Memoir
A hare’s breath or a hair’s breadth?
I’ve come that close to the edge so many times.
I choose the sweet hare’s breath then use her whiskers to measure how nearly I’ve come to missing my appointment with destiny.
In old age, I decide I’ve made it to the end and the right place by a nose.
(Upon mishearing Edna O’Brien this morning on the Diane Rehm Show.)
Bipedalism is Uncritically Accepted as a Given Among Humans
“Walking assuages or legitimizes…alienation.” Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit July 32 2014
I did not crawl.
Some say that’s a shame
And did something to the development of my brain.
I struggled gravely,
Against gravity,
To stand on two hind legs.
Alone, I overcame my fear of edges
And countless other obstacles
Then walked across a carpet to my smiling Nan.
This monstrous victory was applauded
And from that I learned
That going against nature
Has its own rewards.
The Story of the Cover / Katie Gale
LLyn De Danaan in collaboration with Justine E. James, Jr.
At a recent Pacific Northwest history conference in Vancouver, Washington, I was given a small display table in the sales room so that I might attract and talk with attendees about my book, “Katie Gale: A Coast Salish Woman’s Life on Oyster Bay”. The focal point of my modest exhibit was an 11 x 17 laminated poster of the book’s cover. I’d just finished standing the poster on its easel when I saw an old acquaintance across the room. He had me in his sight and was making his way across the room. He had a rather coy grin on his face. Everything about that smile and his eyes signaled that there was something he knew that I didn’t. It was Justine James, Jr., a cultural resource specialist with the Quinault Indian Nation and someone whose personal cultural roots within the coastal nations are deep. James pointed at the cover photograph on the book poster, a float house on a body of a water with mist banded highlands behind. The photograph is stunning, made by a once well-known Seattle photographer Kyo Koike. Koike was a founder of the Seattle Camera Club, a group of Japanese-American pictorialists in the 1920s. Their work was shown around the world and widely published but their reputations diminished with anti-Japanese feelings during WWII. Koike was incarcerated at the Manzanar facility in California. His health apparently failed while there, though he was busy writing poetry and encouraging others to do the same throughout those harsh years. He died in 1948. There are others whose names are more commonly known as regional photographers from the early 20th century (such as Ashael Curtis and Imogen Cunningham) but Koike was right up there with them and held in high esteem. His work is exquisite. From the notes in University of Washington Special Collections archives, I knew the year the cover photograph was made but there was nothing to confirm location. I sent the photograph to the University of Nebraska Press with others I thought important to my book because it was the best, most detailed photograph of a float house I had found. Though the image was made in the 1920s and the principle stories of my book are set before 1900, I knew enough about float houses to surmise that this one was built and lived in within the right time frame. The designers at University of Nebraska selected this beautiful photograph, originally spotted, serendipitously, in a University of Washington alumni magazine by my friend Connie Ruhl, as the cover for my book. The image, they thought and I agreed, would draw a potential reader’s attention and evoke a certain mystery. There was no doubting that.
James pointed at the photograph and said, “How’d you pick that photograph?” I knew he had a story to tell. He smiled again. Then he sat beside me. And I waited. I was almost as excited as when I first saw Katie Gale’s tombstone, a life changing moment described in the first chapter of my book. “That’s my great great grandmother’s house,” he said. She was known as Sally Freeman though her full name was Sarah Shileba-Legg.
James’ story of Sally Freeman, while wonderful family history, is one that that exemplifies the dynamic relationship between and among coastal people and the United States Government. It is also a story of a burgeoning tourist industry that brought people to enjoy the wild Olympics, fish with Quinault guides, buy Indian baskets, and even enjoy the spectacle of story and performance provided by the Quinault people, including Justine James’ forbears, within the cavernous lobby of the splendid Lake Quinault Lodge. Indeed, James’ father and father’s siblings sang, danced and drummed for the Lake Quinault Lodge guests and were paid with what money was tossed into a blanket at the end of their display. James’ father said that Sally Freeman, James’ great great grandmother, the woman who lived in the float house, often sat in the lodge weaving baskets and talking with tourists. Sally Freeman was well known in the area during her lifetime. In fact, she helped to dedicate a new Lake Quinault Lodge in 1926 (built after a fire destroyed the first one), James recalls. Her photograph, with the note that she “blessed” the lodge, appears in “A History of Lake Quinault Lodge” by R.H. Jones. Jones, as well as family members, recall that the wife of the owner of the lodge and Sally were good friends.
One of the few known photographs of Sally Freeman was featured on a 1937 Lake Quinault Lodge Christmas card.
The float house, “constructed entirely of cedar shingles and boards,” James says, was built before or around 1890, most likely on the Gatton Creek Cove site, near the mouth of Gatton Creek. Gatton Creek is a stream that drains into Lake Quinault on its south side. The James family have occupied and used that site for many generations. Lake Quinault covers an area of nearly six square miles and is 3.79 mile long. It is located in the Quinault Valley and is the property of the Quinault Indian Nation. The Quinault River Treaty was signed in 1855 and was one of territorial governor Isaac Stevens’ treaties that sought to consolidate many tribes or bands on reservations. Quinault and others who were assigned to the Quinault Reservation on the coast continued to pole their canoes, as they always had, up the Quinault River to reach the lake to fish. They often used the lake as a stopping off place and seasonal “base camp” on their way further into the mountains to gather berries or hunt or obtain basket-making materials. The majority of the seasonal camps were at the outlets of streams on the south shore of the lake, according to James’ father, Justine James, Sr. Other camps were at the mouths of the upper Quinault River and the lower Quinault River. The “north shore was very turbulent,” James, Sr. says, “so the only occupied area was near what is now (called) July Creek.” From these camps, groups ascended to high country for elk and deer, berries and spirit quests. Others would stay in the lower regions to gather bark, bear grass and edible roots. “They returned to the Lake Quinault base camps around September to harvest the ‘Blueback,’ (Sockeye) the most prized of salmon.” The lake lies within the Olympic rainforest. The surrounding forests can receive up to 130 inches of rain a year. The original forest was dense with Douglas fir, western red cedar, pacific silver fir, Sitka spruce, and western hemlock. The lush undergrowth includes ferns, salmonberry, thimbleberry and many other useful and beautiful native species. The glacier fed Quinault River still hosts steelhead, cutthroat, coho, and Chinook as well as sockeye. These fisheries are managed and regulated by the tribe in an increasingly fragile environment that includes receding glaciers. The Quinault are investing heavily to save the runs and protect the habitat on the Upper Quinault.
This attractive area didn’t stay isolated from white settlement and development for long after the treaty was signed and the reservation was established.
By the 1890s, the peninsula and the rain forest area were the site of many land claims. A lake front store was opened in 1891. Lake Quinault was soon a destination point for tourists. Amenities were offered in a well-publicized log hotel. After a fire in 1924, a new and grander hotel was built and is still in business.
Jake Freeman, of Chinook, Hawaiian, and African American came to Taholah around 1905 where he was eligible for an allotment on the Quinault Reservation through his mother. Little is known about his Hawaiian and African American ancestors but the name “Freeman” suggests that his family were former slaves. James says that Jake’s mother was Chinook and that Jake was apparently a fisherman and handyman who found good work around Taholah, the Quinault coastal village, and Lake Quinault. He married Sally, James’ great great grandmother in about 1910. “In the early days,” James says, “the occupants of the houseboat were Sally’s immediate family; then later, after grandfather David’s parents passed way (he was orphaned by the age of five) he moved in with grandmother Sally. “ Grandmother Clara Bremner (from the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana) joined David and they and their four children lived with Sally. Justine James’ father was the youngest. After his grandfather David divorced, he remarried and “brought two more boys” into the household. James’ dad and his brother Shillup stayed on the float house but their sisters went back to Montana with their mother. Three more daughters came along following David’s second marriage.
Jake Freeman was apparently Sally’s third husband. She was the daughter of John Shul—whul according to James and based on Quinault allotment files. She was born around 1865.[1] Her first husband was Charles James and the second was Charles Mason, known as Chief Taholah II and Captain Mason. She was known as a basket maker. The recent book, “From the Hands of a Weaver”[2], notes that her daughter Maggie Kelly, born in 1886 and also a noted basket maker learned by watching her mother, Sally, and her grandmother Sally Chepalis.
Living on the lake, Sally Freeman would have had ready access to many of the materials she needed for her work and a place to process and dry these. Of course, as James’ father says, “Indians were travelers.” They traveled to acquire resources all throughout the Pacific Northwest. For example, James says, the Quinault River did not have a spring salmon run, so groups went to the Columbia River for to fish.
Sally Freeman was trained in the old ways, James says, and would swim across the lake in the mornings, winter and summer. That was a one to one and a half mile swim from Gatton Cove to Bergman’s Resort, now The Rainforest Resort. Each year, she poled her way up the river from Taholah to reach the lake and her float house. That was likely a two-day trip. Sally Freeman was clearly a strong and capable woman with many talents. Perhaps very like Katie Gale herself.
The day we visit Gatton Cove to see the site from which the cover photograph was taken, the lake is calm, the water is low, and we can see the forests and snow packed mountains that rise from the river valley across the lake to the east. These cannot be seen in Roiko’s photograph for the mist that often lies low on the hills. Up on the bank behind us is the house that still stands on the property. David E. C. James, Justine James’ grandfather, built a “new house on land” in the mid-1940s after Sally Freeman had passed. The new house was placed, “on pilings 6 feet in the air.” But even then, it “flooded during high flow events.” A warm day can create a massive melt and that plus heavy rain sends water rushing down the river from the mountains and the lake rises almost to the road above the house. James was told that his grandfather had a rope and pulley system to raise the furniture when the water came above the six foot level and others recall seeing James’ grandfather “loading furniture in his canoe” to save it.
Justine James’ father built the cabin that stands on land today. It is high above the ground on 10-foot pilings and even so, the house occasionally floods. “He placed his electrical outlets four feet off the floor.” He worked on this new cabin from about the mid 1960s until the early 1970s. It is still used. Justine James calls the house HOS, “house on stilts.”
Because the house is within the ordinary high water mark, it is considered to be the property of the Quinault Indian Nation as is the lake itself. When the reservation was established, James notes, “tribal members were not allowed to inhabit the shorelines on a full time basis,” thus the float house. But the James family, “constantly reminds the Olympic National Forest of the James family’s long-term occupation of the Gatton Creek area and of the Quinault treaty.” The current cabin stands well below the ordinary high water mark and, in any case, the treaty establishes tribal rights to use traditional areas and it clearly “predates the formation” of Washington State and the National Forest Service.
There is still a Native American presence in the Lake Quinault Lodge during the summer months. Well-known Quinault storyteller Harvest Moon tends the Gatton Creek property and works at the Lodge to keep history alive in lively performances and reenactments.
In the little museum at Lake Quinault I saw one of only a few photographs I’ve found of Sally Freeman. Dell Mulkey, a local Grey’s Harbor photographer, made these images in the 1930s. One of these can be seen framed placed above a basketry display. Two of Justine James’ father’s racing canoes are in the museum too. We admire them and learn about how they were altered and reworked, sometimes not so successfully, for racing. There is a photograph of James’ smiling father on a shelf beside them. After a while, Justine shows me a topographic map of the Olympic Peninsula and uses his finger tip to trace the route his ancestors would have taken up through the river valley, through the Olympic Mountains, all the way to Klallam Bay on the Strait of Juan de Fuca to visit relatives and friends.
The next day out, my companion on the trip and I drive into the valley along the Quinault River, just a few miles of what that journey to Klallam Bay would have entailed. We marvel at the majesty of the river as it rushes over shelves of rock, large reefs of stony rubble, and fallen logs that nearly jam it but don’t. An immature eagle soars to a perch above us and turns its profile to us, one a Barrymore would be pleased to have. It is still and silent as it considers its domain. Massive old growth trees, some breathtaking in their girth, rise above us on either side of the roadway. Cascades of water fall in sun struck cataracts down rock and moss walls just behind a wall of bright green ferns. Light barely breaks through the thick canopy the trees weave overhead. The lush underbrush of salal is dappled by it. We think about the complicated thicket of history that’s made this area what it is. It would be almost impossible to traverse without the proper knowledge, tools, and time to understand. The lake, the lodge, the Quinault people, the white settlers, and the tourists have walked a tangled past over these years. Sally Freeman is a legendary part of that past and she is present in the lives of her descendents and to others who take the time to listen.
[1] Credit the book here
[2] Credit to the book here for date of birth
Katie Gale: A Coast Salish Woman’s Life on Oyster Bay
The Back Story
The publication of Katie Gale: A Coast Salish Woman’s Life on Oyster Bay is the happy product of many years of work. Katie Gale’s story started in the mid 19th century. My path to her began in the early 1970s when I was searching for a house and a little land. I didn’t want anything fancy. I wanted a basic structure, one I could live in while making improvements. It had to have a well and power. That would save me money and inconvenience and I could get right on fixing the place up. Of course, it had to have a road. I didn’t care about waterfront or a view. I had a partner then who had built a house in the New Hampshire woods. We believed we could tackle the humblest little dwelling and the most rugged of circumstances. My real estate agent was a soft-spoken elegant woman with a slight German accent that attested to her origins. She wore her blond hair in a sophisticated French twist, walked like chilled champagne, and drove a bright yellow Cadillac in which she transported clients for a look at her listings. I had Janis Joplin hair, wore jeans and safari boots, and had a faculty position at a brand new, controversial local college. I had managed to buy a house in Olympia with most of the first year of my salary. It was an okay house, but my new friend wanted to live in the woods. She had already jumped her first local ship for a loft in a barn out the rural Steamboat Island Road. I thought, having no particular ties and being ready for adventure, why not make a move? I called the real estate agent and we began the search. When we drove to the house I ultimately purchased, the lovely, classy blond behind the wheel was nervously apologetic. This property was not something she would normally show or be caught dead in. The main structure was all but smothered by locust trees, Douglas firs, and Himalaya blackberry vines. Indeed, there was no hint of a view or Puget Sound, much less Mt. Rainier. All these yet-to-be-discovered perks of the place were well hidden and not even known to my agent. Several goats were dancing around in a barely fenced bit of land next to a large but shabby shed build on a framework of logs. There was nothing but mud between the shed and the house. The house itself was a simple 30’ by 30’square. It was heated by an oil stove the misuse of which had stained the ceiling over it badly. But that was of no concern because all the other ceilings and walls were covered with moss– or was it mildew? The bathtub was settled into the sagging, termite-infested floor by several inches. In my enthusiasm, I declared the house “perfect.” And it was. During the next couple of weeks, another friend bought the defunct oyster company digs below my place. The company extends out over the water and adjoins the beach that I was soon surprised to discover was “mine.” Bleached oyster shells were everywhere. But then, we knew nothing about what that meant for the history of our new homes. After my house and the company were secured another friend approached the people who lived in the small cabin next to mine. Though the place had not been for sale, the couple had decided just that week to divorce and would my friend like to buy? Both of these friends are still in residence. Something, some great luck, some brilliant understanding of what our lives could be brought us to Oyster Bay and we stayed.
We moved in and the work began. First, my housemate pal, the one with the experience in building took a sledgehammer to a kitchen wall. We were lucky enough not to have the ceiling fall on us. Though her method may not have been elegant, the result was a vastly more expansive room. I began to see possibilities. I rushed to buy chickens and geese and ducks and rabbits. (The goats had not been permitted to stay.) About this time my parents came to visit. After a first look, my mother took to her bed. My father declaimed in my favor. He prophesied that the house and property would eventually be a “showplace.” Even I wouldn’t go that far. Over the years somethings didn’t fulfill the bright promise of those first days. The house got some attention every year, was changed out when I had money or when someone else joined me on the Bay. My professional work and interests changed. I had devoted my early years as an …rr..
In those days, the cultural resource and law offices were housed in the old Cushman Indian Hospital on the Puyallup Reservation in Tacoma.[1] The hospital building, a former federal Indian hospital and site of enormous pain and suffering for many years, was crumbling and the surrounds so hazardous that chain link fencing was erected around the perimeter to contain the falling bricks. The old edifice’s failing elevator stuck between floors. I hollered for Judy when it faltered and I was trapped. We powered our coffee pots, computers and lamps by snaking long extension cords up and down the hallways. The whole enterprise was a challenge and an initiation into my new life.
I was poised, then, to “meet” Katie Gale. I lived on Oyster Bay and I had my teachers. When I first saw Katie Gale’s tombstone, just down the road from my home, I was ready to tell her story and begin the real work.
