Oregon Public Broadcasting

Each year Native American women travel into the mountains of the Pacific Northwest to dig edible roots for ceremonies and subsistence. Historically roots are one of the staples of a native diet, but the food only makes it to the table with a lot of hard work.

In the past few years, native women have had to travel farther away as development and fences have made favorite digging spots harder to access.

Correspondent Anna King heads to the hills with Umatilla tribal members to dig for this most sacred food.

Linda Jones, a tribal elder woman, teaches her two granddaughters how to dig roots in the Blue Mountains outside of Lexington, Oregon.

WAHENEKA: "OK everyone got their root?  Hold it up in your right hand."

SOUND: Bell ringing, aihhhhhheeee …

This is a story about digging edible roots. But it’s also a story about native religion.

Twenty-eight women and girls stand on basalt bluffs in the Blue Mountains near Lexington, Oregon.

They hold the first roots they’ve collected this day toward the eastern sky. The bitter roots, or piyaxii, are an important staple but they also have a deep spiritual meaning. One of the elders Linda Jones explains.

Linda Jones: "My mother and the older ladies used to always say these are our sisters coming back. Our people, this is how they come back to us. So that when we go and get them it’s renewing. It’s renewing themselves and it’s renewing us."

A tribal woman holds up two of the roots she has dug in the Blue Mountains. Edible roots are a sacred food to Pacific Northwest Native Americans.

Girl: "I see a root!"

The women use a metal stick with a wooden handle called a kupin to gently work the roots out of the basalt rocks.

They work carefully to not break the delicate, spidery-looking legs of the bitter roots. It’s never been easy work, but lately it’s been getting harder to find the roots.

The women have to keep traveling farther from the reservation near Pendleton to gather them. Good root digging places have been eliminated by development, no trespassing signs, pesticides, and farming.

In fact, a tribal employee tagged along with a GPS unit. She followed elders around the hills and mapped the places where roots were being found. The data might point out what types of terrain are fertile grounds for root digging.

The women who gather the roots for the ceremony are hand chosen by the tribe. Each has been asked by an elder or a family member to do this work.

Linda Jones says it’s a big commitment that lasts a lifetime. Jones says when her mother died she took her place in line. And now Linda is teaching her two granddaughters how to dig.

Little Girl: "I can’t believe I’m still at the back of the line."

Linda Jones: "Well, you’re the baby."

Little Girl: "I’m the youngest."

Linda Jones: "Maybe someday we will have a new baby coming along and you’ll move up in the line."

Northwest tribal women use hand woven baskets with yarn belts to store the roots they’ve picked. Elders often give new root diggers a root basket as a gift.

Little Girl: "Um hummm. I thought I was never going to go up."

During the day the wind never quit.

Snow, sleet and hail pelted the women as they work. They stop briefly for a picnic lunch set out on blankets. And then they redouble their efforts.

A horn honk signals the end of the day. And the women and girls hike back to the cars. It’s a two hour drive home. The cars circle the longhouse before bringing the roots inside to the sound of singing and bell ringing.

Tired, cold and stiff -- the women’s work still isn’t done. There’s a whole ‘nother day of digging, then two days of peeling the roots and finally cooking and serving lunch for 350 guests at a ceremonial feast.

Like gathering the roots, eating the roots is a sacred act too. Each type of root is called out by name and is eaten in a very specific order. The feast marks the end of the winter and the return of life.

In the next installment of this series we profile an elder root digger who feels a sense of urgency to pass on her culture’s traditions before they are gone.