George W. Aguilar, Sr.

Celilo Lives on Paper

IN ABOUT 1935, DURING MY early childhood days, a scene like the following was perceived. On entering my grandmother's old, three-room house, the first thing detected was the distinct fragrance of dried salmon heads and eels hanging in gunny sacks off the lean-to kitchen wall. A white flour sack containing dried snowbrush leaves used for medicinal purposes hung from a rusted spike among shadows from the dimly lit coal oil lamps. A wooden apple box nailed high on the east wall was used as a small storage cabinet, and on top of the box was a piece of knookt knook (Indian face paint made from a fungus, usually from a Pacific Silver Fir). The largest room of the house was both living room and bedroom. Plastered over cracks in the walls were World War I pictures from a discarded book. The frigid Northwest winter wind howled, and the glass windowpanes shuddered. Gusts of freezing air coming through cracks in the wall kindled the flames in the woodstove to a frightening roar.

Winter is the time when history is taught and legends told. Grandmother often recited stories that had been handed down from the peoples who passed on before her time, and she sometimes related childhood experiences of her own. These cherished memories sometimes come cascading down, and I'm reminded of the stories she told of when the river ran wild — of bountiful salmon runs that once existed on the Columbia River, of steamboat rides up the Columbia River, and of first automobile rides on the Columbia River Highway. Not knowing anything about the outside world, Grandmother's stories were intriguing to my young mind. Some of those stories of her experiences and early life have faded away like the silenced Fivemile Rapids and Celilo Falls, which have been unheard for nearly half a century.

One recollection takes me to the fall of 1935, when Uncle Henry brought Grandmother, Aunt Dorothy Polk, and me to Celilo Village. He resided there with Minnie and Abe Showaway and Minnie's mother, who lived at the village year-round, being permanent residents. Henry and Abe would bring several sacks of fall run Chinook salmon for the women to butcher, fillet, and prepare for air drying. On the rickety homemade butchering table, several salmon were quickly filleted into thin slices and hung on the air drying racks. The brightest, premium salmon were hand-picked for sale or reserved for trade with visiting tourists. I listened to the conversation between Grandmother and Minnie's mother, an old blind lady, about historical events of many bygone times, places to get certain grasses used for drying salmon, and so forth. In general it was just plain old lady talk. The language spoken was the Columbia River Sahaptin.

This photograph of drying sheds at Celilo Village was likely taken before the 1920s, when Highway 30, which ran through the middle of the village, was constructed. Here, the water is low and stabilized, most likely during the winter months. A light dusting of snow is on the high surrounding hills.

OHS neg., OrHi 67628

There were several other people sharing and living in this same dry shed, and everyone slept on the hard, flat basalt rocks. The other people were relatives and in-laws of the family. Each family group had its place in the open, four-walled dry shed, but there were no wall partitions; they all slept in a row on the western wall of the dry shack. Each family slept, ate, and stayed within the confines of its area. The outhouse for this living group hung precariously over a six-foot bluff, and human waste was all over the solid rocks. The rocks were also splattered with discarded rotting fish guts, and there were gobs and gobs of flies.

Two men stand at the bottom of ten- to twleve-foot board markers at the head of Fivemile Rapids. The water would rise as much as fifty feet in this area during winter snow melt. The village of Tenino is a few hundred feet from the bluffs.

OHS neg., OrHi 21651

The drying shed, located north of the main thoroughfare, occupied a strategic location along the highway going through Celilo Village. Minnie's older brother often sat near a pole pillar of the shed, constructing nets and other fishing equipment. There was a discarded car seat outside the weather-beaten drying shack, and children were ordered to sit there in case a vegetable and fruit salesman came to trade for a fresh salmon. I spent many hours just sitting, hoping they would trade for a good tasting Hermiston watermelon.

At other times, Grandmother took me for walks along Salmon Head Beach, located east of Celilo Village. Salmon Head Beach was so named because some people butchered and gutted their fish on the shallow river beach, and the guts and discarded fish heads caused a stench and a breeding place for flies. Grandmother sought small, smooth, flat rocks, and she showed me how to throw them onto larger ones in an attempt to split them in half to make a stone head for the hide-tanning stick. During this era, all conversation was in the Native language. The English language was spoken only to vegetable and fruit trading people and visiting fish-buying tourists.

Salmon fishing also occupied an important element in my early life. I have fished the salmon in a variety of ways, including Indian traditional set nets, roping, dipnetting, gaffing, spearing, gill netting, and deep sea trolling. My thoughts and desires time and again drift to earlier times of harvesting these awesome anadromous creatures.

