{"id":29343,"date":"2022-11-02T12:12:27","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T16:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=29343"},"modified":"2022-11-02T12:13:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T16:13:35","slug":"elizabeth-woody-the-museum-at-warm-springs-celebrates-tribal-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2022\/11\/02\/elizabeth-woody-the-museum-at-warm-springs-celebrates-tribal-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Woody: The Museum at Warm Springs celebrates tribal heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"\"The<\/a>
The Museum at Warm Springs is owned and operated by the The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Warm Springs, Oregon. Photo courtesy The Museum at Warm Springs<\/figcaption>\r\n
2022 National Native American Heritage Month Statement from The Museum at Warm Springs<\/div>\r\n
Wednesday, November 2, 2022<\/div>\r\n
By Elizabeth A. Woody (Warm Springs, Yakama and Din\u00e9)<\/div>\r\n
Executive Director, The Museum at Warm Springs<\/div>\r\n
museum.warmsprings-nsn.gov<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nWARM SPRINGS, Oregon — In 1990, United States President George H.W. Bush signed Joint Resolution 577 designating November as the first National American Indian Heritage Month. \r\n

<\/P>\r\nThe joint resolution read: \u201cAmerican Indians were the original inhabitants of the lands that now constitute the United States of America.\u201d It was the first such official statement, which has been signed every year by a sitting president.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nAt The Museum at Warm Springs, we celebrate our unique cultures, traditions, histories, arts and languages every month. Indeed, our staff is dedicated to upholding The Museum\u2019s mission of \u201cpreserving, advancing and sharing the traditions, cultural and artistic heritage of The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon and other Indigenous peoples\u201d every day of the year. We do this joyfully, with purpose, and with the knowledge and, even more importantly, the satisfaction that we are gifting our visitors with information and an experience they may not receive anywhere else.\r\n

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Elke Littleleaf Kirk and Alysia Aguilar Littleleaf show their baskets. The one basket with abalone shells was Elke’s second basket and given to Alysia.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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<\/P>\r\nThe people of the Warm Springs Reservation have always looked to the landscape around us for our knowledge. Languages and land have been intertwined for thousands of years. With each vision quest, an individual brought back to the community a new understanding learned from the environment. Our land bestowed knowledge and practical intimacy through its processes and qualities. This cultural practice \u2014 a personal journey deep into myth for reclamation of ancient elements and acclamations of respect for all life to come \u2014 potently binds us to enduring values.

<\/P>\r\nI want all of you who visit the Museum at Warm Springs to note the word inscribed above The Museum\u2019s entrance. It is \u201cTwanat<\/em>,\u201d which means \u201cto follow.\u201d We follow these practices, teachings and actively follow our ancestors to prepare for tomorrow. \u201cThis land is for you to know and live upon and pass on to the children.\u201d It is \u201cTicham,\u201d a concept in the Warm Springs culture that connects an individual to the ancient activity on the land and is of the land. \r\n

<\/P>\r\nThe beautiful and continuing cultures of the Columbia River Plateau speak of time immemorial \u2014 the beginning of this world, the demise of previous epochs, and what is to come \u2014 a visceral prophecy. As much as language, the patterns of the Warm Springs people have documented, preserved and carried on our culture. \r\n

<\/P>\r\nOur leaders and culture bearers bring the new into the potency of image. This is \u201cTananawit<\/em>,\u201d (\u201cPeoples\u2019 Way of Life), referring to a culture that our people had in the past, is practiced today, and something that can be taught for the future. In the past the artists, storytellers and teachers of our traditional ways carried our collective knowledge, rights and sovereign nationhood from generation to present, to the future.\r\n

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