A silent reminder

Beneath the securities of good nights and safe houses, lived fear. Fear dressed in Existential fangs always sat at the outside waiting to get in. The sweet smell of apple pie and coffee seemed a good enough shield to the elephant that sat in at the edge of the room, flicker of flame and wax. Shadows have always lurked beneath the savory light of ‘everything’s fine if you send hopes and prayers.’ Then one day, everything changed. Not the flash of atomic light we dreamt of in cold war beds, terrified with nightmare, and the comfort of mothers floor. No, it changed the way you would expect a tad pole to become a frog, unseen but heard for miles across platforms of social distancing. The veil became thin, and the emperor ran across abandoned golf courses, naked and scared.

Photo: Patricia Halleran

Photo: Patricia Halleran


This had always been the dream, the liminal birthing canals connected to the ethernets of the universe, tearing illusion from its perch.. the Eagle remembered it was an Eagle and tore apart his jingoist ways, for a chance to taste the flesh of Salmon once again. The metaphors painted slow motion chrysalises, sparked from the time outside of time, where dream and awake fancy dance on early morning vistas.. or perhaps, it is the prayers of Ghost Dancers awaking the Ancestors for aid. The realist thing about this, is that it is not real. It is not matter. It can not cast shadow, or shine light, yet sits on the edge of hills, threading and weaving, a silent killer. A silent reminder….

Pay attention to what the frogs have to say, they may have all the answers we need.

Be safe. Be kind. Be gentle.

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

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.

A Door to Memory.

This photo really sums up in an image what this project is about to me. I can imagine what it would feel like to be Great Grandmother, watching the old ways die underneath the feet of something new. The very landscape has been rearranged and so has our Story. This photo is of the Cascades and Cascade Locks, Oregon prior to bonneville dams construction in the early 30′s.

A photo taken just before the Cascades were silenced. 193?, photo author unknown.

A photo taken just before the Cascades were silenced. 193?, photo author unknown.

Read more about Bonneville Dam’s impact on my ancestors here

River People

“Although identified by the photographer in about 1900 as Warm Springs Indians, this family, who lived near Celilo, 10959424_926208647390783_1820474339059025743_nwas part of a substantial population that refused to settle or stay on the reservations. Many of them came to identify themselves as Columbia River Indians, or River People, based on their shared heritage of connection to the river, resistance to the reservation system, adherence to cultural traditions, and relative detachment from the institutions of federal control and tribal governance. ”
(http://www.ohs.org/research/quarterly/images/OHQ1052_Fisher_1.pdf)

I am Proud to be a River People.

A video montage in honor of the River People.

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.

Recalling Celilo: An Essay by Elizabeth Woody

Recalling Celilo: An Essay by Elizabeth Woody
from the book “Salmon Nation: People, Fish, and Our Common Home.

Along the mid-Columbia River ninety miles east of Portland, Oregon, stand Celilo Indian Village and Celilo Park. Beside the eastbound lanes of Interstate celilo0384 are a peaked-roof longhouse and a large metal building. The houses in the village are older, and easy to overlook. You can sometimes see nets and boats beside the homes, though some houses are empty. By comparison, the park is frequently filled with lively and colorful wind surfers. Submerged beneath the shimmering surface of the river lies Celilo Falls, or Wyam.

Wyam means “Echo of Falling Water” or “Sound of Water upon the Rocks.” Located on the fourth-largest North American waterway, it was one of the most significant fisheries of the Columbia River system. In recent decades the greatest irreversible change occurred in the middle Columbia as the Celilo site was inundated by The Dalles Dam on March 10, 1957. The tribal people who gathered there did not believe it possible.

Unknown fishermen, unknown year, unknown photographer.. any information would be appreciated.

Unknown fishermen, unknown year, unknown photographer.. any information would be appreciated.

Historically, the Wyampum lived at Wyam for over twelve thousand years. Estimates vary, but Wyam is among the longest continuously inhabited communities in North America. The elders tell us we have been here from time immemorial.

Today we know Celilo Falls as more than a lost landmark. It was a place as revered as one’s own mother. The story of Wyam’s life is the story of the salmon, and of my own ancestry. I live with the forty-two year absence and silence of Celilo Falls, much as an orphan lives hearing of the kindness and greatness of his or her mother.

