Indigenous nations hold ceremony in Portland to breathe healing into Willamette River

Over four dozen people gathered under the St. John’s bridge, at the shores of the Willamette River on a misty morning on Sept. 8 to welcome one of the Portland All Nations Canoe Family’s canoes ashore. Following the landing, a bigger crowd began to form in a grassy section of Cathedral Park. There, different Indigenous nations and faiths offered song and prayer to breathe healing into the Willamette River.

Throughout the day, a Shaker ceremony, a Washut ceremony, a Mayan ceremony, and song, and dances from dozens of Indigenous nations were shared with hundreds of community members who gathered for an event co-hosted by the Portland Harbor Community Coalition.

“Water is very important because everything that exists consists of water,” Wilbur Slockish, a traditional river chief of the Klickitat Band of the Yakama Nation, said to hundreds gathered for the annual Water Ceremony. “Our bodies are mostly water and the dirt from this land. That’s why we fight. I fight to protect this land, protect this water, protect the air, because those are my human orders. Creator gave those orders to the peoples. You take care of them, and they will take care of you. You take care of the animals, and they will take care of you. And water is the most important one, because he takes care of everything.”

Later in the day, four representatives of the Mayan Nation in Guatemala invited everyone to gather once more along the banks of the Willamette River. There, they encouraged everyone to participate in a traditional ceremony. They lit a fire for offerings and prayed for the health of the sick river. During the Mayan ceremony, singers and drummers from the Native American Washut faith offered a song as well, followed by other Native American people offering water songs from their nations.

“It’s really important that we all come together and unite with each other,” said Pedro (Luin) Miguel, one of the Mayan leaders of the ceremony. “It’s nice to see all kinds of people participate. And to share the different ways that we can pray with the water. There’s not just one set way of doing it. There’s so many ways we can do it.”

Everyone in attendance at the Water Ceremony was encouraged to add a few drops of clean water they brought from home into a ceramic vase that was then blessed and offered to the river.

Throughout the day, many people offered their respects and helped to honor Art McConville, one of the original leaders of water ceremonies in Portland.

‘If people can be healed, rivers can be healed’

Growing up living and fishing along the Clearwater and Columbia Rivers, Art McConville, Niimipuu and Cayuse, could remember a time before the Dalles Dam. A time when the river ran free and the water was so clear you could scoop out a cup and drink in its cool freshness.

“I remember when I was a young child, that no matter how deep the water was, you could see the bottom and count the rocks,” McConville said in a video interview from 2013. “And of course you could drink the water.”

Native nations along these rivers have relied on their life giving forces since time immemorial. But within the past century, with the onslaught of settler colonialism and industrialization, the health of these once great rivers continues to suffer.

The Columbia River is littered with dams, halting the flow of water from its natural pathways. The Willamette River, a tributary of the Columbia River, is sometimes unsafe to recreate in or even catch fish in certain areas, as toxin advisories are issued off and on by Oregon health officials. None of the rivers are clean enough to drink from.

“Somebody needs to be accountable for it,” McConville said in the 2013 interview. “Not us, we’ve been trying to take care of it but nobody cares what we think. We’re gonna start doing ceremonies on the river, spiritual ceremonies. Because it’s just so overwhelming that we had to do something to contribute. The best way we know how is through song and prayer.”

McConville began organizing and leading water ceremonies to help heal rivers across the Portland metro area, including the Willamette River, in 2013, while he was chair of the Portland chapter of the American Indian Movement. Though McConville walked on a few years ago, his legacy continues with the now annual water ceremony that takes place on the shores of the Willamette. Together, song, dance, and prayer are offered to help the Willamette River on its journey to healing.

“His idea was that before anything else can heal, the water needs to heal and this is where the healing starts,” said Farrell Lucei-Bryant, Warm Springs, McConville’s grand-niece who has been asked to step in and lead the organization of the Water Ceremonies since her grand-uncle passed. “It’s praying by her, with her, for her, and the life that resides within her, because then from there that feeds us as humans, and then the plants on the ground, in the air. It’s all one. Water is life.”

Through ceremony, McConville brought together people from different cultures and backgrounds, all intent on helping to heal the water and now his niece has begun to carry on his legacy.

“If people can be healed, rivers can be healed,” McConville said in the 2013 interview.

‘Without her, we’re nothing’

Before McConville passed on a few years ago, Cassie Cohen, executive director of Portland Harbor Community Coalition, asked who he would like to see carry on the tradition of the water ceremonies.

“He said Farrell,” Cohen said. “He named his niece because he trusted Farrell who grew up in the Shaker Church with [her grandfather] Norman.”

Lucei-Bryant believes it is a huge honor to carry on her grand-uncle’s vision, as she has for the past two years. This year her family joined, including her grandfather Norman Lucei, a good friend of McConville’s. He even led a Shaker service at the bank of the Willamette River underneath the teal arches of the St. Johns bridge the morning of Sept. 8.

“What we’re doing is working,” Lucei-Bryant said. “And if we can bring more voices and more people to the center and to all stand together in unity, in that belief that we have to take care of her [the river], because without her, we’re nothing.”

The banks of the Willamette to the west banks of Palestine

Global Indigenous unity could be seen in the black and white checkerboard patterned keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian scarf that now represents a call for freedom, adorned the shoulders of some people during the water ceremony. As part of the day’s proceedings, representatives of different Indigenous communities were invited to share ceremony, song, dance, prayer, and offer words to the crowd.

Colleta Macy, citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, an outspoken activist for Palestinian people, introduced two Palestinian people to the gathered crowd. Macy recently converted to Islam. Her Islamic name is Kawthar, which translates to ‘abundant goodness.’

“We want to invite the Palestinians to come out and be in community with us, because they are also going through a genocide as we are here today,” Macy said. “They are fighting for their land, their people, their water, their way of life.”

Musaab Ikymayes shared how the struggles to care for the water and the land that Indigenous people across Turtle Island have been faced with since the arrival of settlers is also what Indigenous people on the west banks of Gaza are facing in Palestine today. He urged solidarity among all Indigenous peoples fighting to protect their land and water, “from the banks of the Willamette to the west banks of Palestine.”

“Let this water ceremony be a reminder of the sacredness of life, about shared responsibility to care for the earth and the unity between all people who stand in defense of their homes and their histories,” Ikymayes said. “As we honor the tribes of the land and their unbreakable connection to the will of that, we also honor the Palestinian people and their enduring relationship with their homeland.”

Open to all, this year’s Water Ceremony encouraged learning and cross-cultural connection as people shared song and dance from their Indigenous nations.

This is a legacy Lucei-Bryant and others who knew McConville well believe he would be proud of. The fight to heal the rivers and access to clean water is not unique to Indigenous people of what’s now commonly known as the United States, but a struggle fought by Indigenous people all across the world.

“It’s very important that we come together no matter what background because we all need that water,” Miguel said. “That water is for all of us, for animals, for the trees, for everything. I’m kind of glad that it’s open to everyone, so we can now come together and leave our differences behind, and then come in and do something that’s gonna help us in the long run, and leave something for the kids or future generations.”