Naamí Tmnanáxt - Out Story
Upbringings
We’d sweat to cleanse ourselves, we’d plead through ceremonies for plentiful seasons to come, elders prayed in their languages, singers earned their songs, supporters brought bundles to share, children were disciplined by whip women and whip men, the foods were followed, the animals shared and showed, and our eyes, ears, heart, mind, and spirits had to be open to learn.
Our many elders have since passed on. Their children and students that remain involved share with youth and community members the teachings bestowed upon them. Some of the teachings have since passed on with the elders whom held those understandings in their heart, leaving generations with less to follow and more to seek.
Tribal Encouragement
In 2009, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs acquired a 36’ canoe and the community began coordinating the grassroots efforts soon after. Established as the ‘Nchi Wanapum Canoe Family, an alcohol and drug free Family Program of the Columbia River where students and teachers of culture, youth and elders come together in one full circle.
Each summer, the group ventured with thousands of Northwest Tribal community members on a journey to a Tribal Community on the Pacific Ocean by way of canoe, taking near 2 – 3 weeks for Columbia River Tribes. The Canoe Journey helps young people to revitalize cultural practices and become educated amidst a circle of sobriety and prevention. The Canoe Journey was started in 1989 with 5 canoes and has since grown to over 100 Tribal Canoes annually. Along the way we share our culture and knowledge with host nations and communities and have our largest giveaway at our final destination.
We have attended 10 canoe journeys and 1 to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. We have reached over 500+ participants, performing old dances, songs, and stories of the Mid-Columbia River region in partnership with villages, communities, and families.
In teaching the old songs, dances, and stories, we were missing a major component, the understanding of our languages and dialects. Elders kindly pressed the issue to learn and understand the meanings and significations of what we do and why we do. The answers prospered in our language. Members and participants began seeking out our languages.
We began taking classes with local cultural language programs consisting of some amazing elders, teachers, and programs. Supported by elders, programs, and linguists, we were soon off, acquiring and attaining proficiency in our dialects. But we were on a race against time. Elders and speakers exist throughout the Pacific Northwest and the opportunity to pursue relationships with such people and wisdom keepers required us to think further outside of the box to reach them.
Founding
In 2019, after Paddling to Lummi Indian Nation, we established The Columbia River Institute for Indigenous Development (CRÍID) Foundation, a 501© 3 Non-Profit Organization. Our primary focus is on preserving, sharing, and advancing Columbia River Customs and Language through community collaboration and engagement. We document language, train teachers, produce curriculum, teach students, administer games, support health, and strengthen spirit. Our other intensions were to help the Columbia River Tribes host for the first time ever a Canoe Journey in the year 2023. Due to Covid-19, we have since allowed for tribes and nations to host in the year 2023 who had already planned to host in the year 2020 and 2021, which have since been re-scheduled due to Covid-19.
Today
While no longer planning to help host Canoe Journeys 2023, we continue to focus on the Ichishkín language, arts, spirit and health. As we grow, soon we will include traditional games and tribal sports.
Having built the largest Ichishkín Language Database, we continue to reach elders and speakers of the Ichishkín Language. We hold conversations each week in the language to remain fresh and tentative to students and teachers acquiring language and knowledge.
We consult cultural youth programs and circles to welcome new and experienced youth and teachers to share and grow together.
We provide support for language arts programs throughout the region.
We help organizations acknowledge their original peoples and nations of their surrounding communities.
We share language, history and culture with audiences kindergarten to professional.
We partner with educators in raising the bar to excel in their instruction and curriculum.
We seek partners invested in Ichishkín Language, history, customs, and arts.
We nurture new and established relationships with elders throughout the Columbia River Plateau to acknowledge their lives, their experiences, and their wisdom to be passed on to the next generations through our programming.
We remain together in how we revitalize our language, culture, customs and creativity, seeking every student, teacher, and advocate to get involved.
We connect nations to communities and vice-versa.
We provide a sense of place, identity, and community throughout our region to respect our environments and the generations that interact with it.
We believe in sharing to encourage generations.
“Our language is the root of our identity and cultural practices, where within are the understandings of our creation stories and our relationship with the creator.“
- Jefferson Greene, Executive Director
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The Columbia River was once named Wimáł, Pabahúudu, and ‘Nch’í Wána by the tribes and bands that had been along the river since time immemorial. The water connected them directly to the lands, the rivers, the lakes and the creeks for thousands of years having learned from the animals, the seasons, and the elements.
Upon the arrival of sickness and immigrants, a significant change took place throughout the lands. Native, Indigenous, and (what immigrants called) Indian populations dwindled. Dark clouds were over the people for quite sometime as the establishing United States (U.S.) continued to inspire immigrants to flock to Indian territories and intrude upon sacred spaces. Word spread throughout the region of the invasive cultures coming from throughout the world. Tribes and bands adapted through their inherited resiliency, but invasive cultures began fencing and bordering-off the once open and vast root digging and hunting grounds of the Indigenous Peoples.
The U.S. treaties officially worked to remove the Indians from their homelands, and fearing for their lives many Indians relocated to the reservations far away from the Columbia River. Very few bands and families remained along the river and its tributaries. Tribes, bands, leaders, and chiefs continued to voice opposition having incurred death and forced assimilation. Their cultures and languages were fading into the past.
Some tribes and communities began documenting the languages and cultures while also teaching what was outlawed. Only until 1990 President Bush signed the Native American Language Act, giving all Native Americans the green light to finally study their own languages that had been physically beaten out of the Native Children through the boarding and reformatory schools of the 18’ and 1900’s.
The Columbia River Institute for Indigenous Development (CRÍID) Foundation was started to help with the revitalization and preservation efforts to save our languages, cultures, and identities throughout the region.
“Community is about valuing those involved. We are inspired by our participants, students, teachers, and advocates who work together in providing a safe and memorable experience for all. We encourage aspiring leaders, teachers, and students to join us in changing and strategizing how we preserve our own identity.”
-Jefferson Greene, Executive Director
Upon arriving to the Indian Reservations, Indians had been so far removed from their homelands. Tasked with keeping their language and traditions alive, each band and tribe did the best they could amidst an ever changing world. Some assimilated into Euro-American livelihoods away from the connection to the seasons, the animals, and the territories while other remained as connected to their humble beginnings, it was all they knew.
There has been different revitalization efforts put forth throughout the years, implementing dance groups, bands, camps, classes, programs, and contributing to several write-ups and publications conveying life as it is, or was.
The 1980’s were quite a time of observation. Little did we know we were watching the very last elders give testimony and teachings as to what was to come. We were of many different ages at that time, some much older to understand, others too young but with open minds, hearts, and ears full of curiosity.
We danced, sang, celebrated, watched, and learned as our elders then and after shared and encouraged our generations to never lose site of where we come from for us to learn where to go.
Now, we are still doing the best we can and look forward to connecting with those interested in contributing to this very story.
Prosanna ‘Prunie’ Williams, Bernice ‘Saikya’ Mitchell, & Verbena ‘Susuwaipam’ or ‘Grandma Beans’ Greene.
A picture taken many years ago of them providing prayer services to a family. The photographer may not have known to not take pictures of prayer.