Youthful Memories Shine Light on Celilo Life The Dalles Chronicle March 11, 2007 page A8 By George Aguilar for The Chronicle Henry (Polk) and Abe (Show-a-way) would bring several sacks of fall run Chinook salmon for the women to butcher, fillet and prepare for air drying. On the rickety homemade butchering table several salmon were quickly filleted into thin slices and were placed on the air drying racks. The roe (eggs) was also dried in this manner. The brightest, freshest and premium salmon were hand-picked for sale or reserved for trade to visiting tourists. A lot of times I sat and listened to the conversation involving grandmother and a very old blind lady (Minnie's mother) the language spoken was the Columbia River Sahaptin. The conversation usually entailed historical events of bygone times, places to get certain grasses for use in drying salmon and so forth. In general, it was just plan old lady talk. During this era, all conversation was in the Native American language, very little English was spoken. The English language was spoken only to vegetable and fruit trading people and visiting fish-buying tourists. There were several other people sharing and living in this same dry shed, and every one slept on the hard flat basalt rocks. These groups were relatives, and in-laws of the family. Each family group had their place in this open four-walled dry shed, and there were no wall partitions. They all slept in a row on the western wall of the dry shack. Each family slept, cooked, ate and stayed within the confines of their area. When the crack of dawn crowded out the night hours, and upon waking up, the bedding was neatly rolled up and placed against the walls. While viewing photos from a computer disk provided by the Oregon Historical Society, I made an inquiry to Adeline Moses Miller, "Whose drying shed is that on the photo?" Her reply was, "I can see the people in my mind, but I can't remember their names. The only thing I remember is that I carried sacks of sand for them to level out the sleeping places that was on the rocks." This drying shed occupied a strategic place along the highway going through the Celilo Village; it was north of the main thoroughfare. Minnie's older brother, McKinley Wesley, sat near a pole pillar of the shed constructing fish nets and other fishing paraphernalia. There was an old Model T Ford discarded car seat outside and children were ordered to sit outside the weather-beaten boarded drying shack, to wait for a vegetable and fruit salesman who came to trade for a fresh salmon. At other times, Grandmother took me for a walk along the Salmon Head Beach, located east of the Celilo Village. Salmon Head Beach, was so named because some people butchered and gutted their fish on this shallow river beach, and the guts and discarded fish heads caused a stench and a breeding place for a lot of flies. At the pebbled Salmon-Head Beach, Grandmother looked for small, smooth, flat rocks, and she showed me how these flat rocks were thrown onto larger ones. This was an attempt to split them in half to make a stone head for the hide-tanning stick. The gentle licking of the water waves created by the afternoon summer western winds are still there, but the Salmon Head Beach no longer exists. The area is now a landing place for wind surfers. It is elders aged 60 years or older that keep in mind of what it was like prior to March 10, 1957. The huffing clatter and rumbling of the black smoke-spewing, coal-steam engine locomotives coming around the bend were seen and heard during this era. During these blistering late hot hummer and early autumn days, the clamor of some moccasin wearing, Sahaptin speaking children was every where. The sounds of the great Celilo Falls thundered, and churned out foamed water against the basalt rocks. The visiting tourists told of the splendor of the spectacular sites of Celilo's foaming wild river through their photography. The bothersome buzzing of house flies gave way to the whispers of the evening's caressing, cooling winds. During the night hours, fast-paced, taunting, gamboling sounds and the bombarding of wooden clubs beating on boards, reverberated off the towing basalt bluffs.ghosts of the fishery live only on photographs and in minds and hearts of the old ones 71 years ago. To be continued Incoming and Outgoing messages protected by Trend Micro PC-cillin program