Salmon, continued
In summer months most of the people traveled to the clam digging and sea bass fishing village known as Kwath-killum, or Meet-in-the-Middle, on the island by the same name across the ocean straights half way between the mainland and Great Island to the west. The village was a long day’s journey by canoe and it took another day to reach Great Island, a trip reserved for the men visiting allied tribes for regional potlatch parties.
According to her step-mother and grandmother, from one of these tribes that met for potlatch – either the Sootka or the Whe-el-kan or perhaps even the Kaw-Seth from the far north – one day would come her future husband.
“I am sure that by next spring after the candlefish run, you will be among the girls captured by the Crain-people,” said her grandmother Qkizacool one day as she sat preparing clams at the summer camp.
“Yes, this will be your season.”
But, her stepmother Klee-wik objected, “Uma-Kwee is too young to fly with the Crain-people this year. Two, maybe three seasons before her moon cycles begin. She is still a baby don’t you think?”
But, wise grandmother Qkizacool’s had a way of knowing in advance when something important was about to happen. When Uma-Kwee heard it spoken, she was sure that the mysterious path to womanhood was near. She grew excited about the possibility of sitting with the women weavers and singing the women songs when the men went away for the Great Island dances.
Her friends put forget-me-not flowers in her hair and playfully sang wedding songs and teased her about her future husband. She tried to imagine what the young brave who would take her as a wife looked like and wondered if he would be handsom. Her step-mother Klee-wik – who was about the same age as her oldest brother -- would only give permission to a kind and hardworking man who honored the way of the faithful spirits, she told herself.
That night after dinner, Uma-kwee and her grandmother warmed themselves before the cook fire on the beach at Kwath-killum camp. The women’s faces shown orange by the firelight as they listened to surf washing up on the beach like the beat of a drum keeping time to a peace song. She watched sparks fly up and disappear into the trail of stardust that cuts the floor of the sky world in half.
As she gazed up into the blackness, a single bright star caught her eye. The star seemed to shimmer green and purple and wink at her. The tiny light looked as pleasing to her as a mountainside flower on the banks of a snow-fed stream.
She thought, “If each of these stars filling the heavens were potential husbands, I would pick that one to marry if I could. He is the most handsom of all.”
Several times over the next nights that summer, she dreamed of swimming in Lake Serene up the stream from the village in the center of the island. The lake was surrounded by forests and berry fields and sparkled in the sunlight. As she dived in the warm waters, her long, black hair moved like billows of seaweed and when she surfaced, her head and torso glowed in the sunlight.
In the dream, she reached out to catch the starry points of light floating around her, but each star slipped from her grasp. The dream ended with her sitting on shore letting the sun dry her hair, brushing sand off her feet and feeling sand rush through her fingers like water. She had the swimming dream again and again, but was afraid to ask grandmother Qkizacool what it might mean.
In the late summer the people returned to Kah-sidaatsoos hauling many boxes of smoked fish and clams – more than enough provisions to last the winter. Summer ended and winter began when the salmon-people arrived in the river. On the days remaining before the fish run, the men devoted themselves to hunting deer and bear and the women gathered roots and herbs in the forests and meadows or made trips to the foothills to pick salal and blue berries.
These early fall days were often warm and best when it didn’t rain. It was a busy time when the family worked long days fishing and preserving fillets. The bounty meant that everyone would eat richly for months and when traders came from the eastern high valleys offering obsidian, beadworks, tobacco or sage leaves for barter, the prices would be affordable. The Duwam'ha people were not poor like some less fortunate inland tribes.
Ever since she was a little girl she looked forward to berry picking trips up in the foothills with her stepmother and grandmother and neighbor women. The women camped in temporary shelters and younger male cousins, armed with clubs and spears for protection, helped pack all of their gear for the festive root, herbs and berry gathering outings in the late summer when the evenings began to grow colder and the vine maple trees turned bright red like the backs of salmon. They climbed to grassy meadows on the sides of mountains that faced the ocean and sun all-day and cut by swift flowing creeks of snow-melted waters.
Most of the flowers were done, but yellow sunflowers still bloomed and Uma-kwee’s grandmother knew just where to dig to find an abundance of the prized camas bulbs. Deerflies, moths and yellow and orange butterflies chased them along the paths out of the fir forests and into the burning sunshine of the fall day. Conical spruce root hats kept them cool and they moved at a relaxed pace, singing the berry picking song.
Knelling among low growing berry bushes, shrubs and flowers, the women began to fill their large cedar bark baskets with plump red huckleberries or blueberries, first filling smaller individual containers then depositing the bounty into the large baskets carried on top of her mother’s head or strapped to backs of the other women. Her hands soon were stained purple – the sign of a hard working woman.
