Poem: People of Cedar and Sea
What wonders the world we live in
Such riches amidst the cedar trees
We gather together to harvest the snag
And paddle canoes to float across the seas.
The ocean is abundant with the mighty salmon
Whose fate is to return to spawn and die
With their bones and eyes devoured by beasts
While their seeds in the shallows lie.
Fishing for salmon at Cielo Falls
Longhouses and huts cover us in the cold
From the weather that batters the coast stone cold
And families who harvest the treasures there in
That flourish in the water and on land grow so tall and old.
Cedar trees, what things we make:
Canoes, paddles, stern, keel, house planks, cordage, baskets and clothing.
Travel, housing, papoose, protection from the elements, fear and loathing.
Food from the sea:
Salmon, shellfish, sturgeon, lamprey eel,
Dungeness crab, and lots of marine mollusks to peel.
Food from the land:
Snails, limpets, camas, tarweed seeds, roots, acorns, and berries.
Elk, deer, otter, seals, beaver, weasel, duck, duck, goose.
Henry E. Hooper 