European explorers and fur traders nicknamed the Willamette Valley, the “gourmand’s paradise”. When they ran low on food, they traveled to this fertile and abundant valley to stock up again. Here migrating birds darkened the sky and as one Willamette Valley pioneer rather gracelessly put it, deer were so “easy to kill” a man could “make more money shooting them for skins than working at a job”. There were nuts, fruits and vegetables to be had everywhere–not to mention, fish.
There is some question just how prolific salmon runs were once migrating salmon made it past the falls at Oregon City to run up the Willamette, but pioneers watched them jump the falls in amazement. And oral tradition about the stretching of fishnets at the present site of Black Canyon Park indicates they swam on in substantial numbers to places like Salmon Creek Falls upriver from the modern day Oakridge.
What the explorers and the pioneers (who came after the self-sufficient and capable Kalaypuya had been hit by disease and moved to reservations at Grand Ronde and Siletz) did not note was that this “gourmand’s paradise” resulted from the partnership local peoples had fostered with their land for thousands of years. As with indigenous peoples throughout the Northwest, the Kalapuya had so intimate a relationship with their land that they named themselves for it. When a pioneer asked a group near the Santiam who they were, they gave him the name of the place where they stood: Kalapuya: “the valley of the long grasses”.
In Environment and Experience, Peter Boag documents how native practices expanded the rich habitat ecologists call “edges” in the central Willamette Valley, where their controlled burning resulted in innumerable ponds, marshes and wetlands that provided habitat for migrating bird flocks. Kalapuya practices encouraged the abundance of tar weed seeds, acorn, and the flourishing of roots crops such as camas. Indeed, as did the women to the north and south of them, Kalapuya women dug root crops with a method that both preserved the prairies and spread the roots as they harvested them. By the time the pioneers came to the Willamette Valley, camas was so abundant that pioneers termed the places it grew, “camas lakes”, since its prolific blooms looked like water shimmering in the sun.
Kalapuya elder and educator Esther Stutzman noted that their burning practices also roasted the native sunflower seeds and seasoned the hazel twigs used for basketry, which were at their prime the second season after they were burned. Wapato, an important Native root crop, also grew in the wetlands along the Willamette River. Forest islands protected from burning provided habitat for seasonal elk visitation as well as for resident deer. Boag noted the cooperation and care necessary to keep such never-burned areas clear of fire for hundreds of years. All in all, as Boag concluded, “The first whites in the Willamette Valley did not tame a wilderness; they inherited a park.”
Stutzman (an enrolled member at Siletz) noted that shortly after emigrants suppressed Kalapuya burning, a series of grasshopper plagues devastated their crops. Traditionally, burning had roasted valley grasshoppers, which were consumed by the Kalapuya, besides maintaining the oak savanna, keeping down the underbrush (including poison oak), and inviting elk and deer to live in valleys near Kalapuya villages, so hunters “didn’t have to go off and look for them”.
According to Stutzman, western Oregon’s peoples had a spiritual partnership with the deer whose habitat they fostered. A hunter participated in ceremony for five days before going on a hunt. During the hunt, he would sing a song to the deer honoring it and declaring his intentions. He sang, “Run! A man is coming to get you, but if you let us get you, we will treat you right.” Another five days of ceremony followed a successful hunt. In using deer’s gifts, the people must never “waste a thing.” If they were so careless as to throw something away, elk and deer would never come again to Kalapuya territory.
There was for Esther Stutzman’s Oregon ancestors special joy in seeing the tail of a deer as it lept away–that deer would carry away all one’s negative feelings with it. In the context of their affection for the deer, Kalapuya hunters not only utilized their kill carefully—they also chose their kill in such a way as to guarantee the robust quality of future herds. Early emigrants on the Santiam witnessed a traditional hunt in which the Kalapuya encircled a herd of deer and picked out the finest animals to release before they took their own kill.
As was the case with their indigenous neighbors, Kalapuya environmental strategies were carried out under the auspices of religious leaders with an intimate knowledge of the local landscape. Such religious leaders (who were usually women), discerned the optimal time for burning by forecasting the immanent arrival of the fall rains, so that burned areas might immediately turn green with new growth.
A few years ago, Esther Stutzman sang a Kalapuya song that had not been sung in public for one hundred and fifty years at the dedication of the Whilamut Natural Area marked by “talking stones” etched with Kalapuya words and placed along a path in Alton Baker Park in Eugene, Oregon. The name Whilamut designated areas of the river “where the water turns and runs fast”.
More recently Stutzman oversaw the creation and launching of a traditional Kalapuya canoe at Island Park in Springfield, Oregon. I was fortunate to watch that canoe dart smoothly through the rapids amidst the less agile craft that shared the river that day. Before it was launched the canoe was named and blessed, and it took to the river like a thing alive, lithe and fluid. It was obvious it was made for this river.
Those of us who live in the Willamette Valley today no longer manage game as our primary meat source, nor do we harvest an abundance of wild vegetables in wetland areas. Indeed, wetlands along the Willamette River have been drastically reduced, and the oak savanna that predominated in indigenous times is an endangered habitat. We need to protect ancient habitat as a library of knowledge about the operation of healthy ecosystems that might otherwise be lost forever.
Though many changes have come to the Willamette Valley in the past one hundred and fifty years, it might still be possible to revive its legacy as the “gourmand’s paradise” by restoring and protecting local ecosystems if we act quickly and with commitment. This is the vision for instance, of the many farms and community groups listed in this spring’s edition of “Locally Grown” , which also contains Dan Armstrong’s article outlining the potential of local food resources. Measuring the caloric needs of today’s population against the productive capacity of current farmland in Lane County, he estimates that that farmland could provide for all of our vegetable, fruit, and grain needs, as well as eighty per cent of our dairy needs.
We haven’t fulfilled this potential for local production. A substantial portion of our prime agricultural land currently grows grass seed. And much of it is under development pressure. But as Armstrong notes, with world droughts, oil shortages, and rising food prices, it is a good time to look to our local resources to sustain us.
In turn, our land sustains us only when we care for it. Enacting time-honored values such as respect and reciprocity that resulted in thousands of years of sustainability is certainly a tradition worth reviving.
The Willamette Farm and Food Coalition: www.lanefood.org
Esther Stutzman, traditional storykeeper of the Kommema (Yoncalla) Kalapuya: http://www.turtleislandstorytellers.net/tis_oregon/transcript_e_stutzman.htm
You are always welcome to link to this post. Note, however, it is copyright 2008, by Madronna Holden. Feel free to contact me if you wish to use it. Thanks.
Filed under: Contrasting worldviews, Folklore and Oral Tradition, Indigenous, Land use, Northwest History and Culture, Our Earth and Ourselves | Tagged: environmental philosophy, Folklore and Oral Tradition, Kalapuya, sustainability, Willamette Valley, worldviews
Madronna,
Your article “Gormound’s Paradise” was passed on to me by Lynne Fessenden at the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition. She knew I have been researching Willamette Valley agriculture and thought I might like a view of what the valley was like before the white settlers arrived.
You might check the long piece I did on the Willamette Valley entitled “Relocalizing Eden.” (http://www.mudcitypress.com/mudeden.html)
At some point, I’d like to add something about life in the valley prior to 1800. Your piece is an nice insight into those times. Thank you. Dan
Hi Dan,
“Relocalizing Eden” is an interesting piece outlining some of the steps we need to get from here to there in ensuring our local food security.
Thanks for sharing this important information with all of us,
Madronna
A poetic insight into the Willamette Valley’s Native Americans’ wisdom with respect to nature.
Be it Willamette or other fertile and life-supporting valleys throughout America, one thing I understand from your writing:
With careful planning and a deep respect for the animal and plant kingdoms, future human population growth would not be a burden. On the contrary, this land would more than provide for their sustenance as well as other living organisms we don’t feed.
Alas, the greed and exploitative mentality of one group of humans toward another group leaves little room for dedication and respect. Hence, the over cultivation and erosion of a quarter of this nation’s topsoil.
Your mention of the Natives’ careful crop tending, hunting and controlled burning highlights a people’s from-the-heart love and respect, not for fame or showmanship, but for future generations. That is real wisdom, earned only through genuine concern for nature’s well being.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment– the poetic nature of this statement flows from the care of native people for their land here. There is certainly much that moderners have to learn.
Of course, there is an eventual limit to the number of humans the valley can support, but I think the main issue is this: humans are necessarily a negative presence on the landscape– but can be, as Margolin says after his research on native Californians, a “blessing on the land”.
There is a challenge, I think, for us to do the same, based on wisdom, as you state, “earned.. through genuine concern for nature’s well being”.
Correction:
I would like to reword my statement about the valley’s limitless support for human growth. Certainly it is unwise for us to congest a small area and overwhelm it with industry.
No amount of care will stop people from their eventual destruction and exhaustion of the land. Just one example of how this would come about are the accidental runoffs or leakages of manufacturing companies liquid metals and we would have ruined it for decades to come.
Thanks for continuing the dialogue and refining your original statement–which central point still has much to commend it.
Dr. Madronna Holden,
The Willamette Valley has long been known for its fertile ground and agricultural crops. To think that so many damaging effects of peoples careless attitudes toward the land and preserving the land has slowly started to holt production of crops and lessen the wildlife herds is a very sad thing. I would like to comment on an issue that struck me while I was reading this article. Where I live in the Snake River Region of the Blue Moutains in the Pacific Northwest, we are now starting to have a huge issue with blue tongue in our deer populations. This disease is killing off many of thousands of our deer and it is becoming sadly obvious to many of our farmers as they harvest grain out of their wheat fields and pull out 20 to 30 dead deer at a time that have internally blead to death. (BLUE TONGUE) As I think about the WIllamette Valley and the devastating effects of humans on the land, I can’t help but wonder if this very issue isn’t caused by similar carelessness. I do not know enough about the blue tongue issue to be sure what causes it or how it even starts, but I know that it wasn’t here a year ago and now it is everywhere. I am a firm believer in your theory of trying to restore the land to its original tense and preserve the natural resources that we harvest from the land. If we do not start taking better care of our land and natural resources, it is easy to see how they will be depleted for our future generations. We are basically borrowing from our children and grandchildren everything that we take from the land and it is time that we give something back to the land so that our children and grandchildren will have the same priviledges as we do concerning our natural resources.
