Articles

Born of Water

by Heidi Bohan

The Pacific Northwest Coast is a land born from water as continental plates pushed it to the surface a mere fifty million years ago. It is defined by water of all types which can be seen in a glance from sea and sound, up estuary and river, to snow-capped peaks, glacial valleys, and rain laden clouds. It is a land that has been carved by sheets of ice and shaped by the flow of melting waters. Ancient legends speak of this glacial time, when North Wind and South Wind battled to gain dominance of this land using dams of ice and baskets of rain, ending with the truce that allows for the alternating seasons of cold and warm of today.

The lakes and rivers left behind after this great battle are dotted with the remnants of the hundreds of villages which were built on these waters, usually where waters met other waters.  They are also the highways for the people who traveled through these lands in great carved canoes which could travel great distances overseas, or in small flat-bottomed canoes designed to travel shallow rocky rivers. The waters were the life-ways for the people, houses faced the waters, the totem poles of the north faced the waters, the weathermen of the village read the waters, most  foods came from the waters, even wealth in the form of dentalia strung in strands and used as money, came from the waters.

This land was viewed from the waters. Deep forests filled the land making travel overland difficult. Foot paths were carved through them to be used by hunters and gatherers, for travel over mountain passes, and for portage routes, but most travel took place on the waters, the rivers were the highways for the people. The direction indicated by the words ‘up’ or ‘down’ is not north or south on the map as we view it today, but up-river, up the mountains, or down-river, down the mountain. Watersheds were held by large extended families and the waters are named for these people, the Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Nisqually, Duwamish, Puyallup, Stillaguamish, Skagit and so many more; words still used today to represent these people and these places.

Early settlers write in their journals of watching and hearing the busy travel of the people passing by in the Salish Sea, singing as they went, slapping the water in unison with their paddles in harmony, joyful sounds of music on the waters as they traveled to trade and visit and gather. It is no wonder that the Salmon People decided to fill the rivers and lakes to come and feed these people, these people of the waters. And the people built great fish traps in the river-ways to capture this precious food; the remnants of those traps remain today, named and known today such as Toltx^w the original name of the town I live in now, named for the fish trap at the confluence of the Tolt and Snoqualmie Rivers.

The waters also held great mystery and respect. While traveling the waterways place names were called out as one passed by, and prayers given for certain places in the waters where it was known that underwater beings would drag you under if you did not follow proper protocol. The Snoqualmie Falls are a sacred place where visions were received and prayers made which traveled up to the sky world with the mists of the falls, and which was recently designated as ‘traditional cultural property’ under the National Historic Preservation Act.  Other legends speak of singing the Killer Whales to gravel shorelines where the whales sing back still, a great union of land and sea.

Today the restoration of the culture of most of tribes in the Northwest takes place as part of Canoe Journey, an annual epic undertaking with the ‘Landing’ of up to one hundred canoes at a given place. Some start out from as far away as the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Columbia River in Oregon, others, like the Snoqualmie start at the base of their sacred falls and travel their ancient river to sea, where they join others as they travel to their chosen destination, where they are hosted for a week, and share their songs and stories.

At the time of the Sheathing Moon, during the 13^th moon, it is time to sheath the canoe paddles between the mats which line the plankhouse walls, to wait out the winter storms making travel by water treacherous.  And when those storms arrived, one knew that Thunderbird was passing over, bringing thunder, lightning, hail and rain.

The old ones know that the people traveled the ocean waters to far distant lands, using oil in clamshells, and knowledge of the ocean floor to guide the way. The Haida know they have traveled the Pacific Rim for thousands of years, bringing back iron and bamboo, having words for these items before the first European traders arrived. The Makah state as fact that they have traveled to China for 3,000 years, one legend speaks of women crying on the shoreline after their husbands had not returned from a trip to sea, worried that they had found an island with beautiful women and would not return. Archeological sites along the shorelines of the Northwest Coast push the date of the first evidence of people in this land further and further back, the latest findings to 13,000 years ago, supporting the theory that the first people traveled and settled along the sea shore, even during the glacial times.

Floods have been recorded in every culture worldwide, and many local legends speak of the floods which drove a few special people to mountain peaks, where they lashed their canoes, to wait out the floods to regenerate a new people, the people who are here today, of salmon and cedar, still bound by name and lore to this land by the sea, river and mountain. We who are new to this land can learn from this deep connection to the waters through our own journeys by water, through the legends and the songs, through the words of this land. We can learn to view this land from the waterways, identify ourselves by our watersheds, and be stewards of this ancient land born from the waters.

Heidi Bohan, author of ‘The People of Cascadia’, ‘Starflower Native Plant ID Cards’ & ‘Quick & Easy Habitat Education Activities’ and numerous other publications, is an educator and consultant specializing in native plants and their traditional uses for food, medicine and materials. She currently works with the Snoqualmie Tribe, Northwest Indian College, Bastyr University, Sno-Valley Tilth and other organizations, as well as her own ‘Gatherer to Gardener’ programs.  www.heidi.bohan.com