The original locations of my ancestral villages on the N’ch-iwana (Columbia River) are Celilo Village and the Wishram village that nestled below the petroglyph, She-Who-Watches or Tsagaglallal. My grandmother, Elizabeth Thompson Pitt (Mohalla), was a Wyampum descendent and a Tygh woman. My grandfather, Lewis Pitt (Wa Soox Site), was a Wasco, Wishram, and Watlala man. But my own connections to Celilo Falls are tenuous at best. I was born two years after Celilo drowned in the backwaters of The Dalles Dam.

Old unknown photo of a dip-netter.

Old unknown photo of a dip-netter.

My grandfather fished at Celilo with his brother, George Pitt II, at a site that a relative or friend permitted, as is their privilege. They fished on scaffolds above the white water with dip nets. Since fishing locations are inherited, they probably did not have a spot of their own. They were Wascopum, not Wyampum.

When the fish ran, people were wealthy. People from all over the country would come to Celilo to watch the “Indians” catch fish. They would purchase fish freshly caught. It was one of the most famous tourist sites in North America. And many long-time Oregonians and Washingtonians today differentiate themselves from newcomers by their fond memories of Celilo Falls.

What happened at Wyam was more significant than entertainment. During the day, women cleaned large amounts of finely cut fish and hung the parts to dry in the heat of the arid landscape. So abundant were the fish passing Wyam on their upriver journey that the fish caught there could feed a whole family through the winter. Many families had enough salmon to trade with other tribes or individuals for specialty items.

No one would starve if they could work. Even those incapable of physical work could share other talents. It was a dignified existence. Peaceful, perhaps due in part to the sound of the water that echoed in people’s minds and the negative ions produced by the falls. Research has shown this to generate a feeling of well-being in human beings. It is with a certain sense of irony that I note companies now sell machines to generate such ions in the homes of those who can “afford” this feeling of well-being.

Wishram Grandmother preparing Salmon. Edward S. Curtis photo.

Wishram Grandmother preparing Salmon. Edward S. Curtis photo.

An elder woman explained that if my generation knew the language, we would have no questions. We would hear these words directly from the teachings and songs. From time immemorial, the Creator’s instruction was direct and clear. Feasts and worship held to honor the first roots and berries are major events. The head and tail of the first salmon caught at Celilo is returned to N’ch-iwana. The whole community honored that catch: One of our relatives has returned, and we consider the lives we take to care for our communities.

The songs in the “ceremonial response to the Creator” are repeated seven times by seven drummers, a bell ringer, and people gathered in the Longhouse. Washat song is an ancient method of worship. By wearing the finest Indian dress, the dancers show respect to the Creator.

Men on the south side, women on the north, the dancers begin to move. In a pattern of a complete circle they dance sideways, counterclockwise. This ceremony symbolizes the partnership of men and women, the essential equality and balance within the four directions and the cosmos. We each have our place and our role. As a result, the Longhouse is a special place to learn.

PEO001-00013Meanwhile, in the kitchen, women prepare the meal. Salmon, venison, edible roots, and the various berries — huckleberries and chokecherries — are the four sacred foods. More common foods are added to these significant four on portable tables. Those who gather the roots and berries are distinguished. Their selection to gather the foods is recognition of good hearts and minds. Tribal men who have hunted and fished are likewise acknowledged. One does not gather food without proper training, so as not to disrupt natural systems.

What has happened to Celilo Falls illustrates a story of inadequacy and ignorance of this land. The story begins, of course, long before the submergence of the falls with the seed of ambitions to make an Eden where Eden was not needed. One needs to learn from the land how to live upon it.

The mainstem N’ch-iwana is today broken up by nineteen hydroelectric dams, many planned and built without a thought for the fish. Nuclear, agricultural, and industrial pollution, the evaporation of water from the reservoirs impounded behind dams, the clearcut mountainsides – all are detrimental to salmon. Since 1855, the N’ch-iwana’s fourteen million wild salmon have dwindled to fewer than one hundred thousand.

PC_celilo_falls_near_the_dalles_ca1917

Old Postcard of Celilo.