Thank You
AMBER STEINHOFF
Philosophy 443
Amber, thank you for your concern for the future generations and the earth we all share.
I do think that we may not be able to restore the earth to some former condition– for one thing, humans have always effected their landscape.
But it is important to care for the land so that its resilience is maintained–and that is only justice, as you say, for future generations.
I have posted this comment for Karen Hiber, since she had some trouble doing it herself:
I really appreciated the poetic descriptions of the Willamette Valley landscape. Having never been to Oregon before, I am certainly tempted to visit now. I’m sure that the landscape has lost much of its original beauty, though over the course of many settlements by non-indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, I imagine there are still places of remarkable natural beauty.
I was particularly interested with Dan Armstrong’s assessment of the Lane County farmland. It is very encouraging to hear evidence of the possibility of a local population sustaining itself with its own agricultural resources. As Armstrong noted, much of the Lane County farmland is currently used for grass seed. I think this is a very common pratice in our current economy. Certain areas or regions tend to produce one specific type of crop, rather than diversifying. This can lead to overfarming the land, and also to the cycle of heavy energy use and pollution due to transportation of the crops to other regions.
This always seems particularly evident and absurd to me when I am shopping in the produce aisle and see tomatoes shipped in from California ( I live in Florida). Hopefully with more consumers becoming aware of what they eat and where it is coming from (new federal law requiring food origin on labels) they will be more likely to buy locally. My hope is that more farmers will be able to set up their local produce stands and actually make a profit.
Thanks for the complement and thoughtful post!
It does seem ridiculous that oranges from Florida go to California and vice versa. Since so large a percentage of our oil and gas usage is linked to food transportation, eating local is something else you can do to fight global warming.
One point I found of interest to me in this article was the mention of how the Kalapuya would first participate in a ceremony for 5 days, and then sing a song to the dear before hunting and ultimately taking a deer’s life. I also thought it significant that the Kalapuya considered releasing the most robust, finest deer so that future herds would be of quality. I thought about the reasoning behind these Native actions for a while, and have not necessarily come to any firm conclusions or beliefs about them, but rather have realized the Kalapuya intention of living in harmony with the land they occupied. It seems to me that through their actions the Kalapuya attempted to give back something to the land. Perhaps they recognized that by killing the deer they were taking something away, and thereby exploiting the land for their own ends. I am wondering their emotions, and individual rational behind their actions. Perhaps they felt guilty for stealing an innocent deer’s life? I suppose overall worldview had much to do with these customs, but a worldview is still not enough to explain individual actions and ceremonies.
I am also beginning to recognize how difficult it is even for people with a worldview, which embraces the notion of sharing the land, to actually carry out actions which correlate with their beliefs. I say this because despite the Native customs (such as singing to deer) the fact of the matter is that the Kalapuya did take something away from the land; they took away a deer from land by killing it. Of course, many individual’s in today’s society hunt and I’m sure the Kalapuya needed to eat, but nevertheless deer are deer and deer have a right to life just as much, if more, than people do. I say “if more” because I only see people as doing harm to the environment, as animals always appear so innocent to me.
I found a quote in Wisdom of the Elders, by Suzuki and Knudtson, which parallels my ideas concerning the Kalapuya in this article. The quote states, “Those animals have a right to those forests too. They belong there- it is as much theirs as it is ours (A personal Foreward, xxxv)”.
I wonder if this is the mindset that drove the Kalapuya to let the finest deer live, or to hold ceremonies, or sing to an animal while about to take the animal’s life. I wonder how much the Kalapuya understood their land. I wonder where their ideas on burning came from. I almost imagine the Native people to have such a close connection with their land that the land whispers some magic formula in the ear of a Kalapuya, which then teaches the Kalapuya how to ensure that the land thrives. While nature obviously doesn’t talk, in the way that we humans do, I think it funny (and sad) that if nature did speak, much of our society would be too busy going on with our own lives that we might not even have time to listen to what nature has to say.
I am in awe and wonder of the interconnectedness these people had with their land.
Obvious personal care in this response here, Denise.
Do you believe that humans have only a negative effect on the environment in spite of fact, as you indicate, of the fact that listening to the land allows humans to direct their actions so that it thrives?
You certainly have a point about modern life: do you thing there is any way that we might recover the skill of listening to the land?
Perhaps your own sensitivity and care is a start in this direction (beginning with being open and paying attention).
Hi Madronna,
The description of the Willamette valley in your post is very similar to the accounts of early settlers who described other parts of the Western United States, including Northern California.
The way in which the environment seems to have deteriorated in such a short time suggests that the European world values brought to the region by the immigrant culture were more focused to the individual, and less conscious of the shared environmental community. Perhaps this was a consequence of the Lord & serf hierarchy of Western Europe during the period of immigration to the New World.
If only the Kalapuya had game wardens to discourage poaching from the King’s forests, perhaps the early non-indigenous settlers would have been less disposed to eradicate the game and compromise the ecological riches of the area.
It is unfortunate that it is often only through loss, that we become aware of the value of our natural resources. I might implement the Kalapuya deer ceremony for my family before each trip to the grocery store, if for no other reason than to reinforce the awareness of the resources required to bring food to our table.
Thanks for the important lesson in our recent past.
Thank you for so many thoughtful points here, John. Taking your last one first, it is more difficult to practice ethical eating when the only meat we see comes saran-wrapped and not at all recognizable for the animal it once was. Moreover, most of us have little sense of the conditions under which it was raised. Wendell Berry once observed that we should not wish to eat anything we wouldn’t want to pray over– which goes directly to your point.
You are quite right about the oppression many pioneers experienced in their own history. Unfortunately, this created a tendency to ignore the painful past entirely rather than learn from it. Fortunately, this was not true of all pioneers. I interviewed members of the James family (Charles and Marion) at Grand Mound Washington in 1975– direct descendants of those who homesteaded on the land where they still lived, and they were eloquent about the need for a different environmental standard, as well as the need for justice with respect to the indigenous neighbors– the Chehalis– from whom they learned about the land. And with whom they shared profound personal experience: one James family member was asked to be a pall bearer in a native funeral, and subsequently, their native neighbors tore roof boards from their house top to provide lumber for a coffin for a young James family member who died quickly of disease.
This family remembered in their oral history (they had arrived on the New England coast three hundred years ago) the terrible oppression on the part of the local authorities that starved them out.
There is something to be said for remembering history: they arrived with a mind toward sharing with their indigenous neighbors, who invited them to stay on their land after they had helped doctor them through a smallpox epidemic. Later the barely five foot tall woman the Indians knew as “little mother” successfully defended a local man against a trumped up murder charge.
Since this same Mary James was wont to push the minister out of the pulpit if he didn’t preach against slavery, and there were many slavery sympathizers among their neighbors, they weren’t always the most popular among the pioneers. But they indicate the complexity–and possibility– of our history.
A long way of answering your comment, but I couldn’t resist sharing some stories. Thanks for motivating me to do so.
Madronna,
I really enjoyed reading your comment on my post because it made me realize something of what I truly think and believe. I guess it’s hard for me to see my views from an outsider’s perspective. I suppose I am slightly biased in my views (to say the least) because from my life experiences I have mainly viewed negative effects that humans have had on the environment, or maybe I just have high expectations (or, maybe all these class readings are making me think that we are horrible people because we are so disconnected from the environment). I do wish I saw more examples of people giving back to their environment. Though, I do think that in reality it is hard to give back to the environment because the whole lifestyle of individuals in our society is a lifestyle which rewards consumption instead of environmental conservatism. For example, people are looked highly upon for driving nice cars, which utilize great amounts of gas and pollute the atmosphere. The environment could definitely benefit from a societal lifestyle change. For example, we could start riding bikes more to decrease the amount of pollution, and save oil. Through this simple action we would benefit both ourselves, as well as the environment. I mean, who doesn’t want to get in shape?
As far as recovering the skill of listening to the land, I think that is a much harder issue to tackle. My view of solving this crisis of disconnection between land and people would start with people spending more time alone, as well as spending more time being in nature. Simply the act of being surrounded by nature usually allows one to realize the inherent beauty in the world, which leads to a greater respect and reverence for the land. All too often it seems we are needlessly busy and over stimulated by our external environment. This is a major barrier to slowing down and listening to nature.
Hi Denise,
Thank your for your thoughtful response–and your care for our shared earth. I know that it is often difficult to maintain our values–and the vision and hope entailed in them– in the midst of a society that seems so often to be pulling in the other direction.
But I hope you realize you are not alone: the list of links to sites to the left of this post indicates a very small expression of the many who feel as you do and work for a better future for us all.
I think you certainly have a point that the beauty of the nature environment speaks to us– and gives us many lessons– if only we are willing to open a little space in our lives to listen. And we are certainly amply awarded with joy in the process!
This article really made me think about the ignorant and corruptive mind of man. When you say that “deer were so easy to kill a man could make more money shooting them for skins than working a job” I was annoyed because that is how most people think. It is alwa ys about money. How can I profit? Well, we are really screwing ourselves over in the search for fortune. The beautiful descriptions of what California used to look like sounds like the real treasure we should have been saving not money for material items.
I agree that we should me working towards sustainability and as corny as it may sound, world peace. But world peace in the sense of the actual environment to be at peace. We have been corrupting the world for too long.
