Randy Lewis | May 4, 2024 Randy Lewis (K'ayaxan) shares stories about Wenatchee. Colville Confederated Tribal member Randy Lewis is a descendant of the Wenatchi/P'squosa, Methow, and Okanagon bands.
So wonderful to see a new interview and stories of the land from Randy! Thank you Randy for sharing your unique perspective with us and help us see the land and the people with the eyes of the Ancestors, and thank you Nick for bringing us this interview. These interviews with Randy are priceless.
His sadness at all the loss but his happiness with his grandson being chosen by the Creator to keep the knowledge alive is so very evident. He spoke to my soul as I too carry the ancestors knowledge that the Residential School genocide tried to erase. ❤
About a mile of so south along the ridge where you stood, the first "Clovis" point was found in the '30's, long before the exciting Clovis finds in the '80's near Pangborn Field. It was a single point. There is a break in the cliffs below the plateau from the valley side. It appears to have been a natural corridor to the plateau. The Clovis point was found on the plateau not far from this corridor. Regardless, the view from the plateau into the valley is so stunning that I always marvel at it. I would so like to have seen the view through the eyes of Randy's ancestors.
Closer to the Clovis point elementary school. My mom was a realtor and if I remember it was found when the old orchard was being excavated. Based on the stories I was told.
The scenic photography, the oral history with its geologic implications, the ecological wisdom, all these are wonderful. But most wonderful of all is the relationship Randy and Nick have forged between themselves...!
Finely done, Nick and Randy. We are given a look back to heartbreak and forward to hope. I try to imagine people so completely infused with all of life there's no separation, with elders and stories and food and seasons....a complex completeness. Thank you Randy for your willingness to share.
Great episode Nick! Thanks for sharing your story Mr. Lewis! I love hearing “our” Creation stories, they’re always so interesting. My peoples(the Klamath, Modoc, and Chasta) witnessed the Mt. Mazama eruption! So our peoples have been here for a very long time! : )
Randy's' re-telling of the 'Salmon with the Golden Tail' smashing into the ice barrier and releasing the flood waters kinda resonantes with Randall Carlson's hypothesis, thank you for sharing. '
I love listening to Randy! He has so much wisdom and knowledge about the land, the animals and the plants for food as well as medicine. Hopefully the young ones like his nephew, will regain their culture and knowledge. We would be much better off to listen to Randy and other elders and learn from them.
I love that these stories are being shared with us, giving us context and knowledge that we didn't have before. Please thank Mr. Lewis, and let him know that this white girl from AL and NY definitely appreciates, and enjoys, hearing these stories.
Great and important POV from a very kind familiar face. Kudos to the cameraman for keeping the important things in frame!! (Sneaky good. Harder than it looks to do). Thanks Nick.
It warms my heart to see you and Randy Lewis out learning about the Indian ways and storys, IT is so nice to see you healed Randy, I too was praying for your restoration. May you stay filled with love and kindness for the land, May you be well. May you be peaceful and at ease, and May all your days be Happy. Nameste.
I’m very grateful to Randy for sharing these stories. I always said, if I could have a super power I would be a true polyglot…being able to speak, read, and write all languages. I wish I could learn the languages of the indigenous peoples. Thank you, Nick, for your videos.
Thank you K'ayaxan and Nick for putting this amazing story together for us. This is strong evidence that humans cohabitated with the ice here. Ha, ha, I wonder if new words were invented as they saw that wall of water, rock, and ice rushing down the valley!
That's what makes it so compelling -- you just sorta close your eyes and listen to Randy paint the picture while you put yourself in those communities back during that time, looking at the same landscapes and the wealth of natural life all around them which gave them their sustenance. And you can only imagine what it must've done to the hearts of his people when White settlers started coming and taking the land all over, and upending thousands of years of these tribes' existence. It's altogether heartbreaking and maddening at the same time. There still exists within us that arrogance of proclaiming ourselves more advanced which for some reason affords us the right to just mow down whoever came before us. Human history is replete with examples of this, and I'm sure predates any documented history. One of the most destructive forces in the human condition -- arrogance -- but somehow humility comes out of it unscathed while those who forced themselves upon these cultures have to live with the shame in what they've done. That's what makes this oral history so important, and is a reminder that _no one_ has a monopoly on virtue -- that we're all reminded that each new generation is tasked with making themselves better, even though they can't change the past, so that the past can't be repeated.
Oh how interesting & wonderful stories about our Indian ancestors of the valley. Times when lives mattered instead of troubled times we have now. Thanks for sharing.
A wall of ice...✨Interesting!!😃. Randy, thank you for sharing the story of Coyote intertwined with the stories of the living things, the stories of the landscapes, and your ancestral families and your families! All precious stories, thank you, Nick for letting us connect with Randy in spirit!!😄💞💗✨
The boulders and the plants Bitterroot and Lomatium are native to Montana, arriving with the lake Missoula flood sequence. Also the more tropical seeming plants of the Washington coast match up with Montana.
Thanks Nick & Randy for this amazing series. This is quickly becoming one of my favorites. It really give us a different insight that really isn't taught anywhere else.
Such an amazing story of the people and the mountain I was blessed enough to grow up on! We had a family that would come every spring and dig roots. This brought me back to my childhood! Thank you.
This is so cool. So I looked it up. I am completely ignorant of native plants in Eastern Washington. Lomatium - Biscuitroot - parsley/carrot family. Yum!
Nick again I say thank you for sharing the truth spoken not one person can know the times I climbed the Columbia Stone walls. Any good weather day a lunch would be packed and my little brother and I would hike from the town of Rock Island that was before the road you stand on was built.. I do wonder what Randy will share about the ice cave??
These oral traditions are wonderful, and a priceless addition to the story of that land. Randy is certainly aware that once you get into the many thousands of years timescale of the geological focus of this channel, (at least in respect to the ice age floods), the peoples that inhabited the land were almost certainly many times removed from his own ancestors, but it really doesn't detract from the traditions and stories that he passes on. Really, the stories are timeless. Life, love, joyous gain, and terrible loss, are stories of humanity, and always repeated. The land will always imprint itself on the stories.
It is just beatiful mountain scenery until Randy comes along and tells us his people's oral version of why it is beatiful. Great visit with him once again professor!
These are awesome. Plenty of important history in the southwest. Looking foward to more viddys! Thanks gentlemen. P.s. take Randy to my hometown of mesa verde plz ")
I love the oral history and that Mr Lewis is willing to share with us. I was wondering how the floods happened. Figures Coyote was involved. IMO "modern" man should pay more attention to this view of the world....the health of mother earth would be better for it.
I love listening to his stories ..So much of the native people ‘s stories history culture and language has been lost already There is a lot to learn..I know you want to stay neutral here but I believe That it needs to be told with emphasis that Europeans didn’t discover The Americans people were living here thousands of years before
Allegedly, the aboriginies tell stories of when the barrier reef was flooded. They talk about how fast the water covered the shoreline. The barrier reef floor is very flat, so the water moved quickly towards mainland.
I feel like as a kid someone old timer told me there was a lucky / unlucky person up on mission ridge area hunting gathering when they witnessed one of the floods.
That the farmer was so petty irritates the daylights out of me. That's just wrong! Obliterating someone else's heritage because you're so petty is so close, in heart, to the people who ran the residential schools. I keep expecting such things to change. I'm naive, I know. Hope springs eternal.