Traditional awareness counsels in a simple, direct way to take only what we need, and let the rest grow. How can one learn? My uncle reminded me that we learned about simplicity first. He said, “The stories your grandmother told. Remember when she said her great grandmother, Kah-Nee-Ta, would tell her to go to the river and catch some fish for the day? Your grandmother would catch several fish, because she loved to look at them. She would let all but two go. Her grandmother taught her that.”

A larger sorrow shadows my maternal grandmother’s story of the childhood loss of the material and intangible. What if the wild salmon no longer return? I cannot say whether we have the strength necessary to bear this impending loss.

The salmon, the tree, and even Celilo Falls (Wyam) echo within if we become still and listen. Once you have heard, take only what you need and let the rest go.

Elizabeth Woody (Navaho/Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama) received the American Book Award for her collection of poetry “Hand into Stone.” She is the Director of the Indigenous Leadership program for Ecotrust. This essay is adapted from Salmon Nation: People, Fish, and Our Common Home.

How Coyote Helped The People- Columbia Basin Tribes

This is a composite of many tales related by many tribes that once lived along the Columbia River and its tributaries. For the sake of this story, the many traditions have been weaved together. No one tribe told about all these deeds of Coyote.

Artist unknown

Artist unknown

The part about Lake Chelan and the waterfall was told by Billy Curlew, at that time he was the present titular chief of the Moses-Columbia band of Indians, to the Forest Supervisor at the agency at Nespelem, with lack Jack Weipe as interpreter.

After Old-One had made the earth and the ancient animal people, he sent Coyote among them, because they were very ignorant and were having a hard time. Coyote was told to kill the evil beings who preyed upon them and to teach them the best way of doing things.

Bonneville Dam

Bonneville Dam

First he broke down the dam which five Beaver women bad built in the lower Columbia.”It is not right,” he said to them, “for you to keep the salmon penned up here. The people farther up the river are hungry.”

Then he changed the Beaver women into sandpipers. “You shall forevermore be sandpipers,” he said. “You shall always run by the water’s edge. You shall never again have control over salmon.”

By this time so many salmon had come up from the mouth of Big River that the water was dark with them. Coyote walked along the bank of the river, and the salmon followed him in the water. At all the villages, the animal people were glad to see him and the fish he brought. Their hunger was over.

map of  white salmon area 1887

map of white salmon area 1887

When he came to the Little White Salmon River, he stopped and taught the people how to make a fish trap. He twisted young twigs of hazel brush and hung the trap in the river. Then he showed the people how to dry fish and how to store it for winter use.When he came to the bigger White Salmon River, he showed the people how to spear salmon. He made a spear from the inside bark of a white fir tree and caught the salmon with the pointed end of the spear.

“This is how you should do it,” said Coyote.

Wishram Grandmother preparing Salmon. Edward S. Curtis photo.

Wishram Grandmother preparing Salmon. Edward S. Curtis photo.

Wherever he stopped, he showed the people how to cook fish. They had always eaten it raw. He showed them how to broil salmon by holding it over the fire on sticks. And he showed them how to cook it in a pothole. Along Big River, to this day, there is a round-bottomed hole in the rocks, a hole that people call Coyote’s Kettle. Coyote put salmon in that hole, poured a little water over it, dropped hot stones into the pothole, and covered everything with green grass to hold the steam. Thus the salmon was steamed until it was tender.”This is how you should do it,” Coyote told the people.

PEO001-00013

Preparing salmon for the First Salmon Ceremony. Stock image

Then he and the people had a big feast – a feast of salmon cooked in the proper way, the way he explained to them. Coyote said to the animal people along Big River and along all the streams which flow into it, “Every spring the salmon will come up the river to lay their eggs. Every spring you must have a big feast like this to celebrate the coming of the salmon. Then you will thank the salmon spirits for guiding the fish up the streams to you, and your Salmon Chief will pray to those spirits to fill your fish traps. During the five days of the feast, you must not cut the salmon with a knife, and you must cook it only by roasting it over a fire. If you do as I tell you, you will always have plenty of salmon to catch and to dry for winter.”

Yakama River.

Yakama River.