Thanks for expressing your powerful personal feelings, Johni– there is both vision and hope to come out of the ashes of the destruction you see. Note, as well, that the destructive “mind of man” is not the mind of all humans– or even all modern Westerners. There is hope in this, as well.
I found the article very insightful into the life of the Kalapua. As an outsider of Oregon, learning a piece of the local history is valuable and gives me a different perspective of life in a differing region. I was particularly impressed with the Kalapua’s strategies of not only providing the necessary resources they utilized immediately, but how they were able to implement practices that provided for their future needs as well without compromising the integrity of the region.
I was also taken a back by the complete disregard shown to the valley by pioneers who only sought to capitalize off of the abundancy of resources provided by the Kalapua. The Kalapua had shown nothing but good “Citizenship” of the land to only watch it succomb to the careless.
I believe that we should be focusing our efforts on conservation and sustainablilty issues through reconnection to the natural world. This shift from a traditional Western world view will allow us to become “part” of the natural world once more and will introduce the concept of accountability and responsibilty. When we are responsible and accountable, we tend to take more care with our actions.
Hi Kathleen, in terms of your important vision of reconnection with our particular lands where we are, I think it is hopeful to note that not ALL pioneers acted in the destructive ways you cite, just as some modern Westerners exhibit care for the earth we share in spite of the worldview we have inherited.
Thank you for your comment.
Professor Holden,
I have become quite intrigued with the readings from our course (PHL 443) as well as the insites and experiences that you have written about here. I am ashamed to say that I am one of the people who have taken the earth for granted and does not take enough effort to make myself or others aware the moral reciprocity we should have to with the environment. It is quite an honorable thing for you to create such awareness for the interaction needed by the local population in order to succesfully achieve the potential production of agriculture. I completely agree that “sustainability is certainly a tradition worth reviving.”
Thank you for sharing.
Debbie Hampton PHL 443
Hi Debbie,
Thank you for your kind comments. I want to reminder you that your response to this information is the result of your own open mind. Learning means change– thank you for meeting this challenge you set for yourself: this is honorable as well.
This article does an excellent job of bringing out some of the main differences between industrialized societies and indigenous societies. Industrialized societies have a disconnect with the land that they inhabit and think that it is great that they can get food from it. However, they do not stop and think about how that food came to be or that by harvesting everything they are leaving nothing to grow for the next year. This way of thinking is one of the main reasons that the Willamette Valley has had such a decline in animal life and natural foods in the past 150 years. People plant what makes money, in Oregon this means grass seed, rather than what is needed to sustain the people living here or what nourishes the soil the most. Indigenous cultures, like the Kalapuya, have known what the land has needed for thousands of years and have cultivated it in such a way that they never needed for food. They hold a high amount of respect for the land that has been carelessly used and destroyed by industrialized/”modern” society. It seems that only with the mention of global warming are people beginning to care about the land that they live on and the pollutants that they are putting into it. I think that if the white settlers had listened to people, like the Kalapuya, when they first arrived that we would not have many of the problems that we do now.
Thank you for your thoughtful post, Samantha. We can only hope that such understanding as you express indicates that we are able to learn from our past– and fit our current use of the land to its needs rather than attempting to remake it to suit our needs.
[...] in native California. In like fashion, early explorers in the Willamette Valley termed it the “gourmand’s paradise” for the results of the specific management practices of the Kalapuya – and they would come to [...]
This article brings up some good points about how the Kalapuya Indians were good stewards for the land they lived on. They were very smart about ways to manage the area. From burning to reduce pests to letting the best deer go to enable the survival of the fittest. Just like so many other instances, the settlers could have learned a lot from the previous inhabitants. Afterall the food was plentiful and the environment was desirable which is why the new people wanted to live there. If only they had bothered to wonder why this area was such a great place to live and learn how to maintain the desirable qualities. It is such a shame the farmable land is getting buried under concrete instead of being used. The more farmland that doesn’t get used for farming, the more we have to waste resources to import products from other areas.
Thanks for your comment. I certainly agree. Perhaps we will finally learn the historical lessons in this and begin to develop our relationship to the land accordingly.
It is difficult to articulate how impressive the Kalapuya were in sucessfully sculpting the land in order to sustain the plant and animal species which would then in turn sustain their existiance. In this essay the Willamette Valley is reffered to as a park, I belive it is an accurate referance. I find it interesting that certain species, like poison oak and grasshoppers, overtook the vally once the burnings conducted by the Kalapuya stopped. It makes one wonder what the Willamette Valley was like prior to the cultivation of the Kalapuya. None the less, the Kalapuya’s Willamette Valley is a remarkable example of how humans and nature can benefit from one another in a sustainable way.
Thanks for your comment, Kristian. Thoughtful response: of course, to go back to what the valley looked like before the Kalapuya, one would have to go back thousands of years. This history is an example of what the UN Programme on the Environment has termed “biocultural diversity”, created by the co-evolution of humans and other species in an ecosystem.
Your words present a beautiful vision of a successful partnership with nature. The Boag quote, “the first whites in the Willamette Valley did not tame a wilderness; they inherited a park”, illustrates the sad circumstances when compared to what is now available. Unfortunately the “park” is an opportunity of the past. However, with the changing mindset of many of our citizens is it possible that it may reappear in the future? With advocates such as Esther Stutzman and Dan Armstrong it may yet return. I find it very interesting the “productive capacity of current farmland” could in reality provide enough sustenence to support the local population. It reminds me of Barbara Kingsolver’s experiment to “live locally” documented in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It is definitely plausable but requries a trementdous change in mindset, values and beliefs. It also takes a lot of time and effort. Society has become driven by instant gratification which is certainly not possible in the realm of living off the land.
Stutzman epitomizes showing respect for the environment. This respect seems to have generally disappeared within society with the technological changes produced through the years. Obviously the knowledge has not been totally lost as it seems to be resurfacing in tribal pockets. I agree that taking care of the land is certainly a tradition worth reviving especially as much of our food supply has lost its nutritional value because of preservatives and other chemicals used to facilitate faster growth.
Thank you for joining our conversation in such a thoughtful way. Though we cannot return to the past, as you point out, I have hope that changing our values will change our actions. And though, as you indicate, this will take some doing, it will perhaps even lead us to experience some positive surprises resulting from our actions as opposed to the unpleasant surprises in terms of environmental crises we are getting today. The community of Gaviotas in Colombia held to such environmental values and wound up restoring the rainforest as a result–a magnificent unintended consequence indeed!
Reading about Native American culture always makes me wonder what it would be like today if Europeans never sailed to North America and the Native Americans were left alone to continue living as they were. I bet no one would worry about global warming because the environmentally pure North America would balance out any industrial pollution in Europe. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Therefore it is up to us to re-grow what the Willamette Valley has lost and if we could bring that land back to its original beauty then people all over the US will notice and say “I can do that, too”. We don’t even need to adopt Native American culture to rejuvenate the land; we don’t need to participate in a ceremony for five days before hunting deer. This way, people from all walks of life can participate. We just need to adopt the Native American hunting, fishing and farming techniques: careful selection and wasting nothing. With a little work, the former glory of “gourmand’s paradise” will return.
Hi Jessica, thanks for your comment. I very much like the idea of modeling you present here– and the potential vision of the future it presents. And even if we cannot replicate all the Native American techniques in this day and age, we can aim to replicate the values that went with them.
Madronna,
As a resident of the Willamette valley, I appreciate the ecologically historical perspective you offer of native peoples management techniques. I like the idea of applying indigenous natural resource management techniques to the current issues we face.
Thanks for your comment, Jason.
The gradual departure of partnership with our lands has become the societal norm in the US. Increased globalaization and the growth of industry worldwide has made people less dependant upon the land where they live for their daily food resources and livelihoods.
That however seems to be changing. For years and years we have neglected the natural side of our places of residence. The vast majority of communinties in the US seem to have been more interested in development of business and industry for their cities’ tax and revenue base rather than the health of their local ecosystems. Now, people are becoming both more aware that they want to have a healthy place to live with good air quality and the simple joys of seeing some wild animals in their every day lives.
I live in a town in Texas where development has been non-stop. Subdivision after subdivision and shopping mall after shopping mall have been built up. The largest tree in our neighborhood is probably about 15 feet tall. I stopped and marvelled the other day at a squirrel. Its the first one that I’ve seen in years. This area used to be open rangeland and there were mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, deer and lots of trees and squirrels and rabbits. None of that is here anymore. I talk with my neighbors aobut how we lack any sort of “nature” here and they all pretty much agree that it is “very nice” here but something is missing. I feel its that connection that we have with nature and that we need in order to feel like a community.
It is a good thing to see that the world in general is noticing the damage we have been doing in the past and that we are starting to come around to the view that our natural world is important and we should do all we can to protect it.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience in your community–as well as your hope for the future, Joe. I certainly hope that there is more awareness–and that will signal a change that will benefit future generations.
The idea that humans can harvest plants and animals from the land while at the same time not reduce the diversity and abundance of wildlife is reassuring. The practices that these people used to harvest their food and care for the land are just another example of the wealth of knowledge that is threatened as we lose more and more indigenous people.
This reminds of a paper that I read recently about an experiment done in England. Farmers were paid to leave a small plot in the center of each field untouched for several years. Within four years the fields that had this small reserve of native vegetation were out producing fields without it and required less insecticides. It ended up that even leaving just this small area untouched was enough to give beneficial insects a home to spread out from each spring.
The story of Willamette Valley and the experiment on the farms both show us how productive nature can be when we work with it instead of completely dominating it.
Thanks for this comment and sharing this experiment, Heath. Letting a bit of the land remain wild in this way is an actual traditional practice expressed in British hedgerows–and also in other traditional farming techniques from Peru to Eastern Europe. Such areas places near streams and rivers were also used to conserve water tables and to harvest wild seed varieties that farmers found useful.