[1] The Cushman Hospital was taken over by activists and claimed for the Puyallup Tribe in 1976. Ramona Bennett led the takeover.
I was hired to do a part of a NEPA report several years ago. I worked with Karen James and Barbara Lane. I was responsible for the bulk of the writing. This report seems not to be available anywhere else, so I am putting it on my blog for future reference. I don’t believe this was ever published, at least not in this form. It was used, in part, as a section of a more extensive report.
Table of Contents i
INTRODUCTION 1
Definition of Terms 2
Tribes 3
Method 4
The Ethnographic Record 4
Post Treaty Period Fishing 7
Obstacles to Fishing Pre-U.S. v Washington 7
Indian People: Resistance and Resiliency 8
1930s-1960s 8
1960s and 1970s 9
1974 and Later: Co-Management and the Centrality of Salmon to the Culture 9
Summary 9
THE FISHERIES TODAY 10
Species and Differences 10
Seasons
Fishing Areas
Gear 12
THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SALMON: AN OVERVIEW 12
The First Salmon Ceremony and the Cultural Foundation of Contemporary Management Practices 12
Tribes and Relationship to Salmon: Responsibility and Stewardship 13
Summary 14
HARVEST AND USE 15
Introduction 15
Personal and Family Consumption 16
Distribution and Sharing Within and Between Tribes 16
Informal Interpersonal Distribution and Sharing 16
Formal Community Distribution and Sharing 17
Ceremonial Uses 18
THE TRANSMISSION OF FISHING CULTURE 19
OTHER ACTIVITIES THAT UNDERSCORE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SALMON IN CONTEMPORARY INDIAN CULTURE 21
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS: THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SALMON FOR STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA, HOOD CANAL, AND PUGET SOUND TRIBES 23
The seventeen Indian tribes located on or near the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound, all have adjudicated fishing rights. Salmon is a key resource for each of these tribes. Their right to fish salmon is guaranteed by 1854-1855 treaties (Treaty of Medicine Creek [December 26, 1854] 10 Stat. 1132, Treaty of Point Elliott [January 22, 1855] 12 Stat. 927, Treaty of Point No Point [January 25, 1855] 12 Stat. 933, Treaty of Neah Bay [January 31, 1855] 12 Stat. 939). Their rights to fish were reaffirmed in 1974 U.S. v. Washington, Civ. No. C70-9213 (W.D. Wash.). They were further affirmed in 1978 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in 1979 by the United States Supreme Court,[i]and in subsequent court proceedings.
Salmon is regularly eaten by individuals and families, and served at gatherings of elders and to guests at feasts and traditional dinners. Salmon is treated ceremoniously by Indians throughout the region today as it has been for centuries. Salmon is of nutritional, cultural, and economic importance to tribes. To Indians of this region, salmon is a core symbol of tribal identity, individual identity, and the ability of Indian cultures to endure. It is a constant reminder to tribal members of their obligation as environmental stewards. Traditional Indian concepts stress the relatedness and interdependence of all beings including humans in the region. Thus the survival and well-being of salmon is seen as inextricably linked to the survival and well being of Indian people and the cultures of the tribes. Indeed, many Indian people share traditional stories that explain the relationship between mountains, the origins of rivers, and the origins of salmon that inhabit the rivers (Ballard 1929, page 90).[ii] In traditional stories, even the humblest of creatures play important roles in sustaining life and balance in the ecological niche that has supplied food for Indian people for generations (Ballard 1927, page 81).[iii] Stories recount the values Indian people place on supporting healthy, welcoming rivers and good salmon runs. Salmon is also a symbol used in art and other representations of tribal identity. Salmon is ubiquitous in Indian culture in the region. Its significance to the health of the tribes and that of individual members cannot be overstated. To Indian people of the region, the absence of salmon is unthinkable because it is central to their cultural identity.
The seventeen tribes discussed here are Makah, Elwha Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Skokomish, Squaxin Island, Nisqually, Puyallup, Muckleshoot, Suquamish, Tulalip, Stillaguamish, Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish, Upper Skagit, Nooksack, and Lummi.
Salmon is used to refer to all of the six species of Oncorhynchus found in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound. All these species are fished for by the tribes. The term salmon includes steelhead, formerly classified by biologists as Salmo gairdneri. Steelhead, along with other salmon species, has always been treated as an important food by regional tribes. Most, if not all, of the tribes in the study area have a general word that encompasses all salmon and steelhead, though each species also has an individual name (see, for example, Hess 1976; Bates 1994; Gibbs [1877], 1970). In practice, all of these salmon have been fished and consumed by Indians throughout the area.
The word sustainable, or sustaining, as we use it, refers to the way that indigenous people use resources to meet their present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This use is consistent with that employed by tribal members with whom we conferred. Many Indian people speak of current environmental concerns regarding salmon in the context of their concern for children and grandchildren.
We use the words “traditional” or “traditionally” frequently in this document. We most often use these words to refer to continuity between the past and the present in terms of Indian perception and use of salmon as well as Indian ideas about allocation and management. Many attitudes and beliefs as well as practices that involve salmon are based upon ancient teachings. These teachings, beliefs, and attitudes underlie current practices even if it is not readily apparent. Traditional, in our use of the term, does not imply unchanging. Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound indigenous people have made enormous adaptations to their changing circumstances over the past 150 years. Old teachings are repeated and revered by many and are called upon for assistance and guidance today. We also occasionally use “traditional” to refer to the ethnographic description of practices and beliefs of the region’s indigenous people at the time the United States government made treaties with western Washington Indian tribes.
We use the term subsistence in the anthropological sense. In part, subsistence refers to the ways in which indigenous people utilize the environment and resources provided by it in order to survive; that is, to meet nutritional needs of the members of the society. The interplay of resources, technology and work created a unique economy in which Indian people of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, and North and South Puget Sound thrived. Work, distribution, and consumption strategies were developed in the context of values that included reciprocity and high regard for the resources themselves. Salmon species provided a major part of the region’s subsistence resource. George Gibbs, the lawyer/ethnologist who helped to draft and negotiate the Indian treaties in western Washington, wrote that “the great staple food” of the region was salmon and noted the extraordinary quantities available in Puget Sound and elsewhere in the region. “Salmon,” he said, “form the most important staple of subsistence”(Gibbs [1856] 1877).[iv]
In the mid-nineteenth century, at the time of the 1850s treaties, Indian tribes occupied river drainages and marine areas throughout the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound. Tribal members fished in the lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, bays, inlets, and open waters in the region. Salmon returned to and were taken from any stream that was not otherwise impassable for the fish. For example, some high falls would not allow fish to travel further upriver. Occasionally landslides or other natural damming may have inhibited a run. But in general, where there were fish, there were Indian people fishing. Anthropologist Marian Smith, who worked with the Puyallup and Nisqually people, wrote that, “Fishing was the most constant occupation and whatever a man’s economic specialty, it did not greatly interfere with the fishing routine” (Smith 1940, page 253). Reservations established by the treaties were located on or near these drainage systems or marine areas because the framers of the treaties recognized the importance of the fisheries.[v] The treaties acknowledged that tribes reserved their right to continue to fish; access to traditional fishing grounds was guaranteed by the treaties.
During December 2002 and January 2003 we conferred by telephone with some members and staff of all tribes in the study area. We held in-person interviews with some staff and members of all but two tribes in the study area. Tribal members with whom we conferred include elders, cultural and historical resource officers, museum directors, and fishery managers. We also reviewed tribal publications, regional publications that have commented on tribes and issues regarding salmon, and the ethnographic record for the region.
The ethnographic record is unequivocal: all tribes share a long tradition of fishing. The cultures and societies of Indian people in the region at treaty time were well adapted to the riverine and marine environments of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound. Indian people developed economies based primarily on anadromous fish. These cultures and economies developed subsequent to the stabilization of shorelines in the region, that is, around 5000 years ago. After that time, the conditions of water in the rivers and streams could support the returning fish populations. The abundance and predictability of the fish supported permanent human settlement along these rivers and streams as well as along the saltwater shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound.
Some archaeological surveys have been conducted in the region. Data from these sites by no means provides a comprehensive view of ancient fishing practices. Geological research demonstrates significant alterations in elevations and land deformations in parts of Puget Sound associated with a major earthquake approximately 1100 years ago. Older sites may have been submerged at this time. The few sites that have been systematically excavated and analyzed demonstrate a long tradition of fishing. These are dated to at least 1000 years before the present, the time of the alteration in water levels (Stein 2000; Croes 1996). Some indicate occupation up to and through treaty time (Stein 2003).
Fisheries, for the most part salmon fisheries, were the defining feature of the cultures and economies of indigenous people of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, and North and South Puget Sound in late eighteenth century descriptions of the area. The entire region was characterized by its dependence upon seafood (Gunther 1950, pages 190-191). In anthropological terms, the relationship to salmon among indigenous people formed a “culture core.” Salmon were the focus of economic activities, technological development, and ideologies. The interface of these supported the invention and application of highly successful harvesting, processing, and storage techniques. The Indian people of this region acquired finely tuned local knowledge regarding salmon resources; and developed sustainable methods of harvesting catches.
Salmon were taken using a variety of techniques, including, for example, trolling, spearing, gaffing, and taking fish in nets. Gear included several kinds of weirs, traps, dip nets, gill nets, seines, and, in certain localities, reef nets. Technologies were developed for particular circumstances, locations, and species. Harvesting technologies were extremely successful. Efficient taking techniques made it possible to harvest large numbers of fish as they ascended the rivers. These techniques were designed to allow selectivity in harvest, shaping of runs, and adequate escapement to the spawning grounds. Weirs that spanned streams and rivers had the capability to block a run of salmon. They did not because these weirs were managed so as to allow fish to pass. William Elmendorf, an anthropologist, produced an ethnographic monograph describing the Twana (Skokomish) people of Hood Canal based upon his field work in the 1930s and 1940s. He wrote that, “Ordinarily one or more lattice sections were removed for a time each day or at night except during dip-net operations, to allow some fish to proceed to the spawning grounds or to weirs farther upstream. The Twana people believed that the ‘salmon people’ would be angered if this was not done, and would refuse to return for the next year’s run.” (Elmendorf [1960] 1992, page 65-66)[vi] Arthur Ballard, whose observations of South Sound Indian peoples were made at the end of the nineteenth and during the early twentieth century also discussed the practice of opening weirs (Ballard 1957, page 44). Escapement allowed sufficient fish to continue upstream to spawn. Escapement also allowed sufficient fish for Indian people fishing further upriver. Fisheries were managed with an eye to sustainability and runs were interrupted only by unanticipated natural events such as climatic or geologic incidents or, later, by impediments made by non-Indians including dams and water diversions.
Winter village sites were established along drainage systems of salmon rivers and streams. Indigenous peoples’ economic lives were organized around the seasonal runs of fish in these streams. The abundance of these fish, along with the technologies developed to harvest, process, and store the fish, sustained families and communities year round. Salmon were eaten fresh, were cured in a variety of ways, and were stored to be consumed later or traded. Trade and commerce in fish among Indian people in western Washington and with tribal people beyond this region were extensive. Curing methods assured that harvest could be kept over an extended time for later consumption and for inter-tribal commerce.
Tribal fisheries in Washington were faced with many obstacles during the decades following statehood in 1889. These included state fishing regulations, dams, diversions of rivers, development and urbanization, and pollution.
In the early years following statehood, fishing continued to be a primary subsistence activity for Indian people. Indian fishermen were a common sight in and around the region. Photographs from this period show western Washington Indians fishing or processing fish. Some of these photographs have been identified by archivists as Puget Sound Indian men fishing at weirs (1890-1895), Makah women drying fish on racks (1900), Snohomish people at Tulalip processing salmon (1907), and Lummi men trolling for salmon (1900) (American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Digital Collection). By the end of the second decade of the twentieth century, Indian rights to fish off-reservation had been undermined repeatedly by the state. Indian people were often arrested for “unlawful fishing” by state game wardens.[vii]
Fishing regulations passed by the state prohibited use of traditional Indian fishing gear such as weirs and traps. Indians were not allowed to fish in usual and accustomed places and were often challenged by enforcement officers. Treaties were invoked by tribal members who asserted their right to fish. Dams, lacking fish passage facilities, were constructed in the years just prior to World War I. Urban populations grew, non-Indian fishing proliferated, and development destroyed prime salmon habitat. Fish runs were clearly threatened. Tribal members predicted serious environmental consequences for fish habitat. They also saw that the decline in fish habitat and runs threatened Indian livelihoods and indigenous cultures. Tribes struggled to retain their access to salmon and their rights to harvest salmon.
In the mid-twentieth century, with increasing state regulation of fishing, salmon became less available and harder for Indian people to fish for in their traditional places, or with their traditional gear. The salmon retained their symbolic and nutritional significance to Indian people. Fishing itself retained its value and importance as a focus for cultural teaching, learning, and activity. Tribal people found ways to fish and continued to value and consume fish whenever they were available. Countless stories circulate about fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, and aunts and uncles who, in order to obtain traditional foods from traditional locations, defied state laws that ignored treaty rights guaranteed by the federal government. Indian people risked grievous consequences yet continued to fish in order to put food on the table and affirm their core cultural identity and treaty guaranteed right to fish. Many tribal members regularly recount stories of fathers and uncles who fished under cover of darkness or grandmothers who confronted game wardens. Indian people went to jail and to court in the 1930s to assert their treaty rights.
In spite of the harassment, during the depression in the 1930s many Indian people fished and ate salmon year round. Some Indian people report that because Indians were part of a fishing culture, they fared better through this period than some of their non-Indian neighbors. Indian people continued fishing in the 1940s. Adults born and reared during this period remember being taught how to fish by elders. Some elders were still making nets and fish spears and passing the knowledge on to the youth. Indian people continued to cure and smoke fish and eat fish year round. Youth were expected to help in all chores connected with curing fish, including helping to hang the fish in the smokehouse and keeping the fires stoked in the smokehouse. Young people were taught to maneuver canoes in the rivers and witnessed and participated in the expression of tribal values such as the distribution of catches to elders and other family members.
Even more stories of courage are told about those who participated in “fish-ins” in the 1960s and 1970s and were beaten or jailed for their actions in asserting treaty rights. Local knowledge of streams and fishing technologies were retained and passed on to young people all through these troubled times. Traditional methods of welcoming salmon continued throughout the period, though less publicly than now. Ceremonies were observed by families rather than by the community at large. The struggle in some ways reinforced the value of the fish to the people and their cultures. The oral and written histories of tribes have incorporated the story of the struggle for treaty-protected fishing rights (Isely 1970, Deloria 1977, Wilkinson 2000, Wray 2002).
The 1974 decision by Judge Boldt in U.S. v. Washington litigation affirmed tribal treaty rights to fish. It mandated that the state share management of fisheries with Indians throughout the case area. Tribes adopted new technologies. Tribal people of the area engage in ancient fisheries with up-to-date equipment, such as modern boats (just as non-Indian fishermen do not use 1850s era fishing gear). The Indian fisheries continue to be informed by generations-old social and cultural traditions. No culture stands still. Technologies are always changing, being modified, reinvented, or refined. Core values, beliefs, and traditions and their practice in daily life, that is, the non-material components of culture, sustain community and relationships despite these material changes.
In brief, salmon fishing has been a focus for the economies, cultures, lifestyles, and identities of Puget Sound tribes for more than 1000 years. These fisheries continued without interruption during most of the nineteenth century, barring natural disasters such as floods, droughts, or landslides. Significant interference with Indian fisheries began after statehood in 1889 with the introduction of state fishing regulations, development of large urban areas, suburban areas and farms, the construction of dams, and the destruction of fish habitat. Indian people in the region continued to fish but were faced with many obstacles, including the depletion of resource as a consequence of development. Tribal fishermen continued to assert their treaty-protected rights, sometimes at considerable risk to themselves. The Boldt decision in U.S. v. Washington, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court affirmed those rights and ushered in a new era for Indian fisheries.
Six species of salmon have been fished and continue to be fished by Indians in Puget Sound, Hood Canal, and the Strait. They are:
Sockeye or blueback salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka)
Chinook (Oncorhynchus tschawytscha)
Coho or silver (Oncorhynchus kisutch)
Chum (Oncorhynchus keta)
Pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha)
Steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
Species vary as to nutritional value, including fat content. Many Indian people express preferences regarding the desirability of certain species for consumption. Some species are appreciated as good smoking fish. For example, chum is a leaner fish that can be smoked and kept for a year or more. Smoked “Nisqually chum,” is relished as a special treat even by those who live outside the Nisqually area. Coho are said to have similar qualities to chum for drying. Indian people look forward to the first spring chinook for fresh eating. Spring chinook is cured with a special soft smoke. Some Indian people say that salmon caught in salt water has a different flavor than that caught in fresh water and that flavor differences vary even by the part of the river from which the salmon is taken. Some fish of the same species are thought to be better (fatter and tastier for example) in some rivers than in others.
