Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
August 1, 2018
Page 5
A visit with author of ‘Faces Of A Reservation’
T hirty years after Faces of
a Res-
ervation was published, author and
former Warm Springs resident
Cynthia Stowell decided to bring
her portrait of the reservation
back into the public eye. Faces,
which received an Oregon Book
Award in 1988, is out of print and
can be hard to find.
Now the book’s several dozen
black-and-white photographs have
been given a new digital life at:
faces-of-a-reservation.com
Cynthia created the website to
attract a wider and perhaps
younger audience to the little-seen
photos.
New captions capture the spirit
of the original written profiles of
the book, and a background page
describes Faces and the reservation.
“This website is a tribute to the
people of Warm Springs, who were
so generous with their time, their
images, and their thoughts,” said
Cynthia. “I hope the community
will be proud to have these photo-
graphs preserved on the Internet.”
Scrolling through the online gal-
lery is like taking a virtual trip back
to Warm Springs in the 1970s and
1980s. Cynthia noted that the pho-
tographs provide a historical record
and may turn out to be a valuable
education and resource tool.
“To Warm Springers, though, I
hope the website feels like a fam-
ily photo album full of loved ones
present and past.”
Cynthia lived in Warm Springs
return I would give each participant
a copy of the book. Otherwise I
was left to my own devices.
The tribes’ lawyer Owen Panner
reviewed the manuscript and wrote
a foreword, which was a kind of
seal of approval.
Did Faces sell well?
CDS: It was a pretty limited
printing by the Oregon Historical
Society—1,500 hardcover and
2,500 soft cover—and they all sold,
so I guess that’s a mark of success!
Kah-Nee-Ta and the museum
probably sold the most copies. At
one point I heard that the tribal ad-
ministration was giving it to new em-
ployees as an orientation, which
pleased me.
Spilyay journalist, CDS.
from 1975 to 1982 and visited of-
ten from Portland while prepar-
ing Faces. She agreed to talk to
Spilyay long-distance and reflect
on her time on the reservation, as
well as what she’s been up to since
then.
Using the byline she used while
working at the Spilyay, ‘CDS,’
Cynthia answers some questions
about her experiences in Warm
Springs:
How did you happen to come to
Warm Springs... and from where?
CDS: When I got here in late
1975, people called me “Bushtn”
and it was very fitting—I really did
come to Warm Springs from Bos-
ton, where I went to college.
I had taken a number of classes
in Indian history and culture, and
had taught myself to write and
photograph at the same time, so I
Cynthia with son Gus and husband John.
Can Faces still be found any-
where?
CDS: Copies do show up on
Amazon and at used-book stores like
Powell’s. And you can find it in
many libraries around the country.
Photos courtesy of CDS
Now available at faces-of-a-reservation.com
thought I would turn my hand to
communicating some truths about
Indian Country to non-Indians
who generally don’t have a clue.
But why Warm Springs in par-
ticular?
CDS: Warm Springs wasn’t on
my radar when I headed west with
a ‘Yakima or Bust’ sign in the rear
window of my red Ford Falcon.
But on the road I met some Port-
land campers who told me what
Warm Springs had accomplished
in the tourism and timber indus-
tries, and I knew I wanted to come
here first and have a look.
You see, I naïvely thought I was
going to do a book about all the
tribes in the Northwest! I didn’t
yet realize how many tribes there
were, and like many white people,
I didn’t know coastal culture from
Plateau culture. Plateau was
plenty fine for me, so I just stayed
in Warm Springs.
How did you support yourself ?
CDS: At first I waited tables at
Alice’s Restaurant (now Eagle
Crossing). Alice Florendo intro-
duced me to a range of people,
which led to a job as a tutor at the
grade school.
Sid Miller was starting up the
newspaper at the same time, and
he needed someone to put together
a darkroom and take pictures, so
he hired me away from the school.
And I spent the next three and a
half years living and breathing
Spilyay Tymoo.
Things have changed a lot since
1987, and many of the people in
the book have passed on. Will you
ever update and republish Faces?
CDS: This is something I’ve
mulled over for years, but I’m
pretty sure the answer is no. Faces
is a snapshot of a certain moment
in time on the reservation and it
would be a completely different
book if it were done now. I’ll let
somebody else tackle that—there
are some super talented photogra-
phers on the rez! It’s been suggested
by a few people that I add the text
of the book to the website, and I
may do that someday.
What have you done with your-
self since Faces was published?
W hen did you get star ted on
Faces and what was your method?
CDS: Some of the photos in
the book were taken while I was
working for Spilyay, but I didn’t
have a plan for the book until I’d
left behind the hectic biweekly
deadlines of the paper in 1979.
Spilyay was such an excellent in-
troduction to and immersion in
Warm Springs, and I’ll forever be
thankful to Sid for giving me that
opportunity. The book took me
even deeper into the community,
partly because I chose to tell the
story of Warm Springs through
individuals, a collaborative process
that was very personal.
CDS: While I was still working
on the book I moved over the
mountains and edited the Portland
State University alumni magazine
for five years. In 1988 I traveled
for a few months in England and
France, then came back and
worked briefly at the Columbia
River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
I was 38 by then and figured it
was about time to start a family, so
I married John Miller (no relation
to Sid!) and we had our son Gus in
1990. I joke that that’s when I re-
tired from my career, but I have
done some freelancing through the
years, along with a ton of school
volunteering.
Did you have the blessing of
Tribal Council for the project?
CDS: The Council and I agreed
that I would get approval in writ-
ing from each individual I photo-
graphed and wrote about, and in
Did you ever write another book?
CDS: I spent many of Gus’s
schooltime hours (and years!) writ-
ing a novel, which I finally published
last year as an e-book. It’s called
New Old World, and it’s the semi-au-
tobiographical story of a young in-
dependent woman discovering the
importance of family. It’s available
at Amazon, under the author name
C. D. Stowell.
Does the reservation show up in
your novel?
CDS: Just a little. I plan to write
a kind of prequel to New Old World
that has more to do with my years
in Warm Springs.
Did you enjoy your time here?
CDS: It would be an understate-
ment to say that it was the richest
period of my life, both culturally
and artistically. The reservation felt
like another world at first, but then
the people and the landscape got
completely under my skin.
There were ways I could never
fit in, of course, and it was some-
times challenging to live in a small
town I didn’t grow up in, but I al-
most always felt respected and of-
ten indulged. And I made lifelong
friends who feel like family.
How do I thank folks who not
only shared their community with
me but helped me grow into an
adult?
Please see CDS on page 10