The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a summer stipend to a Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Professor Gregory Fields to pursue a passion that has framed his career for the past 20 years.
Dr. Fields, professor of philosophy at SIUE, will continue collaborating on two books with two native elders of Washington State: Pauline Hillaire, Scälla, of the Killer Whale, (Lummi Coast Salish) and Johnny Moses, xWistemeni, Walking Robe (Nuu-chah-nulth and Tulalip Coast Salish).
Moses and Hillaire are traditionally trained oral historians. In 2012, Moses received Washington Governor’s Heritage Award, the state’s highest honor for perpetuation of cultural heritage. Hillaire has just been named a 2013 National Heritage Fellow, the nation’s highest honor for perpetuation of cultural arts.
Fields submitted a competitive application which landed him in the top 8 percent acceptance rate. The NEH stipend provides $6,000 for two months. This year, the NEH gave 78 awards from a pool of nearly 1,000 applications. Fields’ proposal was the only one funded in Native American Studies. Fields also was awarded SIUE’s Hoppe Research Professor Award to continue his research of Pacific Northwest culture. From July 1, 2013 through July 1, 2015, the professor will receive half-time release from teaching to work on significant research.
The professor met the now 84-year-old elder Pauline Hillaire at a gathering on the Tulalip Reservation six years ago. Their first collaboration was a book and media collection that will be available from University of Nebraska Press in December. A Totem Pole History documents the work of Ms. Hillaire’s father, renowned carver and cultural leader Joseph Hillaire (1894-1967).
Their second publication is Rights Remembered: A Salish Grandmother Speaks on American Indian History and the Future. It is also from University of Nebraska Press and will be released within the next two years. Its media collection contains songs in the virtually extinct Lummi dialect, and tribal history narrated by Hillaire, along with archival images.
“Most Indian history is written by non-Indians.” Fields said. “Rights Remembered is the work of a native person who has lived for nearly a century as an engaged citizen of her tribal nation and of the United States. Scälla worked on this book for 45 years, based on Salish oral tradition and primary source documents of the U.S. government. The book is about U.S. Indian policy and how Indian lands, lives and cultural knowledge were lost. It calls for reconciliation between Indian and non-Indian people, based on the truths of history.”
It was 1992 when Fields met Moses, of the Tulalip Reservation in Marysville, Wash. (near Seattle), at a conference at University of Hawaii, where Fields was completing his doctorate in comparative philosophy. “Johnny has a tremendous knowledge-base of oral history, oral literature and medicine songs.” Fields said. “He was trained by his great grandparents and other elders born in the nineteenth century and he carries knowledge that is very ancient.”
The book by Moses, edited by Fields, is entitled Sacred Breath: Pacific Northwest Culture and Medicine Teachings. It will also be published by University of Nebraska Press with an estimated release date of 2016. The book is based on recordings of Moses. A portion is cited below:
To the native people who lived here –the first people– the forest land, the flowers, the rocks, the water, all the elements: that was our library. That was our library: the forest. It stored all the knowledge that we needed to live upon the earth. It stored all the teachings… This is why the old people used to always say, “Go out into the woods. Go out to where there is a river or an ocean, to find time to be with the spirits; to have time with our ancient ancestors, the Living Breath.” Our teachings, our stories, are called ‘the Breath of our Ancestors.’ It is the breath that has been passed on to us: important teachings. I’m so thankful that these teachings have survived, and they have survived for thousands of years, even before they were written down. Now they are being preserved in another form, by writing these teachings down; recording them. I’m just so thankful to the Spirit.
The DVDs and audio CDs that will accompany Sacred Breath contain songs, stories, oral history and spiritual teachings. “Multimedia suits oral tradition better than print alone,” Fields said. “With a CD, you can hear the native language and the tone of voice. With video, you can see gestures and facial expressions. It convey much more than words on a page.”
Fields’ work is cultivating new ground in digital scholarship and his collaborations with Hillaire and Moses will produce a trilogy of books and recordings representing three generations of noted Salish culture-bearers. “Non-native scholars and institutions have misappropriated native peoples’ cultural property and have produced writings that sometimes distort or dilute native traditions,” he said. “When native and non-native specialists cooperate, they can produce works that are representative of native views and voices.
“Cultural preservation is crucial,” the professor added. “There is no substitute for living teachers, but books and media that preserve the knowledge of today’s elders can provide tribal members of the future with sources to help sustain ancestral knowledge and practices. In addition, loss of languages and cultural knowledge is a loss for all of humanity. I hope to help preserve indigenous knowledge as part of the legacy –and the future– of global knowledge.”
Photo Information: Pictured is Dr. Gregory Fields.