All species do not enter each river. All species are available in the open waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, and Puget Sound. It is likely that there was year round availability in these open marine waters in the past. Wild salmon are more viable and there is more variability in their behavior and habits.
Depending upon availability, all of these salmon species are harvested today by tribes. Some are taken more generally for commercial purposes and others, depending upon individual and tribal preferences, for ceremonial and personal or family consumption
The boundaries of traditional fisheries were fluid rather than confining during and before treaty time. Indigenous people in the area traveled seasonally and often shared or traded resources and engaged in commerce outside of their winter village territories. Fishing areas for individual tribes today are not as fluid. Tribes generally fish within defined management areas. These areas have been allocated and established in accord with Facts and Findings U.S. v. Washington in 1974 and in subsequent court rulings. Some tribes take fish almost exclusively from marine areas, some almost exclusively from fresh water, while others participate in both marine and river fisheries.
Gear used in contemporary fisheries include: set gillnets, drift gillnets, purse seine, trap, hook and line, dip nets, trolling gear, and beach seine.
“We’re salmon people and the Northwest is salmon. We still have hope.” Billy Frank (Clausen 2000)
Traditionally, Indians throughout the region have treated salmon ceremoniously (Gunther 1926; Gunther 1928). These ceremonies, based on ancient teachings and practices, continue today and underscore the need to welcome the fish by providing a clean place to which the salmon will want to return. According to Indian teachings the fish come to feed the Indian people but they will not come back if the environment is not suitably maintained or salmon are not treated properly. Elmendorf is specific about this requirement: “Most ritually determined acts with reference to river fishing had to do with the salmon run and were directed toward insuring its continuance. The river had to be kept clean before salmon started running. HA (informant) defined the period as starting in early August (for the Skokomish), before the first king salmon came. From this time no rubbish, food scraps or the like, might be thrown in the river; canoes were not baled out in the river; and no women swam in the river during menstrual seclusion. The object of these precautions was to insure that the salmon would want to come.” (Elmendorf [1960], 1992, page 61) Traditional first salmon ceremonies varied from location to location, depending upon species, time of the run, and cultural differences from tribe to tribe (Gunther 1927, Stern 1934; Smith 1940). Several of the tribes in the study area use the spring salmon (chinook) in their first salmon ceremony.
These ceremonies are, once again, public in many communities, especially since U.S. v. Washington and the passing of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978. The ceremony reiterates and reinforces the Indian peoples’ special relationship to the salmon and their respect and concern for the well-being of the salmon.
Modern fisheries and fishing practices of tribes are built on long-standing traditional ideas of responsibilities to fish and habitat. These practices and ideals underlie tribal approaches to “micromanagement” of drainage systems and commitment to do what is necessary to sustain runs, including voluntary suspension of fisheries. As one tribal member put it, “the first salmon ceremony contains the elements of fisheries management that we use today.” That is, tribes manage with the assumption that fish need a clean, welcoming environment and a respectful, nurturing approach to maintaining and restoring habitat, especially spawning grounds.
During this post U.S. v. Washington period, tribes have developed fisheries that promote the centrality of fish to the community and the community’s responsibility to the fish. This responsibility is, as articulated by tribal people, based upon traditional teachings. While fishermen are trained in the use of new equipment and safety regulations, the status and role of the fishermen is based upon traditional understandings of the resource and habitat. The fishermen continue to contribute to the health of the tribal members by bringing in food for the tables of the community. A role that had been problematic and hard to fulfill in the years of struggle is once again one of public honor. Tribal hatcheries and stream restoration projects take advantage of new science but are developed in the context of local knowledge and traditional regard for responsible stewardship of the land, the rivers, and the fish runs. Tribes are working in partnerships with local, state, and federal governments, businesses, and farmers to repair degraded habitats and the polluting effects of urbanization and agricultural practices. New processing plants are being developed at the same time as traditional and contemporary preservation methods are taught and passed on to younger tribal members. Fish cured in traditional ways are still a focus of community trade in fish, carrying the added value of history and custom. In many ways, since U.S. v. Washington, because fishing is open and religious practices are protected, fish have become even more central to the tribes’ identities than they were fifty years ago. Fishing is not the under cover of darkness activity that it was by necessity for so many years. But because of the difficulties encountered during those many years, salmon are not just a food or even simply a symbol of a long and proud tradition, but a signal of the struggle that the tribes undertook to assert rights. Many of those who fish today lived that struggle and pass on their commitment to their history and their right to fish to the younger generation (Deloria 1977). In the words of one tribal person, the fish “feed the Indian” not just in body, but in spirit.
The relationship of tribal people to salmon is spiritual, emotional, and cultural as well as economic. Salmon evoke sharing, gifts from nature, responsibility to the resource, and connection to the land and the water. Salmon are strongly associated with the use and knowledge of water, use and knowledge of appropriate harvesting techniques, and knowledge of traditional processing techniques. The struggle to affirm the right to fish has made salmon an even more evocative symbol of tribal identity.
Indian people of the region remember teething on smoked salmon and talk about eating salmon eggs for breakfast, salmon egg soup, or eating the eggs as a snack. Adult fishermen today remember catching fish, sometimes by hand, as children. Youngsters made a fire, and cleaned and cooked the salmon on the river bank as a treat. Those who fish today and carry on the salmon culture were raised in that culture and identify whole periods of their lives in relationship to the salmon. Salmon is not just the primary traditional food but a food that nourishes the spirit, some say. It is served during naming ceremonies, funerals, during one-year memorials after a death, and when students are honored. It is served to guests and during winter ceremonials. It is served to elders for their dinners, and shared or donated widely by fishermen with elders or family members. If a person doesn’t fish him or herself, “all it takes is saying ‘I’m really hungry for fish’ and a salmon appears.” If there is an abundance of fish, they are delivered around the reservation so everyone has a share. Some fishermen are known to fish regularly and to be ready to give some to tribal people who want to smoke fish or have some fresh fish to eat. Though, between tribal people, the exchange of money for fish is not always a concern, some people make a substantial amount of their livelihood by selling smoked salmon to other members of the tribe or to members of other tribes. Some fishermen, hit hard by the low per pound return of commercial fisheries, have turned to “roadside sales” of fresh and smoked salmon to supplement income.
When salmon is available, the word goes out. Salmon is a favored food and, with other indigenous foods, must be present at all traditional ceremonies and functions. Sometimes boats are sent out to take salmon for these special events.
In brief, salmon is more than food; salmon, in these contexts, represents to the Indian all that is his or her history, a spiritual connection to the resource, and responsibility to that resource. No ceremony, no gathering, is complete if salmon is not present.
The sections below comment on some of the many ways salmon is present in the culture of regional tribes. These comments also represent how salmon is present in the lives of many individual tribal members today. Examples here are taken primarily from interviews with tribal members. Examples are also drawn from tribal newsletters and other publications. The ways in which salmon is part of Indian peoples’ lives are as varied as the individual Indian people and Indian cultures of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound. There are some significant commonalities and most items commented upon or enumerated in the lists below express those commonalities.
There are many informal, everyday ways that salmon are shared and distributed within each tribe and between tribes. For example, some community members are not able to acquire salmon for themselves. Other people fish for them or share fish from their freezers or smokehouses. Sharing and informal distribution of fish help to bind the community in a system of relationships and obligations. Indian people speak of driving around the reservation with salmon and gifting friends and neighbors with the fish. Surplus is distributed or placed in tribal lockers and freezers for future distribution to individuals (or for traditional dinners or ceremonies). Windfalls are distributed. Smoked salmon is sold from the back of trucks and cars in tribal parking lots. Tribal people who have smokehouses take shares of fishermen’s catches in exchange for smoking fish for them. Fish, fresh, frozen, or smoked, is given as a gift to those who help a friend or relative with a task. Fish are commonly given to food banks for the needy, both Indian and non-Indian. The tradition of feeding others and sharing with non-Indian neighbors is one that goes back to the earliest accounts of Indian relations with Europeans and Americans in the region. This way of distributing a resource cannot be fully understood without an understanding of the ethics and morality that inform it: reciprocity and exchange among kin and even non-related groups, including those with whom connections have been established throughout the region, is a foundation of meaningful human interaction between and among Indian peoples in the area.
As noted above, salmon are distributed among and between Indian people and tribes in many informal ways. There are also formal, frequent or periodic occasions during which salmon is expected or required to be served. Among these are:
In addition to tribally sponsored dinners, salmon is a key food, among other traditional
foods, in ceremonies. Tribes whose fisheries are depleted are helped to put out a good table of traditional foods by buying salmon from other tribes or receiving donations of fish. Tribes make an effort to keep salmon on hand or send out special boats for these occasions.
First salmon ceremonies, as suggested above, were not always publicly or even communally celebrated during a period of years preceding U.S. v. Washington. Some fishermen and fisherwomen continued a more private version of this ceremony, individually sharing out the first catch of the season with other community members. This practice still continues in some tribes in addition to the public ceremony.
THE TRANSMISSION OF FISHING CULTURE
Youngsters, as in the past, are taught from an early age to fish and to understand that they, as tribal members, have a special responsibility to the salmon and for the habitat in which it thrives. Indian fishermen and women take their children fishing and remember being taken fishing by relatives when they were growing up. Fishing with older friends and relatives is a time when one not only learns the skills of taking and processing fish, but also hears the history and tradition of the tribes and is taught how to be a responsible member of the community. Some fishing, for example beach seining, is a group, multigenerational activity. Elders sit on beaches watching and advising while younger adults and young people take the fish. During the work of fishing, everyone joins in conversations about the place, the salmon, and the history of salmon fishing, and youngsters listen to stories elders share.
Youngsters are also taught skills by their elders. Fishing is considered to be an activity that is a critical part of a tribal member’s identity. No matter what else one does, learning to fish is part of one’s education.
Specific examples of this education are:
One has to participate in a culture in order for it to survive. Fishing for salmon is a part of tribal life among the Indians of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound. Tribes have developed many ways for tribal members of all ages to feel connected with the tribe and tribal culture and participate in community life. Fishing and responsibility for salmon and salmon habitat is a core area for participation. There are other ways to make a living, but fishing is “in the blood” Indian people say. You “develop a relationship with salmon” from the time you are a youngster. Tribal members continue to invest in boats and nets and go fishing even if fishing is not always economically viable. Family members, countless generations of them, have fished. Family members have died fishing. Their stories are kept alive and told to the younger generation. Indian people teach younger family members to feel responsibility to the fish. To lose touch with the fish and to ignore the decline in habitat and runs, one tribal member said, is to “lose touch with a culture you’ve always known.” Ways other than fishing that sustain participation in the fish culture include:
The availability of salmon as an economic base and a cultural, ceremonial, and religious staple has provided for enhanced social cohesion and promoted cultural vitality particularly since U.S. v. Washington. Some refer to it as “a calling back home.” In many instances, Indian people came back to live with relatives and friends on reservations because there was economic opportunity. The enhanced fisheries opportunities demanded that new generations of fishermen and women be trained. The core group of elders and fishermen who had local knowledge of the waters, the currents, the tides, the habits of fish, and the requirement of habitat came forward to train others in this specialized cultural knowledge. New technologies were learned and taught along with the guidance of local, traditional knowledge.
Indian people express a holistic relationship to the land and the waterways, as well as to the salmon and other creatures dependent upon the health of the land and environment. Little differentiation is made between and among spirit, nature, and culture when they speak of their obligations. Tribal people characterize their relationship to salmon as a dynamic and demanding one. The relationship draws upon indigenous teachings and insights. Though explained in a number of ways, and in many stories, the fundamentals are the same–we have a responsibility to the fish, to the land, and to the waters. We are, from ancient times, of these lands and waters, and the quality of our relationship to fish and its sustenance reflects on the quality of our communal and spiritual lives.
The obligation to salmon articulated by Indian people is one concerned with renewal, reciprocity, and balance. Salmon is of economic importance to Indian people and it embodies cultural, ceremonial, and social dimensions of peoples’ lives to the degree that it is a significant symbol of Indian and tribal identity. Tribal identity, to be sure, is realized and expressed in the many daily acts in which one engages. For the Indian people the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Hood Canal, North Puget Sound and South Puget Sound, many of those acts involve or include salmon.
Tribal people have a strong present connection with salmon and share a passionate concern for the future of salmon in the marine waters, rivers, lakes, and streams in the region.
This concern is reflected in voluntary reduction or suspension of fishing on endangered or weak runs of salmon over the past decade and more, and by efforts at stream restoration and stock enhancement described elsewhere in the Affected Environment document.
[i] United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312 (W.D.Wash. 1974), aff’d, 520 F.2d 676 (9th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1086 (1976), enforced, 459 F. Supp. 1020 (W.D. Wash. 1977), aff’d sub nom., Puget Sound Gillnetters v. U.S. District Court, 573 F.2d 1123 (9th Cir. 1978), substantially upheld sub nom., Washington v. Fishing Vessel Ass’n, 443 U.S. 658 (1979).
[ii] An example of this kind of explanatory tale is The Origin of Tolt River as told by John Xot (also known as John Hote). The Tolt River watershed originates on McClain Peak in the Cascade Crest.
[iii] For example in the tale, How Grandmother Bullhead Brought the Salmon, the little bullhead is given salmon eggs in exchange for helping to bring rain and the salmon. Though her powers had been doubted, she helped the people.
[iv] George Gibbs’ Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon was published by the Department of the Interior in 1877. It was based on observations in Washington in 1853-1856. Another treaty period resource on tribes in the region is Gibbs’ 1854 “Report of Mr. George Gibbs to Captain Mc’Clellan, On the Indian Tribes of the Territory of Washington.” This was reprinted by Ye Galleon Press as Indian Tribes in Washington Territory (Gibbs [1854], 1967.
[v] For example, see Journal of the Expedition from the Conclusion of the Treaty of Nisqually (Swindell 1942, page 333). The entry for January 1, 1855 notes that the reservation, “affords a good site for a village, with ground for potato patches and a small stream at which the Indians take their winter salmon.” George Gibbs, the scribe, further notes that “the Indians will require the shore only, this tribe being exclusively fishing Indians.” Microfilm copies of the original records can be found in Documents Relating to the Negotiation of Ratified and Unratified Treaties with Various Indian Tribes. 1801-1869. Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. (Record Group 75)T494, Roll 5. National Archives and Records Administration. Washington, D.C.
[vi] Elmendorf’s Structure of Twana Culture was originally published as a Monographic Supplement No. 2, Research Studies, a Quarterly Publication of Washington State University, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3. September 1960. For further notes on the weir and other fishing technologies see, among others, Herman Haeberlin and Erna Gunther, The Indians of Puget Sound (1930), T.T. Waterman, Notes on the Ethnology of the Indians of Puget Sound, based upon his early twentieth century field work ([1921]1973), Arthur Ballard (1957), and Marian Smith The Puyallup-Nisqually (1940).
[vii] See 1916 cases: State v. Towessnute, 154 P. 805; State v. Alexis, 154 P. 810; and Kennedy v. Becker, 241 U.S. 556. and Wash. Sess. Laws Ch. 31, Sec. 72 (1915) for examples of legal actions that interfered with Indian treaty rights during this period.
[viii] “C & S,” or ceremonial and subsistence is a “term applied to Indian harvest of many fish…”In general a fisherman engaged in a commercial fishery may take part of his or her catch for C & S and designate that as “take home fish” on the lower portion of a “Treaty Indian Fish Receiving Ticket.” “If a tribe opens a fishery specifically to catch fish for a ceremony or other community use (i.e. there is not a concurrent commercial opening) then the catch is recorded on the same place on the ticket but with an annotation that the source of catch is ‘C & S’” (Beattie 2003).
