Let’s say you are along the river and want to make an important map. To learn how, why not go to Buffalo Eddy on the Snake? There are patterns here. Buffalo Eddy […]
Maps Written on the Land
Artificial Intelligence and Buffalo Eddy: Part 5 of a series
When I mentioned yesterday that Elon Musk was an example of Artificial Intelligence, I meant nothing derogatory. He was present because he champions Artificial Intelligence, and I wanted to point out that, […]
Return to the Snake River at the End of Time
High above the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers, in the southeastern reach of my plateau homeland, the Camas Prairie catches the sky. The camas once bloomed in blue fields here. […]
The Secret That Everyone Knows
Imagine taking a drum, lifted into the sky at the heart of a people, a place of woman’s power for 800 generations, where women and girls gather bulbs in the spring to see […]
Yellow Jacket and Ant
Ah, Yellow Jacket and Ant had a fight long ago, and just would not stop, no matter how much the trickster Iceyeeye (Coyote) tried to get them to stop. So, in frustration he turned them […]
Spirit Eels in the Grassland
A few weeks back I went to Asotin, where the Moray eels used to come up from the sea to spawn. Chief Looking Glass’s camp was there, at the fishery. Here’s the […]
Nez Perce Mystery of LIght
Clouds sailing across the Palouse do this. Above Chief Timothy’s Camp That’s not a hill of coal. It’s not burnt. It’s just a way in which the sky and the land are […]
Mother Earth
Mother Earth has often been equated with womanly power. That’s not really it. Here she is above the Clearwater River in Nez Perce Country, lying on her back, with her arms outstretched […]
Matisse and the Nez Perce
Reading the sky, I’ve just realized, is not a matter of translating the dramatic movements of clouds and light into words or ideas, but reacting to them in the manner of responding […]
History and (Dis)Respect on the Clearwater River
Here’s Curtis’s 1910 photo of a Nez Perce dugout canoe. This was the low point in Nez Perce life. Over the previous century, they had lost over 90% of the territory, much of […]
