Naymumamí kútkut: Gathering School

The specific problem we are working to solve is that Native American communities suffer from the loss of their culture and traditional ways over many generations.

The scale of the problem is endemic in Indian Country, going back to colonization, tribal families moved to reservations, and the breaking of culture by forcing Indian children into boarding schools. At boarding schools, tribal children were punished for speaking their language, and practicing their religion. The foods they knew were gone. The effects of multi-generational trauma are felt on every reservation.

The Yakama Reservation is 1.4 million square acres in eastern Washington. On the Yakama Reservation there are high poverty rates, increased suicide rates, the highest numbers statewide for missing and murdered Indian women, high rates for drug and alcohol use, higher illness and mortality rates for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and Covid. 

For the Pacific Northwest tribes, the scale of the population affected is large: the Yakama tribe, the enrolled members number over 11,500; neighboring tribes are in the thousands; there are 29 tribes in Washington State, and 9 in Oregon.  It would be almost impossible to find a tribal family in the area, not affected by loss of culture, and multi-generational trauma.

Income statistics show the effects: in Washington State, the general per capita income in 2019 was $39,401; the unemployment rate was 4.9%, and college attainment was 36%. On the Yakama reservation, the 2019 per capita AIAN income was $12,280; the unemployment rate was 9.91%, and college attainment was 9.1% (Bureau, U. S. C.)

There is a direct line from the Yakama Wars to Governor Stephens telling the Yakama chiefs that they would wade in the blood of their women and children, to the signing of the Treaty, in 1855, to Yakamas confined to the Reservation, to Native children being taken away to boarding schools, the loss of traditions as the children were taken away, to all the societal effects (poverty, drug and alcohol use, higher rates of all morbidity diseases) seen on the Reservation.

Today there is a disconnect. The proof of the disconnect is within many of the statistics. We have become a people that forgot where we come from. If we remembered where we came from, we would take care of those areas. The plant life is for the most part consistent in returning. It is a part of my community, celebrating the coming of these foods, knowing the state of the world.

We seek to promote healing by teaching how to harvest, store, cook our traditional foods; sharing this by the experience of going into the hills, mountains, valleys to find our traditional food sources. We know from working with the Swan Dancers (a troupe of Yakama girls) that teaching the traditional ways can serve as a way of healing and protecting our children, that learning our own culture is a powerful medicine for body, mind, soul.

Our solution is to empower Native Americans by teaching holistic, traditional food gathering of indigenous plants and foods. We propose is to provide community education and trainings on a weekly basis; going to schools, traveling to speak on gathering throughout the Pacific Northwest, and taking groups out to learn gathering techniques. The purpose of the school is to teach the traditional food gathering of the Yakama and other tribes; the prayers, the songs, the physical techniques, processing, drying, and cooking of indigenous roots, plants, medicinal plants, berries, and other foods, and to also share the community that happens as we gather. A fundamental purpose is to use food gathering to come home, to preserve traditions that are from time immemorial, and these traditions are essential for Yakama and other tribes, as a living, vibrant community.

The background of Naymumamí kútkut is on the Yakama Reservation. Its origins are in Yakama family traditions of food gathering; centered on the seasons and the cycles of roots, berries, medicinal plants, salmon, and wild game. A foundational earlier grant project was a SAMHSA grant, which included activities for tribal children, teaching traditional dances (the Swan Dances) to children, using traditions as a framework to empower and uplift, to help children and families dealing with multi-generational trauma.

Technology for this project is basic; gasoline for trips, auto maintenance, tools like kupin (traditional digging tool), and materials to make wa’paas (traditional woven bags for the roots). Other technology needed are video and camera, a website, social media use, laptop, and  internet access.

The beauty of the project is to truly learn from the plant and animal life. Some of the simple lessons are coexistence. If all the plants were the same, we would not have the diverse medicines. The same goes with people. The plants will teach us when to rise and share and when to rest. The plants teach us acceptance and kindness. Each plant does not try to be something it's not, instead it revels in the beauty of its own life. The kindness comes from the self-care to give of itself to care for people and its environment. The plants not only heal people in its teaching but also in the soil systems. Indigenous plants have the ability to raise the quality of soil to where it holds water and makes a thriving environment. The plants also provide a home free of charge to its inhabitants. The insects, the birds, the reptiles, the fungi, and of course the people. Some of the partnerships in this project would include schools to encourage children to align with the lifestyle again. Another possible partnership would be to work with tribal behavioral health to show the natural therapeutic effects of traditional gathering.