The more and more i read these types of articles or anything in this course i realize that i dont do enough to help save our earth. There are so many people like your self who are trying to get the message across and help people understand what we are doing each day. I want to thank you for your articles they really make me open my eyes and realize that i cant sit back and watch other try to fix what we have already distroyed. It startes to make me sick just thinking about it. The last statement that you made seemed to be the most impactfull message in this article. ” In turn, our land sustains us only when we care for it. Enacting time-honored values such as respect and reciprocity that resulted in thousands of years of sustainability is certainly a tradition worth reviving.” This is so true, i just wish more and more people could realize that. Thanks again.
Meagan Cohen
Thank you, Meagan. It was a great honor to be present to such stories: they were also shared with me with a charge to share them in turn. It gives me hope for our future to have you express your own commitment to caring for the land. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to pass the words on: according to many traditions, stories are not fully told until they have an audience. So thanks for becoming one!
It would be wonderful to see the Willamette Valley NOT producing grass seed anymore. I think about where that seed goes; that this fertile valley is used to grow the grass which may be sowed on suburban lawns in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Tuscon, places where water is not a sustainable resource, but yet people see a green lawn around their house in the middle of the desert as their unalieniable right.
I know Ten Rivers Food Web http://www.tenriversfoodweb.org has been conducting experimental trials to find a variety of wheat that will grow well in the valley. I’m very glad that there are so many people who have a clear vision and foresight to push for change in our land use. There are many parts of the country (and world) where it would not be possible to support the population of the land with such diverse food production as this valley. There is so much potential here, it’s really a very unique place. We can foster a sustainable community here so much easier than many other parts of the country, as long as we respect and take care of the land.
Great points about our future choices, Rachel. Those of us who live in the Willamette Valley are indeed fortunate to have so many farmers growing so much food here. In a time when
I know there is a move to landscape with native plants in the places you mention that are now growing so much grass seed–and we are also exporting much of this seed. Golf courses are another place where water usage and pesticides need to be assessed and reduced.
As you note, we need to care for our land: as markets fall, a well-cared for land is something that will not fail us.
I have lived in this valley for over ten years and I am embarrassed to say that I learned more about the native people of this land in this essay than I have in the entire time I’ve lived here. This is indicative of the disconnect to place that most in our country are plagued with. This too is a major difference, it seems, between the native ways and our “new world” ways. As stated above, the Kalapuya were intimately connected to the place that sustained them for centuries. They knew how to care for and respect life, for their lives were dependent on this knowledge. That is not different today. Our lives are dependent on our ability to be a part of the natural flow of life. This will come as we reconnect to place, something that the movement toward local food production and ecosystem protection will certainly encourage. I agree that we need to act with swiftness in order for this change to be affected.
Thanks for this comment, Dazzia. You have tied together some very perceptive points: we must obviously heal our disconnect with place in order to gain the knowledge to heal our current crises. It is a sad and pointed statement that so many of us know so little about the land that sustains us (and its history).
The story of the Willamette Valley seems to be a common one in my readings on indigenous peoples. I know these atrocities are not directly by my doings, but as a citizen I feel that I should accept some of the blame. The original settlers started the damage of the environment, but each generation it magnifies. I often wonder how many generations it will take to slow the destruction. I did enjoy the hope that was conveyed with the local farming plan. I believe in small local farming and trying to bring things back into the community that were taken away by large manufacturing facilities.
Thanks for your comment, Ann. I think it will take all of us to begin to undo the damage that is done to our shared earth. I was heartened by one of my students some time ago who stated that she may not have been part of those who caused this damage– but here generation would be the one to fix it.
Reading this essay reminds me of how irisponsible were are with the environment around us. The ecological footprint that we americans take up per person is insane, to the point that we will take out forests that help is live on earth. If we could all just be like the Kalapuya and take what is needed this planet would not be going through the danger we are now. Food to them was not simply to keep them alive but a ritual. The abundance of deer was so large that they could kill deer all day long and never run out. Yet instead of doing this, they took this abundace as a gift and only took what they needed. Not only did they do this but they used every part of the animal for something, making it useful in every aspect. If this kind of behavior and ways of life still lived to this day i believe we would be better of not only because of the ongoing problem with climate change but as people.
Thanks for your comment, Christian. You make an important point in indicating the role that our choices play in our relationship to our environment. The next step might be to determine which cultural beliefs cause us to make one of these choices rather than the other.
I think it is so interesting, and so smart that the indigenous people used superstition to foster proper treatment of the local ecosystem. A deer hunt which requires 10 days of ceremony and a song before the kill would be laughed at by the modern-day hunters of the Willamette Valley. The ceremonies mentioned may seem silly to us now, , but the notion that the deer would never come back if you didn’t follow protocol was a very smart way to not only show a great level of respect for the deer, but also for preserving the plentiful plethora of goods that the earth provided. Everything was kept in check, and it didn’t sound that hard, from the way it was told. They hunted, they farmed, they were careful, and they were very successful! I would love to have lived then, instead of now where you pay $3 a pound for cherries, IF you’re lucky, and they’re most likely from Central America somewhere. It’s surprising that the grasshopper plagues didn’t tip anyone off that something had gone awry, when we all first got here. I wonder how long it took for the deer to begin to thin out and the vegetation to grow less plentifully? Once again, the settlers only saw what they could get for free, since they were surrounded by such bounty, that they failed to see what made it that way.
It’s sad to hear that our own Willamette Valley could possibly sustain our entire local population in terms of food, if only the proper precautions were used. It’s sad because I seriously doubt that this will ever happen. Sustainability is all anyone is talking about these days, and being “green”, but it’s used more like a trendy way to appear to others, rather than actually making serious changes and pushing for the things that need to be done.
Hi Josh, perceptive points about native ceremony, only I think I would rather call it reverence for the sources of life rather than superstition. And the pioneer idea that the land was so full of bounty that its use (and limits) did not have to be considered was a key one in the wiping out of so much of the biodiversity fostered by native peoples in the valley.
And as for making the valley sustainable again, urban gardens and urban farms is an interesting phenomenon we will be looking into in an upcoming lesson.
Madronna,
After reading this essay I find my self looking at my surroundings in a new light here. I’m actually a resident of Springfield Oregon and my house sits here overlooking Island park where they launch there canoes. I knew the Valley had a rich history of native traditions, though I had no clue how much damage had occured over time. Ive seen the damage done the streams here first hand and those who actually fear the river themselvs due to the pollution coming down from up stream. One reminder that I see every day of the changes is an old garbage unit that was built into the ground next to my house to prevent the bears from getting into it. The thought that the forest was once dense enough and full of life to support bears and wildlife in this area worries me of how much damage we have done to the valley. I only hope we can do something to start fixing the damage we have done, the essay I believe was a very in sightfull look on the valley.
~Kevin Pack
PHL 443
The image of bears previously coming down to eat near your house is a striking one. Thanks for sharing this bit of history, Kevin.
The power of history, as you indicate, is to allow us a different vision of the present–and of the future both in what we might better care for.
The more books I read on ecology and sustainabile living, the more I hear references to the way that Native Americans have for centuries been living with and close to nature in a manner that has helped to sustain the ecosystems that they live in. Nicolas Denys a French aristocrat as far back as 1672 wrote about how Native Americans in what is the Nova Scotia area of Canada operated on a economy of reciprocity. Speaking of their lack of desire to compete in the fur trade “They never made an accumulation of skins of Moose, Beaver, Otter, or others, but only so far as they need for personal use.” So Europeans more than 400 years ago noticed that the Native Americans had further respect for the natural world around them and they were able to contribute to a sustainability of the environment at the same time. but the irony is that still to this day while the dominant European based culture has recognized the benefits of the Native American view of ecology for hundreds of years, still only a small minority of people recognize how these principals established by the Native American, could be a benefit to all people and to the natural world around us.
Thoughtful comment, Richard. Thanks for sharing this resource. We cannot return to the past but, as you indicate, we can benefit from the knowledge and values of those who were so successful at sustainable living.
I wish badly that we could care for nature the way the Kalapuya did. I certainly would love to see the park we originally inherited/ commandeered. But, though I know we can do better than we are currently, it seems impracticable to be able to apply this great of care in stewardship with such a large and established population. Not to say that the Kalapuya were not established, but they established themselves in a dynamic way, being able to flex with nature in order to best care for nature. Today our cities and towns, skyscrapers and infrastructure are not going anywhere though as long as we’re here and thus it would seem we don’t have the flexibility to “roll” with nature like indigenous societies do. If only there were some way we could redesign our civilization in order to enjoy the amenities of modernized life and yet still be able to let fires rage when they must and let rivers flood like they used to and keep our roads from blocking of age-old migration trails. Hopefully, in a few generations, our mindsets on development will have shifted so greatly that those that come after us can understand why we did things the way we did, but for now, going back seems impossible, and moving forward seems overwhelming.
Thanks for the comment, Mark. An important point about flexibility–and the ability to adapt to the natural world. I agree that we need to change our worldview–but I don’t think we have two generations to do it in. We certainly don’t have that long, for instance, to deal with climate change. As an example of those who are in the process of doing the seemingly impossible, check this out: http://holdenma.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/how-can-you-not-plant-a-rose-in-wartime/.
I think that the times when change seems most difficult are the times when we need to envision it and move ahead– even if it is one person at a time one step at a time. If each of us were to begin with at least one thing that we see needs doing, that is another kind of flexibility.
