The practice of ceremony offers ways to build relationships between the
land and its beings, reflecting change while drawing upon deep
relationships going back millennia. Ceremony may involve intricate and
spectacular regalia but may also involve simple tools, such as a plastic
bucket for harvesting huckleberries or a river rock that holds heat for
sweat. The Art of Ceremony provides a contemporary and historical
overview of the nine federally recognized tribes in Oregon, through rich
conversations with tribal representatives who convey their commitments
to ceremonial practices and the inseparable need to renew language, art,
ecological systems, kinship relations, and political and legal
sovereignty.
Vivid photographs illuminate the ties between land and people at the
heart of such practice, and each chapter features specific ceremonies
chosen by tribal co-collaborators, such as the Siletz Nee Dosh (Feather
Dance), the huckleberry gathering of the Cow Creek Umpqua, and the
Klamath Return of C'waam (sucker fish) Ceremony. Part of a larger global
story of Indigenous rights and cultural resurgence in the twenty-first
century, The Art of Ceremony celebrates the power of Indigenous
renewal, sustainable connection to the land, and the ethics of
responsibility and reciprocity between the earth and all its
inhabitants.
