Lyric Aquino
Underscore Native News + Report for America
Indigenous stories are more than myths — they’re lessons informed by traditional knowledge and historical accounts according to research from Roger Amerman and Ellen Morris Bishop, in the newest exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Technology and Industry.
“Heads and Hearts: Seeing the Landscape Through Nez Perce Eyes” invites visitors to view history in the Pacific Northwest through a Nimiipuu, or Nez Perce, lense. Running through Feb. 16, the exhibit uses stories from Nimiipuu to explore ancient geological events, like the eruption of Mount Mazama (leading to the creation of Crater Lake), as well as ice age floods, earthquakes, and landslides.
“You have these stories that are oftentimes sort of morally and ethically important, but they’re also geologically important,” Morris Bishop, a consulting geologist for the exhibit, said.
(Photo by Lyric Aquino, Underscore Native News + Report for America)
For nearly two years Amerman, a Choctaw Nation citizen and ethnogeologist, and Morris Bishop, gathered legends from the Nimiipuu storytellers and used them to further understand geological events they’ve studied in Western science.
Traditional geology consists of the study of minerals and rocks and the structure of the Earth’s surface to understand its history and composition. According to Amerman, both geologists practiced ethnogeology, or the Indigenous understanding of landscape for geologic history processes and materials, during their researching process. Meaning, they used historical insights from various tribes, particularly the Nez Perce, to understand the ancient history of geological events.
Including the voices of tribal leaders and storytellers was important to Amerman and Morris Bishop. With permission, they spent time filming traditional stories from the Nez Perce for the exhibit and sharing their research with the tribe.
Nez Perce knowledge holders were taken on a trip up through Snake River and Hell’s Canyon while they shared their stories. According to Morris Bishop, for many of them it was their first time in the heart of their homeland.
“It was important to us to basically tell the story of how these people who lived here for probably 20,000 years understood their landscape, and had witnessed and understood a lot of geologic events, like earthquakes, Ice Age, floods and many landslides, and how those were captured in their stories,” she said.
In one of the stories an elder provided anecdotal evidence of historic floods coming through Hell’s Canyon around 16,000 to 14,000 years ago and what the tribe did to seek refuge during the disaster. The legend states the Nez Perce climbed to the top of Steptoe Butte and shared the area with wildlife including cougars, bears, otters and raccoons who were seeking shelter from the flood.
But for Morris-Bishop and Amerman, these details gave them important insight into how far and high floodwaters extended. While these stories, which they call “mythical truths,” incorporate both truthful and fictional elements, Morris Bishop said the stories needed characters to make them memorable to withstand time.
“You need to be able to tell people about these floods, but you need characters in a story,” she said. “So it’s better if you have the mythical old man who climbs to the top of a rock in order to fish when there’s a big flood.”
One legend that stuck with Amerman was about the creation of Crater Lake.
Over 7,700 years ago Mount Mazama erupted and coated the Pacific Northwest in white-hued ash. Indigenous coastal tribes in the area witnessed the eruption and surrounding tribes who didn’t, felt the long-lasting effects.
During their research, Ammerman said a storyteller described the tribe being completely inundated with volcanic ash for days or perhaps months which affected the plants and their day to day lives. The ash from the volcanic winter was then collected and used as decoration in the hair of Nez Perce leaders to signify status and power.
Morris Bishop said details from the Klamath tribe’s recounting of the eruption of Mount Mazama provided details that well-known geologist Charlie Bacon had no evidence of. In the Klamath tribe’s story, there was an earthquake before the eruption. But in original research of Crater Lake there was no evidence of an earthquake before eruption. However, once a LIDAR machine, which uses lasers to create highly accurate 3D maps and models of surfaces, was used, a fault scarp North of Crater Lake was found dating back to around the time of the eruption indicating that an earthquake did take place.
As ethnogeology continues to make its way through the science community, Morris Bishop hopes to take the exhibit to other museums including the Museum of the American Indian.
Amerman said these mythical truths are “geology with a soul” and restore humanity to ancient Indigenous peoples. He encourages current geologists and upcoming ones to look at Indigenous knowledge as science and use ethnogeology to further research.
“It just gives our Native people our humanity. We’re the only ones who were here for over 17,000 years,” he said. “We have something to share and it can help you too.”
“Heads and Hearts: Seeing the Landscape through Nez Perce Eyes” will be open at OMSI through February 16 during regular operating hours, and is included with usual museum admission.