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Saxifrage
and Brown's (western) peony,
above the Wallowa Valley.
K. Lugthart photo |
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Respect the land...
Cecelia Bearchum |
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Unwritten laws..
Marjorie Waheneke |
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The land provides everything.
Marjorie Waheneke |
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Chris
with his drum. |
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Foresight to the future.
Armand Minthorn |
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Ballhead
waterleaf
K. Lugthart photo |
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Umatilla River > Culture > All My Relations
Old Shillal Sweathouse at Mission Falls
1998, courtesy Tamástslikt Cultural Institute
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"The land, the water, the elders,
the songs…the tradition. If we lose those things,
we lose who we are" (Marjorie Wahenka, curator, Tamástslikt
Cultural Institute).
"As We Are Today — Our
encounter with humanity continues to unfold. As Natítayt
(The People), we are an evolving culture and coexist
in two divergent worlds. Both individually and collectively,
we are adapting to contemporary American life.
"Often times, we have survived
the incursions of modern life by 'Indianizing' it —
the distinctive blending of modern and traditional lifestyles.
What has emerged is a unique chronicle of our place
in the world" (Tamástslikt Cultural Institute
exhibit).
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"My mother said that some of the people that
lived close to the river, that's all they lived on was
fish, and that's an easy thing to get you know. The
Nez Perce and the Cayuse, they had a lot of different
rules and manners. They taught manners. The men, the
boys, and, I suppose, even the girls had to know every
kind of tree that was up in the mountains. They had
to know all the names of the different kind of trees
and what they were for and the plants and things too.
I think that was a good teaching. Lewis and Clark would
have really had a hard time if the Indians didn't help
them because you see, when you stop and think of it,
the Indians survived for thousands of years here just
on what's here. They didn't have to manufacture anything.
They kept the country young. They called it the new
world, so it was new even though it was thousands of
years old. When you stop and think about it, they kept
it new. They had conservation. When you dig roots, you
don't dig it all. When you pick berries, you don't pick
them all. You leave some for animals and to be reseeded,
you know, so it will grow again." - Lydia Johnson,
elder, Cayuse-Nez Perce and Yakama
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Deer
Photo courtesy Tamástslikt Cultural Institute
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| The Ancient Ones |
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Lawrence Patrick, Cayuse elder, offers this testimony
at Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, during Convocation
2000.
"I'd like to know a little bit more about why
our people started their services at sunrise because
I used to wonder that. A story goes the Columbia River
carved out a giant hole and the sun went down in the
hole and we had no sun. The Indian people got afraid
so they talked to the moon who they thought was the
wife of the sun and the stars were the children. They
prayed to the moon and stars every night, we don't know
for how long, and each day they would get up and wait.
Finally they saw a little light come up in the east
and everybody got happy so they ran and prepared themselves,
cleaned their bodies, taking
sweatbaths, putting their best clothes on and waited
for the sun to come up. They kept that practice for
centuries.
| "One day immigrants began to come
to the west. They asked the Indian people what they
were doing and they called them the Sun Worshipers.
There were other Sun Worshipers further south in Mexico.
The immigrants heard about the southern sun worshipers
first and they said maybe that's a bad thing to be worshiping.
What they were doing was comparing the sun worshipers
in the south to the Indians up here in the west, Columbia
River. In the south they had human sacrifices, usually
a slave girl. They got word to the Indian people here
and that practice lasted, as far as we know, for one
generation but before it was forgotten the people that
were here when there was no sun tried to tell us now
by making signs on rocks. You always see signs on rocks
down the river over there in John Day. These people
are trying to tell us how it was. A twig and little
slashes on it represents a man. Usually there's one
circle and a larger one around it, and a larger one;
that's probably how the sun looked when it began to
come back" (Lawrence Patrick: 2000). |
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Ancient stone petroglyphs.
Courtesy Special Collections & University Archives,
University of Oregon, Saylor Collection.
“A Stone over 4000 Years Old"
“A
large stone in the court of the city hall at Portland,
Oregon, commands more than passing notice from beholders,
and because its top is covered with rudely carven characters
which have the appearance of great age. It was found
near the southern bank of the Columbia river a few miles
above the town of Umatilla, situated to the east of
the Cascade mountains. For years its existence has been
known, but its rest was not disturbed, it weighing several
tons, until in 1909, when it was removed to Portland
and placed in its present location" (Saylor: n.d.). |
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| Medicine Persons |
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"My grandmother was a healer"
Kathleen Gordon |
"..to be a great medicine person..."
Kathleen Gordon |
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| Background:
Trilliums, K. Lugthart photo |
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