The “Gatherers Project” is a book that showcases the women gatherers of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s (CTUIR) First Foods Policy Program (FFPP) and highlights management practices, advocacy and projects focused on first foods and their access. One of the goals of the book is to create discussion about global warming and how it affects Indigenous communities.
Althea Wolf, a CTUIR citizen and FFPP program manager, recalls as a child gathering with the women from her tribe when she was in second grade. Her grandmother, Marie “Butch” Dick, was one of her mentors. From her elders, like Dick, she learned about the sacredness of gathering.
“We go out as women,” Wolf said, “and there’s nobody else with us.”
Dick is the first elder featured in the “Gatherers Project,” book, alongside 22 gatherers who are featured in the 70-page book, in order from eldest to youngest. Altogether around 50 people were involved in creating this book.
According to the CTUIR website, the mission of FFPP is “to provide proactive planning and policy analysis and development to protect, restore and enhance the First Foods and the exercise of associated rights reserved in the Treaty of 1855.”
FFPP officially released the “Gatherers Project” book during an event at the Nixyáawii Governance Center in Pendleton, Oregon on June 10.
“Gatherers Project” leads readers through the seasonal traditional foods cycle, including the celery feast, the root feast and the huckleberry feast. The root feast is described by Wolf as the largest of the feasts, while the celery feast is an intimate gathering celebrated in early spring, being the first feast of the season.
“The book talks about how these women have made a lifelong commitment to gathering for not only a feast,” Wolf said, “but for different ceremonies, like namings and memorials and burials.”
FFPP’s adaptation planner, Colleen Sanders, said it took around five years to cultivate the information for the book. The idea of the “Gatherers Project” began during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Sanders had written up two grant proposals that were approved. One of the proposals, received by the CTUIR in 2019, was called “Preparing for Fire Project,” which focused on the effects of air quality, specifically from wildfire smoke.
“A lot of times, our gatherers, our fishermen and our hunters, are out in inclement conditions, because that’s when the foods are ready,” said Sanders. “The “Preparing for Fire” project was to make sure that our tribal harvesters were equipped with the skills, knowledge and equipment necessary to make good decisions for themselves, their families and their safety, while still maintaining connection with first foods.”
The other grant proposal was a Climate Adaption Plan (CAP), called “Closing the CAP,” awarded in 2021. The Meyer Memorial Trust funded both grants. Since the pandemic paused the original purpose of the grants, she and Wolf pivoted and combined the two to create the “Gatherers Project” book.
While working at the FFPP, Wolf and Sanders began learning more about the history of First Foods, food which were eaten prior to colonization. They saw a growing interest amongst tribal citizens and worked with the community to make this information more accessible to everyone.
“Our gatherers get maybe a little bit less attention, but they put a tremendous amount of work into making the ceremonies happen and bringing our women’s foods, the roots and the berries, back to be celebrated each year when they return,” Sanders said.
During the CTUIR Treaty Day celebration on June 13, the FFPP brought copies of the book to handout to attendees. There, Sanders talked more about the book with individuals and a neighboring table discussed the order and history about the CTUIR’s first foods. The order begins from water, to fish, big game, roots and berries. Women’s foods consist of roots and berries. Men’s foods are water, fish and big game.
Gathering also comes with some danger. In some of their interviews, the gatherers featured in the book talk about how sometimes they’ve been targeted by passerbys and even bears while celery harvesting. “Some of them joke that the violence they encounter out there is with cows,” Wolf said.
Sanders said that people can learn from gatherers. They can note what condition the plants are in. Additionally many of the young gatherers featured in the book are in school for environmental studies and other areas of the sciences.
“Our gatherers are our best scientists,” she said. “They are the experts in what they’re seeing, because they’re out there year after year in all kinds of conditions.”
The heart of this book roots in “documenting tribal gatherers past, present and future,” said Sanders.
“That future component is,” said Sanders, “how are we addressing climate change impacts to first foods?”
Wolf and Sanders hope to make an updated version of the book in five years, including more gatherers and voices.
For now, over 500 copies of the book will be available for free to schools, colleges that have Memorandums of Understanding with the Confederated Tribes and the public.
“We’re getting it out to our community to make sure that they can see where all of the work is happening,” Sanders said.
The book will soon be publicly available to everyone as a pdf on the CTUIR’s “Preparing for Fire Project” website by June 27, and copies can be requested through FFPP directly.
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