After stopping by Shelton’s Treasures Thrift Shop and ridding myself of a backseat-full of unwanted items that had inhabited an upstairs closet for many years, I stopped in Lynch Creek Floral for a latte. I love Lynch’s for its good Batdorf Bronson brew and its line of beautifully chosen gift items. This particular early January morning, a man ahead of me at the counter was whistling. I liked this because I had been whistling as I walked down Railroad Avenue toward Lynch’s. I do this now and then, though aware that some people a. loathe whistlers b. think it is unladylike c. think it bring bad luck, especially if done inside. I felt an instant camaraderie with the whistling fellow.. I’d been whistling “How Can I Keep from Singing.” I didn’t recognize his tune. He offered his place in line to me and said, almost under his breath, “There will be music soon.” This announcement took on the gravity of a prophecy. I didn’t know what to think.
After a few minutes, one of Lynch’s proprietors, more forthcoming than the gentleman who had now headed to the rear of the store, told me that there was about to be a “bluegrass jam” in the back and why not take my coffee, pull up a chair, and stay awhile. I did.
The whistler, John Rodius, a quiet, self-effacing man, set up a few chairs and pulled his Tacoma guitar out of its case. Turns out, I’m told, he is one of the founding organizers of Shelton’s Blue Grass from the Forest, an annual music festival. (It’ll be May 17, 18, 19 this year.) He and others play at the Senior Center in Shelton as well. When the group isn’t practicing or jamming the members play under the name “Down Home Fiddle and Bluegrass” at venues like the Puyallup Fair.
John has lived in Shelton for thirty years. He grew up near Mt. Rainier in Graham. It was his brother-in-law, a musician with Buck Owens in Tacoma, who got him started on guitar, he tells me. That made me curious. Turns out, Buck Owens (1929-2006), who had 21 number one hits on the Billboard country music charts and is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, moved to Puyallup in 1958 and had a live TV show on KTNT in Tacoma. Don Rich (1941-1974), a young and talented Tumwater Hill fiddle player and guitarist, was recruited by Buck and helped develop, “The Bakersfield Sound.” Rich and the Buckeroos even produced a song and album called “Tumwater Breakdown” named for his hometown, still considered to be a suburb of Olympia in Rich’s day. So John listened to his brother-in-law and the pre-fame Buck and Rich and the others who made up Buck’s entourage.
When he got older, John says, he went to work and stayed on the job for 37 years. During that time, he says, he didn’t play at all. He talks slowly while he takes out some bandages and tape and begins to wrap his fretting hand. He was working on a house project recently when someone dropped a 2 x 4 for him to catch. It slid through his hands and deposited some nasty splinters. He is in pain and there is some nasty looking red swelling where he says he extracted a sharp fragment of that board. He says that spot is healing. It looks iffy to me.
While waiting for his colleagues, I asked John if he does indeed play bluegrass as in Bill Munroe. “No.” He says. “We don’t play any Bill Munroe.” He pauses. “We play old music and Civil War stuff.”
A man enters from Lynch’s backdoor, cold and slim as a reed. “There’s Herb,” someone calls out. Herb has fiddle in one hand and a small plastic bag of cookies in the other. Another man, Al, has come in a little earlier and sits across from me. He calls himself a wannabe. He says, as a boy, he always longed to play guitar but discovered he has “no music in me.” He’s wearing what look like stiff new blue jeans, a bit oversized. He says, “They play at my house sometimes.” Then he says, “My nephew plays the banjo.” Someone jokes later that Al thinks he is a music critic. If so, he is an awfully quiet one.
The nephew and his banjo get seated. This is Paul. Paul wears jeans that ride very low on his body. He has to give them an occasional tug to keep them up. He wears a billed cap with a construction company logo, a work shirt with ticking stripes, and heavy soled work boots.
We’re sitting in a circle. Behind us women are making bouquets and taking orders for wedding flowers. It smells good and feels cozy. I’m sorry I won’t be able to stay long. I chat between the warmup songs.
I ask John if the group members have song books or just call out tunes. He says they just call them out but “might have to guess for a couple of licks” til they are together. He says someone’s always coming up with something new. Later, I notice he has a stack of cards with tune names and chords. Someone else says, “I forgot my session book” so there is, somewhere, a list of favorites.
Last to arrive while I’m there are two women, a grandmother and granddaughter named Janice and Danielle. The men have done a little warming up, but things get started for real when Janice and Danielle get their fiddles out. Danielle seems to be a real spark. She is young and well practiced.
As the group prepares to play in earnest now, someone suggests “Up Jumps the Devil.” Instead they strike up “Whistling Rufus,” a popular cakewalk from circa 1899. Paul says, “There’s one song I want to learn before the year ends.” It is “Pig Ankle Rag,” a tune that shows up in “traditional” collections and has been passed around in jams probably for at least a century. The fiddlers seem to know it, but Paul needs practice he says. Next tune is “Ice on the Road,” another traditional tune and one that shows off Danielle’s talents.
Before I leave, Herb asks the group to play a waltz and he bows his fiddle sweetly. He tells me that his wife died just before Thanksgiving. He was her caretaker for many years and he is just beginning to get out and play again. It’s been ten years, he says, since he’s picked up his fiddle. I’m hoping for Herb that this is the beginning of a new, joyful musical life.
Celtic Colours 2012: A Review
Celtic Colours, named for the adornment of brilliant fall foliage that cloaks the hills on Cape Breton in October, recently finished its 16th year. Its mission, as Joella Foulds, founder and artistic director tolds us at one evening session, is to “promote, celebrate and develop Cape Breton’s living Celtic culture.” However, it has also become a well known international festival and most assuredly extends tourist dollars and fattens Cape Breton pockets well into the fall. Still, it is a festival of music that, for the most part, represents Cape Breton and the Maritime Provinces and it is a lusciously fall-flavored Cape Breton hills and highlands that welcome us the moment we reach the island. In fact, the reds, oranges, and yellows (that become more intense during our more than a week in our Belle Côte residence) are almost as delicious as are the butterscotch pies, biscuits, baked beans, and fish cakes at the Cedar House in Boularderie. Just cross the causeway and you too will feel something magical on the other side of the Strait of Canso
I attended this fulsome festival with a few friends, but the notes and opinions that follow are solely mine.
…..
Rita MacNeil, a native of Big Pond, Cape Breton, has had a stellar career with songs that have soared to the top of the charts in the UK, Canada, and Australia. I saw her for the first time during the Island Women concert, an event featured as part of the 16th annual Celtic Colours, 2012. She appeared with Madison Violet, The Once, Cathy Ann MacPhee and Kathleen MacInnes, Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac, Nuala Kennedy, and Sylvie LeLievre. Though she was compelled by a malady to sit for her peformance, her voice did not suffer.” I’ve got one bad leg and soon to have another,” she says, explaining her need to stay seated. She tells us a story. (We learn throughout the week of the festival that we are in a story telling culture and come to expect lots of humor and bantering from musicians on stage.) She says that she was about to perform at a concert recently, but as she strode toward front and center, her dress tangled with the stage curtain and the curtain entered with her. We all “get” the scene. The large Rita, the massive curtain, and her green dress, all rolling out into view of the audience. “It took ten minutes to get me up,” she tells us. The show continued that night and so did her performance at the Savoy.
And can she sing! Rita MacNeil commands an incredible vocal instrument with which she produces sounds that rise with seeming ease from the bounty of her whole body. The audience members were delighted and entranced. The Savoy is a restored vaudeville theatre in Sydney, Cape Breton Island. It was a perfect, regal setting for Rita and the parade of Island Women that followed.
From Rita we heard her song, what seems to be an almost anthem for the Islanders, “Home I’ll Be.” We’ve heard it at other concerts, but never with the power and authority with which Rita sings it:
“You’re as soulful as a choir
You’re as ancient as the hills
I caress you oh Cape Breton in my dreams.”
It must have, this song, special resonance for those who’ve had to leave this Maritime Province to find work as mines and fisheries faltered.
Members of the audience know the song well, and as Rita’s voice rings out, I have a feeling I’m surrounded, indeed, by the soul of the place finding its expression through the diva on stage. This is more than music. It is a telling of a people’s attachment to history and culture of Cape Breton. Rita’s voice is not the younger, lilting voice I’ve heard on recordings but carries still the passion of a Piaf. She sweeps up to notes as if she is riding a wave or flying on the wings of a gull floating above the sea wind. She keeps us on the edge of our seats wondering where she’ll sail to next. Frank MacDonald said earlier in the week at a reading that Cape Bretoners love their music not because it is beautiful but because it is perfect. This voice, this song must be what he meant.
What is the source of this soul, this love of place, this celebration of the island home? It is rooted in respect for the struggles of immigration and tragedies of loss of lands and livelihoods in Scotland and Ireland. It is etched with the terrors of the sea and with the risks of fishing and mining cultures that have sustained the people here. It carries the imprimatur of authentic connection to the Gaelic language and Scottish rhythms and movements that came with the people and sustains them still. There are other islanders in the world who celebrate their place in song but perhaps these too have common culture and language and perhaps, maybe even more importantly, a history of a struggle with colonial powers and losses to imperious land owners and political authorities. After all, the islanders of Cape Breton did not leave the highlands of Scotland (or villages and farms of Ireland) because they wanted to. They have, perhaps because of this, yearned for and maintained a connection with their beloved ancestral lands and forbearers whose names they are still called and whose histories most can recount.
Whole families here are musicians or dancers or weavers. When a fiddler gets on stage, the islanders know his or her story, and personally know their parents and grandparents, and their mentors. They know who has been “away” and who has returned. Culture is localized (Cheticamp is not Baddeck) but Celtic Colours celebrates the whole of the island and the connections with Scotland and Ireland, and announces that this is all here to stay—-the torch will most assuredly be passed, as a late week concert proclaimed.
During our short visit, we learned about step dancing, piping, milling frolics, and the Gaelic College. We learned about the Cape Breton Highlands and hiked the Cabot Trail to embankments that afford a view of the vast ocean below and beyond. We walked the beaches, pocketed polished bits of sea glass, and studied soft outcroppings of white gypsum. We were nearly blown over when the winds came in and snatched car doors and screen doors out of our hands. We ate oatcakes and attended fundraisers to raise money to replace flooded church basements floors. (The program, at Calvin United, was called Bach to Broadway and provided a sometimes-surprising departure from the Celtic theme of the Festival. One audience participation number led a jolly gentleman to exclaim, “I ooohed when I should have aaaahed. It was all good fun.) We were served refreshments by ladies who told us, “You can’t rush a good cup of tea.” We ate long spider legged snow crab from Newfoundland. We shopped in co-ops and bought colorful knitted mittens and glass jewelry and more teacakes in Saturday markets by the sea. We drove from venue to venue along long colorful miles with views of sweeping headlands and deep, wet valleys. We traveled from Sydney and Glace Bay to Glencoe Station and Mabou. We traveled from Belle Côte and Scotsville up to the Cape Breton Highlands National Park and walked lovely trails that led to grand views. (We could see the to the Magdalen Islands in the distance.) We were compelled to do all of this if we were to take in the vastness of this small island and to suck up all we could of this festival and Cape Breton life. And we were grandly nourished by it all.
…..
Our first event took place at the 100-year-old St. Matthew’s United Church in Inverness on Saturday afternoon October 6.
It was a sunny brisk fall afternoon and a long line was waiting to pass through the door of the welcoming white steepled church which is set on a hill overlooking town and sea. Our pew was located near stained glass windows dedicated to those who died in World War II.
This afternoon session is called Fiddles and Prose. This is a fine concept, this celebration of writers who have captured the spirit of the culture of music in Cape Breton. The authors read and the musicians answer them. It makes for a rich layered Cape Breton cake. Today we are introduced to the taste of the place by the authors Alistair MacLeod and Frank Macdonald. Although the writers read in English, it is Gaelic that is often a topic, especially in MacDonald’s work. It is, he tells us, “the language spoken in Heaven.” and by the end of the week, I believe this. MacDonald writes a column for the Inverness newspaper called “Assuming I’m Right.” He is a wit and reads two stories from his book A Possible Madness.
The fiddlers play as he concludes a story and we understand better the piece he has read about a young bride and her dual with the fiddler at her wedding dance. In the story, it is clearly the fiddler who is her lover and his tune and increasingly frenetic playing that makes love to her. We all feel the energy of the story and then see fiddler and dancer in a sort of reenactment on stage. As the fiddler’s tempo increases, the legs of people in the pews around us start to bounce up and down…until soon the whole church is filled with the sound of feet slapping the floor. No hands and no heads are moving. Only feet. We wonder if everyone will get up and make squares!
During the rest of the afternoon, we hear stories about the Gaelic alphabet: 18 letters each named for a tree or plant. Alistair MacLeod reads selections from his work. (He is the author of Letters to the World: The Writing of Alistair MacLeod and No Great Mischief among others) A desk lamp is hastily plugged in and held behind him as it is clear that he is struggling to see his pages in the dim late afternoon church. His last story is a reflection on the multicultural draw of the fiddle music of the island and incorporates the Scots, the French, and the aboriginals in a tale of fiddling. MacLeod’s own son and daughter, Marion MacLeod and Kenneth MacLeod, are on stage to play fiddle and keyboard.
Macleod is thoughtful about the goals of his work. He is interested in point of view, about where we are in time when big things happen to us and how our lives are changed by trauma. His story of icy death and the subsequent recollection of the young boy who survives the rest of his family is beautifully crafted and evocative.
During the afternoon, we have our first experience of Cathy Ann MacPhee’s lovely voice. Her first language is Gaelic and she sings beautifully. She immigrated to Ottawa from Barra Island and has been teaching but announces this afternoon, to a delighted audience, that she feels at home in Nova Scotia and is moving to Halifax.
Others who perform are Joanne MacIntyre, who sings in Gaelic, and Margie Beaton, an accomplished fiddler and step dancer who we see later in the week working in the Gaelic College gift shop.
This afternoon was a lovely introduction to Cape Breton and to the music of the place. As we file out, we feel the truth of MacLeod’s earlier comment that, “all of us are better when we’re loved” and we sense that the love in this community and this church on this fall afternoon is really what we must count on to make this a decent world.
After the readings, we make a dash into Inverness to find The Bear Paw, a bookstore, to buy MacLeod and Macdonald’s books. There we meet, for not the last time, the proprietor Alice Freeman. She and others in the store are chatty jokesters who tease and play as they help us find what we are looking for (even though it is past closing time). Before we leave, we make donations to Alice’s fund for stray cats.
On Sunday afternoon, we traveled up the road from Belle Côte to Chéticamp and the Doryman Pub and Grill. Ashley MacIsaac, a fabulous fiddler, was to play, one of my friends, a Nova Scotian who has been my host on previous trips, told me. It was a must, though not part of the official Celtic Colours program. We were told to get there early and did. Ashley wasn’t playing until 3 in the afternoon, but we arrived around 1 and the place was filled shortly after. I ordered Alexander Keith’s Honey Brown Ale and deep fried haddock with mashed potatoes and cole slaw. Everyone around me ordered some version of the same: pan fried haddock was popular at my table. The food came quickly and was delicious. I sipped my ale to make it last.
“He was a bad boy,” someone tells me of Ashley. And I hear the story of his “kilt flash” on the Conan O’Brien show. They tell me he has settled down.
The buzz in the Doryman gets louder and finally Ashley walks through the door, past the big signs for Molson and LaBlatts and Alexander Keith’s IPA. Loud cheers. His keyboard artist arrives and there is another round of cheers and applause as she makes her way to the stage. She is Maybelle Chisholm MacQueen, called by some the best Celtic piano player in Cape Breton. She is one of the Chisholms of Margaree, a well-known and respected musical family. She was classically trained but began playing for square dances at ten according to her biography. I love Maybelle’s vigorous style and the pleasure she seems to take from playing. Her hands move so fast I can’t get a good clear photograph of her, though a helpful fellow at the bar tries fruitlessly to give me a lesson in ISO settings. I take his suggestions with good humor.
When Ashley and Maybelle begin, every leg in the pub, including those holding the tables up, begins to move. People shout approval as the tempos of the tunes increase. Finally, Ashley invites a square set to form. Dancers move to the music for a while. Then a gentleman who seems to have trouble walking takes the floor and begins to step dance. Whatever ails him does not get in the way of his spirited movements. Others join him. The tempo of the fiddle and piano increases. One woman is left standing and dancing by the end. The effort to stay standing and keep dancing, increasing in speed and vying with the ferocious energy of the fiddler, and the flirtation between fiddler and dancer are recurring themes and they are present in the traditional Scottish Gaelic song, Sleepy Maggie. (Recorded by MacIssac and Mary Jane Lamond.) Poor Maggie fears she is too untidy to continue to dance because she’s lost a pin but then, oh well…..
