Celilo Lives on Paper

Abstract

GEORGE W. AGUILAR, SR. Celilo Lives on Paper INABOUT 1935, DURING MY earlychildhooddays,a scene likethe following was perceived. On entering my grandmother's old, three-room house, the first thing detected was the distinct fragrance of dried salmon heads and eels hanging in gunny sacks off the lean-to kitchen wall. A white flour sack containing dried snowbrush leaves used formedicinal purposes hung from a rusted spike among shadows from the dimly lit coal oil lamps. A wooden apple box nailed high on the eastwall was used as a small storage cabinet, and on top of the box was a piece of knookt knook (Indian face paint made from a fungus, usually from a Pacific Silver Fir). The largest room of thehouse was both living room and bedroom. Plastered over cracks in thewalls were World War I pictures from a discarded book. The frigid Northwest winter wind howled, and the glass windowpanes shuddered. Gusts of freezing air coming through cracks in thewall kindled the flames in thewoodstove to a frightening roar. Winter is the timewhen history is taught and legends told.Grandmother often recited stories thathad been handed down from thepeoples who passed on before her time, and she sometimes related childhood experiences of her own. These cherished memories sometimes come cascading down, and I'm reminded of the stories she told ofwhen the river ranwild ? of bountiful salmon runs that once existed on the Columbia River, of steamboat rides up theColumbia River, and of firstautomobile rides on theColumbia River Highway. Not knowing anything about the outside world, Grandmother's stories were intriguing tomy young mind. Some of those stories of her experiences and early lifehave faded away like the silenced Fivemile Rapids and Celilo Falls, which have been unheard for nearly half a century. One recollection takesme to the fall of 1935, when Uncle Henry brought Grandmother, Aunt Dorothy Polk, and me toCelilo Village. He resided there with Minnie and Abe Showaway andMinnie's mother, who lived at thevillage year-round, being permanent residents. Henry and Abe would bring several sacks of fall runChinook salmon for thewomen tobutcher, fillet,and prepare 606 OHQ vol. 108, no. 4 ? 2007 Oregon Historical Society This photograph ofdrying shedsat Celilo Village was likelytakenbeforethe 1920s, when Highway 30,which ran throughthe middle of thevillage,was constructed. Here, the water is lowand stabilized,most likely during the wintermonths.A light dusting of snow ison thehigh surroundinghills. for air drying. On the rickety homemade butchering table, several salmon were quickly filleted into thin slices and hung on the air drying racks. The brightest, premium salmon were hand-picked for sale or reserved for trade with visiting tourists. I listened to the conversation between Grandmother and Minnie's mother, an old blind lady, about historical events of many bygone times, places to get certain grasses used for drying salmon, and so forth. In general it was just plain old lady talk.The language spoken was the Columbia River Sahaptin. There were several other people sharing and living in this same dry shed, and everyone slept on the hard, flat basalt rocks. The other people were relatives and in-laws of the family. Each family group had itsplace in the open, four-walled dry shed, but therewere no wall partitions; they all slept in a row on thewestern wall of the dry shack. Each family slept, ate, and stayed within the confines of its area. The outhouse for this living group hung precariously over a six-foot bluff, and human waste was all over the solid rocks. The rocks were also splattered with discarded rotting fish guts, and therewere gobs and gobs of flies. Aguilar,Celilo Lives on Paper 607 Two men stand at thebottomoften- to twleve-foot boardmarkers at thehead of Fivemile Rapids. The water would riseas much asfifty feet in thisarea during winter snowmelt. The village ofTenino isa few hundredfeetfrom thebluffs. The drying shed, located north of themain thoroughfare, occupied a strategic location along the highway going through Celilo Village. Minnie's older brother often sat near a pole pillar of the shed, constructing nets and other fishing equipment. There was a discarded car seat outside theweather beaten drying shack, and children were ordered to...