The emphasis on sustainability is a refreshing concept to me. I was born and raised in Texas, and while there are many things I love about the state, there is absolutely no thought given to sustainability. This is evidenced by our 16-lane freeways and “gas-guzzling” trucks and SUVs. I think if we were all willing to think about the ways in which we could change our lifestyles in order to be more sustainable it would require considerably less sacrifice than it seems. By visiting farmers markets and buying from local sellers we could drastically reduce the amount of pollution being emitted from our vehicles. It would also be a keen reminder of how the land provides for us, and the proper management of that land would enable us to thrive as we once did before the advent of our modern conveniences. Hopefully we can all adopt this attitude someday!
Thanks for sharing your perspective on sustainability in Texas, Allison. I think this may vary from place to place–as Austin has much going for it. And San Antonio, I understand, has a very interesting downtown development plan. And an interesting point, the George Bush ranch is totally “off the grid”, being outfitted with alternative energy sources at the same time that the Bush administration was supporting the whims of oil lobbyists. This kind of thing shows how those who have the proper information act in terms of their own lives and families. Now, to vanquish NIMBY, we need to put this into effect for others…
I struggled with what I perceived as undue emphasis of some of the information contained in this article. For example, the statement “As with indigenous peoples throughout the Northwest, the Kalapuya had so intimate a relationship with their land that they named themselves for it. When a pioneer asked a group near the Santiam who they were, they gave him the name of the place where they stood: Kalapuya: “the valley of the long grasses”.” It sounds very romantic, but I am left wondering if perhaps this culture did not have a name for themselves because their outside contact was so limited. It seems perfectly natural to me to call another group of people by the place where they are found, and so if I must name myself, I will name myself by this place where I am found. This was not a unique behavior of indigenous people, in fact European settlers did the same thing. For example, consider all the places with names like Grass Valley, Springfield, Hidden Valley, Black Hills, Red River, etc. And the people that say they are Eugenians, Oregonians, Californians or even Americans or Europeans and when so doing they are referring to the place from which they come. Just like the native Americans their heritage and culture is also tied to those places.
I applaud other elements such as the recognition that the Kalapuya released the finest animals prior to the taking of their prey. We must also consider the population being supported was a mere fraction of today’s. Oregon has recently banned field burning, a practice which has both merits and vices, whether the crops are grass seed or otherwise. We certainly could put some of our lands to better use, and generate a sustainable environment. But even the observation that the Lane County farmland could potentially provide for all the vegetable and 80 percent of the dairy needs doesn’t account for population growth. Unless the land can support exponential yield increases, we won’t be able to sustain our counties vegetable needs for long.
Hi David. It certainly does no justice to a people to romanticize them–and you do well to look to avoid this. But in this particular case it is a stereotype that native peoples were isolated. In fact, they had a vast trading network that went all the way into the Southwest. The contrasting naming between Indians and non-Indians is not my original idea, but that of Henry Cultee, who pointed out that his people carried the names of the land and its ancient stories (and the spirit power shared with them there) whereas whites named the land for themselves. He has specific reference to the area of his traditional culture, where “James Rock” (for a settler) replaced Sme’um– the place named for a story of its own. His personal name (inherited from his family) was taken from the character of the place on the Humptulips River where he fished. Eugene is named for Eugene Skinner, and Oregon for an ambiguous source– but certainly not for the ancient story of the land, which places humans there as one life among many in the entire ecological cycle. There is a long tradition of native complaints in terms of this re-naming/attempt to own the land on the part of pioneers. In one tale from the Yakama area (a satire), whites felt they could own the land after they stole its original names and re-named it for themselves.
The worldview difference in naming here has reference (in Cultee’s ideas and in those of many of the elders with whom I worked) to the domination idea that indicates we can own the land by claiming it/naming it for ourselves as opposed to those who feel the land has an identify–and rights– of its own. It is the difference between the idea that people belong to their land and the land people to individual people.
I also worked in depth with many pioneer families who lived as neighbors with native peoples and learned how to live on the land from them. (See this essay for the cooperation between pioneers and natives that allowed the original survival of non-Indians here; http://holdenma.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/native-american-heritage-day-an-essential-adjunct-to-thanksgiving-2008/). Those members of pioneer families who did have close early relationships with native peoples often themselves began their stories with, “Do you know that place…?’ And if you couldn’t say yes, you didn’t know how to listen to the story. These were peoples who had, not incidentally, stayed on their lands since their family’s first settlement here.
This longer essay on indigenous ecology in the Northwest details some more of the ecological practices of native peoples barely touched on in this brief essay on the Willamette Valley: http://holdenma.wordpress.com/culture-and-environment/indigenous-ecological-practises-and-beliefs-in-the-pacific-northwest/.
You make a good case for population stability–and returning to a mix of wild cropping, protecting our salmon runs and doing diverse farming with non-genetically engineered crops (which in almost one hundred studies have been found to yield lower results than traditional crops in every case–as well as to lead to increased chemical use over the long run). Urban gardening is another process which has considerable potential in helping us to feed ourselves.
We obviously have much to think about to yield a secure future for ourselves in terms of clean water, breathable air, protecting the earth from global warming. and feeding ourselves.
Thanks for your comment.
Western Oregon’s Native peoples were certainly skilled and sympathetic to other living beings through their hunting actions. The view that these indigenous peoples were pure savage hunters is common, but completely untrue! I feel that Oregonians need to adopt the frugal attitude that that Kalapuya and Siletz had. We should be grateful for the natural foods and crops that allow us to eat everyday… and the lack of anxiety they cause us that they will not produce. In addition to this, I feel very strongly that we should treat our cattle, chickens, sheep, any farm animal with the same respect that the Kalapuya did. It is very solemning when farm animals and the conditions they are living through are pictured on the news or local newspaper. Where is the compassion?? Observing the pain and maltreatment of these animals is heartbreaking. The dualistic nature between humanity and the animalistic world is all too present.
I do agree with Armstrong’s statement that we should rely on our local resources to sustain us. This quote that describes our plight today should be considered and perhaps implemented in our lives not only because we will perhaps have a more secure food supply, but also in that it will allow us to better take care of our local environment.
Thank you for this comment, Kristen. It is often true that we project the notion of “savage” onto other peoples as a way of licensing (or denying) our own behavior. The value of gratefulness your bring up might lead to a more frugal use of resources. Giving ourselves security and caring for our local landscape are certainly linked.
I find it fascinating, according to Stutzman, that if there was a part of the deer or elk that was wasted (thrown away) the deer or elk would not come back in the future. I have to think of our modern culture’s wasteful nature. If we could only learn that over consumption has drastic consequences. I’m not saying I haven’t been guilty of this…but reading these great articles and essays motivates me to consume in moderation.
A key point, Patrick. Waste does in fact lead to the loss of those who share our world with us.
I completely agree that we have so much to learn from indigenous peoples such as the Kalaypuya. So many times when people come to a new area they try to teach the inhabitants new ways of doing things without even taking into consideration that these Native peoples have been living and thriving there for many years. Perhaps this has something to do with the value of education. The intruders usually have received a “formal education” in the classroom and/or church and therefore feel that they are more educated. But what they don’t realize is that the Native people have been studying the land for hundreds of years and know everything about it, including how to care for it in such a way that it will continue to give back.
I also was very interested in the way these people treated the animals they were hunting. They respected the animals and were truly grateful for the meat and other necessities they provided. This is a huge contrast to the way we raise our livestock in America today. Animals are not allowed to do what is in their nature and many times don’t even have enough room to turn around. They are pumped full of fat and foods that will make them grow quickly as well as antibiotics to produce the same result. There really is no respect for these creatures at all with regards to letting them live their natural lives. Also, while a goal of food processing is to use as many parts of an animal as possible, we are definitely not as efficient in this as are the Kalaypuya.
A perceptive point about what we recognize as knowledge, Lauren. This is a good argument for a critical assessment of that knowledge and how we attain it (education)– something that the perspective of other cultures can perhaps give us. “Factory” farming expresses injustice both to those animals who provide our sustenance with their lives and our health. There is also the ways in those who work in the meat packing industry are exploited, as described in Fast Food Nation, for instance. I like the fact that there is not only organic and sustainable certification as an alternative– but a certification that animals have been humanely raised. It seems that treating the creatures that give their lives for us humanely is the least we can do.
When settlers first came to the Willamette Valley, they were astounded by its bounty and appearance, which as stated above, was park-like in nature. This essay brought to mind The Oregon History Project narratives as well as William G Robbins works since they both do an excellent job of describing the transition from native lands to landscape that those who have and do live there today know. One aspect of this change that I find particularly interesting is how the loss of the wetlands as well as the channelization of the Willamette, has dramatically altered this area. Both of these actions have greatly increased the occurence and severity of the floods that come in the spring. While I understand that urban areas do experience growth that puts restraints on land availability, it really just makes me wonder who thought that building infrastructure on a floodplain was a good idea.
The other interesting point that was made was that the valley could mainly support the population that currently lives there. Being a locavore (eating only food produced locally) is growing in popularity and it is something that truly makes you appreciate the food that is on your table! It is something that we have been trying this summer and while the wait for strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, corn, etc. seemed like forever at times, it was definitely worth it. While this kind of living is not possible for all people, I believe that buying even a few things locally makes a big difference in sustaining our ecosystems not just here, but also in other countries where much of our food comes from.
Thanks for your comment, Bekah. Boag’s Environment and Experience is a detailed study of this same transition in the mid-Willamette Valley. As your comment indicates, there is plenty of support for the original character of the Valley as described in native oral history. I agree that we really need to re-consider our habit of building on wetlands (and modifying–or even mitigating them in so doing). Good luck on your eating local project. Have you read Kingslover’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral about her family experiment in eating local? I also agree that small shifts–when many do them– are very important. Eating locally produced foods does not have to be an all or nothing proposition.
Fyi, I just added a further response to your comment on Berry and Christianity.