“Oh I won’t be sad
When the fiddler, the fiddler comes tonight
I won’t be sad
When the fiddler comes tonight.”
The Doryman audience was pleased by all and whoops to show appreciation. Nobody was sad when this fiddler came.
The biggest disappointments of the week were the John Allen Cameron Song Session at Glencoe Station Community Center and the Brakin’ Tradition (with Cyril McPhee) performance at Chéticamp’s La Place des arts Père.
The John Allan Cameron session was to be led by Dave Gunning and was advertised as a sing along. Gunning’s latest album has been getting good reviews and he is busy touring. But though it would have been good to hear his new work, it was his recent tribute album to John Allen Cameron, himself from Inverness County, Glencoe Station and the chance to sing the beloved Cameron’s work with someone who knew him the drew the crowd.
To get to Glencoe Station’s Community Center we traveled a gravel road. People said the last time they’d been there, there had been two feet of snow on the road. We wonder how active people are in the dead of winter! The hall itself: Round tables are set up all about the large, functional room and each is covered with a plastic cloth covered with a measure of silky, colorful cloth and seasonal gourds. There are song sheets on each table. Tea and coffee is prepared and it is followed at intermission by teacakes and sandwiches, including lobster! It is a predominantly older crowd.
But alas, no Dave Gunning! Without explanation, Wally MacAuley takes the stage. The former member of The Men of the Deeps allows for a couple of sing alongs, but plays his own music for the rest of the program. Not what we came to hear. People were gracious but not enthusiastic.
I have to bless Wally, however, for introducing me to the haunting song, The Piper and The Maker, by Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis. The last lines are particularly compelling:
The maker says to the piper who has played unearthly, previously unknown music on his new pipes and is greatly troubled:
“I understand your fear
But the wood and leather’s of this Earth – no magic is there here.
I will admit these pipes could be the finest ever made
But that would count for not one thing if they were never played.”
“For there’s music in them right enough and there’s music in you too,
And the one requires the other if that music’s to come through.
The pipes unlocked the music that was waiting in your soul
And you unlocked the instrument and made the circle whole.”.
…….
Brakin’ Tradition was a popular band in the early 1990s and no doubt had and still has a following. After 18 years hiatus, they came together last spring and played and we heard them at Chéticamp in the Acadian Reunion session. (This is one of the few sessions that incorporates Acadian music or even alludes to the strong Acadian tradition on the island.) Cyril MacPhee, a member of the band, was one of two artists in residence for the festival and was a delight on his own. But Brakin’ Tradition’s set was uninspiring. The group needs to update its material and work on a new or better ensemble sound. The lead singer, Louanne Baker, was insistently loud. Her vocals lacked nuance or interesting dynamics. (Though pure Celtic music does not call for such it is true.) Her body language on stage was distracting.
One of the highlights of our week was the more didactic, participatory milling frolic at the Scottsville School of Crafts. Geoffrey May and Rebecca-Lynne MacDonald-May who are dedicated students of the local culture and its roots led the session. They have a radio show called “Aiseirigh Nan Gaidheal” (The awakening of the Gaels) available to stream from CKJM Cooperative Radio Chéticamp. It is broadcast in Gaelic with English translation. Geoffrey and Rebecca-Lynne taught us milling songs in Gaelic and demonstrated the moves used in felting cloth. (Alice Freeman says the mantra is push, pull, crash, pass.) Then we had at it! It was great fun. The session was full of history and the couple’s research has been thorough enough to supply many corrections to misconceptions regarding Scottish history and to suggest references for further study. We learn from Geoffrey and Rebecca-Lynne that the owner of the Bear Paw in Inverness, Alice Freeman, is a valuable source of milling songs. She stood on the milling table and step danced while she learned the songs when she was a small girl we are told. We are pleased we have met her and to have recorded a couple her songs as she sang them to us!
We saw The Once twice. The Once is a collaboration of Geraldine Hollett, Phil Churchill, and Andrew Dale. In Cape Breton for the festival, they come from Newfoundland. They did a fine afternoon session at the fabulous Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. Then Geraldine was featured in the Island Women session in Glace Bay later that night. The songs of The Once are sometimes plaintive, sometimes funny, but always interesting. Geraldine has a powerful, but nuanced instrument and a memorable stage presence. We loved them so much that we ran down the street after their van hoping to stop them in time to buy a cd. We got one later that night at the Savoy.
Another surprise at the Island Women session was Sylvia LeLièvre, an Acadian from Chéticamp and called by some an Acadian super star and “Chéticamp’s best kept secret.” She owns a guest house and has been singing for 30 years and more, often with her brothers.
Sylvia has a beautiful, heartfelt voice, wonderful phrasing, and a deep connection with the lyrics she sings. I’d love to hear her in a smaller venue. Every recording I’ve found of her online is better than the last but I find no albums.
Also featured at Island Women was Mary Jane Lamond and Kathleen MacInnes. Mary Jane has a record of working with terrific artists and making the charts with her singles. (Notably her vocal on Sleepy Maggie recorded with Ashley MacIsaac.) She is a mover in the effort to support the continuing vitality of Gaelic culture. She, like many others, respects the songs and conventions of performance from her tradition and her roots. And she, again like many others, has worked to increase her Gaelic language skills. There are many academies on Cape Breton, including the Gaelic College on the Cabot Trail, St. Ann’s that make studying language possible
So many others deserve a mention. But this is quick review of most of the shows we attended. There were many others. Celtic Colours is packed with rich performances and other events every day for over a week. Lest you think I’ve forgotten about Natalie MacMaster, I didn’t. She was featured at Celtic Colours. However, she is playing in my town this coming Sunday night and I knew I’d get a chance to catch her there.
Will I return next year? If there is anyway possible, I’ll be there.
LLyn De Danaan
#30#
Mountain of Shell: The Poetry of Miyoko Sato and Yukiko Abo
We learn from senryu that life is brief, our faults many and the ways we deceive ourselves innumerable. Senryu teaches us to be patient, to smile, to know the wisdom of humility and to be generous…in spirit. Koyo (Susumu) Sato
The senryu poems of Miyoko Sato and Yukiko Abo open a window to the lives of Japanese laborers in the oyster industry of Western Washington. Both women were born in the first quarter of the 20th century in Washington State, and spent most of their lives working on Oyster Bay, Totten Inlet, Washington.[i] Senryu, their graceful art, is a Japanese poetic tradition. It is related to haiku in form but its topics concern everyday life and often sparkle with wit and humor.[ii]
On this working bay in south Puget Sound a community of Japanese and Japanese Americans have lived and labored since about 1900. Many of them were United States citizens but were nonetheless incarcerated in 1942. Most spent their war years in the windswept and forlorn Tule Lake Segregation Center near the California border town of Newell. It was known as the “worst” of the War Relocation Camps and stories of it abound especially during the 4th of July reunions held on site.
…..
Sliding from their box,
Seed oysters gleam in the sun
Of a foreign land
Yukiko Abo
When I first moved to Oyster Bay in the early 1970s, I didn’t know I was entering a historically and culturally rich maritime community that had been occupied for thousands of years. We were a group of women, artists, writers, anthropologists, and educators who bought and lived in structures that themselves were part of this history. One friend bought the oyster plant that had belonged to the Brenner Oyster Company. It became living quarters and art studio. Two of us reclaimed workers’ houses from the invasive Himalayan blackberries, and the fast growing Douglas fir, and alder. Greenery had laid siege to the neglected uplands buildings associated with Brenner operations. As we talked with neighbors, we came to know a few names of the oyster growers: Justin Taylor, J.J. Brenner, Dave McMillan, and the man we knew simply as the “bay master,” to name a few; all were associated with an oyster business we knew nothing about.
We could look down bay and see a mountain of wooden boxes silk screened with the name “Olympia Oyster Company.” We learned these were the containers that held oyster spat shipped from Japan, kept wet on the decks of the ships that brought them to Washington. We watched the oyster barges and workers on the tide flats.
One person stood out in those years. A slight Japanese gentleman walked the beach, a dog that looked like a small bear on a leash by his side. He had a steady, erect gate, a bright smile, and a head of thick grey hair cut short on the sides and parted slightly off center. We came to know his name was Takeji Minegishi and heard stories that he had received his home, a dignified brick house with magnificent gardens, as a gift. He, we were told, had made and tended those gardens for the previous owners, the William Waldrip family. Down the hill on the beach and below that house were twin wooden cabins. They were in shambles by my time and accessible only by water or by a lurching ride down a steep, long, gravelly driveway then called Hardscrabble Road.
Then we no longer saw Mr. Minegishi.
During my beach walks in later years, I came to know the derelict cabins a better. They were long abandoned and stood on frail, worm eaten, pilings over the tide flats. One cabin corner rested on only an inch or two of support. When I dared to peek inside, I could see moldering Japanese language magazines, a woman’s white pump and matching tightly clasped handbag, and a scattering of foxed photographs. In the woods behind the cabins I found middens of sake bottles and tin shoyu canisters. Sometimes, from the muddy banks nearby, broken bits of rice bowls fell into the gravel and mud.
At the rear and to the side of the cabins was a splendid stand of bamboo that evoked the stroke and style of Chinese landscape painting. Its erect, green culms sequestered the modest dwellings. Their long leaves made a whispering sound with the breezes from the bay. In the spring, purple and yellow irises grew out of swampy beach grasses. A freshwater spring trickled out from under one of the cabins. A long ruined pier stood, a broken skeleton, leading from the cabins out into the bay. Just downbay near the cabins were large chunks of twisted rebar and concrete blocks, shards of broken glass, and even an old refrigerator.
Now, even the cabins are gone.
…..
One day, a few years ago, after reading one of my articles about Oyster Bay, Ron Abo called me. “Wouldn’t you like to know our story? The story of the Japanese on Oyster Bay?” he asked.
Yukiko Abo, Ron’s mother lives almost directly across the bay from me though I had not met the family. She was born in a float house on Mud Bay in Thurston County, Washington in 1919, Ron said. Her parents worked for J.J. Brenner on the oyster beds. I wanted to learn more.
Gentle voices
come with the wind
From the opposite shore
Yukiko Abo
At our first meeting in Yukiko Abo’s home, we talked together as we flipped through family photograph albums. Yukiko spoke little, and then in Japanese. Her adult children, who take turns staying in her home as she has needed more help, translated. We asked her about the pictures and everyone had stories. The house, just above the beach, is adorned with Japanese art and on walls are scrolls of calligraphed senryu mounted on wooden tablets. Brilliant trophies bedeck shelves. These are awards from senryu competitions. As we talked, sipped green tea, and nibbled on rice cracker treats, the story of a vibrant Japanese and Japanese American maritime community of laborers emerged. The discovery that this community of laboring people had abounded with poets and poetry was an unexpected gift.
How many families
are supported
By this Mountain of shells
Yukiko Abo
Japanese workers first came to Oyster Bay in the early twentieth century. In 1900 there were at least three Japanese laborers on Oyster Bay. They were single men, late twenties to mid-thirties, working side by side with a dozen or more Chinese in a community of English, Irish, Canadians, Germans, Swedes and Americans. By that time, few Indians worked in the tidelands on Oyster Bay. The Slocum and Simmons families were still in the business. The Tobins, who had beds in Oyster Bay, had long since taken a homestead on Mud Bay. Census records from 1910 lists nearly twenty individuals “working at oystering” who were born in Japan. They had immigrated between 1900 and 1907, a few years after the many Chinese oyster workers in the Kamilche/Oyster Bay area. Several of the Japanese were members of small families in which both spouses or other relatives were working.[iii] In Shelton two young Japanese men were servants and oyster openers at the “oyster house” in the downtown district.
Some of the oyster workers in the early 1900s were part-timers. E.N. Steele notes that, “Two young Japanese men, by name of J. Emy Tsukimato and Joe Miyagi,” graduated from public schools in Olympia and earned their way by acting as “house boys,” opening oysters for J.J. Brenner, or working on the oyster beds during summer vacations.[iv]
Can’t say “no”
So I am overworked
Yukiko Abo
There is very little in the literature of the oyster industry about these essential Japanese laborers and their contributions. T.R. Ingham’s history notes that Tadayasu (Tad) Abo was among those who showed him how to use an oyster fork. He was impressed if somewhat condescending: “…many people little realize how hard the ‘blue -collar men’ work, and how much they understand what they are doing, with good suggestions helplful to management.”[v]
Oyster growers established families in float houses moored to “good producing beds.” The families were “usually Japanese” and the float houses were linked to a “top float and a sink float.”[vi] The high-sided sink float held harvested oysters below water level when the tide came in. A float house itself, “had a flat bottom so when the tide was out it settled on the tide-flat.” It was, “fitted up with sleeping quarters, food and cooking utilities.” [vii] The cabin-like living quarters were built on “six logs with a diameter of six or seven feet” bound together. It was “chained to…pillars sunk” into the mud flats.[viii]
Through the late ‘teens and 1920s there were,“six Japanese families on Mud Bay and thirteen or fourteen at Oyster Bay.”[ix]
Japanese families continued to work and live on Oyster Bay through the 1930s.
…..
Periodically articles appeared in the Mason County Journal that mentioned this hearty community of immigrants.
A storm of snow
I wait for him to come home,
while the kettle boils.
Miyoko Sato
These notes were often somber.
In October of 1917 the Mason County Journal, in its “Oyster Bay Odd Bits of News” column reported that,“the Japanese of the community are plunged in gloom which was cast upon them by the death of three of their number recently.” John Hyamo drowned in an attempt to save his small son. The death records show that, “Chiyonia Lou Hayami” from Japan was 45 years old when he was declared dead of “accidental drowning.” The boy was 4 years old. Years later, Tadayusu Abo remembered that the Hayami boy “floated under the house,” and could not be retrieved before he died.[x] Another version of the story says that, “John Hyama” and his son were washed away by the “strong current from outgoing tide.” Such tragedies or near tragedies were not uncommon. And they were long remembered.
Anxiously waiting
At the beach for his return
Sad sound of foghorns![xi]
Yukiko Abo
In 1909, a month old boy, “Asuo Matsumoto” died of pneumonia and bronchitis. In 1912, a month old girl, “Tsuyu Oyama” died of gastroenteritis. Intestinal hemorrhage was listed as cause of death of two day old “M. Tsurutomi” in 1914. In 1917, a nearly eight month old baby, a “Yoshihari” died of gastroenteritis.” Baby “Ikiyi Sabata” was stillborn in November of 1917. “Minoru Osako,” a two month old boy died of “acute indigestion.” [xii]
A special 1905 edition of the Mason County Journal notes that Japanese and Chinese are “employed in gathering and culling” the big business of oyster growing. Mason County was producing and shipping “an average of 20,000 sacks of oysters a year.” The return, the article reports, was “close to $75,000.” [xiii] The grower’s gross return was $3.25 “from which he paid $1 to $1.25 for gathering and culling.” This would have included the Japanese workers living in a oyster opening and shipping house at Kamilche Point when it burned to the ground after some locals “camped” in vacant rooms set off fire crackers July 4, 1915.[xiv] Eventually, the Japanese workers replaced the Chinese who, in turn, had displaced most of the Indian oyster bed workers.[xv]However, in February of 1904 the Mason County Journal noted that many Japanese oyster workers returned to Japan with the outbreak of the Japanese-Russian war.
Other records of the community appear occasionally. Mosa Yoshahara is among the youngsters pictured in a 1920 Oyster Bay school class picture. In 1929 the Mason County Journal noted that, “the Japanese colony of employees” was well represented at the funeral services in Olympia of the well known grower, Joseph Waldrip.
The Yoshihara family, cousins of the Abo family, were sometimes in the Mason County news. Originally working for the J.J. Brenner along with the Abos on Mud Bay in the 1920s, they acquired their own beds in Oakland Bay near Shelton and incorporated as the West Coast Oyster company in 1935. The Mason County Journal called them “energetic and progressive Japanese who have been quite successful in their business under many handicaps.”
Even on a snowy night
He goes to work with his lantern.
