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about
This song is the sad story of how a dam in The Dalles, Oregon destroyed a sacred site shared by many Native people of Oregon, Washington and California. Although only the Wishram and the Wasco lived there full-time, people from many, many tribes came together at this beautiful place. Not many people have paid attention to how the dams built on almost every river in the United States have destroyed Native land and livelihoods. I talked to a Lakota woman from the Cheyenne River Reservation who said that when she was a girl, she woke up one day to see the river rising. Her family had to leave in the middle of the night and all their things were destroyed. The government hadn’t even bothered to tell them that they were building a dam that would flood their home! Environmental destruction still threatens the livelihoods of Native Americans to this day. The Apache people in Arizona are trying to stop a copper mine from being built, and the Unis’tot’en of BC, Canada are blocking the government from building 7 oil pipelines through their burial grounds. It’s important to talk about the incredible ways that Native people are working to resist the destruction of their lands, but also important to remember that all of the land that we live on has been taken from Native Americans, and that the US Government has broken every treaty that they have ever made with Native Americans. Often times, like in this case, they have taken land that they promised never to take, because they realized that they could use the land. One other important thing to say about the last verse of this song is that some people who live near Celilo Falls are now able to make a living fishing salmon. Conservation groups and hatcheries have worked to bring the salmon back, but there are half a million now, and there used to be 15 million in the Columbia. A lot of Native Americans were not even allowed to fish until they fought for the right in the early 1970s by staging “fish-ins.” The 1974 Boldt Decision made it to where all Native people in the Pacific Northwest had the right to fish to make money and to feed themselves and their families.
lyrics
Can you see the great and mighty falls in your imagination
The salmon rode the rolling tides and fed indigenous nations
But greedy men from other lands poured concrete through their river
And killed the life they once had known
The story makes me shiver
Celilo Falls was the great place where they all came together
To talk and work and gamble
Trade canoes and flicker feathers
When salmon came in early fall folks came from far and wide
To celebrate the fish that kept their communities alive
But them white people took the land where native nations once had thrived
But promised them the salmon and life by the riverside
But soon they wanted to build a dam, a giant concrete wall
But this would kill the salmon, and drown Celilo Falls!
People from all colors, creeds, and nations joined the fight
They didn’t have to be native to see this wasn’t right
The native people fought the law and desperately they pled
They won a lot of sympathy, but this is what the US courts said:
“We made a promise but you people did misunderstand
You can have the salmon but you cannot have the land!”
The Wishram had to move their dead, sacred objects and their homes
The dam it started working, and with a mighty groan
Celilo Falls just dissapeared, entombed under the water
The people cried, they had no hope
For their sons or for their daughters
Can you see the great and mighty falls in your imagination
The salmon rode the rolling tides and fed indigenous nations
But greedy men from other lands poured concrete through their river
And killed the life they once had known
The story makes me shiver
Back when bicycles were first invented, doctors told women that if they raced on their bicycles, their face would get stuck
in a strained-looking, bulgy-eyed mess. Thankfully, we have disproved this theory, and our bicycle faces are all smiles!
Bicycle Face is a musical project by Lichen & Evan. We believe that it's important to teach history so that children know that they can change the future!...more
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