The beauty and life-sustaining capabilities of the Willamette Valley goes undisputed. I wish to have lived in the time period of the Kalapuyas so that I could see the original beauty. I share many of the same values and views that the Kalapuyas did. As you stated above, “our land sustains us only when we care for it” (Our Earth/Ourselves, Gourmand’s Paradise, Madronna Holden). I believe our existence to be a part of a large cycle of life and I believe we are witnesses. Let me define what I mean. We are witnesses because we have been graced with frontal lobe reasoning and logic capacities so that we can watch and aid the growth of all organisms. (Please remember that this is only my personal opinion.) We have been given upper cognitive abilities not to enforce our cranial supremacy but to be supreme protectors and help facilitate the peaceful growth of the Earth’s inhabitants. The Kalapuyas certainly had this figured out and they didn’t have to obtain a college degree. They lived in harmony with the Earth, and when the whites reached the plentiful land they “did not tame a wilderness; they inherited a park” (Boag). The Willamette Valley can be compared to a park because a park is a place created and strategically placed by humans for enjoyment and peace. The Kalapuyas had made the wilderness a place for enjoyment and peace.
Lovely personal response, Shamon. Though we cannot return to the past, we can help care for the resiliency of the beautiful valley where we are privileged to live.
Reading this essay takes me back in time. Even though I have never been to Oregon, I can imagine the natural beauty of the Willamette Valley.
The vast store of knowledge that indigenous people carry about the environment never ceases to amaze me. Even though they too as man manipulated their environment to produce what they wanted via the use of fire, they still maintained a healthy respect for the environment and what it was capable of producing for them. It is a valuable lesson that we could all learn from today.
I think it is a valuable lesson to learn indeed, Julie. And perhaps learning it might even allow us to pass on a decent future to our children and grandchildren.
Growing up in Salem I have many times wondered what natural beauty would have surrounded the house on the hill I grew up in, had it not been developed. And I have always known that the valley has been an excellent place for farmers, but I had no idea what it was like before we came and messed it up! I wish I could have seen this paradise and the “camas lakes” that shimmered like water. I never realized that a peoples could expand the ecology of a land so greatly, especially primitive indigenous people, but I have never studied indigenous people before. It’s beautiful to realize what kind of relationship these people had with their land, the knowledge that they gained slowly over generations that lead to their ability to create marshes, ponds and wetlands by controlled burning. And it’s embarrassing what little the first white settlers knew when they came in to cultivate the land, which lead to their crops being devastated by grasshopper plagues because of the suppression of controlled burning. Thankfully the Willamette valley is starting to aim towards a sustainable future, and although we will never get “gourmand’s paradise” back to its original beauty, we may be able to make it a monument of modern sustainability, and through that we may gain a glimpse of what it was like before.
Thanks for sharing a striking vision here, Paul–of the ways in which what went before may allow us to create a sustainable future. If we can’t return to the past, we can learn from it–and decide to take on the values that created success in the past.
This is an interesting topic to me because it deals with the population’s pressures on the environment and what can be done about it. Sure, the farmland in the Willamette Valley could sustain the food requirements of the population living in it, but what happens as the population grows (as it inevitably will)? I can imagine that the valley was such a source of great abundance not only because the previous inhabitants respected nature so much, but because a lot fewer people depended on it for sustenance. If farmlands are already under pressure from development, then that problem will most likely get worse as time goes by. Are we to implement some sort of limit on how many people can live in the valley or where it can be developed?
It is interesting (and not very often remarked) that most indigenous peoples carefully controlled their populations at a balanced level. Population explosions came with colonialism, poverty, and industrialization. This is a serious issue-we cannot continue to develop all the farmlands in the valley for housing and business and expect it to feed us. In this case, I like the idea developed in Natural Capitalism, which states that we should develop an economy that depends more on human labor and less on technologies that depend on the extraction of natural resources– since one supply of energy is relatively unlimited compared to the other. I like very much what Hawken says about creating a world in which each child is welcome. Doing so would cause us to rethink our social and economic choices in many ways. We must be cognizant of the fact that a child born in the US uses some 20 times the resources in his lifetime as will a child born in India–and in places in Africa, citizens use less resources per person than they did in 1960.
We need serious planning that considers infill appropriate to local neighborhoods and public transportation to lessen our impact on natural resources. Incidentally, we can reverse the population growth that comes with poverty simply by giving women more economic resources–if they aren’t in poverty, they will automatically limit their family size, as a recent UN study found.
Meanwhile, we must also protect and conserve what we have– and farm sustainably and with diverse cropping. We have lots to think about and much to do!
When I moved to Portland from Southern California I was absolutely gobsmacked by the seemingly endless beauty and lushness of the Willamette Valley. Though the valley is no longer managed by the careful practices of the Kalapuya and others (and has not been for a long time) , one could easily surmise that even now, in her degraded state, she owes a great deal of her enduring beauty and fertility to the natives that loved and cared for her for generations as both partner and friend. It’s very interesting to read that the “courageous pioneers” we learn about in grade school, who are credited with “taming the wild, wild west”, in reality just lucked out and found themselves in an absolute Eden of beauty and abundance. I truly hope we can restore this beautiful place back to the “gourmands paradise” it was once so renowned for.
Thanks for your comment, Liz. I like your lively style as well as your perspective.
Reading this and realizing how much we have lost here is a powerful example of the dominating, exploitative worldview adhered to so long by Western cultures. The mindset is like an ignorant child who comes across something great and inspiring and then proceeds to destroy it through abuse without any consideration of what it took/takes for this thing to even be, or the results of their use/abuse outside of their own fulfillment and pleasure.
Thanks for sharing your obvious outrage about this historical misstep, Michael. I think now it is time to learn from the past so that we can better care for the future. It is sad that such beauty and abundance might be squandered. Many did so out of greed, but others never realized such abundance might be used up (that is, of course, no excuse for destroying). Still, I interviewed those who helped take down the original old growth forests in Washington that saw this as a great tragedy in retrospect–and wanted the next generation to know it as they made their own decisions.
After reading the article, I have realized how important it is to have a “spiritual partnership” with the nature. At first I couldn’t understand how significant and meaningful was for the Kalapuya to do a five days of spiritual ceremony and signing a song to the deer before hunting. However after thinking along, I come to the conclusion that it is really important to appreciate in someway or another what the nature has given us, not only demonstrate our thanks with positive actions and attitudes, but also spiritually and mentally. The spiritual connection is away of demonstrating our gratitude for the great resources that nature has given us and it also bounds us in harmony, letting us to work together as a group. The Kalapuya attempted to give something back to the land; however it was demonstrated spiritually rather than on positive actions. Perhaps the Kalapuya felt negatively about their actions, they felt like they were taking something away, but maybe they taught that through their spiritual ceremony, they could show respect and gratitude for what the nature has offer them.
Thanks for your comment, Ruth. I think there are also many practical ways the Kalapuya gave back to the environment–or they wouldn’t have helped create the valley ecology pioneers found. Where ritual is important, I think, is that it helps one focus one’s mind–which can have a good many practical outcomes. Mind and body are definitely connected in this practice–and reciprocity–as you indicate– was very important.
I really like how this lesson and this essay, especially, describes the practices that Native Americans had that acted as away to preserve nature and to harvest their foods at the same time. I am from Oregon City, and I have been taught a lot about its history. But I definitely could never imagine salmon trying to jump up and over the falls considering what they are now and how polluted the river is. But this is just an example of how we fail to care for the land leads to failing to care for natural habitats and, in turn, our food sources.
Thanks for your comment. I think it can be a visionary exercise to imagine the land as it was/might be if it were properly cared for. The falls at Oregon City are still wonderful for all our industry and tinkering nearby. My hope is that we will use the wisdom learned from the past to create the future we would want to leave to our children. That of course means we have much work to do.
What impresses me the most is the Kalaypuyas ability to have a relationship with the land they live on. Growing up in the Willamette Valley, I have long understood the beauty of this environment. Still, I have never considered a partnership with the environment, because as the essay points out, we do not depend on the hunting of animals as our primary protein source. We also buy our produce at stores, rather than nurturing the land and harvesting its fruits. The concept of growing our food locally and getting back to the tradition of using natural resources sounds wonderful. This would require a definite shift in attitude from one that views the land as something we own and manipulate as property, to the land as a living system that we must care for. Through the model of reciprocity, nurturing the environment will cause it to thrive and yield crops that can provide sustenance that will nurture us in return. It would be amazing if the Willamette Valley could be a leader in a process of social change in which respect for the world we live in was valued more highly than respect for wealth and ownership of land.
I like your vision of our potential leadership in this regard, Karen. It would be no less than we owe this gracious valley where we are blessed to make our home. Thanks for your comment.
The Kalaypuyas connection with the earth and their rites and rituals to ensure its healthy growth, really give the reader perspective on how much respect must be instilled in their youth as well. Is this much different than their religion? Europeans teach to do unto others, as you wish done unto you, but that has been interpreted as strictly a homo sapien to homo sapien contract. If environmental conservation wasn’t only a grassroots initiative, but a committment to your god(s), maybe we could come even a step closer towards the outlook of the Kalaypuya, and other native peoples.
Thanks for your response to this essay, Jessica. There is definitely a sense of links between spirit and matter that you rightly perceive here: a kind of eco-spirituality, if you will. And you have an important idea in that if our treatment of the material world were linked to our intimate sense of spirit in this way, we might well treat it better.
The emphasis on local production and maintaining a level of respect through sustainability toward nature both locally and worldwide really held my attention while reading this article. As I have come understand the values and traditions of so many native peoples and groups I have really developed a great deal of appreciation toward them and what they have done. The example of the Western Oregon’s peoples and their spiritual relationship with the deer upheld a perfect way in which we should be treating the creatures of nature. While they were obviously going to kill the deer for their own sustainability of life, there was still the acknowledgment that the deer was apart of nature and should therefore be respected and cared for rather than simply wiped out. This kind of treatment towards the creatures and every other part of nature is exactly the sort of the thing that every human should be practicing; no one has to take on a spiritual state of mind, unless of course it is a part of your own culture, but by simply taking what is needed without abusing that privilege can make a huge difference.
