Spotlight on Affiliates

The Museum at Warm Springs

By Eliza Elkins Jones

Spotlight on Affiliates The Museum at Warm Springs The Museum at Warm Springs P.O. Box 753 2189 Highway 26 Warm Springs, OR 9776 1 Phone: (541) 553-3331 Fax: (541) 553-3338 Web site: www.warmsprings.com/museum OHS Affiliate since 2005
A new exhibit at the museum at Warm Springs, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, commemorates the anniversary of the signing of the Middle Oregon Treaty of 1855, emphasizing the meaning of the treaty and of the ceded lands to the Tribes. The Warm Springs Reservation — where the Wasco, Paiute, and Walla Walla (later called Warm Springs) tribes live today — was established by a treaty signed on June 25, 1855. In that treaty, the tribes ceded millions of acres of land bordering the mid-Columbia River and the east flank of the Cascade Mountains, where petroglyphs and pictographs created by their ancestors remain today. Jim Henderson recently photographed some of those works of art, and the Museum at Warm Springs used his photographs to create They Still Speak to Us, a permanent exhibit at the museum.	1
Poetry by Elizabeth Woody, quotes from the Lewis and Clark journals, and excerpts from the negotiations of the 1855 treaty signing are printed on banners hanging in the museum's entrance hall, providing visitors with an emotional timeline of the Confederated Tribes' history. The hall leads visitors into the space for rotating exhibits. The current exhibit, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, will give visitors an understanding of the variety of work done by the Confederated Tribes. Curators have worked with different entities of the tribes — including the casino, fish hatchery, and forest products and hydro industries — to create exhibits about the work they do today. Travelers are encouraged to spend time in Warm Springs visiting the places represented in the exhibit.	2
Using Dawes Act allotment records, Warm Springs tribal elder George W. Aguilar, Sr., was able to positively identify everyone in this photograph taken in 1896: James Polk Sr., Ramey Sidwalter, John Polk, James Polk Jr., Henry Polk, Wy-ax-teshe, Nellie Polk, Betsy Polk, Hattie Polk, Kate Pitt (Ramey's sister), Ada Thomas, and Freddie Holloquilla. Aguilar came across the photograph — part of the collection at the Museum at Warm Springs — while doing research for When the River Ran Wild! (see pages 272–283). Courtesy Museum at Warm Springs
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow exhibit will be at the museum from June 23 until September 11. Throughout the summer, the Museum at Warm Springs will hold arts and crafts demonstrations by tribal members each weekend and dance demonstrations once a month.	3
For over thirty years, the Warm Springs tribes have allocated thousands of dollars each year to buy artifacts from members and families, resulting in a collection that is one of the most complete owned by an Indian Tribe. The collection is augmented by twenty-five hundred photographs, some dating as far back as the 1850s, and original documents and published books about the history and culture of American Indians. The museum's extensive collection of artifacts has recently been moved into new archival shelves and units and will be open to public researchers at some time in the future.	4

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