Then Coyote traveled farther up the river, and the salmon followed him. Often he came to a smaller stream flowing into Big River. Because the people along the Yakima and Wenatchee rivers treated him kindly, he sent the fish up their rivers and promised them that every spring the salmon would return. Where he was treated very kindly, he made the river narrow in one spot. He would make the two banks of a river almost meet, so that there would be a good place for catching salmon.When he came to the animal people along the Chelan River, he said to them, “I will send many salmon up your river if you will give me a nice young girl for my wife.”

Lake Chelan.

Lake Chelan.

But the Chelan people refused. They thought it was not proper for a young girl to marry anyone as old as Coyote. So Coyote angrily blocked up the canyon of Chelan River with huge rocks and thus made a waterfall. The water dammed up behind the rocks and formed Lake Chelan. The salmon could never get past the waterfall. That is why there are no salmon in Lake Chelan to this day.

Artist rendering of Spokane Falls, 1888 from the book 'The Great Northwest.'

Artist rendering of Spokane Falls, 1888

Coyote made a waterfall in the Okanogan River because the girls there refused to marry him. He made a waterfall in the Spokane River because the chief along the upper river would not let him marry any girl among his people. Coyote said to the chiefs along the Okanogan and the Spokane “I will make falls here. I will make falls so that the salmon cannot get past them, to your people farther up the river.”As Coyote traveled up the rivers, he gave names to the streams and the mountains. He killed monsters that were destroying the animal people. He killed the Ice People and defeated Blizzard, so that the winters would not be so cold.

Pre-dammed Cascades. 1912(?) author unknown.

Pre-dammed Cascades. 1912(?) author unknown.

He planted trees, so that when the new people, the Indians, should come, they could burn wood and keep themselves warm. He planted huckleberries in the mountains. “People must climb to get these berries,” he said. “It will not be good for them to get all food easily. They will become lazy.” He planted strawberries and service berry bushes. He planted camas, kouse, and other roots, so that there would be all kinds of food for the new people. After the new people, the Indians, came, he showed them how to make fire by twirling sticks between their hands. He made a long knife to cut with, and an ax to chop with. He peeled bark off a cedar tree and made a cedar-bark canoe. “This is how you should do it,” he said.

Arrow and spear collection -columbia river basin.

Arrow and spear collection -columbia river basin.

He taught them how to make bows and arrows from young arrowwood, and how to use the weapons. He made dip nets from maple and willow twigs, and showed the Indians how to catch salmon with them. He taught them how to make fishing platforms near the falls of Big River and how to spear salmon from these platforms. He made a basket trap also for catching fish. Coyote taught the Indians that salmon must always be kept clean. “if you do not keep them clean after you have caught them,” Coyote said, “they will be ashamed and not come up the river any more.

Salmon offering plate.

Salmon offering plate.

“And you must never cook any more than you can eat. If you cook three salmon when you are able to eat only half of one, the salmon will be ashamed and will refuse to enter your river.”

Many times he traveled up and down Big River and its branch rivers, teaching the people many useful things. Almost everything the Indians knew, Coyote taught them. He did many good things, but he did many wicked things also.

Indians say that when Coyote had done all the good things he could do, he was given a place in the sky. Other Indians say that he was punished for the bad things he had done.

Hail Coyote! Unknown photographer.

Hail Coyote! Unknown photographer.

He climbed to the sky on a rope. He climbed all one summer and all one winter. Then he fell down for a long, long time. When he struck the ground, he was mashed flat.

Lying there, he heard a voice say, “You shall always be a wanderer and shall forever howl and cry for your sins.”

That is why coyotes howl and cry at night. That is why they wander hungry and friendless over the earth.

*This story taken from the book Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, Ella E. Clark, University of California Press, 1953.

The Impact of the Bonneville Dam on Native American Culture

The impact of the Bonneville Dam on Native American Culture
(Re-Printed from: http://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/Dams/bsc02yogg.html)

For the Native American tribes living in the Columbia River Basin, salmon are an integral part of their lives, serving as a symbol of their prosperity, their culture and their heritage. There are more than fourteen different tribes represented in the area, including the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama tribes. While they are separate tribes, with differing cultures and traditions, their reliance on salmon to maintain their way of life is a common bond.

