What was intended to be a monthly post has taken much longer this time to put together since life circumstances have been in rapid motion lately. A Sńʕaýckstx friend and mentor recommended an important work from her people titled Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography, writings about the life and memories of Christine Quintasket, who lived from 1888-1936. Its stories of survival, leadership and cultural evolution within her territory in the early colonial era hold lessons, responsibility and warnings for our time. Mourning Dove observes and recounts the traditional ways of being they continued to uphold along with the newcomer practices they were acquiring as settler presence increased. At this cultural and historical confluence, she records egregious injustices and ongoing upheaval with a tone that is as pragmatic and determined as her childhood with hard-working parents taught her to be. Her adult life was also strenuous, but adventurousness and vision meant that she made time for her craft as a writer while also fulfilling responsibilities in her community. Sadly, she only lived to the age of 48, but left two published works, including the fictional novel Cogewea featuring a bold and independent female protagonist, and Coyote Stories as re-told from her childhood memories of community storytelling.

This autobiography was not published until 1990, assembled from various collections preserved after Mourning Dove’s death through relationships she had cultivated within the publishing industry. It is difficult to discern what her overall intention would have been, had she been the one to assemble the pages. The editor calls the collection an “impactful autoethnography,” extending from his own discipline of anthropology. While there is historical interest in the long introductory context he shares, I most enjoyed immersing myself in Mourning Dove’s world as she saw it. The moments and stories she selected each hold meaning and questions that will stay with me and invite future re-reading.

Other readers may find their own lessons, responsibility and warnings, Currently, what is staying with me is the preciousness of life and the responsibility we each carry to witness its stories and pass them on to those yet to come. The additional responsibility I carry is to keep witnessing and sharing the truth of history through the lens of my own ancestors’ complicity in colonial displacement and Indigenous erasure. The warning I am holding is that even if it seems like the world is changing drastically, this may only be the beginning. Christine Quintasket gave herself the storytelling name Mourning Dove, in celebration of the bird’s cultural role as the wife of salmon who welcomed their return up the rivers from the sea each year. She lived not knowing that her treasured salmon would soon be halted by the dams.