She worked with her grandmother Qkizacool who told her stories of her life as a young girl – like the time a black bear raided their picking camp at night and ate most of their berries before the men killed it the next day. She still wore the claws of that bear in her head band and spoke of how delicious the bear steak tasted. Her grandmother also remembered vividly her pre-martial capture by the Crain People and her marriage and life as a new wife and young mother. She learned all about her grandfather, a carver of bowls and spoons and a well known net maker, who died before she was born.
The sacred stories of long ago heroes and spirits were saved for the winter ceremonies out of respect for the trees listening in the forest. It was considered improper, if not dangerous, to speak about the spirits in the summer when the ghosts moved more freely among the treetops in the gentle winds and could be attracted by the mention of their names or hearing their songs. Better to speak of spirits in the cold of winter when the ghosts kept to themselves up in the mountain peaks and above snow clouds. Except for her thanksgiving prayers to the Great Spirit, Uma-kwee even tried not to think of the spirits in case they were listening to her thoughts.
One of her favorite places during hikes up to the berry picking fields on the mountainsides was the trail to Sky Ladder Waterfall – a place sacred to the people. The women often stopped to draw containers of healing waters from the pool at the base of the very large falls and on hot days enjoyed cooling off in the clouds of mist that drifted down from the roaring waters. To reach the falls the women followed the trail that lined a tiny side stream leading to the river.
Instead of talking or laughing among themselves as they normally might do, on the way to the sacred Waterfall, the women walked reverently and sang summer songs quietly until the sound of the falls overcame their voices. When they reached the river, they crossed the small stream on a log bridge and walked east up a narrowing valley along the riverbank until they arrived in sight of the half moon shaped expanse at the base of the roaring wall of water that held the deep pool.
From a distance, the falls looked like a shimmering dress made of pure white pelts draped over the cliff – as if the mountain set aside a piece of clothing. But, from the base looking up it did appear like its namesake -- a ladder reaching into the sky. She wished that she had the powers to climb the watery rungs up into the heavens. Uma-kwee always felt more alive to rest at this place -- the most beautiful of all places. She understood why young men and women on a quest came to pray in the mists of the falls.
She had heard reports by quest seekers of seeing visions in the rocks and once, while stopping to admire the scene, she asked her grandmother if the living rock stories were true.
Grandmother Qkizacool said, “Yes, the rocks of Sky Ladder Waterfall are magical and melt when your eyes are prepared to see.”
She revealed the secret means of seeing the rocks of the cliff behind the wall of cascading water move like living beings.
“Stare at the falling waters and sing the berry picking song. Do not blink or turn your eyes away from the sacred waters. When you come to the last refrain of the song, turn and look into the rocks next to the falls. You will see the stones come alive and move before your eyes.”
Next Chapter
According to her step-mother and grandmother, from one of these tribes that met for potlatch – either the Sootka or the Whe-el-kan or perhaps even the Kaw-Seth from the far north – one day would come her future husband.
“I am sure that by next spring after the candlefish run, you will be among the girls captured by the Crain-people,” said her grandmother Qkizacool one day as she sat preparing clams at the summer camp.
“Yes, this will be your season.”
But, her stepmother Klee-wik objected, “Uma-Kwee is too young to fly with the Crain-people this year. Two, maybe three seasons before her moon cycles begin. She is still a baby don’t you think?”
But, wise grandmother Qkizacool’s had a way of knowing in advance when something important was about to happen. When Uma-Kwee heard it spoken, she was sure that the mysterious path to womanhood was near. She grew excited about the possibility of sitting with the women weavers and singing the women songs when the men went away for the Great Island dances.
Her friends put forget-me-not flowers in her hair and playfully sang wedding songs and teased her about her future husband. She tried to imagine what the young brave who would take her as a wife looked like and wondered if he would be handsom. Her step-mother Klee-wik – who was about the same age as her oldest brother -- would only give permission to a kind and hardworking man who honored the way of the faithful spirits, she told herself.
That night after dinner, Uma-kwee and her grandmother warmed themselves before the cook fire on the beach at Kwath-killum camp. The women’s faces shown orange by the firelight as they listened to surf washing up on the beach like the beat of a drum keeping time to a peace song. She watched sparks fly up and disappear into the trail of stardust that cuts the floor of the sky world in half.
As she gazed up into the blackness, a single bright star caught her eye. The star seemed to shimmer green and purple and wink at her. The tiny light looked as pleasing to her as a mountainside flower on the banks of a snow-fed stream.
She thought, “If each of these stars filling the heavens were potential husbands, I would pick that one to marry if I could. He is the most handsom of all.”
Several times over the next nights that summer, she dreamed of swimming in Lake Serene up the stream from the village in the center of the island. The lake was surrounded by forests and berry fields and sparkled in the sunlight. As she dived in the warm waters, her long, black hair moved like billows of seaweed and when she surfaced, her head and torso glowed in the sunlight.
