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 […]
History and (Dis)Respect on the Clearwater River
Snake Leaves the Snake
To the Nimiipu, water was the strongest spiritual substance. Note that the snake that leaves the Snake River here at Buffalo Eddy, never arrives at the (older) shamanic figure. That’s because it’s […]
Eel and Turtle
This morning, I showed an image of the mouth of Asotin Creek, where the Moray Eels used to spawn in the Snake River grasslands, in the far west of Washington, before the […]
The Snake and the Eel
What is a river, then? It is a stream, a flow, a run, which gives a Rhine, a Rhone, a river and a row. But what is it, when those words aren’t […]
Heart of the Monster
This is the heart of the monster. This is ?Ilcwé.wcixnim timíne. This is where the nimi.pu began. This is where the people got started. The real people, as they call themselves. This […]
Spirits in the Mountain
So, imagine, if your people lived in the same place for ten thousand years. That means that something like 500 generations of children and parents would wake to the same mountain, overlooking the […]
Learning from the South
Images of people change with time. Here is John Chukuaskin Ashnola’s grave from Upper Keremeos. He became chief of the Ashnola people in 1866, until his death some fifty years later. He […]
Okanagan Okanogan 