Auntie Virginia Miller's Canoe. Edward S. Curtis photo

Auntie Virginia Miller’s Canoe. Edward S. Curtis photo

Life Before the Dam

Economically, salmon were a large part of the culture of most of the tribes along the Columbia River. Before the treaty of 1855, many tribes had sucessful fishing economies. They traded salmon in order to obtain goods from other regions of the country. The salmon that were necessary to sustain their bodies and provide for their economic needs were available to them and therefore, the tribes were wealthy and self-sufficient. The economic benefits of the salmon were tremendously important for the welfare and maintenance of their communities, representing one of many significant benefits of salmon to their lives.

Year after year and generation after generation, the salmon returned every fall to spawn in the river. With this, a transfer of traditional knowledge and values occured. They passed on knowledge of fishing tecniques, as well as philosopies such as a respect for all forms of life. The return of Salmon to the river and subsequent transfer of knowledge symbolized to the natives that there had been a continuation of all life and assured them that their culture, tradition and spirituality had been upheld. It also served to reinforce their sense of place. When the salmon returned the tribes would gather down at the river to collect the salmon they needed to sustain them for the year. During the spring and summer they would head up to the hills to collect roots and berries to supplement their diet. People have mistaken these tribes to be nomads who wandered aimlessly in search of food and resources, but this is a misconception. These tribes followed the seasons, utilizing their resources in a circular pattern. The salmon were a fundamental component of their seasonal migration and their way of life.

Cowlitz First Salmon Ceremony, Photo Unknown

Cowlitz First Salmon Ceremony, Photo Unknown

Because the salmon played such an important role in their way of life, the salmon were incorporated into their spirituality and religious practices as well. The tribes felt that their souls were connected to the natural world and all of its inhabitants, including the salmon. Because of this “over a dozen longhouses and churches on reservations and ceded areas depend on salmon for their religious services” (http://www.critfc.org/text/IMPORT.HTM). The return of the salmon each year was cause for celebration. One of the ceremonies used in celebration of the salmon was the First Food Feast. In this celebration they would pray, sing and dance before eating a traditional meal of salmon, deer or elk, roots and berries. Antone Minthorn of the Umatilla tribe explained the importance of this ceremony…

The importance of the first salmon ceremony has to do with the celebration of life, of the salmon as subsistence, meaning that the Indians depend upon the salmon for their living. And the annual celebration is just that – it’s an appreciation that the salmon are coming back. It is again the natural law; the cycle of life.

(www.critfc.org/text/CERMON.HTM)

A Clash of Cultures

The native tribes to the land surrounding the Columbia, and the white settlers that arrived in the early to mid 1800′s had very different philosophies concerning their respective relationships with the land.

Fish Wheels near North Bonneville. Photo unknown

Fish Wheels near North Bonneville. Photo unknown

In general the white settlers displayed a disregard for the limits of their resources and brought with them the concepts of ownership and property. As a result of this, the non-Indian economy thrived at the expense of the Native Americans, whose fishing economy was driven almost to extinction. The native way of life depended on respecting the earths limits. They saw themselves as spiritually connected to the land, the animals, and its incredible abundance of resources, and they knew that by hurting the land they were hurting themselves. They understood the importance of sustainability, realizing that even if the effects of exploitation were not immediately apparent, they would be felt eventually, hindering the lives of the generations to come. This fostered a duty to protect the salmon. Bill Frank Jr. stated:

Survival of the salmon has always meant more than just food for the Indian people. Indians have long recognized that if they are to survive and if their children’s children are to survive, it will be because the salmon survives. It is their legacy.

(biology.uoregon.edu/classes/bi130/webprojects/35/tedstrong.html)

Construction of Bonneville dam, directly on top of my Ancestors old Village site.

Construction of Bonneville dam, directly on top of my Ancestors old Village site.

As the salmon population declined and many of their traditional fishing sites were flooded as a result of the constriction of the Bonneville Dam and other dams along the Columbia River, the culture, tradition and spirituality of these tribes have been put in danger. The native philosophies were essential in managing the resource of salmon, yet they were powerless in enforcing their methods because their ideas were seen as inferior. Allen V. Pinkham Sr. of the Nez Perce tribe who among other involvements in Native American politics spent nine years on the Nez Perce Tribal Council and was chairman of the Columbia River Tribal Fish Commission, explained:

We utilized the salmon resource, we didn’t deplete it. We utilized what was necessary to sustain our lifestyle and life ways, both spiritually and physically. Nobody does that anymore. Non-natives see only the salmon as a commodity that gets bought and sold. Not thinking about the survivability of that salmon as a species.