The target population is indigenous people in the Eastern Washington area; including tribal people and descendants in the Washington State and Oregon areas.  The core population is from the Yakama Reservation area; the Yakama Nation is a federally recognized tribe; the Reservation is 1,130,000 acres in southwestern Washington, and the tribe has approximately 11,500 enrolled members; more descendants also live on or near the Reservation. The target audiences are Yakama members, other AI/AN  and descendants, including school age children, teenagers, families, and elders. A special audience within this population are young girls and teenage girls, as root and berry gathering were and are traditionally women’s activities.

Estimated AI/AN population for WA State in 2022 is 155,716 (U.S. Census Bureau quickfacts: United States), not including those self-identified as two or more races, or those identifying as tribal descendants. The target population we aim to directly serve are those who may have grown up without tribal traditions for food gathering, without knowledge of the gathering technique, the places, the seasons of the plants, the songs and prayers that connect back to our ancestors. In order to connect with them, they may be in a stage of readiness to change, maybe realizing that they want something more, or they would just like to try this; maybe they heard about gathering from parents or grandparents.

This population of indigenous people in Washington State are underserved in multiple ways; For indigenous people there are less opportunities for school and for jobs on their reservation. There are  high numbers of homeless in children in school (32.5% of Mount Adams School District 2022-2023; 290 children of 892. This district is 50.9% AIAN; 97.4% of children identified as low income)  high poverty rates, increased suicide rates, the highest numbers statewide for missing and murdered Indian women, high rates for drug and alcohol use, higher illness and mortality rates for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and Covid. 

Our solution is to offer a way to reconnect, to directly share the precious knowledge that their indigenous ancestors knew; how to live from the land, with gratitude, and finding pride in their culture, language, healing, to a whole way of life. Our solution offers a way to connect to the most beautiful food traditions of how indigenous people lived, since time immemorial.

This project is led by indigenous people and is for indigenous people. The Project leader is Marylee Jones, a Yakama gatherer, and the indigenous community that will benefit is the Yakama Reservation community, and other nearby tribal areas. Marylee also works in social services, so every day she is listening to tribal members, and asking them about their needs. These are the basic needs for survival, and also psychological and spiritual needs. She is deep attuned to the struggles of Yakama people.

The target teen or adult population are those within the above groups who are seeking more knowledge about gathering, or knowledge of ancestral food and spiritual practices. Marylee also teaches at schools, camps, and community events, so much of the teaching is for children, and working within the schools to arrange for field trips out to gather.

Community engagement is happening all the time with this solution. Sometimes she takes families out to learn to gather, and that will be three generations, with the elder remembering gathering from their childhood. Other times she will let people know she is going out to gather roots, or berries, and then take groups out to learn. She also engages with indigenous people from other tribes, or their descendants, and some of the teaching work is conducted at other locations, often along the Columbia River.

The solution works on three issues for indigenous people; the need for cultural competency, the need for food sovereignty in Native American communities, and addressing the need to heal from multigenerational trauma. Our solution, Naymumamí kútkut: Gathering School addresses these needs by empowering indigenous communities by teaching holistic, traditional food gathering of indigenous plants and foods.

The primary educator of Naymumamí kútkut is Marylee Smunitee Jones, an indigenous gatherer, who learned food gathering from her mother, and from her Kuthla (grandmother), and the other women who gathered together for plant gathering and processing, in the cycles of spring, summer, fall and winter. Marylee has sought out education and partnerships on traditional food gathering and medicines, and shares that knowledge by teaching all over the Pacific Northwest. Marylee’s day job is as a social worker for the BIA on the Yakama Reservation; she finds resources and helps families that need help to have housing , food, clothing, caring for children and elders. After work, she may be in the hills, searching for first roots, or teaching at an elementary school, or leading groups out to Yakama closed areas, and teaching tribal people how to gather, peel, and cook their original foods. She works with plants and reforestation, and has been a key part of projects to plant indigenous forests and shrubs on barren land; one example is a Healing Forest planted at the Yakama Nation Correction & Rehabilitation Facility. Marylee has been featured in multiple publications and videos, including at the World Economic Forum.

In Marylee's words: "The organization is made up of the insight from ancestors and working with three generations. My mother's wisdom and patience. My action and voice in the learning curve. My daughter's vision as to what it can be and what she's working towards.

I have been actively volunteering in a capacity to assist individuals willing to learn and trying to focus on individuals that I want to invest in". Part of this vision is to empower a core group of five girls over several years, to become teachers of gathering and traditional cultural food traditions.

Marylee Jones works with a network of volunteers and partners; she has a clear vision of keeping the food traditions and spiritual practices alive, by teaching food gathering to children, teenagers, and adults as a step towards healing of indigenous peoples. Her experience is that in learning the food gathering practices, a deep joy and return to wholeness can occur, healing one person at a time.

The reason for this application to Solve is to help this dream become a little more real. Marylee Smunitee Jones is doing many of these solutions already; just doing them after her day job in tribal social work and financing them out of her salary (which is hard for a single mom; Marylee is a widow). This work has the support of the three core volunteers, and then a fluid group of community helpers also volunteer at a given event.