Yukiko Abo
A local memoir notes that there were several families living on float houses on Oyster Bay through the 1930s. “Mr. and Mrs. Motamatu lived in two small float houses anchored to the shore…accessed by a long wooden plank.” The Hisata family lived on a “floating barge with a small rectangle house built on top…opposite Burns Point.” [xvi]People living on the shore heard the sound of children laughing or sometimes a flute. Families maintained small gardens on the decks of their floating homes and in the summer, the houses were pulled up on shore, leveled, and large, lush vegetable gardens were made on above the beach.[xvii] Romantic as it may sound, life on a float house was fraught with danger. During harvest season, people worked long hours and through the night and in rough weather with high winds and waves. Oil lanterns provided the only markers for workers on the dark low tides of winter. “If the tide was right in the middle of the night, dark figures could be seen in the soft circlet of light cast by their lanterns…raking with slow strokes using their long handled oyster rakes. They were visions of dependability, ingenuity and industry,” [xviii] Tadayasu Abo said in the “busiest season before Thanksgiving and Christmas” he “worked as long as one week without taking off his boots.” The weather could be nasty; the waves and currents rough. Pay was “enough for food” Yukiko Abo remembered. “Not very much,” another former opener said. When her husband Kay broke his leg, Irene Nagai, who didn’t drive, walked a mile and a half each way to catch a ride to work. The pay may have been meager, but it was essential.
There were few amenities and no benefits. Until the mid-1970s, women’s pay was lower than men’s. Women, mostly openers and cullers, were paid by piece work and men were paid by the hour. There was no health care though accidents on the job were covered through Washington State Labor and Industries. There was no extra pay for Saturday work. There was company housing, but workers paid rent and were reluctant to ask for the repairs the old, rotting houses needed.[xix]
…..
The Imperial Government of Japan bombed Pearl harbor. It was December 7, 1941. Every Life changed for everyone that day. First there were rumors, then fear. The Mason County Journal February 6, 1942 edition announced:
Enemy Aliens Get To Monday to Re-Register.
Oyster Bay was in trouble even before the Japanese and Japanese Americans were interned. Sulfite from pulp mills opened in 1927 in Shelton had begun to take its toll on the waters that fed the tiny Olympia oyster, the mainstay of production on the bay. Some growers filed a damage suit against Rainier Pulp and Paper in 1930. In the mid-1940s the Washington State Fisheries Department launched a survey to study of the effects of pollution and the decline of the native oysters. The oyster beds were also suffering from absence of workers during the war. A newspaper article in April 1942 noted “The problem of the oyster industry is complicated by the lack of men to work the beds because of the Japanese evacuation.” Growers were concerned. “There is some difference of opinion as to what harm may be done the oyster beds by letting them lie idle because white help will not work the beds,” the paper reported. Japanese laborers moved seed oysters to fattening grounds, laid shell on beds to catch spat, and repaired “dikes, boats, scows and floats.” In short, the Japanese did almost all work.
…..
Yukiko Abo was born on a float house on Mud Bay in 1919. Her mother Yuri was born in Hiroshima in about 1900. Her father Tomitaro Abo was born in around 1887 and immigrated to the United States in 1903. In 1920, the family worked on oyster beds along side the Yamada family and the Yoshiharas. Yukiko’s brother became ill with tuberculosis and Yuri took both children to Japan. Yukiko, an American citizen, attended the Mukaishima Koto Shogakko (upper division elementary) school in Mitsugai district of Hiroshima until 1932 then went to a girl’s school (jogakko) in the same town until 1936. She studied sewing, arithmetic, reading, and geography, “similar to American schools.”[xx] She became what is known as Kibei, American born-educated in Japan, once she returned to the United States. Kibei were suspect when WWII began because of their ties to Japan and Tule Lake internees counted many Kibei among their population. In 1936, Tadayasu, who was born in a lumber camp in Selleck, Washington in 1911,[xxi] and was also Kibei, returned to Japan and married Yukiko. It was, Yukiko says, a marriage arranged by their families. The couple stayed in Japan for three months then they booked passage from Kobe on the Hiye Maru. Over 11 thousand tons, it was launched and put into service as a passenger and cargo ship in 1930. The well known vessel travelled between Kobe and Seattle during the 1930s at one point carrying 1000 rose bushes as return gift from Seattle to the city of Yokohama. It could carry 331 passengers and traveled at 18.5 knots. It’s place in history is unique. It carried scrap metal to Japan before WWII, was almost blown up in Elliot Bay near the Great Northern Dock by Canadians protesting the war in China, it carried Polish Jewish refugees to the United States in 1941, it was used as a submarine depot ship by the Japanese Imperial Navy during WWII, and was torpedoed and sunk in 1943.
Yukiko was 16 when she came back to Puget Sound. The couple returned to work for the Olympia Oyster Company on Oyster Bay where Tad had been working since 1934.
In 1940, Tadayasu Abo registered for the draft. After the attack on Pearl Harbor the United States Government moved quickly to contain “enemy aliens.” In February 1942, Executive Order 9066 ordered the evacuation from the West Coast of “all persons of Japanese Ancestry.” By March of 1942, assembly centers were established as containment areas until camps were constructed. Executive Order 9102 established the War Relocation Authority.
The Abos boarded a train for Tule Lake with their two year old son, Joe, in June of 1942. They were interned until February 1945. Tad Abo was officially classified 4C, an “enemy alien” inelgible for military service.
Tule Lake became a camp of “disloyals.” A loyalty oath was given to internees in 1943 and those who did not sign became the majority population at Tule. Yukiko wrote, “I thought that …I would be forced to relocate during time of war to unfriendly communities. I didn’t want to be separated from my husband and son. Mr. K……(a Hoshi Dan leader my note) said if I didn’t refuse to answer or didn’t give negative answers I would be separated from my brother who was sick. I couldn’t think of relocating with my son and without my husband, especially after the experience of how Japanese could be treated by white persons who hated us because of the war.” Yukiko had been kicked by a white woman while walking in town one day before the evacuation. This stoked her fear of relocation somewhere that she wouldn’t know people. Her experience on Oyster Bay before the war with non-Japanese was positive. “Short” Barrick worked side by side with Tad on the mud flats and not only provided firewood and friendship but offered to keep all the Abo belongings safe when they were evacuated. [xxii]
Camp life itself fueled fear. After Congress passed a constitutionally questionable “denaturalization” bill that allowed Japanese Americans to renounce their citizenship, organizations at camp including Sokuji Kikoku Hoshi-Dan and Hokoku Seinen-Dan (a young men’s association), both pro-Japan groups advocating return to Japan, stepped up their efforts to recruit others. [xxiii]“I was always in fear of my husband, children and I getting harmed by…the Hoshi Dan and the Seinen Dan.[xxiv] I was always hearing how they beat people that were not deciding for renunciation.” There were threats. Some who had decided to renounce shunned others. Tad Abo was afraid that there might be retaliations against his parents, now in Japan, if he said he would be willing to serve in the United States military. And he was certain that the family would be deported no matter what they did and face trouble in Japan if they signed loyalty oaths in the United States. Finally Yukiko followed her husband’s decision and renounced citizenship. They and many others were young adults with small children, torn by their loyalties to families, fearful, and not yet proficient in English. More than 5000 eventually came forward after the war to tell their stories. Yukiko and Tad sent letters asking to have the applications for renunciation cancelled in 1945.
Wayne Collins, a San Francisco Attorney took up the case of the renunciants and filed two mass class equity suits including Tadayasu Abo v. Clark, No. 25294 in the U.S. District VCourt at San Francisco on November 13,1945. It would be a 24 year struggle as the case made it through the courts, affidavits were collected from individual renunciants, and rulings were made case by case.
After the war the family, with daughter Nancy (born in camp) and son Joe, lived briefly in Red Bluff, California where Tad worked for Southern Pacific Railroad. Then a letter came from Tamotsu “ Tom” Nagai, the first family to return to Oyster Bay, asking them to return to work for the Olympia Oyster Company. A meeting had been held asking whether the Nikkei would be welcomed. The Abo, Marikawa, Yoshimura, Kanda, and Kajihara families returned. Others including the Satos, followed.[xxv]
The suits were successful and affirmed that the whole renunciation process was filled with missteps. A final order restoring citizenship to the Abos was issued on February 7, 1957. [xxvi]
It was that year that Yukiko began to write poetry with other Nikkei oyster workers on Oyster Bay.
You’ve returned
Happy to see you with your
catch of smelt.
Yukiko Abo
…..
During one of my visits, Miyoko Sato, after showing me her garden, led me to a lower level room which served as her office. She sat before a computer with a Japanese keyboard which she used to publish Hokubei Senryu.[xxvii] She also sent selections of senryu to followers. “She always starts with a description of the season like, ‘sensing the daffodils and the daphne about to bloom, I know spring is just around the corner,’” one reader wrote.[xxviii] She learned from Miyoko Sato to take notice.
When Miyoko Sato took over as publisher in 1980, she used “steel pens, stencils, and mimeographs” and an “almost antique” printer.[xxix] She showed me the slips of paper used to write senryu during meetings and explained how the poems were judged and how she edited the monthly journal.
Miyoko Sato began writing senryu with her husband, Susumu Sato,[xxx] Yukiko Abo, Irene Nagai, and others from Oyster Bay in 1957. Their teacher was the man who walked by my house in the early 1970s, Takeji Minegishi. He immigrated at age 16 with his father and studied and wrote senryu most of his life, first as a member of a group in Longview, Washington where his father worked. He spent the war years in Japan then returned to the bay in 1951, and in 1957, after becoming a citizen, brought his wife and children. His Oyster Bay students met monthly, in his home at first, writing on topics that were close to their experiences and sharing their poetry with one another. It became, this writing, a life long passion.
Miyoko Mabel Sato was born Miyoko Sazaka in 1920. The birth took place Bellevue where her parents had arranged for a midwife. Her parents, Mitse and Fusa or Fusaye (nee Fujiwara), were born in Japan and immigrated from Nagano-ken. Fusaye was born in 1890 and arrived in the United States in 1918 after completing eight years of school in Japan. The family lived in King County. Her mother and father worked for Grand Union Laundry. When she was seven, she and her brothers and sisters were taken to Japan by their grandfather. Miyoko attended elementary and girls’ high school there.
As a young man, Susumu was a summer oyster employee of the Washington Oyster Company in South Bend where his father was an oyster laborer. He was in school the rest of the year. Susumu was also born in the United States and attended school for nine years in Japan. He returned to the United States in 1936, sailing from Yokohama on the Hiye Maru. Miyoko returned to the United States with her brother Hiroshi two years later. She was 17. Her traveling companions from Japan included many U.S. citizens: students, farm laborers, missionaries, and even a hotel howner.
Susumu “Koyo” was a friend of Miyoko’s brother. He came to visit and help with chores. And he sang. The young Miyoko was attracted to Koyo and “what followed was: ‘Sono mukashi hubo mo kawashita.’”[xxxi]They began to exchange love letters.
They married in Seattle in August 1941 at the Buddhist Church on King Street. They moved to Bay Center where they both worked for an oyster company. It was there they received notice that they were to be evacuated to Tule Lake. The newlyweds left a houseful of gifts behind and boarded a train in Olympia. Miyoko, just 21, was pregnant with her daughter Dorothy, born in July of 1942. Miyoko’s family in Seattle were interned at Minidoka.
After the war, Susumu worked for three years as a member of a section gang for the Southern Pacific Railroad.[xxxii]Then Miyoko’s father in Seattle saw a piece in the newspaper: “Employees Wanted by Oyster Company.” They arrived on Oyster Bay in 1948 and never left.
…..
Gloves are good things
Rough hands may hide
Yukiko Abo
During our visit in November 2009, Miyoko showed me her hands, fingers bent from years of the tedious task of culling oysters and scraping barnacles from the oyster shells. We talked about the Hokubei Senryu. Few people subscribe, now. Many of those who were writing senryu have died. After we talked, she read some of her poems.
You think you know your body
but not really
Miyoko Sato
On a grey day in February 2010 Oyster Bay families shared sushi, hot tea, and a large cake. Oyster Bay Senryu and Friends was emblazoned on it with thick, daffodil yellow frosting.The Minegishi house had been, after many years of vacancy and vandalism, remodeled and was ready to be occupied by the family. Sue Kikuchi, Takeji Minegishi’s daughter, hosted the afternoon tea for the families, many of whom hadn’t seen each other since they were young. Abos from across the bay came, including Yukiko. Harry Sato represented the Sato family. Miyoko wasn’t feeling up to it. Others involved in the Mountain of Shell project, including Aki Motomatsu, a long time Oyster Bay resident and shellfish laborer were there. The “reunion” called to mind the senryu gatherings and parties so many years ago held on these grounds. People shared stories, studied photographs, and then, at the urging of Mary Abo, the poems came out and the readings began.
Without any applause
the curtain comes down
Miyoko Sato
We do applaud.
The Mountain of Shell project is an ongoing effort to record and archive the history of Japanese and Japanese American laborers on Oyster Bay. The author wants to thank the Abo, Sato, Motomatsu, Kikuchi families for their collaboration and enthusiasm. Shirley Earhart at the Mason County Historic Society has been of invaluable help on this project for nearly 10 years.
Katsu Young helped with some translation.
[i] The poems quoted in this article were originally written in Japanese and translated either by their authors or family members helping with the Mountain of Shell project.
[ii] Shuho Ohno. Modern Senryu in English. Hokubei International. 1988. Virginia Painter. “Oystering a Longtime Way of Life…” The Olympian. January14, 1979.
[iii] Other Japanese and Japanese families worked on Mason County logging crews.
[iv] see E.N. Steele. The Immigrant Oyster: Now Known as the Pacific Oyster. chapter I. 1962. These men figured prominently in the history of the local industry after graduating from college.
[v] T.R. Ingham, M.D. History of Olympia Oyster Company. 1993. p. 33
[vi] History of Olympia Oyster Company.
[vii] op. cit The Immigrant Oyster. page 17
[viii]A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America. Translated by Shinechiro Nakamura and Jean S. Gerard. Published by Executive Committee for Publication of Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America c/o Japanese Community Service, 1414 South Weller Street. Seattle, WA. 1973. page 582
[ix] Ibid. p. 582
[x] ibid. p. 583
[xi] This was likely the fog signal from the Dofflemyer Point Lighthouse at Boston Harbor according to long time residents of Oyster Bay and Totten Inlet. It was built in 1934.
[xii] Death rates for Japanese laborers was probably high all over the west coast of the United States. Yuji Ichioka infers that poor, unsanitary, or unsafe working conditions may have accounted for many of the illnesses and accidental deaths. Yuji Ichioka. The Issei: The World of First Generation Jpanese Immigrants 1885-1924. 1990. Pp. 84-85.
[xiii] About $1,800,000 using consumer price index to determine relative value in 2010 dollars.
[xiv] Mason County Journal. July 9, 1915. “Old Landmark Burned.” The house at first been McDonald Simmon’s saloon which “served to supply early-day loggers with all kinds of wines and liquors, including the genuine old ‘red-eye,’ all on tap from the same keg.”
[xv] Humprey Nelson. Little Man and The Little Oyster. Mason County Historical Society.
[xvi] Georgia Ann Bergh. The World Was Our Oyster. Unpublished Memoir. 1993. She lived on Oyster Bay as a child with her mother and father Newton and Georgia Lena White.
[xvii] Justin Taylor. Personal communication. February…..2010.
[xviii] op. cit. Georgia Ann Bergh,
[xix] Nancy Brewer. Personal communication. March 20, 2010.
[xx] Affidavit of Yukiko Abo August 9, 1956.
[xxi] Selleck was a company town for Pacific States Lumber. During this period 2200 Japanese men worked as contract laborers in sawmills in Washington and Oregon. Tadaysu’s mother was popular for the Japanese food and drink she made for the bachelors. The Japanese community in Selleck was known as “Lavendar Town.” Yuji Ichioka. The Issei The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants 1885-1924, P. 72 and U.S. Immigration Commission, Immigrants in Industries, Part 25: Japanese and Other Immigrant Races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States (Washington D.C. 1911).
[xxii] Eleanor Barrick. Personal communication. February 25, 2010.
[xxiii] See Teruko Imai Kumei “‘Skeleton in the Closet’: The Japanese American Hokoku Seinen-dan and Their “Disloyal” Activities at the Tule Lake Segregation Center During World War II.” The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 7 (1996)
[xxiv] For more see: John Christgau. Enemies: World War II Alien Internment. University of Nebraska Press.
[xxv] “The Japanese in Olympia” n.d. unpublished.
[xxvi] John Christgau. “Collins versus the World: The Fight to Retore Citizenship to Japanese American Renunciants of World War II,” Pacific Historial Review, Pp. 1-31 and “Collins v. the World: Wayne Collins, Sr. and the Tadayasu Abo case. The Historical Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 1. Summer 1983. Published by the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
[xxvii] Hokubei means North America. Katsu Young. Personal communication.
[xxviii] Yaeko Inaba. Hokubei Hochi. March 28. Year?