(Pinkham, 1996)

Present Day

Old unknown photo of a dip-netter.

Old unknown photo of a dip-netter.

Today the Native Americans struggle to maintain their fishing economy. A recent article by Ellen Morris Bishop in the Columbian describes the hapless state of Native American commercial fishing as follows:

In the next month, Indians from Eastern Washington and Oregon will balance on flimsy platforms above the river’s current and plunge nets into the rolling green water. Others will challenge the Columbia in battered Boston Whaler boats, setting out gill nets in gathering darkness and harvesting their catch at dawn. They fish at sites their ancestors used, sites registered with the tribe, sacred ground.

(Bishop, August 27, 1998)

Les Brown photo. ©2012

Les Brown photo. ©2012

A decade ago there were nearly 1,100 native fishermen, while today they number fewer than 500. This year, in accordance with Native American treaty rights to half of all fish allocated for commercial harvest, the Upper Columbia River tribes are allowed to catch a total of 51,534 fall chinook and 16,720 steel head. It is anticipated that 2,400 will be wild steel head, but most of the fish will be from hatcheries. This year’s catch is up from last year’s 40,200 but far less than the 79,000 Indians caught commercially in 1990.

According to a 1995 article by Allen Thomas in the Columbian, in an effort to replace tribal fishing grounds flooded during construction of the Bonneville Dam, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers planned to build and improve Native American fishing sites. The multiple sites along the Columbia and Snake River were planned to include parking lots, foot docks, camping sites, showers/restrooms, lighting systems, sewer and water systems, and fish cleaning stations. (Thomas, October 13, 1995)

It seems that the government is attempting to repair some of the damage done to the Native American fishing economy, but unfortunately much has already been lost. The Culture, tradition, and way of life of the tribes in the Columbia River Basin will never be the same as they were before the construction of the Bonneville Dam.

Honne Names the Salmon: Chehalis Legend

“LONG TIME AGO in the beginning of the world, Honne came to earth. No one knows where he came from. And as the country was new and strange to him he decided to travel about and see what he could find.”

Chehalis River

Chehalis River

Thus begins the Chehalis Indian legend of Honne, the creator of people and animals, as related in “Honne: The Spirit of the Chehalis”, by Katherine Van Winkle Palmer, W.F. Humphrey Press, Geneva N.Y. 1925. The various species of salmon and trout were extremely important to the Chehalis people, and the legends of the tribe tell fascinating tales of how Honne created these fishes. Honne named the different kinds of salmon and told each the streams they would inhabit and the seasons of their lives. The following is an abbreviated account of the creation of the salmon from the legends of the Chehalis people.

Cowlitz First Salmon Ceremony, Photo Unknown

Cowlitz First Salmon Ceremony, Photo Unknown

When Honne came to earth he found that the people were living like animals, so he decided to exchange the lives of people and animals. As Honne travels the banks of the Chehalis River, he meets several people who have caught a salmon. Honne changes each of these persons into a crane and takes the salmon. After cooking and eating the first salmon Honne said: “‘Now I will name the salmon.’ And he called it Thowsh or Thatssocub. He threw the salmon backbone in the river and told it to go up the river. Honne said to it ‘You will be food for the people. You will go up the river to the riffles and spawn and raise a thousand fish.’

Fresh Salmon Meal

Fresh Salmon Meal

The backbone of the fish said to Honne ‘After we spawn what shall we do?’

Honne replied ‘After you spawn, you will go back to the ocean where you will become fat and bright again. Once every year at a certain time you will go up the river. That is your work to do for the people.’”

Honne met another fisher with a salmon and after turning him into a crane:

“Honne picked up the salmon which had lain in the gravel. He built a fire from drift wood, fixed the salmon and cooked it. After it was cooked and he had eaten all he wanted, he took the backbone of the fish and said ‘Your name will be Twahtwat, the black salmon.’

From ashes rise.

From ashes rise.

backbone said ‘What time of the year will I come up the river?’

And Honne answered ‘You will come up in the fall. You will not stay long but will work fast while you are here for the other salmon will have come ahead of you. When you finish you will go back to the ocean and then you will be young again.’

