Indigenous Knowledge and the Environment in Africa and North America

Chapter 8: Spirit of the Salmon: Native Religion, Rights, and Resource Use in the Columbia River Basin

Chapter 8 Spirit of the Salmon Native Religion, Rights, and Resource Use in the Columbia River Basin Andrew H. Fisher In early April, the residents of Celilo Village hold a salmon feast to welcome the returning runs of spring chinook and thank them for their imminent sacrifice. The annual event draws hundreds of visitors to the tiny Indian community in the Columbia River Gorge, nine miles upstream from The Dalles, Oregon, and the eponymous dam that flooded the Celilo Falls fishery in 1957. Although the river has been silenced and the salmon have dwindled, people still gather in the village longhouse to participate in ceremonies that honor the five sacred foods of the Wáašat religion: water (chuush), salmon (waykanash), deer (winat), roots (xnit), and berries (tmanit). The Sahaptin songs and prayers that precede the feast remind worshippers of their responsibility to respect and care for the gifts of the Creator (Nami Piap). The longhouse leader “speaks in the ancient language ’s manner,” observes writer Elizabeth Woody, a member of the Warm Springs confederated tribes: He speaks to all in Ichiskiin. He says, “We are following our ancestors. We respect the same Creator and the same religion, each in turn of their generation, and conduct the same service and dance to honor our relatives, the roots, and the salmon. 174 | Andrew H. Fisher The Creator at the beginning of time gave us instruction and the wisdom to live the best life. The Creator made man and woman with independent minds. We must choose to live by the law, as all the others, salmon, trees, water, air, all live by it. We must use all the power of our minds and hearts to bring the salmon back. Our earth needs our commitment. That is our teachings. We are each powerful and necessary.”1 Journalists and the general public are invited to witness these ritual enactments of environmental stewardship, but the feast’s educational function remains secondary.First and foremost,the ceremony affirms the spiritual beliefs that still inform Mid-Columbia Indian efforts to protect and restore the natural resources that traditionally sustained their culture, even as the tribes have harnessed modern technologies and scientific expertise to that end. Wáašat expresses what anthropologist Stephen Langdon calls “a logic of relational sustainability,” whereby “correct attitude, action, and ritual practice”perpetuate beneficial relationships between humans and the nonhuman beings they depend on for survival. This concept is nothing new to scholars—much less to indigenous peoples—but it bears further examination in light of the recent controversy surrounding the trope of the Ecological Indian. Shepard Krech’s critique of that cultural icon sparked furious academic and public debates over the relative merits of Native Americans as conservationists and ecologists. My purpose in this essay is to take faith seriously as both an epistemological foundation and a discursive strategy that Mid-Columbia Indians have employed in defense of their reserved rights to harvest particular resources, as well as in their efforts to manage those resources cooperatively with state and federal agencies. At the same time, I explore some of the tensions within tribal communities between those who readily enlisted Western science as an ally and those who regarded technocratic solutions and tribal regulations as threats to their culture and religion. Native people have variously defended, modified, and departed from the spiritual beliefs of their ancestors. To avoid romanticizing or essentializing them, it is important to historicize the spiritual, economic , and environmental practices of Mid-Columbia Indians.2 Wáašat has acquired many names during its long history. Most adherents prefer the Sahaptin label, meaning “dance,” but it is also known as the Seven Drums Religion,the Sacred Dance Religion,the Longhouse Religion, or simply “the Indian religion.” This final name reflects the contemporary view that Wáašat is the most “traditional” of the various faiths practiced in Mid-Columbia Indian communities, even though it exhibits Christian Spirit of the Salmon | 175 influences. Some practitioners avoid the term“religion”altogether because of its narrow, compartmentalized connotation.“To non-Indians, the longhouse represents religion,” explained Lewis Malatare, the head of a Wáašat congregation on the Yakama reservation.“To Yakamas, we prefer not to use the word religion but more a way of life—a life that was dictated to us by the natural surroundings of our environment.”3 Most important, Wáašat is about honoring the foods...