History of Washington Through Food: Return to Tradition

10/01/2004

There's a short song from the Makah tribe. The words are simple, "you have gone, you are going far away." The Makahs sang this five years ago when they resumed whale hunting. Elders say the hunt revived their culture, and reawakened interest in traditional food.

“We’re the small indigenous people in the Northwest…that hunt whales because it’s something that kept us alive for years and years. Being by the sea who would think that we wouldn’t be? “

OTHER TRIBES ARE TRYING TO RETURN TO TRADITIONAL DIETS FOR BOTH CULTURAL AND HEALTH REASONS. THAT’S THE FOCUS OF OUR FIRST REPORT IN A SPECIAL SERIES THAT EXPLORES WASHINGTON HISTORY THROUGH FOOD. KUOW’S RUBY DE LUNA EXPLAINS TRIBES ARE LOOKING TO THE PAST FOR CLUES TO HELP HEAL.

AT THE MUCKLESHOOT TRIBE’S OFFICE IN AUBURN, THE GROUND IS THICK WITH WILD GRASS AND WEEDS.

WARREN KING GEORGE: “This is the remnants of what was once a vast prairie located right here on the Muckleshoot Reservation.”

IT DOESN’T SEEM MUCH. BUT FOR WARREN KING GEORGE THIS IS A FIELD OF DREAMS…

KINGGEORGE: “I dreamt about it for nights and nights after I saw it. I was so excited I drug my wife out and brought her out the following week when I had free time… I said I want to dig some camus. I want to transplant this in my backyard.”

CAMUS WAS ONCE A STAPLE IN THE MUCKLESHOOT DIET. KINGGEORGE USES A SPECIALLY CARVED IRONWOOD STICK TO COAX THE BULBS OUT OF THE DIRT…

KINGGEORGE: “I thought I felt a stone… “

SOON HE’S REWARDED WITH A BULB, THE SIZE OF HIS THUMBNAIL. HE PEELS OFF THE SHELL TO TAKE A NIBBLE…

KINGGEORGE: “…like a cold potato without salt or pepper… turns like a gooey mashed potato in your mouth…”

CAMUS CAN NOW BE FOUND IN VERY FEW PLACES, BUT KINGGEORGE ENVISIONS A DAY WHEN FOODS LIKE CAMUS, QUAIL AND GROUSE MAKE A COMEBACK.

WARREN KINGGEORGE AND A NUMBER OF NORTHWEST TRIBES HOPE TO RESTORE A TRADITION OF VARIETY TO THE NATIVE AMERICAN DIET. THEY SAY IT ISN’T EASY, IN PART BECAUSE THE PERCEPTION OF HOW INDIANS LIVED HAS BEEN DISTORTED BY HOLLYWOOD. FOR EXAMPLE, TAKE THIS SCENE FROM THE 1970 MOVIE “A MAN CALLED HORSE.” A BRITISH ARISTOCRAT IS CAPTURED BY INDIANS AND TIED TO A POST. TWO WOMEN EMERGE FROM A TEEPEE TO OFFER HIM FOOD…

(Movie clip)
(Woman gives a bowl of food to English captive)
MAN: “Agh! It’s rancid fat. Don’t you have any dried meat?”

HISTORIANS SAY SCENES LIKE THIS CREATED A MISPERCEPTION OF WHAT A HUNTER-GATHERER DIET WAS TRULY LIKE…

PETER LAPE: “Your listeners might think of say, salmon as being a traditional Northwest Native American food… Well, when we look at archeological data, what we see in the past is actually a much higher diversity of food than what people talk about as traditional food now.”

PETER LAPE IS CURATOR OF ARCHEOLOGY AT THE BURKE MUSEUM. HE NOTES THAT TRADITIONAL DIETS INCLUDED WILD DUCKS, BERRIES AND GAME. THAT CHANGED OVER TIME WHEN THE WAGON TRAINS ARRIVED AND TRIBES WERE SEGREGATED ONTO RESERVATIONS…

LAPE: “A whole complex way of life was radically changed and altered and constrained. And ultimately it came down to what people are eating.” THERE WERE EFFORTS TO TEACH NATIVE AMERICANS TO FARM, BUT MANY RESISTED. FOOD CAME FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. COLL THRUSH IS A HISTORIAN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON…

THRUSH: “You see a lot of commodity food… and that’s really cheap, really bad food. Bad cheese, bad bread, lots of heavy carbs and fats. And that’s what people had access to, when they had access to food.”

TREATIES ASSURED INDIANS THE RIGHT TO HUNT AND FISH IN TRADITIONAL PLACES. BUT THRUSH EXPLAINS THEY WERE OFTEN RUN OFF BY SETTLERS AND SHERRIFS…

THRUSH: “For about 120 years, native subsistence practices were criminalized in Washington. The salmon are disappearing, the clams are disappearing, ‘it’s those Indians fault’, that was the state’s policy essentially. So people were being arrested for exercising those treaty rights.”

ON TUESDAYS YOU CAN SEE THE CONSEQUENCE OF THE CHANGED DIET. THIS IS DIABETES DAY AT THE TULALIP CLINIC IN MARYSVILLE.

“A little squeeze in the arm…”

PEOPLE DROP IN TO GET THEIR BLOOD PRESSURE AND GLUCOSE LEVEL CHECKED. NATIVE AMERICANS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO HAVE DIABETES AS THE GENERAL POPULATION. JUDY KIENZLE SUPERVISES THE TULALIP DIABETES PROGRAM. THE SAD THING SHE SAYS IS DIABETES CAN OFTEN BE PREVENTED…

KIENZLE: “Our slogan this year in this program is diabetes is not a tradition…. We just decided that needs to be our motto for the year; we may keep it forever because it’s very true. It’s not a tradition. It’s not a tradition in Indian people, this disease. It’s new in Indian country.”

THE TULALIP TRIBE HAS A CAMPAIGN TO HELP MEMBERS MAKE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN DIABETES AND DIET. HANK GOBIN, AN ELDER WITH DIABETES, IS PART OF THE EFFORT…

GOBIN: “Fifteen years ago I was told you’re borderline diabetic and I hadn’t even heard the word diabetic or diabetes before in my life. And I do remember that blood test... Ten, 12, 15 years ago I could’ve dealt with that but there was not that much cultural awareness.”

GOBIN ALSO REMEMBERS A VISIT TO THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM WHERE HE SAW TWO INDIAN SKULLS THAT HAD BEEN DUG UP FROM HIS RESERVATION…

GOBIN: “I do remember how I was just struck with the fact that both this mother and child had perfect teeth… no cavities and no deformities I was standing there thinking this must say a lot about the kind of diet that they had at that time…The lifestyle of our people a hundred years ago or 200 years ago was not a walk in the park but they had healthier diets and it was much easier for them to access the natural resources than what we have to go through today…”

GOBIN USES OLD BONES AND ARTIFACTS TO ILLUSTRATE HOW DIETARY AND LIFESTYLE CHANGES AFFECT THE HEALTH OF TULALIP INDIANS. AND IN AUBURN, AS WARREN KINGGEORGE CONTINUES TO DIG FOR CAMUS, HE EXPLAINS THAT A RETURN TO TRADITIONAL FOODS CAN HELP PRESERVE TRADITIONAL CULTURE…

KINGGEORGE: “… it gives you a sense of wow, I’m really doing something that’s actually not generated by Microsoft or generated by cable TV, I’m actually doing something that has been a practice for centuries, for generations and generations.”

FOR KINGGEORGE FOOD IS IDENTITY. I’M RUBY DE LUNA, KUOW NEWS.