Of course there is no avoiding the towering glare of industrialization which has been taking over our world. The problem is of course that because of the countless growth in worldwide population and the overuse of our resources, we have become dependent on the industrial world for the mass production of our food, shelter, transportation, etc. There is no denying the fact that it is an immensely difficult task to start from a different place other than industrialization–and with technology becoming more and more advanced there doesn’t really seem to be a stopping point. However, with technology and even some parts of industrialization it could be possible to utilize those resources in helping develop a better way of sustaining our world. By starting small and locally everywhere we can start to see a difference. I know that by having my own garden, buying locally, and riding my bike more I have made my own small difference. Starting small doesn’t have to be hard as long as we take the initiative.
I really enjoyed reading this article as it really got me thinking about what I can keep on doing and start doing in order to make a difference.
Hello Erin, thanks for your comment. I am glad you liked the information in this article– and also congratulate you on doing your part to support local food production– including that in your own yard. In Wes Anderson’s Becoming Native to this Place, he talks about how much LARGER a population was supported by the indigenous subsistence strategy than the current agricultural structure supports in a particular section of Iowa. Though it is sometimes argued that industrial agriculture must be used to feed large populations– the evidence points to the contrary (see the article here on Bangladesh)– or at least to the necessity of establishing diversity based on place and using methods with long term sustainability—protecting soil fertility, biological diversity, and water tables.
Gourmand’s Paradise… How beautiful it sounded! I was especially impressed by the respect and honor given to the deer that were hunted. How horrid would they be to find that many hunters these days are more interested in the chase, and give no glory to the deer, only to their prowess in hunting with the rifle… often time by inexperienced hunters who often maim the deer and leave them to die horrible and slow deaths, usually by infection! How saddened would they be to know most hunters these days do not utilize all the deer, and have no respect, honor, or feeling of commradery? How saddedned would they be to know that our hunters aim to find the best of the best, and kill those instead of let those go for future prosperity of the herd? It seems that we have forgotten this ability to respect and honor the deer… how sad!
These are profound contrasts in attitude toward the deer, as you point out, Danielle.
I am always a little saddened when I hear early descriptions of what many areas in North America used to be like before they were over hunted and developed. The idea that the skies were darkened by huge flocks of birds is awe inspiring. I am sorry that I did not see that world of plenty and abundance, and that many of the animals and landscapes described no longer exist.
Indigenous people in North America are so often described as only hunters and gathers, living lightly on the land and causing very little impacts. They were really land managers and they made changes to the landscapes they lived on. Your description of the techniques the Kalapuya people used to encourage the growth of plants that provided their food, and the use of fire to maintain landscapes that attracted deer and elk for food is an amazing example of this. They didn’t take things for granted and that is very apparent in the rituals performed before and after a deer hunt. There is such a dichotomy between the Kalapuya people’s values about not wasting any part of the deer and Western societies’ wasteful lifestyle. I hope we get there.
I have been very interested in the move toward eating local food, but I haven’t been able to participate fully because I live in Alaska. This just is not a very agricultural state because of the climate. There are areas in the state that agriculture is a part of the economy, but personal gardens and hunting and gather are an important part of Alaskan culture for both native and non-native people. Many people plant gardens in our short summers and pick a variety of berries and hunt for wild game. The problem is that there is not much fresh local produce available in the winter. I am a part of a Community Supported Agricultural Program (CSA), but it is located in the Snowqualme Valley in Washington. This is not very local, but they supply organic produce to communities all over the State of Alaska. I have heard that there are some small farms north of Anchorage that are starting to provide fruit and vegetables to people living in the area in the summer, but it is not available in my community yet. I am concerned that almost all of the food I eat has to travel at least 1400 miles and that is from Washington State! I am not sure there is much I can do about this unless I don’t eat fresh fruit and vegetables in winter, or move to place where food can grow year round.
Thanks for your comment, Christina. We have not seen such abundance here, but I am hoping we might do so in the future if we turn our ways around to begin to care fully for this valley once again. Excellent point about the ways in which indigenous peoples managed ecosystems–or at least managed their own actions in partnership with those systems.
Along with you, I also hope we get to such an attitude of respect for those other lives that share our world with us.
Good for you that you support and are supported by a CSA– amazing that a CSA in Washington is supplying Alaska. It sounds like you are doing the best you can in this–and at least you have a direct link to the land through this farm.
Being a native of the Willamette Valley I have noticed the changes to the land over time. While I lived in Portland, my family lived in Springfield, so I spent a lot of time driving the area. It seems year to year that eventually development will make the valley one big corridor of homes and strip malls. Hopefully this will not be the case. I am not familiar with the mid-valley’s growth laws, but strong urban growth boundary laws should be taken on, if not already in place. It is hard to believe how much we have changed the area in only 150 years! There needs to be a large effort to reestablish an awareness of where our food and other goods come from. I think with the majority of people now living in urban areas, much of that connection has been lost. It used to be easy for most people to make that connection, as most of the population was rural in nature. Now not too much thought goes into “where did my dinner tonight really come from?”. Most people just go to the local grocery store, pick stuff up and eat it without any other thought. While many people try to be conscious of where there food comes from, and if its being raised in a sustainable way, there just needs to be more effort put towards it. If we all thought like the Kalapuya thought there would be far less waste, both of resources and of the land that produces them.
Hi Matt, thanks for your comment. It is indeed hard to believe how much the valley has changed in 150 years–and not for the better in earth-valuing terms. A strong urban growth boundary is one important way to make sure that the entire distance between Portland and Eugene doesn’t become a corridor of suburbs.
A second way is to strengthen knowledge of the systems that support us– such as knowing where our food comes from.
Thoughtful points.
Hello,
I enjoyed reading about the Kalapuyas’ burning. Its seems much different than the route we take today. The benefits they reaped far outweigh what our land managers are able to accomplish today, mostly on federal lands and only with days and days of paperwork preparation. The weather forecasts also seem to be much more accurate than our meterologists today with their years and years of formal schooling. To me, there seems to be a disconnect today. Perhaps the simplest answer is the right one.
Thanks for your comment, Carol. It does indeed seem that there is often a disconnect between our ways of learning and our intimacy with the natural world.
The Kalapuya burning may have seemed simple on the surface– but it was done only under the supervision of a holy woman and carefully controlled– and as Kristen Shelton remarked with respect to the essay, “Indigenous Peoples” here, such management strategies were adaptive with respect to dynamic systems. So controlled burning to clear out the underbrush and thus take out fuel in older forests is one thing. Burning grass seed fields (putting the agricultural chemicals in them into the air) in a populated valley is something very different from burning a small patch of land to create elk habitat.
I think one of our current problems is a one size fits all technology of any type.
I knew about burning in the Willamette Valley area, but not the extend of its use; roasting the seeds, preparing the hazel wood for basketry… and I certainly did not realize the extent to which this land was *managed*.
As a descendant of Oregon Trail pioneers and a 4th generation Oregonian, I’ve always been proud of my connection to this place. I always assumed that my ancestors came out to what they regarded as a primarily uninhabited land, and, for what they assumed to be a greater good, ’settled’ it.
Is there any evidence to the contrary? Is there any record that suggests that people KNEW the land was being actively managed? That, despite the lack of fences, the whole region was in fact a giant series of environment-friendly farms? If so, that makes those who displaced the indigenous people more of a hostile, occupying army than I had even imagined.
I love the imagery of the canoe on the river, and the idea that a Kalapuya song was so recently sung and commemorated gives me hope. I’m just suffering from a huge bout of ‘White Man’s Guilt’ at the moment with this hideous thought.
Hi Patrick, thanks for your comment. I like Albert Camus’ statement about human actions (Camus was a French resistance fighter against the Nazis and an existential philosopher), who said that none of us is guilty but each is responsible. Jeremy FiveCrows, Nez Perce representative on the Columbia River Intertribal Fishing Commission recently gave a presentation in Eugene in which he noted that you don’t have to be Indian to listen to the land– Indians just have a several thousand year headstart on practicing that listening.
Most of the research on pioneer materials I have done indicates that many pioneers were awestruck with the beauty and abundance of the land–but the rather backward level of the ecological science in their own culture did not allow them to recognize native management practices for what they were– just as members of non-Indian cultures did not recognize the geological information in native myths–since that information went beyond geological knowledge of Western culture in the mid-1800s and thus they did not have any context in which to perceive it.
This served them well, since the idea of Manifest Destiny by which they licensed the takeover of Indian land would have been undercut if emigrants acknowledged that native knowledge of the land surpassed what Westerners designated as “progress”.
However, some emigrants who first arrived in this territory took up residence next to native peoples with their permission–and had neighborly relations with them. And if they did not have the cultural context to translate native perspectives into science, they shared some human values–and sometimes– their spiritual perception of the land. But the next populous wave of pioneers, who came to the NW after the government moved indigenous people were removed to reservations to get them out of the way of white settlement, had little opportunity to experience native life in its dignity and power. Even so, some of the earliest pioneers, the “Old Settlers” on Puget Sound, for instance, helped fight legal battles on the side of the Indians rather than that on the side of the flood of newcomers in support of things like native fishing rights. And though mainstream history often portrays the settlement of the NW by whites as an us/them process, there was much conflict within non-Indian communities over the treatment of Indians. In Washington Territory, the first Governor Isaac Stevens, put some pioneers under arrest for fraternizing with the “enemy”– as he perceived it. They had shared a thanksgiving meal with their Indian neighbors. This act so angered the local volunteer militia (not under his control) that it tried to release them–and Stevens wound up declaring martial law so that he could arrest not only the members of this volunteer militia, but the members of the Territorial Court which declared the pioneers should be released, since they had not been properly charged. Must have been a pretty crowded jail!
