Through the Heart of It

by Erica Bloom

  The Kootenai people have always been on this land," Vernon tells me and sits back on his brown leather chair. "For 10,000 generations we have wandered through this region, traveling with the seasons to hunt for buffalo."  Though he speaks slowly I write frantically, careful not to miss the details of his stories, aware that these words will be spoken many more times this year in honor of the Glacier Park Centennial. It's early March and I've come to Elmo, Montana, today to listen to a man whose ancestral history weaves through Glacier like the roads that now cut through its forests. With a population of 150, by the time I realized I was in Elmo I had already passed through. The town sits on the banks of Flathead Lake. The front of the Kootenai Cultural Center building faces northeast, the direction of Glacier National Park. Vernon Finely, the language specialist for the Kootenai Cultural Committee, works in the carpeted trailer behind the Center. With his graying ponytail and warm smile he describes his job as a preservation of culture, a teacher of an endangered language. Though I know he's told the story of the Kootenai people's relationship with Glacier many times before, when I ask him today he takes a slow sip of coffee from his Starbucks mug and begins like it is the first time. 

"This region is the only place in the world where the Kootenai language is spoken." Vernon tells me that because his language is an isolate, it indicates that the Kootenai have always been on this land and their creation story is testament to this. He continues, "In ancestral times a sea monster by the name of Yawunik killed many animals. A council was called by the chief animal, Natmuqin, to destroy the monster and a war party was formed. Natmuqin was so tall that when he stood up his head hit the sky. A chase proceeded down the Kootenai River, past Wasa, British Colombia, then to where the St. Mary's River empties into the Kootenai River. When they finally captured Yawunik, Natmuqin scattered his flesh in all directions forming the white, black and yellow people. He then reached down to the grass to wipe his bloody hands. Letting the blood fall to the ground he said, ‘these will be the red people, they will remain here forever.' Natmuqin, in all his excitement rose up and knocked himself dead on the ceiling of the sky. When he fell back to Earth his head became the geysers in Yellowstone Park, his feet fell in British Columbia, and his body the spine of the Rocky Mountains."