‘We cannot go backwards in time’
#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.
STELLA SAMMARIPA
Nez Perce language program technician and recent NASA Minority University Research and Education Project fellow
Kamiah, Idaho
My immersion in language and the histories of Nez Perce words steered my education, and my research, into the natural sciences. As a NASA fellow, I created a transdisciplinary habitat suitability model for Indian dogbane. The plant is culturally important to my tribe, and it once thrived on our homelands, but it is now actively eradicated because it is toxic to livestock.
Kamiah is a town on the Nez Perce reservation. The name Kamiah comes from the Nez Perce word QemyeXpe (pronounced Kem-yehk-pa), which means “the gathering place of Qéemu (pronounced kam-oo)” — our word for Indian dogbane. My ancestors utilized Qéemu to make twine, rope, basketry and nets, but in recent decades, the distribution of Indian dogbane has been reduced by half, and the cultural activities dependent upon the plant are threatened as well.
I hope that the model I’ve created will help my tribe identify culturally appropriate and ecologically feasible locations to begin replenishing Qéemu on Nez Perce lands. This type of activity is frequently referred to as restoration, but I insist that we call it mitigation. We cannot go backwards in time, and I doubt that we will fully restore Qéemu to its historical distribution. I can, however, work to mitigate past harm by increasing Qéemu populations and bringing back cultural activities that are dependent upon the plant. I understand my Qéemu habitat-modeling efforts as an exercise in tribal sovereignty — as my way of building a plan to reconnect our language with our landscapes, and to regrow both of them.
One of my elders who taught me the Nez Perce language used to say: “When you teach the language, the culture will follow. When you teach the culture, the language will follow.” Well, we had names for every living thing in our environment, and these names allowed us to acknowledge plants for giving us our livelihoods and our culture. But our language and our Qéemu populations receded in parallel. The plants knew the name we gave them, but unfortunately, we forgot those names — and so we have forgotten that relationship. Through this loss, we have started to have less respect for these plants. I hope that my research on Qéemu habitat, as well as my work to teach and preserve the Nimiipuu language, helps me to fulfill my responsibility to heal the relationships my people once had with our homelands, our culture and our language.
Rebecca Stumpf is an editorial photographer based in western Montana, where she enjoys immersing herself in all that the west has to offer. She is a member of Women Photograph, and photographs for other clients such as Smithsonian Magazine, Time, and The Guardian. Follow her on Instagram.
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