Tribal Journeys 2010

We arrived at the Spring Tavern camp ground at Clallam Bay, WA, Sunday afternoon, July 18, and set up overlooking the Juan de Fuca Strait.

The next morning, while frying eggs, bacon, and hash browns, I noticed a pair of eagles in a spruce nearby.  One swooped down to the shore, grabbed carrion, and flew west, the other stayed to watch over us, a good omen, I thought.

After breakfast, we drove the 18 miles to Neah Bay and began checking out festivities.  On Bay View Avenue, dealers were setting up booths, selling arts and craps usual at Western shows and rodeos, but with a concentrations of North West Indian crafts. Food booths advertised fry bread, Indian tacos, and such.  In front of the Senior Center, Makah were cooking slabs of salmon to feed everyone that evening.

As the 3 p.m. official landing time approached, people congregated on the beach where a longhouse doorway platform had been constructed in front of the Senior Center.

 Strings of canoes approached from the east, pullers guiding each canoe on a victory lap in front of the beach and then to a line in the bay to await permission to approach from the officials in ceremonial robes and masks atop the platform.

 Canoes were filled with "pullers" from families, tribes, and nations with traditions on the water from Northwestern and Canadian shores; some had been paddling since July 3.

 "Canoe Journeys" started in 1989 when nine cedar dugouts were paddled to Seattle as part of the Washington State Centennial Celebration.  In Seattle, a challenge was presented to tribes to paddle four years later to Bella Bella, B.C.  Some three thousand people showed up.  Two canoes paddled from Washington State to Bella Bella and back, taking two months, covering about 1300 miles.

 Now major gatherings occur every year to share songs, dances, and culture, and to instill values to help combat threats to traditional life especially among the young.  This afternoon at Neah Bay, canoes grouped by region approached the shore and the skipper of each identified the group and asked permission to land.

 Many wore traditional dress and masks

but some represented more modern concerns.

 Indigenous people as invited guests were on some boats, including individuals from Greenland and New Zealand, and most surprising to us, Ainu, since we had recently in Portland purchased an Ainu bear carving.

The Ainu, who lived in Japan before the Japanese arrived, have suffered if anything harsher treatment from the dominant group than have Native Americans.  Japan formally recognized the Ainu as an indigenous people only in 2008 but the recognition carries no force of law.  These Ainu were visiting Canoe Journey 2010 to learn ways to establish political resistance to Japanese efforts to assimilate their culture.

 As permission was given, each canoe was paddled from the greeting site to the landing, and was carried ashore.

The official count was 86 canoes, most traditional cedar dugouts, but some Fiberglas and some planked, but most painted and many with elaborate carvings.  Some time after 7, we headed for the high school gym where the Makah provided a salmon dinner for several thousand.  After dining, we drove back to our camp.  It was late.

Tuesday we headed for the "longhouse," a structure some two hundred feet by seventy feet of steel girder covered with canvas, set up for the festival with rows of folding chairs and bleachers enough for perhaps two thousand.  From 10 a.m. to midnight on the remaining five days of the festival, each canoe "family" was given time in turn to present traditional songs and dance, share culture, reinforce connections, and to exchange gifts with their hosts as in a traditional potlatch.  Presentations ranged from amateur night at the local high school to breath-taking enactments of religious rites, from tent-camp revival meeting to religious revelation.  Each entrance followed the same protocol, the floor formally turned over to the group, each exit a formal request to be allowed to leave.

We arrived just as the Ainu were being introduced and some of their history told.  Another group  presented a raven dance that captivated both Deb and me.

We were entranced throughout with the masks and robes, of which many would put an Elizabethan dandy to shame, but enjoyed the dancing, singing, drumming and the protocol generally.  The chair of the Makah Council, members of the council, and Makah elders shared the stage with presenters and were often recipients of potlatch gifts.

 Since we could not understand the words, we were of course taken with the spectacle, which is reflected in the photographs I took.  Each group seemed to have a paddle song, but some groups had elaborated routines, masks and costumes.

The most stunning presentation, for us, was the revelation of the spirit world with masks that, we were told, had never before been taken from their home.  The audience was told that photographs could be taken for personal use, but should not be published or put on the internet, so except for the screen,

which you can see here, you'll have to look at my private album for the rest.  The presentation began with a screen being drawn across the entrance and a few tribe members in front drumming and singing.  Then as the drumming reached a crescendo, the veil dropped, revealing for a moment in all its splendor the spirit world, represented by an array of magnificent masks.  The drumming stopped and the screen raised.  The drumming resumed, a second crescendo, and the process twice repeated too briefly by far to gather anything but an impression of the importance of the moment.  Both Deb and I are sure we've seen a turn-of-the-last-century photograph of this ceremony--which we have not been able to find.

 Other presentations followed: dancing, singing, invitations to join in, gifts given (Deb received a bead necklace).  

As host nation, the Makah provided all week continental breakfasts and suppers for all, water and healthy snacks--apples, oranges, bananas--camping on the reservations for participants and volunteers, healing services--a spiritual healer, masseuses--portable showers, clean port-a-potties enough, and free golf cart taxi service.

We met interesting people, including two Makah women who once owned a jewelry store in Port Angeles, and an ER doctor from New York City researching material for a documentary on health care--she camped next to us.

 Wednesday evening about 10, protocol was suspended and the council chair announced that the last surviving Makah veteran of WWII, John Ides, had died earlier that day.  While the audience sat silent, the council met to decide the course of action, a messenger was dispatched to the house, and a family member called to say that John supported the Journey and its goals and would have wanted it to continue.  The council agreed, the floor was reconsecrated, a mourning song intoned, and the next family invited to participate.

Unfortunately, we needed to return home Thursday, so we couldn't stay.  It was a journey I recommend.  We both thank the Makah nation.