When you are born to a world, in which the old growth forests are bunchgrasses less than a metre high… … and live in these forests for close to half the time […]
The Wind in the Grass
37. A Land of Gifts
A vital part of the history of the Pacific Northwest is the concept of how your body relates to it culturally as a body among other bodies. This is not the same […]
29. Weaponizing the West: Part 1
Yesterday, I spoke about how the mobility provided by horses allowed the Cayuse to translate their lush grasslands into dominance over the Central Columbia and to exact tribute in the form of […]
28. The Spiritual Power of Horses in Old Oregon
To recap: the extensive Indigenous slave trade with the Spanish in the Southwest, and a fight for new technology (the horse), drove Indigenous cultural change on the western edges of New France […]
The Path of the Water
It’s not always a flow. I’m almost home from my gathering. We will follow our history again soon. Ultimately, though, just to give you a hint, we’re going here. Not that any […]
11. Why I Do Not Call This a Canadian Story
You have probably noticed that I live in what is usually called “Canada”, a country claiming the northern half of North America. You’ve probably guessed that I travel on a Canadian passport. […]
5. A Second Woman and Her Dowry
It looks like some deal was struck. In 1894 Frances Xavier Richter left his syilx wife Lucy in a log cabin on her land, which was now in his name… …assigned his […]
2. Why This Book is Talking
This book is a grassland in written form. That is: it is a community of living beings in a geographic space created by grass, just as hemlocks and western red cedars create […]
Siyaʔ at Work
Look at the great food chief bursting in fountains out of the Earth. And remember, it does not all happen right now. This is just a stage. Last year̓’s fruit has brought […]
Squeezing Water from a Stone
In today’s world, folk (indigenous, ie “of the land”) understandings are redefined to accord with the social authority that accompanies the process called science. In this revolutionary society, attempting to create a […]
Okanagan Okanogan 