At Fivemile Rapids or Long Narrows, also called The Dalles by exploring Frenchmen, the river ran through a narrow basalt channel during low water. The churning, heaving river ran all directions except upriver. The character of the river was never the same; it sometimes became very quiet, then with a sudden thunderous roar, the boil and whirl of the current would flow downriver or from one shore to the other. It was mind-blowing to behold the natural river while hanging off of the basalt bluffs, salmon fishing. The narrowest portion was about 300 feet wide, and it was as deep as 220 feet below sea level. The river's width literally turned sideways in the narrow channel.

This area has long been forgotten by many of the River People. The Wascos and people of Wishram (also known as Spearfish and Nixlúidix) had fishing places in this area, and it was one of the first places the Chinookan peoples gathered to harvest the early spring Chinook salmon. As the rising of the spring snow melt-off took place, the people moved upriver to Wasco Island, Whit-Com, Big Eddy, and Coyote's Fishing Place. On the south side of the river, between Five Mile Creek and the beginning of Fivemile Rapids, was an area of high cliffs that included favored fishing sites.

On the north bank at the lower end of Fivemile Rapids was a place called Big Eddy, and south of this place was a series of islands — Grave Island, Wasco Island, and Coyote's Island. Summer villages, Spedis and Wumsucks, were located on both sides of the river below Fivemile Rapids. During low water there was just the narrow channel, but during the spring snow melt-off, there were several narrow channels where many fishing stations were in use.

Colowash Bottom, east of Wishram and now known as Horse Thief Lake, was the dwelling place for the mythical child-stealing woman, Attatalia. At the head of Fivemile Rapids lived the mythical Nashlah, the man monster who gobbled people up as they descended the rapids. About a mile upriver was a burial island called upper Memaloose Island, followed by the little Dalles or Tenmile Rapids. Three miles above the latter on the southern bank was Celilo Village, or the village of the Waimpums, and directly across the river was the village of the Skeins; both of these villages were of the Ilkaimamt speaking groups (Sahaptins).

The deep, ragged, natural race in the bedrock at Fivemile Rapids has a long legend connected with it. The central idea of the story is that the rich people owned all the good fishing places along the main stream, and Coyote, out of the goodness of his heart, built the race so the poor people would have a place to take fish.

The head of Fivemile Rapids, where the Ilkaimamt speakers' Tenino village (also known as Tina'ynu) was located, was the ultimate fishery of the Wilmahl. Wilmahl is the Kiksht word for "river." Standing on the point, fishermen had back eddy set nets and dipnet scaffolds on both sides of the river. At these fishing stations, known as Coyote's Fishing Place, Indians perched themselves on scaffolds fastened to the basalt cliffs of the channel, awaiting the approach of a salmon during the spring melt-off. In a split second, a salmon was speared or netted.

Today, there is a sixteen-by-twenty-inch plaque at Celilo Park that shows an Indian on a fishing scaffold casting a dipnet. This image is the only reminder of when Celilo roared. All that remains of the Celilo fishery is a park developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where several trees have been planted to shade the recreationalists and windsurfers. On the plateau across and hidden from the main highway by the railroad tracks are a few run-down homes that were constructed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the few die-hard Indians who refused to relocate. An architect-designed longhouse has replaced some of the drying shacks of many years ago.

There used to be a restaurant located on the highway that went right through the center of Celilo Village, and it was very busy during the fall salmon season. Nearly all the old fishermen's favorite meal was hamburger steak and mashed potatoes smothered with brown gravy, all chased down with a bottle of Pepsi-Cola. In the late 1940s, the restaurant's blaring jukebox attracted teenaged Indian bobby soxers with their white t-shirts and their tight Levi's rolled up a couple of times into cuffs, keeping a toe tapping beat to the big band music of Glenn Miller. Once in awhile during the 1950s, Indian girls were heard in a sing-along with the jukebox, singing through their noses to a Hank Williams recording.

Card sharks of the Indian game wa-luc-sha (two-card Monte) preyed on unsuspecting bettors. Most experienced high-stakes bettors — especially those older, sophisticated ladies who came from the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho — detected these cheaters. High-stakes gambling stick games were held every night during the fishing season. Kaiutus Jim, from the Yakama Indian Reservation, ran the poker table, and his percentage rake made him a very good profit. As a rule, children played the dice crap games; most were as young as six years old, and they were razor-sharp when figuring the odds. The children were often heard shouting for their number to come at each roll of the dice. Sometimes an old wooden apple box was used for a backstop for the dice throwers. Wa-luc-sha and craps were usually played on a blanket spread on the flat basalt rocks. The individual who provided the blanket and gas lantern took a small percentage from the winning bettors at each throw of the dice.

On April 27, 1961, a plaque commemorating Celilo Falls Fishing Ground was unveiled by Flora Thompson. Wy-Am Chief Henry Thompson stands next to the plaque and to his left is Ida Wa-noo-kie, his sister. Henry and Ida were the only surviving children of Chief Tommy Thompson. The plaque was placed in the now Celilo Park and Rest Area, enclosed with leafy trees and planted lawn grass.