[xxix] Miyoko Sato. “Message from a Senryu Friend: Thanks to You.” n.d.
[xxx] According to Miyoko Sato, Susumo or Koyo became a “demon for senryu” and received the “Order of the Sacred Treasure with Silver Rays” award from the Emperor of Japan in 1987 for his senryu.
[xxxi] Miyoko Sato. Voice of Senryu Friends. Living On. n.d. The phrase means something like “love letters parents exchanged” Katsu Young. Personal communication.
[xxxii] Vance Horne. “He Writes Verse Fit for an Emperor” The Olympian. December 9, 1987.
The Seduction of Charlie
An introduction to irrational spaces and the art of shape shifting
December 31
Remember that cat under my bed? Progress. Here is how close he has come to me after 1 month. He’s been down three times tonight to eat and stare at me. He also washed his face in my presence. Pretty good eh? Happy New Year.
Okay. Here goes. Final chapter? I think so. Then what? I mean…….the “placing”….the boring part. The next book is already waiting/file box full of material. Can’t wait to see where it goes. Monkey at my side. Cat upstairs under the bed. I certainly have all the encouragement I could ask for and what’s more……..Carolyn La Fond is visiting this afternoon.
Cleaning house and listening to lp recordings on my Onkyo turntable…..so far Paul Robeson album called Scandalize my Name, Cheap Thrills, Viva La Causa (Songs and Sounds from the Delano Strike), and all the Odetta cuts on Vanguard’s “Folk Song and Minstrelsy”. I’m so happy I kept the turntable AND the recordings. I can’t play 78s on this turntable.
The cat is not helping to clean the house. He may like Paul Robeson or Odetta. He remains silent on the matter. He does like lps better than any digital music.
One other note: today I looked for catnip…trying to make myself irresistable to cat. At Mud Bay pet store, I saw a package labeled catnip marinated mice. Is there something really wrong about this?
Cat report. I put the catnip marinated mouse near the door of my reading/tv room. I was on my little trampoline watching Downton Abbey when he came down stairs and across the living room to the kitchen for his dinner. When he had a few bites, he came back out of the kitchen to where I could see him. He made a wide circle and came back upon the catnip and mouse. He PLAYED and rolled in the nip whil…See More
Charlie it is. Apologies to M.F.K. Fisher. But my cat looks like her Charlie (the picture I posted). So it is meant to be. Charlie seems to like the new name. Last night I did lie on the floor and ignore him as per Tim Ransom’s suggestion. He stared, laughed, but otherwise ignored me. Then I threw a fresh marinated mouse in his direction. He liked that. He did his juggling act but did not take this new bit of fluff all the way upstairs. The novelty has already worn off? This morning, the first mouse (the one he had taken upstairs night before) appeared downstairs near where new mouse was still nestled in a heap of shredded catnip. Thought they should be together? Charlie is apparently quite active after I go to sleep. And silent. This is all fascinating to me. After 23 years, Frank did not juggle nor did he do much of anything else. But he was loud and insistent. Charlie remains aloof but interested in the territory and exploring more and more. He has not found his voice, however.
Charlie report, January 11, 2014. Last night we surprised each other on the stairs. I was going to bed, he was going down to eat. A friendly “hello how are you” passed silently and quickly. This morning we sidled around each other going the opposite direction. His sidle was more of a skitter born of confusion. Did he think I was already downstairs and had been avoided? I went back up to the bedroom to exercise and make my bed. He sat in the closet doorway and watched my routine. I was on the floor doing sit ups part of the time. This MUST be somewhat interesting to a cat. I mean, the fact that I CAN do crunches must be in itself interesting. I flailed around with my Pilates stretch ropes and my 8 pound free weights. He stared on. I spoke to him about cabbages and kings all the while.
Monday morning, January 13, Charlie report. But first, the ever revolving turntable of life dealt me a strange hand today. I pulled Django Reinhardt Memorial Volume 3 but the sleeve was empty. Never a good sign. Next pull was Elliot Carter whom I am attempting now, once again, to understand. Side two is “In Sleep, In Thunder” six poems of Robert Lowell.” What am I to make of this? Here are some words by David Schiff who wrote the liner notes: “The strings, at times passionate, at times desperate, a little rigid, a bit scrappy…and the odd couple of percussion and piano with their bottomless bag of tricks and transformations…..” Well, maybe not the thing for 7 a.m. Monday morning.
Now for Charlie. Last night I called out that dinner was ready. I didn’t expect an answer. But I prepared my wire toy thing for cats…the one strung with bits of cardboard tubing at both ends. This is a versatile toy that when employed by a clever human, gives most cats pleasure. The cardboard bits can be made to jump or crawl or twitch. Nobody is fooled into thinking it is a living thing with a heartbeat, but it is animated and can be as challenging for a cat as Luminosity or a crossword puzzle or crossing the street while the light is still green is for a aging human. Anyway, as I sat reading, bait prepared, he crossed the door on his way to the kitchen. I grabbed the wand and slithered on my hands and knees and took up my position under the lintel over the french door that opens to the hallway. I stared in the direction of the kitchen, inching the cardboard bits along the floor ….seductive twitches…my soft voice calling. I can think of lots of other things that would have answered my siren call. Minutes went by. I couldn’t hear him eating. Hmmm. Suddenly I felt eyes on me. He was across the room way over by the computer watching me, eyes glowing. How did he get there? Well, however, he was interested. He gradually came across the carpets and began to PLAY. Doggone! He snatched, he grabbed, he preened, he polished, he reared up like a mighty beast, and he seemed to HAVE FUN. He was within inches of my hand a few times. He rolled over a couple of times. He forgot himself in his delight. He forgot me for a few seconds at a time. I was a virtuoso with the wire and the tubes. I made it do things that make me blush with pride. We were like that on the floor for what seemed the length of a plane ride to Chicago. He tired, turned his back, and headed for his upstairs lair. This morning he was behind the kitchen garbage can and skittered away when I started to make coffee. Who knows?
Charlie seemed disconcerted this morning. My routine is the same. He went back under the bed as I followed the various instructions I’ve received about lying down on the floor. I wonder what he writes in his diary? “Human being once again blocking my egress. Moves limbs up and down and sideways while lying on carpet that I have come to consider to be mine. Thank goodness I attended to my bodily needs while she slept. Now that she is about the house, I wouldn’t even try. Still on the look out for canines. You can never be too vigilant. More tomorrow.” Meanwhile, random turntable: the high pitched warbling of Joan Baez In Concert. Released 1962! I was on my way to Borneo or maybe already there. I had a Phillips battery operated turntable and a few albums. Maybe someone sent me this one? I had seen her at Ohio State either right before I left for the Peace Corps or after I came home in 64 or 65. Probably 62. By 64 Phil Ochs was out on the quad singing about war. I think the Baez concert is the one I took my brother Judo to. She wore a simple green cotton shift and took off her shoes. What have they done to the rain? Indeed. What a prophet. The liner notes on this album are TERRIFIC. First line: “Heine once said that literature is a graveyard in which we wander, searching out and embracing the headstones of those ideas which are closest to our own beliefs. So it is with our researches in folk music.” Heine…liner notes that quote an early 19th century German poet whose work was set to music by Schumann and Schubert. According to wikipedia, Marx was an admirer…himself a radical. Take a look at a snippet of what he wrote a year before his death: “This confession, that the future belongs to the Communists, I made with an undertone of the greatest fear and sorrow and, oh!, this undertone by no means is a mask! Indeed, with fear and terror I imagine the time, when those dark iconoclasts come to power: with their raw fists they will batter all marble images of my beloved world of art, they will ruin all those fantastic anecdotes that the poets loved so much, they will chop down my Laurel forests and plant potatoes and, oh!, the herbs chandler will use my Book of Songs to make bags for coffee and snuff for the old women of the future – oh!, I can foresee all this and I feel deeply sorry thinking of this decline threatening my poetry and the old world order – And yet, I freely confess, the same thoughts have a magical appeal upon my soul which I cannot resist …. In my chest there are two voices in their favour which cannot be silenced …. because the first one is that of logic … and as I cannot object to the premise “that all people have the right to eat”, I must defer to all the conclusions….The second of the two compelling voices, of which I am talking, is even more powerful than the first, because it is the voice of hatred, the hatred I dedicate to this common enemy that constitutes the most distinctive contrast to communism and that will oppose the angry giant already at the first instance – I am talking about the party of the so-called advocates of nationality in Germany, about those false patriots whose love for the fatherland only exists in the shape of imbecile distaste of foreign countries and neighbouring peoples and who daily pour their bile especially on France”.[47] This is cited in the wikipedia article about him. Oh….these wonderful lp album notes….where they can lead one!!!
Monday morning, January 13, Charlie report. But first, the ever revolving turntable of life dealt me a strange hand today. I pulled Django Reinhardt Memorial Volume 3 but the sleeve was empty. Never a good sign. Next pull was Elliot Carter whom I am attempting now, once again, to understand. Side two is “In Sleep, In Thunder” six poems of Robert Lowell.” What am I to make of this? Here are some words by David Schiff who wrote the liner notes: “The strings, at times passionate, at times desperate, a little rigid, a bit scrappy…and the odd couple of percussion and piano with their bottomless bag of tricks and transformations…..” Well, maybe not the thing for 7 a.m. Monday morning.
Now for Charlie. Last night I called out that dinner was ready. I didn’t expect an answer. But I prepared my wire toy thing for cats…the one strung with bits of cardboard tubing at both ends. This is a versatile toy that when employed by a clever human, gives most cats pleasure. The cardboard bits can be made to jump or crawl or twitch. Nobody is fooled into thinking it is a living thing with a heartbeat, but it is animated and can be as challenging for a cat as Luminosity or a crossword puzzle or crossing the street while the light is still green is for a aging human. Anyway, as I sat reading, bait prepared, he crossed the door on his way to the kitchen. I grabbed the wand and slithered on my hands and knees and took up my position under the lintel over the french door that opens to the hallway. I stared in the direction of the kitchen, inching the cardboard bits along the floor ….seductive twitches…my soft voice calling. I can think of lots of other things that would have answered my siren call. Minutes went by. I couldn’t hear him eating. Hmmm. Suddenly I felt eyes on me. He was across the room way over by the computer watching me, eyes glowing. How did he get there? Well, however, he was interested. He gradually came across the carpets and began to PLAY. Doggone! He snatched, he grabbed, he preened, he polished, he reared up like a mighty beast, and he seemed to HAVE FUN. He was within inches of my hand a few times. He rolled over a couple of times. He forgot himself in his delight. He forgot me for a few seconds at a time. I was a virtuoso with the wire and the tubes. I made it do things that make me blush with pride. We were like that on the floor for what seemed the length of a plane ride to Chicago. He tired, turned his back, and headed for his upstairs lair. This morning he was behind the kitchen garbage can and skittered away when I started to make coffee. Who knows?
Charlie update, January 14, 2014.
I am stealing a few lines from Robert Frost’s The Wood-Pile. Seems apt though he is talking about a bird.
“He thought that I was after him for a feather–
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him goodnight.
He went behind it to make his last stand.”
Charlie Report: January 15, 2014. This cat is a sort of wizard. He disappears at the drop of a foot or the twitch of a hand. He simply is not to be found. Still, we continue to build a relationship. Last night I was (blush) watching the third episode of Downton Abbey. Oh misery. Can it get any worse? Thank God for Maggie Smith’s lines and presence. Bonneville is just wearing thin. Don’t we know that Edith’s boyfriend is going to become a Nazi or already is one? And who could possibly have had such poor judgement as to employ Braithwaite? Or keep Thomas on? Forget the farmers and the sheep, get that staff straightened out! Anyway, there I was lapping it up, when Charlie deigned to come downstairs. He headed toward the kitchen for his nightly pre dinner inspection of the offerings. I snapped off the television sound and fell to the floor to retrieve my wand thing. He saw me move, turned on his white heels, and started back toward the upstairs bedroom. I pulled out all the plugs. I shamelessly wept and whined. Puuuuuuleeeeeeze, says I …..puuuuuleeeze come and play with me. I want you to be my friend. He paused at the far doorway, swiveled, and looked at me. Was that sympathy I saw in his eyes? Understanding? He inched his way back, one tufted foot after another, and then had a good dancing, lunge workout. I was my best…working both mouse on a string AND wire cardboard thing at the same time. He was close enough to me that the next leap/lunge would have put him on my knee. The phone rang. Damn. Stay tuned.
But there was more. He came down a couple more times and ate. I had done with Downton Abbey. Then he went upstairs. When I went upstairs, I had something to put in the linen closet and sort of shoved it in. I distinctly heard a triple meow come from the back of the closet and then the exasperated words “Here we go again.” It scared then puzzled me. Can Charlie throw his voice? Can he speak English? Is he somehow back in there and irritated with me? I didn’t figure out til this morning (after tearing everything out of the closet) that I had activated an old Cosmo babble ball toy that was stuffed into a box full of pillow cases. How many years that thing had been in there I don’t know, but it had one more thing to say before its battery died.
Now I remember what Susan said about my reading of Calvino and irrational spaces. I am so ready for all of this
January 16 Some cats bring their human companions gifts of dead mice–or tails of ground squirrels. I had that in mind when I went to the kitchen this morning and found a scrap of my own yellow writing pad paper placed neatly in the center of a folded cloth napkin that marks the place where I sit at the table. The paper had been torn from a tablet by the telephone on the counter and upon which I note grocery items to be purchased or things that must be done during the course of the day. This scrap had some smears on it. They smelled a bit like old liver and could have been made by paws or even a tongue.
Written on this fragment was this:
As I in grim and sullen night
Creep toward her limp and listless form
I am surprised by quickening pulse
That coaxes me to make her play.
Clearly Charlie is not sleeping through my afternoon studies of Frost and Shelley and, as of yesterday, Yeats. He is listening and maybe even taking notes. This cheers me.
Last night I did not feel much like playing on the floor. I was engaged in Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. Have I been living on another planet!!! ??? Oh my God what fabulous images. How alive I am to what she describes. And her words and the rhythm. I have to read it aloud. I am in love again.
Anyway, Charlie came down for his kitchen visit. He crossed back and forth a few times and I paid little attention except to say good evening. Finally he sat near the door to the room where I was and did not budge. He stared at me. He wanted to play. He allowed me to get up (and he did not flee when I moved), fetch my wire wand, and crawl to him. We had a long session. He touched my knee a few times and I touched one of his paws a couple of times. We were still cautious but he looked at me openly and unafraid from a distance of about 12 inches. That meant I could see the little ragged patterns of the white on his toes (the name Snowshoe Siamese from these white feet) and the beauty of his fur and that he is a well formed fellow.
He and Flannery and all the rest brought me delicious dreams in the night: a sheaf of notes written on handmade papers the size of paper bookmarks. The notes were scribed in a tiny cryptic language punctuated by even tinier images of houses and horses. The language was taught, I learned, in a town called Earthlogic, Tennessee.
Jan 18
Although a friend and I had an hour of fun and giggles playing with the new babble ball, Charlie thought it childish. He spied it the moment he entered the living room. He poked it once or twice. It spoke some indecipherable phrases. Charlie avoided it the rest of the evening. After the encounter with ball, he went to the kitchen, ate a few mouthfuls of dinner, then came into the room where I sat reading and half listening to a mystery. The wand was ready and at hand. He spotted it and made for it. I slunk to the floor (while turning down the volume of Inspector Alleyn’s voice) and made the cardboard tubes dance frantically before him. What ” imitation of life ” can be made to inhabit these simple objects! They pulse and fly through the air and tremble and slither. He was delighted with the game and even posed for a photograph afterwards. The Photo. From a short series taken with the Kindle, this is the one he liked best. It represents, apparently, how he sees himself: a tad bit kittenish and a large chunk of tease. Where have I seen that come hither look before? Lana Turner? I hope he doesn’t think less of me for having purchased such a rude toy as the babble ball.
