A8 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2022
Columbia River
Salmon are at the core of ancient religion
BY DEEPA BHARATH • Associated Press
A
LONG THE COLUMBIA RIVER — James Kiona stands on a rocky ledge overlooking Lyle Falls where the water froths and rushes through steep canyon walls just
before merging with the Columbia River. His silvery ponytail flutters in the wind, and a string of eagle claws adorns his neck.
Kiona has fished for Chinook salmon for decades on his family’s scaffold at the edge of the falls, using a dip net suspended from a 33-foot pole.
“Fishing is an art and a spir-
itual practice,” says Kiona, a
Yakama Nation elder. “You’re
fighting the fish. The fish is
fighting you, tearing holes in
the net, jerking you off the
scaffold.”
He finds strength, sanctity,
even salvation in that struggle.
The river saved Kiona when
he returned from Vietnam
with post-war trauma, giving
him therapy no hospital could.
When he lies on the rocks
by the rushing river and closes
his eyes, he hears the songs
and the voices of his ances-
tors. The water, he says, holds
the history of the land and his
people.
“It heals you.”
From its headwaters in
British Columbia where the
Rocky Mountains crest, the
Columbia River flows south
into Washington state and
then westward and into the
Pacific Ocean at its mouth
near Astoria, Oregon. Just be-
low the confluence with the
Snake River, the Columbia’s
largest tributary, the river
turns through the Cascade
Mountain Range, carving out
the Columbia River Gorge.
It’s a spectacular canyon, 80
miles long and up to 4,000 feet
deep, with cliffs, ridges, streams
and waterfalls. For thousands of
years, Native tribes in this area
have relied on Nch’i-Wána, or
“the great river,” for its salmon
and steelhead trout, and its sur-
rounding areas for the fields
bearing edible roots, medicinal
herbs and berry bushes as well
as the deer and elk whose meat
and hides are used for food and
ritual.
Yet the river is under threat
because of climate change, hy-
droelectric dams and indus-
trial pollution. Warming wa-
ters linked to climate change
endanger the salmon, which
need cooler temperatures to
survive. Hydroelectric dams
on the Columbia and its tribu-
taries have curtailed the river’s
flow, further imperiling salm-
on’s migration from the Pacific
upstream to their freshwater
spawning grounds, and threat-
ening millenia-old spiritual
traditions that bind these Na-
tive communities together.
“We are the salmon peo-
ple or river people,” says Aja
DeCoteau, executive direc-
tor of the Portland-based
Columbia River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission, which rep-
resents the interests of the four
Columbia River treaty tribes
— Yakama, Umatilla, Warm
Springs and Nez Perce — in
policy, advocacy and manage-
ment of the basin. “Without
water there are no fish, plants
or herbs.”
Each year the tribes honor
the salmon, roots, berries,
deer and elk — which they
believe were originally placed
Jessie Wardarski/AP photos
Scaffolds used by Indigenous people while fishing line the banks of the Columbia River on June 18 in Fort Rains, Washington. The waterway,
which Natives call Nch’i-Wána, or “the great river,” has sustained Indigenous people in the region for millennia.
Bronsco Jim Jr., mid-Columbia River chief, cleans the longhouse altar,
a rectangle of Earth, with water before a ceremonial meal at the Celilo
Village longhouse June 19 in Celilo Village. The tribe’s first foods are
placed on the table in seasonal order before the meal begins.
in the land for their suste-
nance — with what are known
as “first food ceremonies.”
In their creation story, the
salmon, deer, elk, roots and
berries offered to provide sus-
tenance to humans, and hu-
mans in turn were given the
responsibility by the Creator
to care for these resources.
Elders speak of how streams
flow from the mountains
sanctified by the prayers of
ancestors who went there to
commune with the spirits.
These rivulets then flow down
and merge with the Columbia.
If Nch’i-Wána is the main ar-
tery of the land, those streams
are like the veins that feed it.
So even the smallest creek is
vital and sacred.
At communal meals, tribe
members typically begin and
end with water — “You take a
drink of water to purify your-
self before you eat and you
end the meal with water to
show respect for what you’ve
eaten,” DeCouteau says.
Tribes also use the river’s
water and rocks for rituals
such as sweat lodge purifi-
cation ceremonies, held in
low, dome-shaped structures
where river rocks are heated
along with herbal medicine.
“After you sweat and pray,
there is also the practice of
jumping in the river to cleanse
yourself,” DeCouteau says. “It’s
hard to continue practicing
these rituals when the river is
so contaminated.”
Bill Yallup Jr. was 6 when
Celilo Falls “drowned,” as he
puts it.
Known as Wyam to Native
people, the thundering cas-
cade was a sacred place where
for 15,000 years Indigenous
tribes netted salmon as the
fish jumped upstream. It was
also their economic nerve
center, with the salmon trad-
ing for all manner of goods
from feathers to copper to
wampum, beads crafted from
shells.
The falls fell silent in 1957
NEW YEA
R,
NEW DIGS
!
A dog named Kaloua sits next to freshly caught salmon along the Co-
lumbia River.
when the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers erected The Dalles
Dam, flooding the area and
creating the Celilo Lake res-
ervoir.
Young salmon, or smolts,
swim down the Columbia to
the ocean, where they grow
for between one and five
years. Then they migrate back
upstream to spawn. Some are
caught and become a source of
sustenance for the people, and
others die and become one
with the environment. The cy-
cle repeats over and over.
“The sacredness of this
river,” Yallup says, “lies in the
sacrifice the salmon make
each time they fulfill their
promise to come back.”
It was worries over the
spring salmon’s disappearance
from the river that inspired
Elaine Harvey to get her bach-
elor’s degree in aquatic and
fishery science. She is also
concerned for species like the
Pacific lamprey, which has
“been around since the dino-
saurs” but today faces possible
extinction.
Now a fish biologist for Ya-
kama Fisheries, Harvey says
what keeps her up at night is
the “race to harness green en-
ergy” that has brought multi-
national corporations to the
Columbia River.
“Wind turbines and solar
farms are impacting our ar-
cheological sites, cultural re-
source sites, wildlife and fish,”
she says, pointing to a sacred
mountain near the John Day
Dam that the Native people
call Push-pum. “Our root
fields are on that mountain.
We could lose access to our
food.”
Harvey says she will never
leave the river because that’s
what she was taught by her
elders.
“We have a real, deep con-
nection to all these places. Our
blood line is here.”
Harvey’s cousin, Bron-
sco Jim Jr., was appointed
mid-Columbia River chief
when he was 21 and in that
capacity performs longhouse
services, first food ceremonies
and funerals.
Sunlight streams into the
longhouse during a recent
ceremonial meal with elders
at historic Celilo Village. Jim
is wearing shell earrings and
a beaded necklace with the
pendant of a horse’s silhouette
honoring his ancestors who
rode them.
In Native families that in-
habit the Columbia Basin, edu-
cation about first foods begins
at home and continues in these
longhouses, accompanied by
teaching and ceremony. Deeply
held beliefs also dictate the rules
of food gathering.
Community members are
required to wait for that first
feast to honor each food be-
fore they head out to harvest
it. In the longhouse and out in
the mountains, the food-gath-
ering is accompanied by song.
“These songs and ceremo-
nies are part of everything we
do,” Jim says, adding that los-
ing them could cost his people
their spiritual identity.
“They feed our body and
soul.”
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