Native speaker last of her kind

WARM SPRINGS, Ore. — At daybreak, Neda Wesley stood at the edge of the grave.

She watched as her friend's remains vanished under a blanket of dirt. Like countless other funerals, Wesley attended as a neighbor and community member. But the 70-year-old, fluent speaker of Sahaptin served another purpose as well.

They call her an echo.

When the medicine people speak, Wesley translates their words into Sahaptin so they can be passed on to the Creator. Wesley is glad she can send friends into the next world in the way they would want.

She spoke for her friend MaryAnn Winishut-Meanus, 75, a well-respected elder of the tribe, a mother to many and a grandmother to more.

Wesley is the reservation's last echo.

So who will speak for her?

Longhouse gathering

It's well past midnight when Wesley takes the floor in the longhouse, a community meeting place that sits on top of a hill overlooking the reservation.

The hundreds inside the longhouse — children, elderly, everyone — are still wide awake after more than 12 hours. The dancing, and periodic feasts of salmon, deer meat, berries and roots have kept the night feeling young.

In the middle of the floor is the body of Winishut-Meanus, wrapped in several thick blankets. Wesley, holding a long wooden stick, circles her friend's body. People chant and sing, to heal and remember.

She is no longer with us. Her spirit — her life — went to the Creator, the medicine people say.

En chi chow ga ee wa tchana. Pun mee wa gish wit uttook na, Wesley translates.

Her words help carry on the medicine tradition.

"For her to speak it in our native language, is to tell the Creator, we are still native," said Brent Florendo, who grew up in Warm Springs and is the academic program coordinator for Native American Studies at Southern Oregon University.

"That's the way the Creator always heard us speak," he said.

The spirituality is a way to show respect for the Earth and for each other. But more than that, it is a way to hold on to the traditional ways that make the tribes who they are.

The Warm Springs Indian Reservation is home to three tribes: Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute.

Not everybody believes in the practices of the medicine society, and it's a belief system that does not prevent one from practicing other religions. Wesley is also a Presbyterian, but if "You don't have your language, your customs, your culture, you don't have your tribe."

Throughout the night, thoughts of the history, culture, kindness and knowledge being buried along with Winishut-Meanus are voiced.

Winishut-Meanus was a medicine woman, a fluent speaker.

"If we had two elders left, and nobody in our tribe could speak to them, and they passed — we would just be American citizens," said Brigette Whipple, an anthropologist with the tribes' Cultural Resources Oral Histories Program.

"We wouldn't have an identity. My biggest fear for any Indian people is, one day, the federal government is going to say, you don't have your language, your customs, your culture, you don't have your tribe anymore. You're just American citizens, and that's it."

Keeping words alive

To keep the words alive has always been a struggle.

As a girl, Wesley was punished for uttering a word in Sahaptin at boarding school.

Her fluency led to her being chosen as an echo 18 years ago.

The reservation offers language programs, and Whipple and others work to preserve the traditional ways. But it's not easy.

Wesley's 22-year-old granddaughter Martina Stwyer learned her grandma is the last echo during the ceremony in the longhouse.

"Really?" she asked. "That's cool."

The statement prompted Wesley to give her granddaughter a stern look.

"Or not cool," Stwyer said, "for the reservation."