First Foods of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation: Promoting Resilience in the Context of Settler Colonization View Digital Media

Colloquium
Stan Thayne,  Gabriel Jacobson,  Thomas Morning Owl,  Linda Sampson  

For thousands of years, the lives of Indigenous peoples of the Columbia River Plateau (North America) were organized around a seasonal cycle centered on their foods: salmon, roots, elk, berries, etc. American settler colonization brought drastic changes, such as the introduction of industrial agriculture, the damming of rivers, and a private property system and capitalist economy that have threatened the foods of Indigenous communities. In spite of these challenges, Indigenous communities have continued to gather their traditional foods, have created programs to protect them, and organize much of their communal and ceremonial life around their First Foods. In this colloquium, food gatherers and knowledge keepers Linda Sampson and Thomas Morning Owl, of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), will speak about their efforts to protect and promote the resilience of their foods in the context of American settler colonization. Discussants include Gabe Jacobson, an anthropologist working in the CTUIR’s cultural resources department, and Stan Thayne, a lecturer at Whitman College whose teaching and research focuses on Indigenous food sovereignty.