In the beginning, all the creatures came out of the spring on Mt.
Shasta.
Human had no voice, so Salmon gave her voice to human.
In return, human promised to speak for Salmon.
Since that time, the Winimum Windu people lived on the river now called McLeod in Northern
California, and they remembered the promise made to their Salmon relatives.
In 1872, a hatchery was established on the McLeod.
Chinook salmon eggs were sent around the world, including to New Zealand.
Extermination and removal were the policy toward California tribes, but the hatchery
offered a measure of protection for the Winimum.
Times were hard, but they still had their river and their salmon.
But when the Shasta Dam was completed in 1945, everything changed.
The people were forced to move as the rising waters flooded their homes, and the salmon
were blocked from running up the river.
The loss of homes, ceremonial places, and their salmon has taken a heavy toll on the
Winimum people.
But after learning that their salmon relatives are alive and well in the rivers of New Zealand,
South Island, the tribe has embarked on a historic journey to bring their salmon home.
It is kind of an incredible kind of a day because, you know, at home we're sitting in
Bear Mountain and talking about going to New Zealand, or going to the fire, and we're
still planning and praying that it'll happen.
We don't know how it'll happen, but somehow it's going to come about.
We made it.
We made it.
We're here.
We made it.
We made it.
We made it.
The first Marae, when we arrived, I think it probably was more surreal than any other
feeling, just that we were here, and they're welcoming us to their sacred house.
So we welcome you here, and they give you our greetings from we, the tongue of the Fenua
of the Waitaha people, Ngati Muamui people, and Ngai Taku people, that peace and good
move might prevail among people.
We stand here on your sacred ground with your sacred ancestor, and ask your permission
to be able to do a ceremony, to be able to talk in the way that our fish who are living
here in your waters understand.
And now, we have more people here than I have ever seen before, and I think it's going
to be a lot more people here than I thought we could bring, and this place, this grounds
right here.
Yeah, this might be the best spot.
Okay.
That's rainbows.
That one's broken.
Quickly.
Yeah, we're going to use rocks.
We'll pop them up and we'll stack them.
I couldn't imagine what it would be for us, but it's beautiful.
It's the best place.
It's right on the river, and it was made easy that the Maori had looked at it prior to us
getting here and felt it too, that this is the best place.
And so now, you know, as these guys are getting dressed and getting ready, it's kind of like
you're still in that dream state where you think, is that real?
Are we really going to do this right now?
Well, the salmon is why we're here in the first place.
The salmon is our relations who we have devoted our lives to speaking up for.
There it goes.
These are the salmon that my grandparents would have seen in the same fashion, looking
up and down, watching them, decide which one was the best one to take.
It escapes me that we're in New Zealand most of the time.
The best of our records indicate that the fish came from the Sacramento River around
1900.
So they would have come over as probably eyed eggs, which is unhatched eggs, and they would
have been brought over on a ship, and they would have been put into water when they got
here fertilized and released into the headwaters of our rivers.
It's a good sign that they did the little dance right here.
It's like the time's right.
We're here at the right time.
It seems like a long, long time, but everything's starting to happen where, you know, even the
U.S. fisheries understands that they have to change to bring the salmon back into acceptable
numbers.
We are here speaking up for the salmon because that is our belief, and that's what salmon
has done for us.
They have given us our voice when they used to have their own voice, and we have to speak
up for them.
And traveling across the world to do that is a real serious thing, and that's how much
dedication we have shown to the salmon to help them try to come home, to help the salmon
that are here in this river to come back to our river in the McLeod, which is, they have
been greatly missed.
My heart is really, I wish Grams were here.
My dad, and my mom, and everybody.
Because even though we see salmon on the Sacramento River, we don't really know which ones we're
going to be the McLeod River salmon.
But we know that these guys are.
These are the ones that will come, and they'll go all the way to the falls if we let them.
Everyone was there on the shore, and everyone had their little buckets, and they were down
there, and they were releasing the little salmon and releasing them into the river there.
I just kind of stood back for a minute and watched as everybody was letting their salmon
go into the water, and it was a real powerful thing that went on.
It was a good thing that everybody got a chance to do it, and everybody got a chance to let
some of those little salmon into the water and release them back.
Getting the fish go, that was hard, because it was like getting to see somebody for the
first time, and then having to let them go.
I thought about Granny and all the people that got to see them come and go, and then
I thought about my mom and how me and my brother, all my cousins, never got to see them come
up the river, so it was hard for me to let them go and see them swim away.
I grew up with salmon.
On my life, we caught salmon, ate salmon.
I love salmon, and it's part of our tradition, one of our staple foods, we're salmon people.
I thought it was pretty important that I go and get over my fear of flying to get over
there to see them dance and sing and have that ceremony for them, so that they know
that we still want them back here.
It's an incredible time right now, the sun's out, and it's beautiful.
Here we are, getting ready to put our footprints down on this ground, this is a sacred area
for the Maori.
And they have cleared that for us with their ancestors, so it's been handed over to do
this ceremony, and I feel really, really strong about that.
Everything will be good.
The salmon will hear us and understand why we're here, and that's going to change our
world back.
And bring it back to what it was.
This was something really special, because you could feel the power behind it, and what
they were trying to do, and you became part of it.
You weren't an outsider looking in, you were actually part of it.
And that was really, really awesome.
It's the only word I can think of, it's awesome.
When I was dancing, I could feel it, everyone, the singers were singing loud, the drummer
was drumming hard, and everyone was around me, just yelling, hollering, war cry, and
then I could just feel it, like in my body, it just got light.
Just when I was dancing, I felt really good, you could just feel it, it felt powerful.
And then I put my hand to the mountain, and I prayed for the salmon.
We're here for these salmon, let them make their way back home, and I prayed to the
river, and I prayed to the fire, and give me strength to help me do this, and we continue
being like this, this strong.
And then after one of the dances, both of my hands started tingling, and I went up to
Cali and asked her, you know, what is this feeling, and she said, they were helping
you, they were giving you strength through your hands, because that's how you were praying.
Mother Earth is out of balance.
Many things in Mother Earth have been contaminated, locked up, locked away, destroyed.
It has to change if Mother Earth is going to heal.
The tribal people, the Indian people around the world, are going to have to bring back
that heart, that heart of the warriors.
We have carried out this prayer, we have carried out the message from the mountain, and whatever
the message was, reached the Maori people to the point that they could also hear it.
And they must have known that it had to be done.
And it's been done in a great way, a wonderful way.
We have new families that we love and care for.
You have helped us to complete the beginning foundation of our fish return, to dance for
our salmon, to reconnect our young people with that relative that is in our blood, and
to reintroduce those little fry into our rivers will be the next steps, the next things that
we're going to do.
