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Moss and Culture Tribal elders work to sustain tradition in Wellpinit BY ANNEMARIE C. FROHNHOEFER
A Camas lily field in the Centennial Marsh Wildlife Management Area in Idaho near Hill City. CHARLES KNOWLES PHOTO
ellow school buses slow down as they pull off a dirt road, their tires coming to a gritty halt in a field three hours north of Spokane. Kindergarteners through high schoolers disembark; most are from the Wellpinit school district but other buses have traveled from Idaho and places farther north and south. The students gather with a group of older folks — tribal elders, parents with young children, middleaged friends and neighbors — for a total of 350 people here to dig white camas root from the dry ground. The camas root, both white and brown varieties, has been a part of the Spokane diet for centuries, but the knowledge of its harvest, preparation and consumption hasn’t had a clean line of descent from one generation to the next. The first and most destructive disruption was the arrival of Anglo-Americans and the systematic removal of Indians from their native land and harvesting places. This was followed by the reeducation of Indian children at boarding schools and a resulting disconnect from native culture. A tribal descendant and member of Generation X recalls her mother’s preference for Wonder Bread and all things related to 1960s mainstream culture. It seemed that the community’s taste for roots and tamarack moss had to be reacquired. Roughly 20 years ago, Peter Campbell, then student advisor of Native American studies at Eastern Washington University, met with tribal member Louie Wynne (both have since passed away) and Richard Bailey, an archeologist with the Bureau of Land Management, to investigate the possibility of reopening traditional harvesting lands for the Spokane Tribe. Fewer than 30 people showed up for the first harvest, but that number increased tenfold this spring as young and old went out into the fields with digging tools (shovel-handled metal bars with pointed tips and a low cross-piece for leverage) and bags to collect the radish-sized white root that has a peculiarly airy texture and slightly minty-sweet flavor. Once taken from the ground, the tops of the plants are turned over and tamped down into the depressions left