t Circie
OF NATIVE AMERICAN MENTOR & APPRENTICE WRITERS
The spring salmon feast at Cel Ho was
smaller this year 7he rodeo and pow wow
on the Warm Springs Reservation split
Indian Country down the middle that
weekend No m atter Magic has little to do
w ith numbers
For the Columbia basin tribes, the River
People, CeliIo is a holy place, the center of
their world For centuries, the people have
come here in the spring to feast, renew old
kinships, and pray The salmon is a g ift
from the Creator and the fir s t fish of the
season is caught ritu a lly by young men of
the tribe whose character has brought
them honor The salmon is then ritu a lly
consumed, w ith roots, berries and water,
by the people The feast is a sacrament
that joins the River people to each other
and to their place in the scheme of things
The people came to CeliIo because of the
great fa lls Here the Columbia, second
largest rive r on the continent, narrowed to
a boiling cataract 200 feet wide and a
m ile long whose booming roar could be
heard for miles Maggi Jim, whose husband
Howard Jim is chief of the Celilo-Wyam,
once talked of the feast of her youth when
thousands of the people came, so many
that the sound of the drums and the songs
echoing from the bluffs drowned the sound
of the fa lls
Celilo Falls is gone now, submerged in
the waters behind the Dalles Dam, along
w ith an elaborate network of fishing
scaffolds generations in the building
Maggi Jim Is gone too The old woman
cleaning bitte rro o t In the east wind died
last year on the 34 acres of Celilo
V iIläge—the last scrap of land le ft to one
of the richest native cultures on the
continent, a settled people whose villages
once lined the rive r they call Che Wana
from the mouth of the Snake to the Astoria
bar The spring salmon feast was smaller
this year
The night before the Washat
ceremony-revealed in a vision to
Smowhalla, the last Native American
prophet whose village at Priest s Rapids on
the upper reaches of the Columbia is now
part of the Hanford Plutonium
F ac,Iity--the people danced in the long
house, welcoming many times the whites
who had come to be w ith them
Midway through the dancing, an old
woman, an elder of the tribe, introduced a
young man who had come to honor the
people He had danced all day at Warm
Springs and had come here, at the old
woman s request, to dance the chicken
dance for her daughter who was vis itin g
and who, like many of the people, had never
seen the chicken dance She thanked the
young man, who looked to have stepped
from the pages of National Geographic, for
honoring her daughter, and then counseled
the children to watch, to see how it was in
the old days, to see who they are
As the young man danced the old dance,
some of the people walked so ftly into the
circle and, eyes cast down, placed dollar
b ills on the packed earth flo o r--g ifts to
honor the dancer who never once looked at
them The dollar b ills were then blessed
w ith a wand of eagle feathers by a male
elder Then several young g irls in beaded
doeskin and single white feathers,
watched over by an older g irl on the verge
of womanhood, picked up the g ifts, walked
to the edge of the circle, and placed them
in the hands of the oldest women, those
without husbands, the poorest of the
people The old women accepted the g ifts ,
sometimes nodding, remembering other
feasts, when their eyes were younger and
the people were many, and the sound of the
drums and the songs s tille d the roar of the
rive r
The spring salmon feast at Celilo was
smaller this year Unless you count the
heart of the people
NATIONAL OH 'ICH
2 9 5 1 HUtntwtMMi D riv a
F a irfa x , VA 22OJ1 20 ^ 8
V o ie* /VAX; (7 O J ) 284A1028
F rancia, F b J )
IM n tclitr
The Oregon Coast Council for the Arts w ill be
welcoming a diverse group of Native w rite rs to
the Newport Performing A rts Center for an
Intensive W riting Workshop scheduled for
October 21-23. 1993 This NW Regional
Gathering of Native W riters is being sponsored by
Wordcraft Circle of Native Mentor/Apprentice
W riters, the OCCA, and the Confederated Tribes
of Siletz
Wordcraft Circle was established at the
Returning the G ift Festival of Native W riters
held in Norman, Oklahoma in 1992 This historic
gathering brought over 400 Native w rite rs
together to share ideas and experiences
The purpose of the Wordcraft Circle is to
create, develop, and maintain an ongoing formal
national and international network of Native
w rite rs Participants in the visionary e ffo rt are
beginning and emerging Native w rite rs
(Apprentices) who work w ith established Native
w rite rs (Mentors) for at least one year The
emphasis during the year is to fa c ilita te the
developement of self motivated, self-directed
w rite rs At the conclusion of each year, an
anthology w ill be published to present the best
work of the Apprentice w rite rs A ll services are
free to Native w rite rs because Mentors volunteer
their time and s k ills The National Director and
all Regional Coordinators also donate their
services
The workshop is open to all Native w rite rs, and
membership in the Wordcraft Circle is not
required to attend Admission is free Beginning
and emerging w rite rs are encouraged to bring
samples of their work for one-to-one mentoring
sessions and critique
There w ill be public performances Thursday
and Friday evenings Thursday evening's featured
performers w ill be poet Elizabeth Woody and Ed
Edmo, performing an excerpt of his play, ‘ Through
Coyote s Eyes" A special benefit performance by
renowned Santee Sioux poet and a ctivist, John
Trudell, is scheduled for Friday He w ill be
accompanied by the percussion and traditional
songs of Warm Springs singer/songwriter,
Quiltman Admission is $ 10 SO Proceeds w ill
benef it publication of W ordcrafts First
Anthology
Cal, 503-265-ARTS for tickets or E K (Kim)
Caldwell at 503-765-2107 for more information
B r u te E. N im s , P .C .
CIRTIflED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT
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AMX F Q (
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Am erican Indian
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