Jan 20
Charlie update. If this is brief, it is no fault of Charlie’s. I’ve been out the past two evenings and have not been available for a lot of getting to know each other time. I thought of Charlie, however, when one of the pieces on the program at the Metropolitan Auditions was “No word from Tom” from the Stravinsky opera “The Rake’s Progress.” The libretto was co-written by W.H. Auden. The title comes from a series of paintings by Hogarth/same name. Charlie came to mind again and again as I thought about “The Rake’s Progress.” I scrawled on my program: “No word from Charlie.” Why??? Something was eating at me. I was convinced there was a connection. Today I looked at the first painting from the Hogarth series and there, lo, was a cat. Front bottom and slightly to the right of center. Could the “Tom” of the song be inspired by a Tom Cat? The libretto would say no…it’s something about a man seduced by the devil who ends up in Bedlam or some such place. Boring and predictable. But I wonder if anyone has really looked into the possibility that this whole opera is a coded story of a woman trying to bring a cat around? Meanwhile, Charlie came down the stairs when he heard me on my mini trampoline trying to work off the vast quantity of food I had consumed over the weekend. Of course, there was also the soothing voice of Inspector Alleyn to lure him. We played a bit with the magic wand. But most wonderful was his fairly new habit of flopping on the floor then rolling and stretching while on his back. He has the most delicious underside/all furry and pale cream/he looks for the world like a teddy bear. There is still no possibility of actually petting. He is a tease.
Jan 24 Charlie update. Brief. What does a cat make of a purple feather and a cardboard box? Just think of the possibilities.
January 26
CHARLIE UPDATE. 1. Said his first meow to me. A soft little hello in passing. 2. Has the desire to play with the wand while I’m bouncing on my little trampoline and does. 3. Generally is moving about the house but though more and more comfy has not jumped on me or any furniture. Tidy, sweet and adorable. I posted a picture and some “expert” fanciers declare that Charlie is a Birman/blue point
January 29
Charlie report. Brief account, but a new behavior. Himself climbed upon a footstool by a sunny French Door today. He did not stay but a moment. Then stood looking out the windows to the deck for some time, but from the floor. He strolls around the house during the day. Braver and braver or just thinking things here about are curiouser and curiouser.
January 31
Charlie Update: A note on patience
Last night I began reflecting upon patience. I thought that if I could wait this long (not really long at all) for a small animal to decide to approach me that surely I could now go into the wild and work with wild creatures…really study them and get to know their behavior much as Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey had. This of course brought me round to thinking about what Louis Leakey had told me about patience and women.
During the spring of 1972 (I can’t find the confirmation of the dates that Leakey was in Seattle for the last time, but he died in October of 1972 in London and I know my encounter was during the first year I was teaching at Evergreen), Louis Leakey was to visit University of Washington and address a very large audience at Meany Hall. I had a friend whose family were connected with the Leakey Foundation in San Francisco. It had been founded in 1968 to support the Leakey fieldwork and to encourage young scientists. My friend was a student at Evergreen. When the Leakey speech and trip to Seattle was confirmed, family told the Foundation about my friend and she was asked to take care of Leakey while he would be in Seattle. She invited me to help. Leakey was only 69 (younger than I am now!) but he had been in ill health. He had suffered heart attacks and a stroke and had been attacked by a swarm of bees not long before we met him. One of his feet was swollen and he had trouble getting his shoes on and bending over to tie his shoes. He seemed very old indeed. But he was charming and exceedingly jolly. The Foundation put us up in a University District hotel. We had adjoining rooms so that we could help him dress and hear him if he called out. We were to keep people from swarming over him when he went to the lecture and we were to watch what he ate. We settled in to our rooms and prepared for the evening. I took note of his badly abused suitcase, which was held together by an old leather belt as we selected from one or two items of clothing he would wear that night. Everything he had was a bit shabby. I don’t know if it was during the preparations for the evening when he offered us a drink or if it was later. But I know he did have his stash. Before the lecture we met and attended a somewhat stuffy dinner with University of Washington faculty and administrators and their spouses. We were already on good terms with Dr. Leakey, enough so that we were all amused by the excessive sycophancy and we three exchanged meaningful glances while we monitored the Leakey plate and appetite. We were escorted to Meany Hall. Dr. Leakey was placed in the middle of the stage behind a lectern that was, alas, on wheels. He had his cane for stability. But he leaned heavily on the lectern as he spoke. We two assistants, go-fers, keepers were placed just to the left of him on the side of the stage but still a good many yards from the lectern. I have no recollection of what he said because we two were watching in horror, daring not to breath, as the lectern inched toward the front edge of the stage. The drop off was considerable. We were tensed and ready to race to his rescue, just silently, each of us in our own private misery, wondering at what moment this would be necessary.
Thanks be the speech ended, we groaned and began to breathe again, and audience members raced toward our ward. Our job began, then, in earnest. We got to Dr. Leakey as quickly as we could and walked on either side of him, squeezing close and trying to look as formidable as two youngish pretty nice looking women could, and we shielded him as much as we could. He was not helping. He grinned, tried to answer each shout, and could have spent the night with his admirers.
The night was not over. Turned out there were distant Leakeys in Seattle. The Foundation or Louis himself had agreed to a visit to them. I don’t remember much except that we were somewhere north of Seattle and the University District proper and deposited in front of a modest home in a modest suburban neighborhood. It was very dark (we must have had a driver) and we pranced up to the door with Dr. Leakey, probably arm in arm by this time. The home’s walls were hung with ancient family portraits…oils much like you might see in Downton Abbey. They pointed to these portraits that declared their shared DNA with the old fellow who had spent most of his life in the Olduvai Gorge. The portraits seemed as out of place in this house and this neighborhood as they would have in the Gorge. I have odd memories that this part of the evening was a bit like a scene from Fawlty Towers. There was much fussing and staring and polite distant kept and so much excitement that someone should have been pouring drinks or passing joints around. It was the era. But not in that family at that moment. There was absolutely nothing in sight that Dr. Leakey could or should eat. My friend went to the kitchen and made him a light omelette. He was much obliged. As he ate, the family announced that all of their neighbors had been invited to come meet him. So there was that. They tramped in, seriously, the whole neighborhood, and googled, purred, ate and drank (at last). He was happy.
We got him home to the hotel finally.. got him out of his shoes….and into his jammies. He was happy and talkative. I think that’s when we all had a drink. Cognac? I don’t know. It was then he told us about patience. He invited my friend to come do research in Africa.. Like Jane. She could do it he said. Women have the patience for working with animals. It takes years and years. It takes patience. Only women have that kind of patience. You can do it. She could have. She didn’t. We all went to bed, though my friend and I listened all night for any cry or call from the other room. We had sort of fallen in love with him by this time.
Louis Leakey died that same year, in October, in London while visiting Jane Goodall and her mother.
February 1 2014
Charlie update: After thinking and writing about patience (see above) I spent quite a long time rolling about on the floor last night. I remembered the times when, as a mean ten year old, I teased my much younger brother, Judo, by dropping to the ground, holding my breath, and playing dead. I must say, Judo showed quite a bit more interest in this than Charlie does. However, we played from floor position and I was allowed to touch an ear a couple of times. He reached out and touched my creeping hand several sweet times…a soft little pad touch. It was a lot of fun for both of us.
You’ve all been so patient. Yes, Charlie has some new tricks up his sleeve. 1. He has discovered the skylight over my “TV Room.” Night before last he stared up at it, unblinking, for at least 30 minutes. I do believe he was watching Downton Abbey as reflected in the skylight/not looking at the TV itself. Perhaps he doesn’t want to let me know how hooked he is on what is afterall a run of the mill soap opera. He plays with me, relaxes in my presence, but still hasn’t hopped up on my lap. Still, we have a little routine. 2. He has enjoyed episodes of sunny afternoon birdwatching from the floor below the double doors that lead to the deck. Occasional tail twitches. He will not be going out, so tantalizing to watch but no harm will be done to the feathered and winged ones.
Everytime I appear in public, someone asks about Charlie.
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Becky Knold I don’t know Charlie, but I love the description of what’s happening here w/ MFK Fisher. mmmmm.
Charlie Report. Sunday morning, February 9, 2014. I am missing more than half of Charlie’s life. The evidence (tufts of fur on the rug, back scratcher in an unusual location, imitation mice moved across the floor, sometimes with tails pulled off) is that he plays through the night. Not just a little stroll through the downstairs but vigorous, sustained romping. I sleep through it. He must think I’m a lazy dullard.
Charlie tries his paw at poetry again: “who played all night rocking and rolling over lofty mountains which in the yellow morning were merely davenports.” He calls it Howl. I say it lacks form and clear theme and is imitative.
Feb 14 Charlie Report: No, its not over. I don’t know if it is the increased light, the Winter Olympics, the phase of the moon…or just that I sat still and quiet most of yesterday reading Catcher in the Rye. Something inspired my little Birman friend. It was early afternoon and he was bounding through every room in the house…inspecting couches, window sills, and chairs. He springs lightly and almost soundlessly to narrow ledges. Now while doing all of this, he turns frequently either to a. see if I’m watching and/or b. see if I’m going to turn into a standard poodle and come roaring after him, curls twittering and fangs dripping with desire. That’s really not my style, but I don’t blame him for being cautious. He also stood once and spoke to me in a very low meow …several in a row. This was indeed a red letter day and it was hard to concentrate on Holden and his hunting cap. Oh well. No, he (Charlie, not Holden) has not been on my lap or approached for a scritch. But he is starting to claim a helluva lot of territory.
Charlie Report: Monday, February 17. This is probably embarrassing. But I’ll tell it anyway. Well, anyone who reads my posts know I’m reading just about every waking minute. Like I need a more active imagination. So when I go to bed, stories and words and images are darting around in my head, each asking for attention. Things I should write. Stories I should note down. Last night as I was going to sleep, I had a whole novel composed in my mind. I wrote it and read it……… then it disappeared. It was really good. I’ve had precognitive dreams in my life and have often had a new song come to me, sometimes with three or four verses of lyrics. I used to tape them first thing in the morning. So I like dreams and that twilight time between being awake and being asleep. This one in the middle of last night was one of those semi-lucid things. Charlie jumped up on the bed. The very bed I was in. Just as if it was really happening in real time. I felt his whole weight hit my body (something I’ve never felt in waking life). Then he moved around and started biting my hair. I could feel his sharp claws. ( I can’t clip them until he is much more comfortable.) Finally he settled down and fell asleep next to me/pressed against my side. I was thinking WHAT A BREAK THROUGH. After a while I woke up fully expecting to see a cat. It was all a dream. How d’ya like that?
Charlie Report. February 19, 2014. Well while I’m still glowing from listening to Frank Deford this morning, I’ll tell you a little bit about old Charlie. This fella’s got some habits now. A little bit, just a tiny bit, predictable he is. The last couple of days, he’s come creeping around the edge of the door that leads to the kitchen. Now that’s not really a door. It is a big open archway with no doors. So when he comes down the hallway, puss-footin’ along, he is just there. And his food is right around the corner. So he looks and determines whether there is anything fresh there in his bowls. Well, how fresh can canned gristle and fat be? It’s not as if he’s gonna find a dead mouse or anything. Still, he checks it out. And now, if I’m in the kitchen, he looks right at me if there is nothing there and he says, “meow.” That could mean anything but it doesn’t. He is very intentional. “Meow” in this context means I want something wet in that bowl and now I know you are the one who will get it for me. So I do. He was, I was told, accustomed to eating around 4. But he has some other ideas about that. He would, if he could, go out and eat about a dozen birds. He watches them through a glass window and I’ve never seen a tail switch that fast. He could beat a bowl of pancake batter with that tail. And once, yesterday, he forgot himself and smashed his nose on the glass he was so excited. Here is something. A friend came to play music with me and didn’t Charlie come sauntering into the room? That was pretty exciting. He likes the klezmer stuff, I can tell you that.
Charlie Report: I was up early today and caught him quickly exiting the couch in the living room. Because he does not shed, it is not as easy to track his movements as it was Frank’s (who left a nest of fur everywhere he paused for more than 50 seconds). Yesterday, the old boy actually purred. We blinked at each other for a while then he let me scratch his head. Just once. Just for a moment. But, Mars to Earth, contact!
Charile Report: Clearly an active night. He threw a blanket and a pillow off the green couch. Too hot? Not soft enough? Will he redecorate the whole house?
Charlie Report: Turns out Charles is a party boy. Sleep-over visitors expressed a hope that they would see himself. He held off until after dark, the tease. Then he stealthed down the stairs and began peeking around a corner, just showing an ear and eye, until one guest saw him. She silently fell to the floor (though it was her 75th birthday/years of yoga folks/it works) with feather and and wire dazzler and began the flirtation. Charlie didn’t immediately pounce. He likes to be seduced. But once he was into it, he was a nonstop private dancer. Tina would be doing a whole new song for this fellow and his moves. The others were watching through the passway to the kitchen and that Charlie would do some astonishing leap then look up to them as if to say, “did you see that! did you get it? did you?” Good grief. He touched my finger a couple of times as if to say…don’t worry..I’m still all yours. Last night when I got home from gallery sitting, I couldn’t find him. He was sitting, still as a bronze of himself, on top of a chair back daring me to see him. He laughed when I spotted him, leaped to the floor, and ran to the kitchen for his dinner.
March 4
The courage to take the plunge
My dreams often remind me of the times I didn’t have the courage to take the plunge. In my fantasy world, I forget myself and allow my foolish heart free to frolick. In my dreams I tell the woman on that café stool in Cheticamp that I’ll be moving to the area and would like to get to know her. She would have been my Chavela Vargas. In waking life, I left town that same afternoon. In my dreams the smiling woman standing under a portico in Athens in the summer of 1972 would have been my Lota de Macedo Soares . Her gold tooth was gleaming in the early sunlight and her rosy skirts flirted with the wind. I kept walking. In my dreams a slim, deep, young man who resembled Gregory Peck or Charles Lindberg, a flyer, who asked me to do what I thought then was unthinkable, survives the crash of his small plane, and we become old together living somewhere in Vermont with a dozen grandchildren.
There is something about the courage to take the plunge that my animals have tried to teach me. Cosmo, my Springer Spaniel, took the plunge. I wrote about it in Conversations with the Inner Dog. I thought when he swam one day to my kayak after years of avoiding the water that this must be what it is like to be “awake.” You notice for a moment after the plunge that something is different but then you just go back to being that one you have become. You just keep swimming. And you will always be able to swim after that.
Charlie took the plunge. Yesterday he simply marched up to me (lying on a couch) and placed his head into my left hand. I began to scuff and rub and pet and smooth his back and let his tail pass through a circlet of my fingers and he was suddenly awake and so was I. There seemed to be no inciting incident. I didn’t invite or call for this blessing. Like grace, it just happened. At that moment, because he took the plunge, something deep changed between us. He asked for more this morning.
Charlie Report: The courage to take the plunge
My dreams often remind me of the times I didn’t have the courage to take the plunge. In my fantasy world, I forget myself and my foolish heart is free to frolic. In my dreams I tell the woman on that café stool in Cheticamp that I’ll be moving to the area and would like to get to know her. She would have been my Chavela Vargas. In waking life, I left town that same afternoon. In my dreams the smiling woman standing under a portico in Athens in the summer of 1972 would have been my Lota de Macedo Soares . Her gold tooth was gleaming in the early sunlight and her rosy skirts flirted with the wind. I kept walking. In my dreams a slim, deep, young man who resembled Gregory Peck or Charles Lindberg, a flyer, who asked me to do what I thought then was unthinkable, survives the crash of his small plane, and we become old together living somewhere in Vermont with a dozen grandchildren.
There is something about the courage to take the plunge that my animals have tried to teach me. Cosmo, my Springer Spaniel, took the plunge. I wrote about it in Conversations with the Inner Dog. I thought when he swam one day to my kayak after years of avoiding the water that this must be what it is like to be “awake.” You notice for a moment after the plunge that something is different but then you just go back to being that one you have become. You just keep swimming. And you will always be able to swim after that.
Charlie took the plunge. Yesterday he simply marched up to me (lying on a couch) and placed his head into my left hand. I began to scuff and rub and pet and smooth his back and let his tail pass through a circlet of my fingers and he was suddenly awake and so was I. There seemed to be no inciting incident. I didn’t invite or call for this blessing. Like grace, it just happened. At that moment, because he took the plunge, something deep changed between us. He asked for more this morning.
In the Charnel House
12/11/2011
In the charnel house of my still breathing soul,
There hangs, on rusted peg, a long descending scale of ancient thoughts.
Nearby are meaty ribs, the outlines of the things I meant to do.
I walk among them clothed in hoary rags.
In my scrubbed and gloved hands I bear my tools: a saw and mallet.
I would make music of these boney, hanging things.
From out a nearby kitchen,
I hear a steaming cauldron whistle
And a kettle sing.
Inside a stained and splintered box,
I thrill to read my name inscribed in archived works
Of my professors, long since dead.
And then, I start. I am much older now than they
When first I knew them.
How much time have I to pound that ribby xylophone or
Cut through cluttered fat and find a tune worth singing?
