Snoqualmie Falls: Shadows In The Valley Of The Moon

THIS Saturday a small group of citizens, church leaders and Snoqualmie Indian people meet again at Washington's second most-visited tourist attraction.

They will gather to burn a small bundle of dried cedar in a ceremony of prayer and solidarity, then continue a public vigil of information regarding issues around one of this state's most magnificent natural landscapes. Viewed by some 1.5 million persons a year, the 268-foot Snoqualmie Falls has become, in recent months, a focal point of heated debate.

At center stage is Puget Sound Power & Light Company, which plans to harness more of the falls' hydroelectric power. Standing in opposition is a coalition of environmental groups, religious organizations and concerned citizens which has organized with the Snoqualmie Indian tribe under auspices of the Snoqualmie Falls Preservation Project.

This peculiar controversy has been triggered by Puget Power's application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for relicensing of their hydroelectric facility. The power company plans to divert an additional 60 percent of the current amount of river water into its generating plant for the next 40 years.

Weyerhaeuser, the Northwest's most prestigious timber company, also has made public its plans for a 3,000-unit exclusive residential development, a recreational area and golf course for the south rim of the falls. These proposed projects are challenging what one Northwest tribe holds to be an integral part of Indian spirituality and existence.

For thousands of years, this area has been sacred to the Snoqualmie Indian people. The falls is the center of the Valley of the Moon, a garden of Eden for the original people of this region. Mists that rise from the cascading waters are believed to carry prayers for the earth lifted to heaven in continuous homage to the Creator. Generations of Snoqualmie people are buried near the falls. Vision quests and ritual bathing are still practiced in the area.

With the proposed developments, this landscape to the Snoqualmie is threatened with permanent loss.

Local church leaders' commitment to preservation efforts came last summer in a request from Snoqualmie tribal leadership. Their response, initially cautious, become public and decisive at a gathering held at the falls Feb. 23.

Legitimate questions are frequently raised about Indian religion by voices in the Christian tradition regarding the "pagan" nature of Indian spiritual life. If pagan means, as the Anglo derivative suggests, "earth" religion, that is correct. But it's important to recognize that those who identify with the ecumenical movement hold the conviction that God's presence is not limited by any tradition.

The Northwest Bishops' Apology of 1987, addressed to area tribal leaders and signed by nine bishops and denominational leaders, reads: "Your religions hold many gifts. We have much to learn from your traditional teachings and spiritual practices."

While recognizing differences and tensions between cultures and symbols, church leaders point in this document to a common spiritual world. From this perspective, native culture and spirituality offer a chance to enhance a Christian understanding of the world, not necessarily detract from or diminish it.

It is understandable that an idea of "the sacred" is a cause of confusion and skepticism by many who hold positions of economic and political power. This "setting aside" or "transparency" of a geographic site, object or time does not fit easily into modern sensibility.

Mircea Eliade, the great teacher of comparative religions, warns us that when the idea of the "sacred" breaks down, a culture accelerates. There are no boundaries, literally everything becomes usable. Life becomes faster, anxiety dominates daily living. With no orientation, individuals lose balance, spin out of control, consuming increasing amounts of places, time and material goods.

In contrast, Snoqualmie Falls still represents what theologian Paul Tillich would call a sacred place. It invites us to stop and pause before another reality. Such authentic sacred sites, Tillich says, hold together three essential components: (1) a people and community; (2) a specific collection of myths and holy legends; (3) a particular landscape set aside for ongoing ceremonies and rituals. Snoqualmie Falls meets these criteria clearly and unequivocably.

Barry Lopez, an Oregon naturalist and writer, suggests that behind every physical landscape there is a spiritual one. This "real geography" is one that can be discerned only through the stories and legends of those who make such places their home.

Lopez warns us that such teachers rarely work for the local Chamber of Commerce. Many of them are judged by academic standards as unsophisticated, ignorant. Yet they are the keepers of a land's best secrets: The native peoples of our region hold such gifts. Snoqualmie Falls gives us a chance to listen.

The collision of values between Puget Power and Light Company and the Snoqualmie Indians is essentially a collision of idioms and cultural worlds. It should not be forgotten that the proposed development of the falls comes from a private utility making use of a public resource.

The grandchildren of the Snoqualmie Indians who once roamed this majestic waterway remind us these riverbanks are the site of a criminal act when, years ago, the face of the falls was dynamited to make way for hydroelectric installations.

The people of the Northwest now have an opportunity to join with private business, our area's Indians and the ecumenical churches in joining in vigorous public discourse about preservation of Snoqualmie Falls.

Poised together on the edge of the 21st century, facing unprecedented ecological disaster, we in the Northwest have a chance to give birth to our own creative myth: one of a new heaven and new earth.

Jon Magnuson is Lutheran campus pastor at the University of Washington and co-chair of the Native American Task Force for the Church Council of Greater Seattle.