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For Some Tribes, New Year's Foods Provide A Sacred Link To The Past : The Salt
Native American tribes in Eastern Oregon recently marked kimtee inmewit, a
ceremony that welcomes the sacred new foods of the new year. The tribes see
these foods not just as nourishment, but as a connection to ancestors.


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FOR SOME TRIBES, NEW YEAR'S FOODS PROVIDE A SACRED LINK TO THE PAST

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January 1, 20125:40 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday

Anna King

From Northwest News Network

FOR SOME TRIBES, NEW YEAR'S FOODS PROVIDE A SACRED LINK TO THE PAST

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Edna Kash-kash, a Native American from Oregon, sits in front of a tepee circa
1900. In Eastern Oregon, a tribal celebration of first foods offers a connection
to ancestors. Lee Moorhouse/Buyenlarge/Getty Images) hide caption

toggle caption
Lee Moorhouse/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

Around the world last night, revelers marked the start of the new year. But in
the Northwest corner of the U.S., some Native American tribes began their
celebrations early.

On Dec. 20, just before the winter solstice, tribes in Eastern Oregon held a
ceremony called kimtee inmewit, a welcoming of the new foods.

"This goes back to when the world was new. The first food that was created was
the salmon — we call it nusux," says Armand Minthorn, the spiritual leader of
the tribes that live on the Umatilla Reservation, on the dry side of Oregon.

Minthorn explains that Indian New Year is the time to celebrate the return of
the sacred foods. "The second food was the deer. We call the deer nukt. ... The
third was the bitter root we call sliiton." These foods will come back to the
Indian people as the sunlight hours begin to stretch again, Minthorn says.

To honor these sacred foods, the tribe sings, drums, dances, prays and shares a
meal together at the longhouse.



In the community kitchen, elder women prepare meat stew and Indian fry bread.
One of them is Lynn Sue Jones, a tiny woman with a soft, round face. She kneads
a mass of tacky bread dough to a loose rhythm. "We can be able to face our
demons and take care of our health a little better. Just want to see another
year to begin with," she says.

Jones is 62. She is taking on new responsibilities this year, raising two
granddaughters, ages 3 and 5. "I just want to ask the creator to give me the
strength to do right by them," she says. "I want to teach them the longhouse
way."

The tribes' children sing to the elders during the community meal. "Christmas in
America is OK with me, I like spending time with my family," they sing. Lynn Sue
Jones' sister, Linda Jones, listens nearby as she stretches small balls of
dough. She flattens each one, then floats them in sizzling oil.

Tribal elder Linda Jones teaches younger women and girls how to gather the
traditional foods for the tribes. Every year she goes out to the mountains and
bluffs to harvest the wild celery, bitter roots and huckleberries. The foods are
sacred, she says, because they nourish the people, but also because, "when our
elders pass on and go back to the ground, this is how they come back to take
care of us, in these foods."



Some of Linda Jones' long, long hair is silver. She worries that not enough
young people are living the tribal traditions. Sometimes she has to gather the
sacred foods alone.

"Everything is passed by word of mouth, and that's how we were brought up and
that is how we do things," Linda Jones says. "Whoever will listen. It ends up
coming down to that — who's gonna listen."

Linda Jones hopes to kindle enough interest in the ancestors' teachings so that
the Umatilla tribes have enough hands to bring in the sacred foods this year and
in the years to come.

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 * New Year's

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