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https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-us-broke-promise-to-protect-fish-for-tribes>
"Salmon heads, fins and tails filled baking trays in the kitchen where Lottie
Sam prepped for her tribe’s spring feast.
The sacred ceremony, held each year on the Yakama reservation in south-central
Washington, honors the first returning salmon and the first gathered roots and
berries of the new year.
“The only thing we don’t eat is the bones and the teeth, but everything else is
sucked clean,” Sam said, laughing.
Her mother and grandmother taught her that salmon is a gift from the creator, a
source of strength and medicine that is first among all foods on the table.
They don’t waste it.
“The skin, the brain, the head, the jaw, everything of the salmon,” she said.
“Everybody’s gonna have the opportunity to consume that, even if it’s the
eyeball.”
Sam is a member of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. They
are among several tribes with a deep connection to salmon in the Columbia River
Basin, a region that drains parts of the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia,
Canada, southward through seven U.S. states into the West’s largest river.
It’s also a region contaminated by more than a century of industrial and
agricultural pollution, leaving Sam and others to weigh unknown health risks
against sacred practices."
Via Doug Senko.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