In the Willamette Valley and along the Southern Oregon coast, especialy up the more deserted areas up the Coos and Coquille Rivers, Indians not only escaped movement to reservations, but were sometimes hidden in non-Indian households to protect them from the violence that other settlers perpetrated on native peoples.
Sometimes the stories of these events were a submerged part of oral history that never quite made it into the mainstream, but a few like Rogue River settler George Beeson published the stories of injustices to Indians– and was run out of local mining communities in the mid-nineteenth century– which were some of the most violent areas of the day. You might like this essay, which indicates the extent to which emigrants depended for native peoples for survival when they first arrived.
This history is complex–and I think we need to analyze the moral questions involved as opposed to dividing up folks into good guys and bad guys. One thing is certain: takeover of the land and stifling the lifeways of others cannot be morally justified on any grounds. One way to enact our responsibility (as opposed to our guilt) is to follow the standards Thomas Berry outlines in another of our essays here for the treatment of indigenous peoples.
I appreciate the care involved in this comment.
It upsets me when I read of the reverence indigenous hunters gave to animals they hunted and the complete lack of respect of today. Indigenous peoples hunted the animals, used everything, gave thanks and respect for the life they took and helped keep the herds healthy; much like the animal predators (wolves, lions, etc). Today it’s about “trophies” and what looks good on the wall. How many trophy hunts are advertised throughout the world and which guarantees a kill? Last term I read an article about the hunting of big horn sheep. Due to the hunting of the large males, the stronger larger and better genes are not passed to future generations. The result is the big horn sheep are becoming smaller and weaker. Not sure what the plan is to “fix” the problem. This is just another example of how well our society manages the herds!
Thanks for your comment, Christy. The example of bighorn sheep is a pointed one. By taking the biggest and best of any species, we are reversing natural selection because of our greed for “trophies”. I think the first step in any fix is the perspective and understanding we can develop about this issue– perspective of the kind you indicate here. If we begin to think differently–and you will see examples that you are not alone in this throughout this website– we can begin (we must begin) to act differently.
Thanks for both your thoughtfulness and compassion for our fellow creatures.
I just recently watched the National Parks series on OPB, and from what I understand many places were once like the Willamette Valley. It seemed constant in every situation that the natives that lived in the area took care of the land so that it stayed in it’s prime. It’s sad to hear that places like that are no longer, just because they got “settled”. Although knowing how beautiful Oregon is now I can’t even begin to imagine how it must have looked back then.
The quote “The first whites in the Willamette Valley did not tame a wilderness; they inherited a park.” seemed to be a theme in the National Parks series in OPB. Each place settlers came to was a glorious place. I know that a lot of damage has been done, and people are only now realizing how bad off things are – but I wonder if they can be turned around still? I absolutely agree with this article and think that we really need to start protecting the ecosystems sooner than later. If the world’s problems are going to get solved, the easiet place to start is at home (even though I think it’s perfect… but i am a little biased)
I hadn’t seen this series; thanks for sharing this information with us here, Becky. I find it hopeful that so much research is (finally) coming out on indigenous caretaking and management strategies with respect to the environment. Bravo to you for loving the natural perfection of our local home. I agree that there is no time better than now to begin to undo as much environmental damage as we can–and keep from adding more.
Thanks for your comment.
In reading this article I was struck with the insight shown by the Native American tribes in their land management practices. Without a formal knowledge of chemistry, soil science, or botany the tribes of the Willamette Valley learned their management practices through observation of natural events (seasonal fires caused by lightning strikes). With their cycle of burning and harvesting they continually restored the mineral rich A horizon promoting healthy growth of grasses and herbaceous plants the next season. Why then is it that several hundred years later that the educated decedents of the European settlers embrace land use practices that constantly deplete the soils of nutrients and require more and more processed additives to achieve healthy plant growth? I think we could learn a lot by following the First Nations example and return to a natural management practices and cycles as much as possible.
Hi Peter, you pose an important question. I think we cannot overestimate the amount of knowledge that derives from careful observation of natural cycles over thousands of years. No matter how much chemistry or soil science or botany we have, it cannot take the place of such insight. And in fact, it doesn’t need to. It is only a dualistic world that assumes we need one type of knowledge or the other. The reason why the NW tribes employ so many scientists is that they see the potential for working together here. I think following that model can only benefit us, as you indicate.
Thanks for you comment.
What a great article. I always enjoy reading about how things were when early native americans lived here and to read about the numerous flocks of birds or wild raging rivers with thousands upon thousands of salmon in them. I think it is neat how native americans used fire to control vegetation and enhance their agricultural supple. One thing that upsets me is the way people now take hunting for granted and don’t spend time cherishing the moment and are only out their for the kill and not for the memories.
Thanks for your comment, Mitch. I agree with you that if more people were truly present in their relationship with nature (there for the memories, as you put it), we would be making very different environmental decisions as a society.
Wow, this article really opened my eyes to the positive affects of the Native populations on the earth. The concept that every part of the deer was utilized is such a foreign concept today. I enjoyed reading how they selected the deer that were the prime examples of the species and let them go so that they could continue to breed; and continue the life cycle. Every action of Native populations was for a very distinct purpose. I certainly believe we could learn a significant amount from the Native American past that could possible help us turn around the destruction that has been pervading the earth.
Thanks for your comment, Ashley. I certainly agree that it can’t hurt to take a look at ecological strategies whose success has been proven over time–and assess our own values and choices in the light of what that teaches us.
I think the comment “The first whites in the Willamette Valley did not tame a wilderness; they inherited a park” is a very profound statement. It recognizes that the native inhabitants were not merely co-existing with nature, but that they were taking specific steps to encourage the natural diversity and health of their landscape. Their controlled burning improved the health of the timber areas while creating the necessary edges for non-timber-dwelling creatures to dwell. It is important to recognize that without the participation of the native peoples in the management of their environment, there would likely not have been the plentiful waterfowl, antelope, deer, and other creatures who do not live in the dark canopy of the tall forest. Unfortunately either the emigrants did not recognize the management efforts of the native peoples or they did not care, but they did find out the hard way after the accumulation of forest debris made some areas more prone to catastrophic fires.
Thanks for your comment, David. Good point about the fires: in fact, there were some devastating fires throughout the Valley and especially in the Coast Range perhaps ten years after whites places Indians on reservations–and thus stopped their management practices.
It is a good reminder, as you put it, that the Valley would not have been what it was without the human touch– which models the ability to work with nature rather than against it– and gives the lie to the dualistic worldview that tells us we must chose either nature or humans as a priority.
I read this article with particular interest having just watched a show on television that touched on the bounty of the Willamette Valley and the Pacific Northwest in general. The show was Jeff Corwin’s Extreme Cuisine:The Pacific Northwest and I was certain it was going to be nothing but fluff. Happily I was wrong. The extreme cuisine ranged from lampreys caught at Willamette Falls by members of the Grand Ronde tribe to salmon netted in the Klickitat river. Every step of the way we were reminded that the food is good here in the valley but is not as plentiful as it once was because it has been over harvested by non-tribal residents. All tribe members made sure they only took what they needed whether it was to feed their family or for a tribal gathering. They treated their catch with ceremonial deference and they made sure that we, as viewers, knew that the traditions being passed within the tribes are those of moderation and respect for the natural world. It’s refreshing to know those traditions still exist and to see them presented on mainstream television as logical, preferred methods of living.
Thanks for sharing these examples of the wealth of the Willamette Valley’s natural food cycles, Susan. It sounds like a great film to parallel what is in this essay. I think it is both refreshing and hopeful to see these ideas presented in mainstream tv, as you point out! Fifteen years ago I daresay one would not have seen a show like this. This is a change in the right direction.
I thought that it was really interesting about how the settlers thought that they knew the land better than the native people and tried to change traditions and harvest schedules. This only turned out to be worse for both. I think that if we watch and learn what the native people do, then we can survive and keep the planet from out of danger from dying. Native people have been living off the land and surviving, but also at the same time giving back to the land so that it does not die as well. I think that if more humans had that perspective, then our planet wouldn’t be in so much danger.
Thank your for your comment, Patricia. I certainly concur that if more of us thought about giving back to as well as taking from earth, we would not be facing the environmental crises we currently confront. I like the recent work by Thomas Berry, Becoming Native to this Place–that indicates how we might combine modern science with a connection to place that allows us to revere it in the long run– both an ethical and a pragmatic stance, I think.
Oh, what we could learn from the Kalapuya! It’s funny how the more “civilized” mankind has become, the less responsible and more greedy we have become as well. Our cruel, careless, and disgustingly avid modern ways would be what some might ironically call being qualities of an “uncivilized” society. What a funny concept, and at the same time it is not funny at all. It is very tragic, as is the ironical concept that the more intellectually advanced our species has become, the more ignorant we have become in regard to the big-picture and the consequential factors of our arrogant and selfish actions.
Let us PLEASE learn from the Kalapuya. Evolving backwards if we must seems so much more productive and intelligent than the direction in which evolution seems to be taking our species so far. We have evolved into a heedless, arrogant, indolent, and greedy human race. I beg of us to take a few steps back and recognize the way indigenous people MUST share the land in order to survive. They take from the earth only what can be returned and replenished in a timely fashion. Let us take after their example… for we will eventually find that it will be the smartest thing we could have ever done in our current state of over-population and destruction.
Hi Cherisse, thanks for your comment on the Kalapuya. I think it is a hallmark of wisdom to be able to learn from the past. I don’t feel we can actually return to the past–but that we can assume the values that allowed humans to care and care well for the earth we must share.