OHS neg., CN 001592

There was a romantic interest for some of these professional gamblers to be wherever there was a large Indian assembly. The same people, including the same FBI agents, journeyed to different reservations and showed up wherever there were celebrations going on such as the Pendleton Round-Up, the Celilo Falls spring salmon feast, and at Parker Dam, Washington, where people often engaged in traditional Indian gambling. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, large gatherings of Pacific Northwest tribes congregated at harvesting hop-yards and orchards at Moxee and Selah, Washington. The hypnotic beat of the British Columbia Indians' tambourine-held drums at the stick games were heard into the morning hours.

I also remember camping at Wot'socks, called "Lone Pine Indian Camp" by the white people, which was about three miles from downtown The Dalles. When my uncles established the camp, it was usually at the same place every year. When I was about seven, I would accompany the uncles and cross the Celilo Canal in a small rowboat to get to the early spring fishing spot of Coyote Hole and Itkach'a fishing place (Cement Scaffold) at Fivemile Rapids. There were many small channels just a few feet wide and about knee deep in places where eels would be ascending the small vertical basalt rocks. While the men fished for the succulent spring salmon, I harvested eels by simply wading to where they hung on rocks, pulling them off, and throwing them to dry land.

Gamblers play traditional pilyawit (Sahaptin term for gambling) at Celilo Village in 1954. The archaic use of clubs to beat boards is seen on the left of this photograph. Today, most traditional gambling is done by people seated on lawn chairs, wearing sunglasses, and using hand-held introduced tambourine drums.

OHS neg., CN 007242

Fishing stations at the Spearfish area of the Wu'caxm (Wishram) and the thrashing, boulder spitting of Coyote's Fishing Place (Fivemile Rapids) have now been drowned forever. The soul of the Columbia River has languished from the dead, chemically polluted waters and the salmon-murdering dams. The wild salmon runs have paid dearly with their blood and guts. In the late 1800s, canneries dumped offal into the pristine wild river that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark described in their journals of 1805–1806. Below the Seufert cannery's offal chutes near Fifteenmile Creek, many visiting Indians got their winter supply of salmon heads to air dry. Uncle Joe Esterbrook had his sturgeon fishing lines anchored below this place, which was an ideal eating and gathering place for the sturgeon to congregate.

On March 10, 1957, some Wascos were preparing to fish at their usual and accustomed places at Fivemile Rapids when they suddenly became aware of the rising of the water. The character of the river was unusual, because when the river rises, it usually gets very swift, and this water was both slowing and rising. They abandoned all their fishing gear on the spot. What they experienced and witnessed was the effect of the gates closing on The Dalles Dam.

I was told by some elders who watched the flooding of Celilo Falls that some wept when it happened, and Chief Tommy Thompson of the Wai-yam-pum said, "There goes my life." The Indians stood on the banks and watched until the last little small splash of the Celilo Falls was gone. The rumbling falls then collapsed into a tranquil deathly sleep, never more to make their roaring noises. The leaders who made the Columbia River dams celebrated the dams' benefits, but the Indians who stood far off mourned the river's death. Some wept for Celilo and Fivemile Rapids, the people's biggest life givers. Two years later, Chief Tommy Thompson — the last living icon of the Big River — passed away in a nursing home at an age of 104 snow-melt seasons.

Now, fifty years later, the Warm Springs and the rest of the Columbia River tribes — and even the Bushtin (white people) — are commemorating the flooding of the fishery at Celilo, still eulogizing the Wimahl when she stood tall in her grandeur. The backwaters of The Dalles Dam now consume the fishing stations at the narrows of the Fivemile Rapids. To the Wasco and the Wishram of the Yakama Nation, the area of The Narrows — Coyote's Fishing Place — was more economically productive than Celilo Falls was, since it was active year-round. Celilo was fished only in the late summer and early fall, depending on when the spring melt-off occurred, when the flood waters receded, and if the spring Chinook salmon run came early.

That day fifty years ago closed the books on Fivemile Rapids fishing activity. The fishermen who were flooded out stood far off and watched in distress as their fishing scaffolds floated off. All the prized fishing stations were covered by the rising waters in about four hours. In the river's dying struggle, the rumble of Fivemile Rapids was becoming no more, and when the last small riffle made its last small swish and splash, the river laid still and died. With the death of the river, many mythical stories also died or were forgotten. The flooding of the man-made Dalles Dam's backwaters has snuffed out some landmarks that told of many Coyote stories and legends. Most petroglyphs are now viewed only by the few surviving salmon, which are also struggling for life. A ghastly silence has reigned at this place for half a century.

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