When The River Ran Wild
Posted By: Liz Goodrich
Date Posted: 11/11/2005
Deschutes Public Library is pleased to welcome George Aguilar, Warm Springs resident and author of the soon to be published tribal history, When The River Ran Wild, for a presentation on Sunday, November 20 at 3:00 p.m. in the Brooks Room of the Bend Public Library. The program is free and open to the public.
Orphaned at 21 months, Aguilar was raised on the Warm Springs Reservation by his maternal grandparents. On the reservation he was brought up in the traditional ways, including the medicinal use of plants, customs and the myths and legends of his ancestors. When The River Ran Wild is a history of people and places that are now gone. “Some elders remember,” says Aguilar, who attributes his motivation for writing the book to his need to give his grandchildren an idea of who they are and where they came from.
From his book, we learn about Aguilar’s people, the Kiksht-speaking Eastern Chinookans, who lived and worked for centuries connected to the Columbia River at Five Mile Rapids. Aguilar used the journals and diaries of early missionaries and settlers, anthropological papers and historical studies as well as the oral histories of his tribal elders to document the stories of a culture and community that has undergone tremendous change.
For information about this or other library programs, please call 312-1032.
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