Black salmon went in the river and Honne traveled on.”

Soon Honne took a third salmon from another crane:

“Then Honne built another fire and cooked the salmon which he ate and as before he took the backbone and said to it ‘Your name is Skawitz, silverside salmon. This is as far as you will come up the river, and you will work in the creeks and never in the river. When you are thru you will go back again to the ocean and become young again.’ Skawitz said ‘How will I work?’

Riffles of the Chehlis River.

Riffles of the Chehlis River.

Honne said ‘You will lay eggs and cover them on the gravel.’

The fish asked ‘Will any place do?’

Honne answered ‘No, you must put them on a riffle because there are many other fish who will eat them.’

Silverside said ‘But won’t the other fish eat them on the riffle?’ ‘No.’ Honne said, ‘because the other fish do not work on the riffles. They work up and down the river but they do not stay on the riffles.’

‘Won’t the eggs float downstream?’ asked the fish. ‘No.’ said Honne, ‘because grandmother* will take care of the eggs.’ (*Grandmother is a small creature who is supposed to hold the eggs between the rocks.)

Elk Creek.

Elk Creek.

Silverside could not understand how it was done so Honne got down on the gravel and dove under the water on the riffle. He kicked the gravel with his feet; each time that he kicked he dropped two or three eggs off his hands and as he laid the eggs he sang,

“Under the gravel,
Under the sand,
You lay, and
Grandmother will take care of you.’

The eggs went under the gravel and lay there. They were to lie there so many days before they would become fish. And Honne told the eggs that they must not leave the fish until they were able to swim. He told them that when the fish grew up they must come each year to the same place. After they were hatched they must go up the creeks and stay one year. In the spring of the year they must go to the ocean but each year they must come back again. Those that go to the creeks for the first year are akalade, mountain trout. They are one year old, and from three to four inches in length. After three years they are large and are then bull trout. The fourth year they are salmon.

Walville Creek

Walville Creek

Silverside said ‘My feet will wear out if I kick the gravel as hard as that.’

Honne answered ‘They will grow so long that you will have to wear them out anyway. And when you go down to the ocean they will grow out again.’ This satisfied Silversides and he started down the river.”

Honne obtained the fourth salmon from yet another crane:

“He went further up the river and cooked the salmon which he carried with him. He ate it and then took the backbone and said to it ‘You will be Squawahee, steelhead salmon. You will always go further up the river than any of the other salmon, and you will have a longer life than the other fishes.’

The fish asked ‘What time of year will I come up the river?’ Honne told him that he would come up in the fall of the year and stay all winter and that he would spawn in the spring of the year. When the pheasant began to drum then it would be time for the steelhead to spawn.

Honne started down the river. The first creek he came to he fished. In it he caught silverside salmon, but no other kind. He told the little creek that hereafter it must give up the silverside salmon. ‘But,’ said the Creek ‘when the fish come up, will they come only here? If they do I will call for rain and it will raise the waters so that the salmon can not tell one creek from another.’

To which Honne said ‘I have told them when and where they are to hatch and that is the way they must do it.’

Honne went on to another creek and fished. There he caught silversides, blacksalmon, steelhead and chinook. He was satisfied and went on to another creek. In that he did not catch anything. He went to the head of the creek and asked it why it did not give him any of the fish. The creek answered that it did not like to give up the fish because they would be killed and eaten.

Honne said he would give the creek another chance so he took a dip net and fished. After some time he caught a silverside, and he said ‘That is all that will ever be in this creek.’ So he continued on. He came to a slough near the river at Choshed* meaning the star that fell (*Grand Mound) He sat down by the slough and gazed for a long time in the clear water.

Cut Throat Trout.

Cut Throat Trout.

After awhile he noticed a fish swimming in the water. He could not see what it was and tried to get closer but could not make it out. He then said to it ‘Come up I want to see you.’ The fish came up to Honne.

Honne said ‘Oh yes I know you now. I had forgotten. You will be the chief of the fish. Your name is Klahwhi, dog salmon. This is as far as you will go up the river. You will come up the river quickly and go back quickly. Your life will be short.’ And Honne gave the fish a striped blanket, which was made of cedar bark and dyed with alder. That is the coat of colors which the fish still wears.”