wore robes woven from rabbit’s hair. They dwelt in the cliff. My people saw a little short fellow, like a person.

Alfred A. Monner (1953), warns of a dangerous whirlpool in the eastern Columbia River Gorge. Monner referred to the image as his "water devil."

Alfred A. Monner (1953), warns of a dangerous whirlpool in the eastern Columbia River Gorge.

marking the rocks as you now see them. He walked from rock to rock, hunting the smooth places. You see some of the paintings high up upon the wall. We do not know how Wah-tee -tas got up there to do the work. We see it there; we know that it is true…Sometimes the people would see the Wah’-tee-tas once or twice a year, see them in the evening dim, or in the morning before the sun, while it was yet a little dark. The Wah’-tee-tas were spirits, but not bad.”

- Tokiaken Twi-wash (Yakama) told L.V. McWhorter this story in 1912

Chinook – Coyote Builds Willamette Falls and the Magic Fish Trap

Coyote came to a place near Oregon City and found the people there very hungry. The river was full of salmon, but they had no way to spear them in the deep water. Coyote decided he would build a big waterfall, so that the salmon would come to the surface for spearing. Then he would build a fish trap there too. First he tried at the mouth of Pudding River, but it was no good, and all he made was a gravel bar there. So he went on down the river to Rock Island, and it was better, but after making the rapids there he gave up again and went farther down still. Where the Willamette Falls are now, he found just the right place, and he made the Falls high and wide.1471357_704065902938393_808146150_n (1) All the Indians came and began to fish. Now Coyote made his magic fish trap. He made it so it would speak, and say Noseepsk! when it was full. Because he was pretty hungry, Coyote decided to try it first himself. He set the trap by the Falls, and then ran back up the shore to prepare to make a cooking fire. But he had only begun when the trap called out, “Noseepsk!”

He hurried back; indeed the trap was full of salmon. Running back with them, he started his fire again, but again the fish trap cried “Noseepsk! Noseepsk!” He went again and found the trap full of salmon. Again he ran to the shore with them; again he had hardly gotten to his fire when the trap called out, “Noseepsk! Noseepsk!” It happened again, and again; the fifth time Coyote became angry and said to the trap, “What, can’t you wait with your fish catching until I’ve built a fire?” The trap was very offended by Coyote’s impatience and stopped working right then. So after that the people had to spear their salmon as best they could.

Chinook Creation Story

A Creation Story

“Long, long ago, when old Man South Wind was traveling North, he met an Old Woman, who was a giant.

“Will you give me some food?” asked South Wind. “I am very hungry.”

“I have no food,” answered the giantress, “but here is a net. You can catch some fish for yourself if you wish.”

George Catlin. 1850

George Catlin. 1850

So Old Man South Wind dragged the net down to the ocean and with it caught a little whale. Taking out his knife, he was about to cut the whale and take out the blubber.

But the old giantress cried out, “Do not cut it with a knife, and do not cut it crossways. Take a sharp knife and split it down the back.”

But South Wind did not take to heart what the old woman was saying. He cut the fish crossways and began to take off some blubber. He was startled to see the fish change into a huge bird. It was so big that when it flew into the air, it hid the sun, and the noise of its wings shook the earth. It was Thunderbird.

Thunderbird flew to the north and lit on the top of Saddleback Mountain, near the mouth of the Columbia River. There it laid a nest full of eggs. The old

Saddle Mountain, Oregon

Saddle Mountain, Oregon

giantress followed the bird until she found its nest. She broke one egg, but it was not good. So she threw it down the mountainside. Before the egg reached the valley, it became an Indian.

The old giantress broke some other eggs and then threw them down the mountainside. They too became Indians. Each of Thunderbird’s eggs became an Indian.

When Thunderbird came back and found its eggs gone. it went to South Wind. Together they tried to find the old giantess, to get revenge on her. but they never found her, although they traveled north together every year.

That is how the Chinook were created. And that is why Indians never cut the first salmon across the back. They know that if they should cut the fish the wrong way, the salmon would cease to run.

Always even to this day, they slit the first salmon down the back, lengthwise….