Around 150 community members gathered on May 22 for a free performance put on by the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and the Oregon Symphony, at the Center for Native Arts and Cultures, in Portland. The event, “Celilo Falls: An Evening of Music, Storytelling, and Discussion,” was a preview night for “Scheherazade and Celilo Falls,” an Oregon Symphony Performance running June 7, 8 and 9.
“The program, when I think about it, isn’t just a performance, it’s kind of a ceremony of remembrance, guided by voices who have inherited this legacy of Celilo Falls and continued to shape the cultural future of our communities,” president and CEO of NACF, Shyla Spicer, Yakama Nation, told UNN/ICT.
Before the Dalles Dam flooded Wy-am, also known as Celilo Falls, in 1957, more water dropped over 80 feet down the rocky cliffs onto the shores below than at the Niagara Falls.That all changed on March 10 that year as the large steel and concrete gates of The Dalles Dam closed, submerging Celilo Falls underwater ever since.
“For thousands of years, it was the center of commerce and ceremony and community,” Spicer told UNN/ICT, reflecting on her own ancestral ties to Celilo Falls. “So I think with its silencing in 1957, and the construction of the Dalles Dam, it represents this loss of place and this deliberate eraser of Indigenous ways of life and knowledge systems.”
For centuries, Celilo Falls was an important salmon fishery and gathering site for Native nations up and down the Columbia River. Through stories and teachings, the history of the falls is kept alive.
“I have the falls in my heart, I’ll always remember them.”
Ed Edmo, Shoshone-Bannock, is a traditional storyteller whose poetry about Celilo Falls helped inspire the performance. He teaches students and the wider community about the falls and those who lived there, including himself as a young child.
“I saw the flooding of Celilo Falls,” Edmo said to those gathered in the audience on May 22 at the Center for Native Arts and Cultures. “I couldn’t believe that something so big and so beautiful could disappear. I have the falls in my heart, I’ll always remember them.”
Born on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada in 1947, Edmo’s family moved to Celilo Falls shortly after he was born. He has memories of the falls before the Dalles Dam went up.
Composer and cellist Nancy Ives was inspired by Edmo’s poetry in writing the music for the orchestra to perform for “Celilo Falls.”
“It wasn’t my story to tell, but his story expressed in his beautiful poetry,” Ives said, reminiscing on working together over zoom during the pandemic. She started by writing music to go with his poem, “Grandfather Storyteller.”
The performance has since evolved, weaving a story through Edmo’s poetry, orchestral music written by Ives, narration by Brent Florendo Sitwalla-Pum and photos by Joe Cantrell.
“A living presence that continues to echo in our stories and in our songs”
Sitwalla-Pum, who is Warm Springs, Wasco and Yakama, wove together the music from the orchestra and poetry from Edmo, as the narrator for the May event, and the upcoming “Scheherazade and Celilo Falls” show this June.
“Bringing Ed’s words to life is an honor,” Sitwalla-Pum said.
At the beginning of the performance Sitwalla-Pum introduced himself and his connection to Celilo Falls, sharing his storytelling belt, with a knot in the center that represents his stories to tell. As he begins to tell a story, he loosens the knot, always tying it back once he finishes his story.
“I took this traditional story and made it into a musical because white people need to see lights and stage and all that to make them listen. Uh?” Sitwalla-Pum said, answered with laughter and a “nuh” in response from the audience.
“So I did it. But I still have the teachings in it, no matter what,” Sitwalla-Pum continued.
As the evening continued, Sitwalla-Pum read poetry by Edmo as the five-string orchestra, led by Ives, brought music to the words.
Behind the musicians and Sitwalla-Pum photos curated by Cantrell, Cherokee, were displayed on the stage. Photos of Celilo Falls both before and after the Dalles Dam went up, along with images of important sites and community elders with stories of the falls such as Edmo.
“More than anything, I hope people leave with a sense of hope, because this is a story of profound loss, but it’s a story of endurance and cultural resurgence,” Spicer said. “Indigenous people have always been here. It’s also about honoring Celilo Falls, not just as a place, but as a living presence that continues to echo in our stories and in our songs and with our people and our commitment to each other and to the land and to healing.”
On June 7, 8 and 9, a full 80-piece orchestra, along with narration by Sitwalla-Pum, Edmo’s poems and Cantrell’s images, will take place at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland.
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