In the dream, she reached out to catch the starry points of light floating around her, but each star slipped from her grasp. The dream ended with her sitting on shore letting the sun dry her hair, brushing sand off her feet and feeling sand rush through her fingers like water. She had the swimming dream again and again, but was afraid to ask grandmother Qkizacool what it might mean.
In the late summer the people returned to Kah-sidaatsoos hauling many boxes of smoked fish and clams – more than enough provisions to last the winter. Summer ended and winter began when the salmon-people arrived in the river. On the days remaining before the fish run, the men devoted themselves to hunting deer and bear and the women gathered roots and herbs in the forests and meadows or made trips to the foothills to pick salal and blue berries.
These early fall days were often warm and best when it didn’t rain. It was a busy time when the family worked long days fishing and preserving fillets. The bounty meant that everyone would eat richly for months and when traders came from the eastern high valleys offering obsidian, beadworks, tobacco or sage leaves for barter, the prices would be affordable. The Duwam'ha people were not poor like some less fortunate inland tribes.
Ever since she was a little girl she looked forward to berry picking trips up in the foothills with her stepmother and grandmother and neighbor women. The women camped in temporary shelters and younger male cousins, armed with clubs and spears for protection, helped pack all of their gear for the festive root, herbs and berry gathering outings in the late summer when the evenings began to grow colder and the vine maple trees turned bright red like the backs of salmon. They climbed to grassy meadows on the sides of mountains that faced the ocean and sun all-day and cut by swift flowing creeks of snow-melted waters.
Most of the flowers were done, but yellow sunflowers still bloomed and Uma-kwee’s grandmother knew just where to dig to find an abundance of the prized camas bulbs. Deerflies, moths and yellow and orange butterflies chased them along the paths out of the fir forests and into the burning sunshine of the fall day. Conical spruce root hats kept them cool and they moved at a relaxed pace, singing the berry picking song.
Knelling among low growing berry bushes, shrubs and flowers, the women began to fill their large cedar bark baskets with plump red huckleberries or blueberries, first filling smaller individual containers then depositing the bounty into the large baskets carried on top of her mother’s head or strapped to backs of the other women. Her hands soon were stained purple – the sign of a hard working woman.
She worked with her grandmother Qkizacool who told her stories of her life as a young girl – like the time a black bear raided their picking camp at night and ate most of their berries before the men killed it the next day. She still wore the claws of that bear in her head band and spoke of how delicious the bear steak tasted. Her grandmother also remembered vividly her pre-martial capture by the Crain People and her marriage and life as a new wife and young mother. She learned all about her grandfather, a carver of bowls and spoons and a well known net maker, who died before she was born.
The sacred stories of long ago heroes and spirits were saved for the winter ceremonies out of respect for the trees listening in the forest. It was considered improper, if not dangerous, to speak about the spirits in the summer when the ghosts moved more freely among the treetops in the gentle winds and could be attracted by the mention of their names or hearing their songs. Better to speak of spirits in the cold of winter when the ghosts kept to themselves up in the mountain peaks and above snow clouds. Except for her thanksgiving prayers to the Great Spirit, Uma-kwee even tried not to think of the spirits in case they were listening to her thoughts.
One of her favorite places during hikes up to the berry picking fields on the mountainsides was the trail to Sky Ladder Waterfall – a place sacred to the people. The women often stopped to draw containers of healing waters from the pool at the base of the very large falls and on hot days enjoyed cooling off in the clouds of mist that drifted down from the roaring waters. To reach the falls the women followed the trail that lined a tiny side stream leading to the river.
Instead of talking or laughing among themselves as they normally might do, on the way to the sacred Waterfall, the women walked reverently and sang summer songs quietly until the sound of the falls overcame their voices. When they reached the river, they crossed the small stream on a log bridge and walked east up a narrowing valley along the riverbank until they arrived in sight of the half moon shaped expanse at the base of the roaring wall of water that held the deep pool.
From a distance, the falls looked like a shimmering dress made of pure white pelts draped over the cliff – as if the mountain set aside a piece of clothing. But, from the base looking up it did appear like its namesake -- a ladder reaching into the sky. She wished that she had the powers to climb the watery rungs up into the heavens. Uma-kwee always felt more alive to rest at this place -- the most beautiful of all places. She understood why young men and women on a quest came to pray in the mists of the falls.
She had heard reports by quest seekers of seeing visions in the rocks and once, while stopping to admire the scene, she asked her grandmother if the living rock stories were true.
Grandmother Qkizacool said, “Yes, the rocks of Sky Ladder Waterfall are magical and melt when your eyes are prepared to see.”
She revealed the secret means of seeing the rocks of the cliff behind the wall of cascading water move like living beings.
“Stare at the falling waters and sing the berry picking song. Do not blink or turn your eyes away from the sacred waters. When you come to the last refrain of the song, turn and look into the rocks next to the falls. You will see the stones come alive and move before your eyes.”
Next Chapter
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