Last weekend the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian reservation celebrated the 163rd anniversary of their 1855 treaty with the US government, Pi-Ume-Sha.
Located in what us Portlander’s call ‘Central Oregon’, Warm Springs is the kelly green area in the upper middle of this map.
A closer view.
The 1855 treaty shrunk the Indian’s land from over 10 million acres to about 640,000.
The pink shows their original territories and the orange the reservation.
But the Indians were wise, they made sure that the treaty protected their right to hunt and fish and gather food from all of their ancestral homelands.
When negotiating the treaty, Sim-Tus-Tus, said,
“The De Chutes has sustained us in fish. The Falls where we catch the fish, we should like to reserve it. You have seen our country where we get our roots, this is the country that I spoke about. I wish to keep the section of the country beyond the Tugh about the Mutton Mountain and between the Mutton and Jefferson Mountains, where we gather our berries…”
This is what Pi-Ume-Sha celebrates.
The reservation includes land from the dry desert,
the Warm Springs river,
and valuable forests.
For the past 49 years, the tribal members have celebrated with a PowWow.
A weekend of feasts, a rodeo, horse racing, boxing, a golf tournament, softball and traditional dancing,
Competitors lined up in their regalia.
The best dancers can win cash prizes, these guys are serious.
And a parade!
With the local police and fire department playing songs with their sirens.
Really!
Handing out candy to the kids.
What a fabulous month I’ve had, visiting both Oregon’s cowboys and the Warm Springs Indians.
Thanks you to the tribal members of Warm Springs for putting on such a fabulous event.
A photograph from the Museum at Warm Springs Museum of tribal members.
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Trip to the Oregon Desert
An invitation from this handsome man, Kenyon, an 88 year old, working cowboy, to come down to Christmas Valley for dinner and old time cowboy stories.
Yes! What an honor to be included.
Christmas Valley, a small town in Southern Oregon’s desert country.
To get there, drive south through central Oregon, past Bend to La Pine, then, turn east, onto a winding road through the pine filled Deshutes National Forest.
64 miles later, the Oregon desert.
Sagebrush and big sky.
Keep going, past this amazing structure, Fort Rock, and on to Christmas Valley.
This area was immortalized in the book ‘The Oregon Desert’ by authors Reub Long, a rancher, and E R Jackman, a retired Oregon State University extension agent. It’s full of stories about the ranchers, sheepmen and cowboys and their life in this place.
Reub Long’s many acre ranch included Fort Rock. In 1962 he gave it to the state, it is now a designated national natural landmark.
Reub Long died in 1974, he is buried in the little cemetery next to Fort Rock.
Visitors leave mementos, rocks, pieces of old bottles, horse shoes,
coins, flowers and a pice of wood with a brand on it. [His? “probably”, said the old timers I asked.]
Alfalfa is the main agricultural crop. Irrigated by an underground aquifer, circles of green are scattered in the valley.
After a morning of natural wonders, it was time for the big event.
At the Christmas Valley Lodge, Cowboy Stories.
These folks are the real deal, the hats confirm.
Pot roast and potatoes, $10. Delicious!
Lots of people came by to pay their respect to Kenyon, the man of the hour.
All generations.
After ‘tall tales and lies’, Kenyon ended by calling up a guitarist and sang ‘Blood on the Saddle‘, a Tex Ritter classic.
Thank you Kenyon for an fantastic weekend!
To you, your friends and neighbors and the people of Christmas Valley, you are all amazing.
Want to know more about this part of the country? And see some archival recordings with Reub Long?
Check out this Oregon Public Broadcasting documentary: Reub Long’s Oregon Desert which includes interviews with Kenyon, who knew and worked for Long.
Here We Go!
OK! It’s for real now.
The sky is bright blue, then minutes later, clouds roll in, the heavens open and the rain falls. Just as quickly, it’s over. The clouds are gone and the sun is shining like nothing even happened.
Flowers are everywhere, in carefully cultivated gardens and in abandoned backyards, up in the trees, underneath in lawns and between the cracks in the sidewalks.
There is no denying. It’s Spring.
My challenge: stay inside with my beautiful silks and sewing machine, [just tuned up and in tip top shape],
or,… head outside to all of this.
Everywhere I look,
early peonies,
Lilacs, they seem to live forever.
Out in the countryside when you see an old lilac all by itself, alone in a field, it’s an indication that there was once farmhouse there, now long gone.
Rhododendrons, just starting to open.
Or in their full glory.
Rhododendron Williamsianum, [no relation…]
It is so beautiful out there!
I cannot resist.
