8
Smoke Signals
JULY 1, 2019
Annual trip featured 14 Tribal members
TOMANOWOS continued
from front page
spiritual strength before a hunt.
Modern-day Grand Ronde mem-
bers dipped cedar boughs into rose
water to cleanse Tomanowos and
also, perhaps, reconnect some of
the spirituality that was lost in the
mid-1850s when Tribal members
were removed to the Reservation.
The annual Tribal trip to visit To-
manowos featured 14 Tribal mem-
bers, including two Tribal youth
interns working at the museum for
three weeks. The ceremony was led
by Youth Prevention Coordinator
Cristina Lara, who also was chaper-
oning the youths, in the Frederick
and Sandra Priest Rose Center for
Earth & Space.
Deputy Press Secretary Sara
Thompson ferried the cedar boughs
from Oregon while Lara provided
rose water and tobacco.
The Grand Ronde contingent also
included Tribal Council member
Denise Harvey, Tribal Council
Chief of Staff Stacia Hernandez,
Tribal Police Lt. Tim Hernandez,
Tribal youth Desirae Hernandez,
Tribal Elders Marion Mercier,
Penny DeLoe and Dorothy Leno,
Museum Interns Kailiyah Krehbiel
and Isabelle Grout, and Manhat-
tan resident and Chief Tumulth
descendant Jennifer Weiss and her
children, Charlotte and Spencer.
Lara requested that the ceremo-
ny remain private and that no pic-
tures or audio recordings be taken.
Tribal members held the 43-min-
ute ceremony and communed with
Tomanowos in their own, personal
ways at Lara’s encouragement.
When the ceremony was com-
plete, the Tribal contingent gath-
ered outside the American Museum
of Natural History for a group photo
and then dined at Maison Pickle.
Tomanowos’ history
Tomanowos is the iron-nickel
core of an early planetoid that or-
bited the Sun millions of years ago.
After that planet was shattered,
perhaps in a collision with another
protoplanet, the core fell at approx-
imately 40,000 miles per hour to
the Earth’s surface, landing some-
where in southwestern Canada.
The meteorite eventually found
Photos by Timothy J. Gonzalez
Desirae Hernandez, 7, interacts with Tomanowos before a ceremony the Grand Ronde delegation held on Monday,
June 17, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
its way to present-day West Linn
in the Willamette Valley as a pas-
senger in the Missoula Floods that
carved out the Columbia River
Gorge. The Clackamas Chinooks
named it Tomanowos and revered
it as a spiritual being that healed
and empowered the people since the
beginning of time. The rainwater
that collected in the meteorite’s
crevices and pockmarks served as
a powerful purifying, cleansing and
healing source for the Clackamas
and their neighbors.
But that connection was broken
when the Clackamas and other
Tribes were removed from the
West Linn area and relocated to
the Grand Ronde Reservation in
the 1850s.
With the Native peoples gone,
Tomanowos’ story grew more com-
plex and convoluted. In 1902, it
was kidnapped by part-time miner
Ellis Hughes, who moved it off land
owned by Oregon Iron and Steel
Co., and he charged people 25 cents
to view it.
Eventually, Oregon Iron and
Steel won a lawsuit to regain own-
ership of the meteorite, which was
then purchased in the early 20th
century by a wealthy New York
City philanthropist, who moved it
across the country and donated it
to the American Museum of Natu-
ral History, where it sat patiently
for almost 100 years for its Native
peoples to find it.
In 1999, the Grand Ronde Tribe
submitted a claim to the museum
seeking return of Tomanowos
under the provisions of the 1990
Native American Graves Protection
and Repatriation Act. The museum
countersued and eventually the
two parties reached an agreement
that Tomanowos would remain
in New York City provided that
Tribal members had annual access
for religious ceremonies and the
museum sponsored an internship
program for Tribal youth to spend
three weeks working at the muse-
See TOMANOWOS
continued on page 9
Tribal members Marion Mercier and Kailiyah Krehbiel take a selfie
with Tomanowos before a ceremony with the Grand Ronde delegation
held on Monday, June 17.
Tribal member Kailiyah Krehbiel can’t contain her joy as she holds a replica
of an ocean canoe in the archive of Native American textiles in the American
Museum of Natural History on Tuesday, June 18, in New York City.