Having some monetary support, and support from Solve in being part of a cohort, or the access to leadership and coaching, would help move this work to the next level. As an example, Marylee and other elders have been coaching the young women and girls who are part of the collective known as the Yakama Nation’s Iksiks Washana’lama, or “Little Swans”, learning culture, history, and language, and then showing the social dances of Northern Plateau tribes at exhibitions all over the Northwest. This work has happened organically, but having monetary support for travel, hotel rooms, food would make such a difference in helping the work to grow. Support for the project would also remove  barriers; more Yakama families could participate.

Marylee Jones is enrolled Yakama (Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation). She has lived in the Yakama Reservation community most of her life. She has deep roots in the area, and is out gathering almost every week. Her “team” is three generations, Marylee herself, her 75-year-old mother, and her teenage daughter. Her son is in the Marines,and there are family connections all through the Reservation. Marylee is also connected with other gatherers and teachers of indigenous food traditions throughout the northwest, and participates in trainings and also shares knowledge and traditions herself.

What makes the Gathering School innovative is that is it has happened organically. Marylee is from generations of gatherers; gathering is a joy and something she and her family always seek to do. It has been natural to empower other people in the Yakama community by teaching traditional food gathering. As one of the founders of the Swan Dancers, Marylee has seen how sustained cultural support is a protective factor for young people, giving them hope and pride in their indigenous heritage.

One of the solutions this project will implement is developing a group of five young women to learn these traditions, over a five-year period: with the goal of bringing along new generations of Yakama teachers of these traditional gathering skills.

Impact goals for the next year are to develop and teach age-appropriate curriculum and practicum for traditional food gathering; this curriculum would also teach food sovereignty and traditional spiritual or religious aspects of food gathering. These goals will have a transformational impact on people’s lives by empowering them to know the food gathering traditions from time immemorial.

Impact goals for the next five years year are to develop the Gathering School as a full-time school, and to create a program that will provide these services to the community, and also develop other teachers so these traditional practices can continue on through many generations. The Gathering School would teach age-appropriate curriculum and practicum for traditional food gathering; this curriculum would also teach food sovereignty and traditional spiritual or religious aspects of food gathering.

1.     Develop curriculum and teach bi-monthly sessions over 9 months (18 sessions).

2.     Develop curriculum and teach bi-monthly sessions over 9 months (18 sessions) with emphasis on food sovereignty

3.     Develop curriculum and teach bi-monthly sessions over 9 months (18 sessions) with emphasis on traditional spiritual practices

4.     Develop and outline steps in process to achieve the Gathering School as a full-time school over the next five years.

OBJECTIVES

OUTPUTS

OUTCOMES

IMPACT

Develop curriculum and teach bi-monthly sessions over 9 months (18 sessions)

Develop curriculum

Teach 2 sessions month over 9 months

Increase in cultural competency in Yakama and other indigenous communities

Empowerment and pride in tribal traditions; increase in community happiness

Develop curriculum and teach bi-monthly sessions over 9 months (18 sessions) with emphasis on food sovereignty

Develop curriculum with emphasis on food sovereignty

Teach 2 sessions month over 9 months

Increase in cultural competency in Yakama and other indigenous communities for food sovereignty

Increase in community food sovereignty and independence from industrial food sources

Develop curriculum and teach bi-monthly sessions over 9 months (18 sessions) with emphasis on traditional spiritual practices

Develop curriculum with emphasis on traditional spiritual practices

Teach 2 sessions month over 9 months

Increase in cultural competency in Yakama and other indigenous communities’ traditional spiritual practices for food gathering

Increase in community measures of healing from multi-generational trauma

The core technology is traditional indigenous food gathering techniques; these have been in danger of being lost,and we seek to revive them and share with indigenous people in the Northwest region. These techniques also increase food sovereignity, and help to bring healing through pride in indigenous culture.

I have learned through my healing and wellness about who I am. The diversity has been shown to me through the plants I work with. Every plant has a medicine and has its time where it is most effective. I have also learned that not a single person has ever made an agreement to be who they are and we are all vessels of light.

The people we serve through this program are usually indigenous and/or descendants of indigenous people. We serve a BIPOC community, and do not turn anyone away.

Our business model is to serve indigenous people, to share knowledge, and increase the well being of our clients and communities.

We intend to seek further funding and  to explore developing as a non-profit. As a project, we will seek additional revenue through tribal grants, casino grants, and fellowships.A long term goal would be to be able to pay wages to traditional teachers, to help make this program sustainable.

Marylee has had a successful application for a fellowship in 2021 to be a Master teacher, also funding her student. This was in teaching traditional food gathering.