SECTION 15: THE UMATILLA AND THE LIVING LEGACY

The story of Kennewick Man does not end with his reburial.

It continues in the communities that claimed him, the people who are his living descendants, and the work they are doing today to preserve and share their own history on their own terms.

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have one of the most sophisticated cultural preservation programs of any tribal nation in the United States.

The Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, opened in 1998 — in the middle of the Kennewick legal battle — is a world-class museum and cultural center that tells the story of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla peoples from their own perspective.

Walking through Tamástslikt, you encounter a version of history that is radically different from what you would find in most American history museums.

It is a history told from the inside — from the perspective of people who have lived in this landscape since the beginning of their memory, who have their own sophisticated understanding of their past, who have survived catastrophic disruption and are still here, still practicing their culture, still speaking their languages (though with far fewer speakers than a century ago), still fishing the Columbia River that their ancestor lay beside for eighty-four centuries.

The Nez Perce have their own museum and cultural center, and their own ongoing engagement with the questions raised by the Kennewick case.

The Yakama Nation maintains extensive cultural programs and a strong presence in the ongoing struggle to protect Indigenous sacred sites and burial grounds in the Pacific Northwest.

The Wanapum — a smaller community not federally recognized as a tribe, but a people with a deep and continuous presence in the Columbia River region — were among the most spiritually engaged of the communities involved in the Kennewick repatriation.