With the wind blowing hard, the lights flickering and the internet down, I’m reminded of the wisdom of Natives living for thousands of years in this land before the European invasion.
The snow paths that we had carved to cars and dog’s pasture are blown shut, and our Josephy Center, Davis Body Shop, and Vemco Fabrication are closed for the day. There are certainly others, but that’s what I got early from Facebook, before my internet went down.Read Rich’s Post →
‘etweyé·wise—Return
On Saturday, June 22, 2019, we dedicated a new sculpture at the Josephy Center on Main Street in Joseph, Oregon. Two years of preparation and the artisanship of Doug Hyde gave us a work he calls ‘etweyé·wise—which is an old word meaning “I return from a hard journey” in the Nez Perce language.
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| Sculptor Doug Hyde and the Returning Nez Perce Woman |
The walwa’ma band of the Nez Perce was forced out of this country in 1877, leading to a war in which the Indians fended off government armies for almost 1400 miles through some of the most rugged country in the West. They were within 40 miles of Canada when the armies caught the cold and hungry people. A promised return to the West became eight years in exile in Kansas and Indian Territory—what the Nez Perce still call the “hot country.”
The Nez Perce War survivors were allowed to return to the West in 1885, but not to the Wallowa Valley. Some went to Lapwai in Idaho, others, including Joseph and his close followers, went to the Colville Reservation in Washington, where descendants remain in exile today. Other descendants are scattered on the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon, at Lapwai in Idaho, in Canada, and on reservations and towns and cities across the country.
Artist Doug Hyde is of Nez Perce, Assiniboine, and Chippewa descent. He grew up in Oregon and in Idaho and studied and eventually taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and now lives in Arizona. His “Chief Joseph” is at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. and the Clearwater Casino in Idaho. Doug has worked and is working with many tribes to tell tribal stories in art.
On the dedication day we had big drums and tribal members from Lapwai and Umatilla, and others from the Colville Reservation in Washington. They–the walwa’ma band descendants, sang and prayed to open the dedication ceremony, the big drums played, there were speeches and tears–a local women, a Chief Joseph Days rodeo queen from 1952, came with a small object wrapped in cloth which she wanted to return to tribal members. It was a mortar found somewhere along the Snake River years ago. She thought it rightfully belonged to the Nez Perce people. And then, as is customary in Indian country, we shared a meal, including salmon of course.
As we ate salmon and watermelon and enjoyed each other’s company, people–native and non-native–went to stand by the bronze Nez Perce woman and have their pictures taken, or stood back from the granite slab where her cutout welcomes her home to get their own image of ‘etweyé·wise, this return from a hard journey.
Please, if you are in the territory this summer, come by to see us–and to look at the Nez Perce woman as she steps back into her ancestral home.
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Many of you in this blog-land get other information about the Josephy Center and our programs through newsletters, press releases and letters—including fundraising letters. Thanks to those of you who have made donations, attended exhibits and workshops, and brought children to Josephy Center classes. Thanks to all of you who read the blog posts—and sometimes even comment on them.
What follows is a brief account of what the Josephy Library does beyond the blog—and a specific appeal for Library support.
First and most importantly, we live the legacy of Alvin Josephy. Every day we tell people that American Indians are still with us; that Indians have always been agents and actors, and not wooden standbys in American History; that the history re Indians we’ve been fed in school texts is incomplete at best and often wrong; that Indian treaty rights are real and legal; and that Indians continue to contribute to the common good with activism and hard work, especially in the fields of natural resources, but increasingly in healthcare, politics, and other fields.
Blog posts are a small part of these messages. At the Josephy Center we bring in Indian artists and historians—a current exhibit uses historic photos from the Nez Perce National Park and the University of Idaho to imagine the Indian past. Some of it will be used in a small permanent exhibit aimed at showing visitors, local school children and citizens “who lived here and how they lived.” Brown Bag lunches next week will feature Nez Perce Fisheries on Lamprey restoration, and Cece Whitewolf on the cradleboard. A college intern has just begun bibliographic work on Nez Perce materials—why does that story resonate in book after book published today?
And then the Big Dream Project—we’ve passed the first round in a grant competition—to invite a Plateau Indian artist to create a three-dimensional work on our property or the adjoining street with his or her vision of what we should know about this place. It is weird at best that the large, bronze statue of Chief Joseph on Main Street in Joseph was created by a white artist from another place imagining a Nez Perce Indian in this place. It seems to us that some corrective is needed.
Friends told me before this Josephy Library became a reality that “libraries don’t make money.” That is painfully true—but it is also true that libraries promote knowledge and understanding, that we help ignite interest and passion in young people and nurture professional writers and lay readers in their work and avocations.
Our Library budget is roughly $50,000 of a $290,000 budget. We get some grants, but bibliographies and talking Western and Indian history to visitors from Idaho and Israel isn’t grant-flashy, isn’t a “new” program every year (although it is new conversations every day).
About 400 of you get notices of these blog posts. If half of you could find $20 or $30 to further our work; if those of you who make it to the occasional Brown Bag could drop in a $10 bill in the offering plate; if a dozen of you came to the Center for a basketry or beading workshop this month; and if a few of you who share these passions could send us $500 or $1,000—if, if, if… we might raise half of that $50,000 and make the grant writing and overall fundraising for the Josephy Center a walk on a new Main Street with Indian artists helping to tell the story of Indians, salmon, game, agriculture and culture in this wonderful Wallowa place some of us are privileged to call home.
To make a donation now, go to https://josephy.org/support-the-josephy-center-for-arts-and-culture/