Longhouse revives Wanapums' history

DESERT AIRE, Grant County - Wanapum Indian elder Robert Tomanawash Sr. was a teenager when he left his tule-mat home along the Columbia River in 1956.

The only remaining Wanapum to have lived in the longhouses, Tomanawash felt a flood of memories when he set foot in a tule-mat house again earlier this month for the first time in nearly half a century.

"I grew up in this kind of house, and I never thought I'd see one again," he said. "In a way it makes me happy and it makes me sad because the people I grew up with are gone and now it's just me who remembers."

One memory is of his people gathering in the village tule-mat house to praise harvests of roots and fish with songs. Another is the smell of the wet tule reeds and the sweet cedar logs of his family's tule-mat house.

The Wanapum Indians last August set out to build a tule-mat longhouse of the kind their band used before European settlers arrived, and until they were relocated about four decades ago so Priest Rapids Dam could be built.

Their village of manufactured homes now is next to the dam.

They spent months collecting and weaving the tule reeds from along the Columbia River into mats for the walls. Cedar logs for the A-frame structure came from Grant County PUD power poles.

The 70-by-30-foot structure they built is the first tule-mat house to stand in their present village.

On the weekend of July 8-9, they held a Wanapums-only ceremony in their tule-mat longhouse. A couple days later, Wanapum leaders welcomed about 120 invited visitors, saying it's an important symbol in their culture.

"As we look ahead to our children we need to make sure our culture is conserved and that it doesn't fade out and die," said Wanapum spiritual leader Rex Buck Jr.

The tule-mat house was the winter home of the Wanapum Indians. Extended families shared a tule house. Celebrations were held in the larger ones, like the longhouse that was built, he said.

Richard Buck, a Wanapum leader, said the tule-mat house represents the history of the Wanapum people and the sacrifices they have made.

"This is where our heart is, in the ground, in the air," he said. "Today as I stand here, it brings back many teachings of oral histories and thoughts of compromise and sacrifices."

Buck said he hoped visitors would look at Wanapum beliefs with new insight.

"I feel confident that today when the sun goes down and you lay your head down to rest and tomorrow your life will be different because you will see the people in a different way," he said.

Rex Buck said the tule-mat house will be taken down and reassembled yearly or every couple years so that new generations of Wanapum will be able to see an important part of their history. Only about 60 people are left in the band's village.

"The building of this sacred tule-mat house ensures that this will not be a forgotten tradition among our people," he said.