News

Famed Artist Maya Lin to Attend Blessing Ceremony

Fifty years ago, the construction of The Dalles Dam inundated Celilo Falls, a place that for thousands of years served as a site for Native Americans to trade, socialize, fish and perform ceremonial rituals. To observe this anniversary, Portland State Professor Katy Barber has organized “Celilo Stories,” a series of public programs to take place in spring 2007.

A public conference held at The Dalles, Ore., March 17–18, 2007, and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities will serve as the main event in an effort to recognize, honor, reflect and serve as a catalyst to engage Columbia River communities in exploring the history and meanings of an ancient meeting place. The Celilo Stories conference will feature more than 20 anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, artists, poets and scholars for presentations, discussions and informal conversations. Portland State’s Katy Barber (History); Virginia Butler (Anthropology); Craig Lesley (Center for Excellence in Writing); and William Lang (History) will be among the featured speakers.

Maya Lin, famed artist and designer best known for the Vietnam Memorial and artist for the Confluence Project (www.confluenceproject.org/) will also participate in a traditional blessing ceremony at Celilo Falls Park on March 18, 2007 to conclude the conference.

“The 50th anniversary of the death of Celilo Falls is an important time to remember the loss, but the conference hopes to instead commemorate the resistance and recovery of the land and the people,” said Katy Barber, PSU professor and director of the Center for Columbia River History. “The inundation of Celilo Falls symbolizes a larger series of losses to native people in the Northwest. Although most people recognize the cultural impact of 19th-century losses, fewer people are aware of the ongoing loss of Native American resources in the 20th and 21st century. Celilo Stories aims to open the dialogue between natives and non-natives on how to build better relationships in our shared communities.”

The conference is free, but pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Registration closes on March 1 and will be processed on a "first-come, first-served" basis. For more information or to register visit www.ccrh.org/calendar.php. For more information on Celilo Falls contact Katy Barber at 503-725-3979. Media interested in attending the event or requesting images should contact Mary Wheeler, Center for Columbia River History at 360-258-3289, or Angela Abel, University Communications at 503-725-8794.

Two other grants received for Celilo Stories include one from the Ray Hickey Foundation, which will support a teacher’s workshop held in conjunction with the public conference at The Dalles, focusing on teaching the history of Celilo Falls and regional treaty rights to local teachers. Humanities Washington also awarded a grant to support regional book programs at local libraries. Each library book group will read a book about the Columbia River and then get to meet with the author. Selections include Death of Celilo Falls; by PSU’s Katy Barber; River Songs; by Craig Lesley, professor of writing at PSU; When the River Ran Wild!, by George W. Aguilar; and Seven Hands, Seven Hearts: Prose and Poetry, by Elizabeth Woody. For more information www.ccrh.org/.

Partners in the Center for Columbia River History include Portland State University, Washington State University-Vancouver and the Washington State Historical Society.

Celilo Falls Background
For thousands of years, Celilo Falls was at the center of a vast trade network linking the coastal and plateau peoples of the Northwest to the buffalo hunters of the Great Plains and the foragers of California. Native people gathered at this meeting place every year to trade, socialize, exchange arts and ideas and participate in ceremonial rites such as the First Salmon ceremony, an event still held today. By the 20th century, Celilo Falls was a tourist spot famous for the sight of Indian salmon fishers dip-netting from wooden scaffolds above the roaring rapids.

In 1957, the rising waters of The Dalles Dam inundated Celilo Falls in order to gather the river’s powerful currents as a source of energy to fuel a new economy. The remade river now supports more barges and windsurfers, fewer Native fishers, and remnant salmon runs. Celilo Falls, although gone, continues to evoke stories about our relationship to our land, our history, and each other that remain powerful and contested.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (#07-016)

Source: Katy Barber (503-725-3979)
PSU Department of History