Overview
Lesson 1: The Importance of the Land
Lesson 2: Trade among the Columbia River People
Lesson 3: European Contact and the Impact on Tribal Life
Lesson 4: Retaining Traditions
Lesson 5: Remembering the Ancestors
Standards
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
EL.CM.WR.21—Write biographical or autobiographical narratives or short stories.
THE ARTS
AR.CM.HC.03—Explain how works of art reflect the artist’s personal experience, environment, society and culture and apply this knowledge to one’s own work.
CD Segments to Play
Background
Among the people of Warm Springs, there are many elders who remember the old ways as told by their families. Adeline Miller is a tribal elder who was “born up in the mountains during huckleberry time.” She talks of a rustic childhood in the pine forests and sage covered hills between the Cascades and Deschutes River Valley.
“One I lived with was my mother’s aunt. She was one of the corn husk weavers. She’d make these great big root bags like you see in the museum. It’s the only place you see them now. But to them it was nothing to give it away to Indian trade, especially if they were having wedding trade. And she used to make her own dye. She wove her own twine out of that hemp.”
In addition, many tribal people are researching and learning more about traditions. Because so many techniques were lost or forgotten during the reservation experience, tribal members feel the importance of bringing back some of the old ways.
Pat Courtney Gold is a basket weaver who has revived the art of basket making through a long process of research. Now, she is an active and internationally recognized basket weaver and has encouraged the art as a means to remember the ancestors.
But it’s not just the arts that have been remembered. An important aspect of tribal and community life among the people of Warm Springs is remembering the respect for each other. Adeline Miller says:
[My mother’s aunt] “taught us to dig roots, to make sure we dug a lot because we had a lot of people we had to think about. She stressed very much, ‘Remember your elders that cannot get out and they’re shut in. They can’t go anywhere and they can’t get their own food anywhere. Remember them and you share.’”
ASK WARM SPRINGS REVIEW GROUP ABOUT THE APPROPRIATENESS OF INCLUDING INFORMATION ABOUT HUCKLEBERRY GATHERING
Suggested Strategies
Activities
Writing exercise
On a piece of paper, have each student list the important behaviors (values) their parents, grandparents or other family members have told them. These could be: respect, honesty, courtesy, etc. Then have the students read them out loud as a list is made on the board. Discuss how these values of today might be the same as for the Indian people before the coming of the European settlements. How might the values be different?
OBTAIN PICTURES OF WARM SPRINGS BASKETS WITH DESIGNS FROM THE WARM SPRINGS REVIEW GROUP. THESE WILL BE COPIED AN INCLUDED IN THIS LESSON
Discuss
Display the pictures of the baskets. Discuss the following:
What do you think the basket is used for?
How long do you think it took to make the basket?
What designs are there?
What do you think the designs mean?
3. Draw
On the basis of the basketry discussion, have the students draw a basket with designs and write a short paragraph about why they chose that design. Discuss that the basket weavers usually have a “story” that goes with the basket. The story could be of a commemoration, an event or about a certain person’s life.
HERE WILL BE ACTIVITIES THAT REFLECT THE INFORMATION HUCKLEBERRY GATHERING, IF APPROPRIATE
