When the River Ran Wild!: Indian Traditions on the Mid-Columbia and the Warm Springs Reservation

Description

Nearly seventy-five years of my lifetime have come and gone since hearing of the sparse historical events from the old-timers, American Indian elder George Aguilar tells us.
It’s my turn now.
When the River Ran Wild! is Aguilar’s recounting of events he heard about while watching his grandmother make moccasins by the light of a coal-oil lamp and while strapped to the back of his aunt’s horse on the way to the huckleberry grounds.
He learned them at Coyote’s Fishing Place, where his uncles built scaffolds and taught him how to use traditional technologies to catch salmon as they made their seasonal runs up the river.In this remarkable personal memoir and tribal history, we learn about Aguilar’s people, the Kiksht-speaking Eastern Chinookans, who lived and worked for centuries connected to the rhythms and resources of the great fishing grounds of the Columbia River at Five Mile Rapids.