The key to preserving a culture is simple: listen, listen, listen. That=s one of several prevailing lessons Rodney Frey can supply after completing his fourth book, Landscape Traveled By Coyote and Crane: The World of Schitsu=umsh.  The Schitsu=umsh are the Coeur d=Alene Indians, who Frey listenedneagerly and attentivelynwhile producing the book published by the University of Washington Press, and released during November of 2001.
The following is from a 1997 interview conducted by Frey and included in the new release: AI asked my grandpa . . . >Where do these songs come from?= He told me, he says, >You can=t turn on a radio or you can=t go out and buy them.= He says, >Those songs come from his dad and from his dad=s dad, and from all of our people, from the beginning. . . . All of our history in our family is all oral history.= He said, >That=s where your songs are. You just pass them on orally to your children.=@
This cultural study of the Schitsu=umsh culminates a decade of association and research with the tribe. In 1991, Frey began developing a language arts curriculum and a four-year college program in business and education on the Coeur d'Alene reservation. In addition, tribal leaders asked Frey to assist with a Natural Resource Damage Assessment in 1996.  On this current book project, Frey worked with 24 consultants and "teachers," young and old, representing 13 different family traditions. Frey attended powwows, tribal council meetings, wakes, Jump Dance ceremonies and walked with elders on the shores of Lake Coeur d=Alene. According to Frey, "It is our shared humanity with the Schitsu=umsh that allows suuyapis (whites) to relate and participate in their lives, and learn from them.@

In the book, Frey used first-person accounts by tribal consultants to convey crucial cultural perspectives and practices. He also included many traditional stories, which were reformatted on the page to "better reflect the oral nuances of the telling.@  During the process of creating the book, he learned from an elder that "heart knowledge is important.@ Frey remembers the quip, "If you tell it with your heart, you=ll have clean hands.@
That=s exactly the maxim Frey has followed and will continue to follow on future projects involving the Schitsu=umsh. He notes, AMy most important audience is the Coeur d=Alene tribe.@
Frey, acting director of the American Indian studies program at UI, has published three other books: The World of the Crow Indians (1987), Eye Juggling: Seeing the World Through a Looking Glass and a Glass Pane (1994), and Stories that Make the World: Oral Literature of the Indian Peoples of the Inland Northwest (1995). His Web site is available at:  http://www.uidaho.edu/~rfrey.

Graduate Student Marilyn Sandmeyer Completes
Research on Collection from Silver City (continued)

ceramic were also found supporting the fact that the hotel hired Chinese cooks and other kitchen staff.
Ms. Sandmeyer was able to strengthen her research into the Chinese in Silver City this past summer by contracting with the Bureau of Land Management to conduct excavations and analysis of artifacts from a newly restructured campground facility in the Chinatown district of Silver City.  The excavations took place in various parts of Chinatown and add much information and understanding to the previous collections. The thesis will be completed spring semester, 2002.