For My People: Awacha Nay (This is the Way it Was: Stories of the Columbia River)

“Awacha náy! This is the way it was,” the old man finished as he always did, and the village’s children replied an excited, “Íi,” as they always did. But for Asku, the future Patisapatisháma chief, the words stuck in his throat. As long as he could remember Asku had experienced vivid visions from Saigwan, an ancestor chief from the time when the Ice and Speartooth were masters of the land. Asku thought the visions were sent to teach him, maybe to prepare him for something, but they mostly just scared him. The other children could listen to the stories. Asku felt like he lived the stories. One thing for certain was that Saigwan had chosen him. But the question in Asku’s mind remained, what for? What did the Ancestors want with him? And when the time came for him to take his place, whenever that may be, would Asku be equal to the challenge? Before dams, before canneries, and before explorers and settlers people lived along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest as they had for thousands of years. Up and down her two thousand kilometers, from mountain to sea, were people who depended upon the life that the Big River gave and the delicate and intricate balance of power, control and trade that followed. But that was about to change…suddenly and painfully