“I don’t know whether I did it right,” Aunt Rena said to Grandma Gin.
“You did it right,” she replied.
“We can do it our way,” said Kelly.
Robert then took over as master of ceremonies, stuttering a little. He was silvered and portly, down-to-earth, and he wore a beaded, bear-claw necklace. He read a simple poem by a cherished elder and then told it like it was:
“These five young men that we have here today . . . we’re going to take this salmon down to the river and return it so that we may be able to enjoy this ceremony and the nourishment that it has brought to our people for, for, a lot of years.
“These young men have stepped up and volunteered to do this, and what is great about it, is that they’re going to pass on to their . . . maybe one day their children will want to be a part of it. These young men are somebody, or some, that we can be proud of. To step up and do this. Younger people that, that . . . to see them and know what they are doing is a wonderful thing.”
Rena jumped in, as a damselfly landed on her mottled hand and flickered away: “You young people—pardon me, Robert—listen to your elders, and you obey everything that your daddy teaches you. The tribal children, even the white ones . . . walk the straight and narrow, and when it comes your turn, and you’re grown up, you can carry on, and your children, and your children.”
Robert: “Before we do go down, there are some people who I would like for us to honor. Their names are in the program, so I’ll just go ahead and read them. Let’s keep them in our hearts and think of their families.
“Honoring friends in passing,” said Robert.
Donald Allan, Jr.
Barbara Davis
Robert Davis
Delbert Rainville
Deagan Season
James Sturgeon
Thomas Sturgeon
Florence Watkins
Melissa Wheelock.
In the coming year, Rena Cox would be added to the list.
Three boys gripped the tray, and two followed, and they led us through the tents and trailers, a quiet procession across pine and fir needle with the hum of generators all around. At the road, they looked both ways and went across to the river: their eyes on the fish, so the tray wouldn’t tip; and on the ground, so they wouldn’t stumble. Down the trail they shuffled, past stands of blackberry and stinging nettle, to a little graveled beach where Robert would speak of their common journey and responsibilities. I had been asked not to follow, not to take pictures, but I watched from above as they stood, knee-deep.
Behind me, the procession coiled into a circle in a small grove on the upper bank. Everyone held hands as Jessica spoke: “Grandfather, we ask you to protect these members of the tribe. We ask that you give them guidance, to lead them along a good path, a straight path. We ask that you give them the wisdom to face the tough choices that they’re going to have to make in their life. And we ask that you give them a caring heart so that they can listen to it and make the best choices, not only based on what is right in the world, but what is right in their souls.” Then the women began to sing.
The Cow Creek Band had lost track of much of its heritage during its fragmented years, but now it had come back together to re-educate its youth. In addition to the powwow, the band holds an annual one-day Culture Camp for about fifty kids, during which a batch of salmon is cooked the authentic way: on cedar staves over flame. As Teri described to me, a more traditional salmon ritual is also observed at the camp with a small audience on hand: “Everybody comes up and they take a bite of the fish, and then they put a piece on a cedar bough for their family, for prosperity and prayers. Seven or eight young warriors—boys that we choose—they’ll dive . . . it doesn’t matter what time of year. Each takes a bough, and they dive down to the bottom of the river and give it back to the river.” They place the salmon under stones.
But today the boys simply slid the metal tray into the river and the ragged skin was given over. They were braves now, their feet in a flow that could only be believed, not seen. From my vantage point, I could see the carcass release a cloud of mayonnaise, leaving a milky footprint on the waves. This was milt in its own right. I imagined bits of orange flesh scattering downstream among the cobble to waiting crawdads and rootlets, and perhaps the fry of wild salmon. Slowly the skin drifted. It hung on a ledge, unhurried, and then gathered steam, turning over like an old plastic bag toward the Pacific, toward the casino. The women finished chanting, and the boys climbed back up the stairs of the bank and were greeted by whoops and cries; and the salmon carcass flashed vaguely silver as it ghosted past two lovers sitting, hip to hip, on a mossy boulder above the South Umpqua.
When the boys returned to the campsite, each was presented with a long object bound loosely in blood-red cloth. Cautiously, around the same table where the salmon had just lain in state, they unwrapped the fabric to reveal eagle feathers—some golden, some bald. In this day and age, only tribal members and certain educators may legally own such a thing. With serious eyes, in the thick sage light, they held the quills’ hollow stubs and ran their fingers down the long vanes, smoothing and reuniting the barbs as if to make each feather perfect for flight. I wondered if they were picturing the six-foot wingspans of these birds—those whiteheads—that, on some rivers, gather by the thousand to scavenge the salmon that give themselves up to their progeny, to eaglets and boys.
Later I asked one of the boys, Scott, age twelve, from the nearby town of Riddle, if the salmon ceremony was important to him.
“When they honored me with the eagle feather,” he replied in a voice that approached silence.
Did he have somewhere in mind for it?
“In my dresser,” he said.
“Seems like a safe place,” I replied.
“I got’a go . . . ,” he said.
I asked another of the new braves, Trevor, if he was going to enjoy the salmon dinner that was on its way that evening. His cousin, DJ, there by his side, took the words right out of his mouth: “He doesn’t like it. He likes fish sticks.”
Trevor nodded solemnly.
At last, the time grew near. The salmon had been lifted by human hands at least fourteen times: Once when they were sorted at the hatchery. Once after they were killed. Once when they were unloaded at the casino. Once in its kitchen. Once to hitch a ride to the powwow. Once to be mayo’d. Once foiled. Seven times over the pit, in the hands of Barry McKown. Now they would be lifted at least twice more. Once so that their flesh could be harvested, mounded for the buffet; and one last time, on the tines of a fork.
They had remained an extra hour on the grate and finally cooked, and now Barry and others carried the radiant packets to another table. A box of latex gloves awaited volunteers. This time, I wanted to lend a hand, to earn my keep for the weekend. Unwrapped from the aluminum and its own blue-gray skin, the flesh was at first too hot to touch and shrunk the plastic around our sweating fingers. But we managed to loosen the meat, with the help of spatulas, all of us reaching onto the table. Hands working over these lemon-adorned bodies, beautifully destroyed, their bones minted at sea. “Those aren’t bones,” said Jessica. “Those are Indian toothpicks.” We plied and piled those pastel chevrons, mortared with ocean fat, onto silver trays to serve to the tribe at large. The sweet, clean-smelling steam rose visibly in the warm air.
For six months, following a strong, or perhaps weak, moment just after New Year’s on a subway platform in New York City, I’d been an honest vegetarian. But as I picked over the soft fish, my fingers lifted an orphaned piece to my mouth. First one stray flake. A minute later, a second. Then the floodgates opened, and it was all I could do to keep my lips off the sticky gloves. Even in death, these salmon were the antithesis of dry, and tasting them, I felt, like everyone else present, that here was our own flesh come back to us, with a hint of mayo. Those boys