Cashew Butter

My favorite snack.
Who am I kidding? I eat this as a meal. Creamy cashew butter spread on a whole wheat tortilla, and rolled up with thinly sliced apples. Oh, so good!
As an appetizer or dessert, this has always been my go-to crowd pleaser: a bowl of cashew butter surrounded by crisp grapes, crunchy apple slices, and juicy orange sections.


Fast and easy, and incredibly decadent.
In a blender:
1/2 cup raw cashews
1 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar or maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
Blend all ingredients with 1/2 cup water on high speed in blender until smooth and creamy.

Of Lands Lost and Preserved

Original publication date January 13, 2016 Methow Valley News

Miller family members are the last Methow tribe descendants to live on a Moses Allotment

Editor’s note: For more than 13,000 years, Native Americans have lived along the waterways of the Pacific Northwest. Columbia River tribes share the names of waterways they call home: the Entiats, the Wenatchiis, the Chelans, the Lakes, the Okanagans and the Methows.

Members of the Miller family are the longest known continuous residents of the Methow Valley. Descended from indigenous Methows, their story is told through generations by the intricacies of their artwork, their native language, their connection to the land and their dedication to building strong communities.

They generously agreed to share their story with the Methow Valley News. In a five-part series, we will share the history of the Methows through the Millers. Following is the fourth installment.

Photo provided by Chuck Borg
A 1952 aerial photo of the Moses Allotments. The Millers retain No. 27.

By Joanna Bastian

In the 1960s, the Douglas County Public Utility District (PUD) built Wells Dam on the Columbia River, forming the placid Lake Pateros reservoir. Before the dam, the mighty Columbia was a spectacular sight, with the Methow rapids below Pateros roaring during spring runoff. But in 1967, the Methow rapids disappeared beneath the rising waters of Lake Pateros behind the dam.

The rapids were not the only part of the waterway that disappeared. The Methow Valley and surrounding areas were once part of an Indian reservation named after one of the most influential Native American leaders in north central Washington, Chief Moses.

In 1855, the Walla Walla Treaty stripped away Native American land rights in central Washington. Multiple tribes were ordered to move to the existing Yakima (now Yakama) Reservation.

Chief Moses refused to leave his established traditional territory. He was joined by people of other tribes who were being pushed out of their own territories by white settlers, and who did not want to move from their traditional lands onto a reservation.

Chief Moses was close friends with Sam Miller, the postmaster and owner of the first trading post in Wenatchee. Miller also served as a mediator between the U.S. government and Native Americans in the Columbia basin.

In 1878, Chief Moses and Miller met with General Howard. During their meeting, the chief negotiated what would become the Columbia Reservation. It reached from the Spokane River to the Columbia River to Lake Chelan, and north to the Canadian border. The reservation was commonly known as the Moses Reservation.

The U.S. Congress ratified the agreement, but the reservation was short-lived. Hyram “Okanogan” Smith lobbied to return large portions of the northern Methow Valley to public domain when gold and silver were discovered within the reservation’s borders. Miners and settlers pushed to claim lands along the river drainages, and exerted political pressure on Congress to eliminate the entire Moses Reservation.

Chief Moses compromised, and agreed to move to the Colville Reservation only if Native Americans could stay on parcels of land if they wanted. A Presidential Executive Order dated July 1886 determined allotment boundaries, and Native American allottees were named. These parcels were identified as the Moses Allotments. Every head of household who wished to remain was allotted 640 acres of surveyed land. Forty allotments were issued, totaling more than 25,000 acres.

By early 1900, most indigenous Methow people had moved, or been moved, to the Colville Reservation. Eventually almost all of the allotment acreage was lost to irrigation right-of-ways, mining claims, road development, dams, and the deep pockets of corporate orchards and ranches.

Photo provided by Chuck Borg, courtesy of the Miller family.
Left to right, brothers Albert, Henry, and Jerome Miller.

Only one Methow family continues to live on a piece of history, Moses Columbia Allotment No. 27, located on a wide bend of the Methow River near its junction with the Columbia. The Miller family members are direct descendants of the Methow tribe and of Chief Moses’ friend, Sam Miller. They have called this land home for hundreds of generations.

Captain Joe Neekowit, leader of the Methow Tribe, claimed the Alta Lake allotment. Alta Lake State Park is currently located on this historical Moses Allotment No. 24. Neekowit’s sister Mary secured the neighboring allotment, No. 27.

Mary’s granddaughter, Nancy Paul Chos Chostq, married Sam Miller, and moved to the Wenatchee trading post. A year after the marriage, she returned home to live with her grandparents in the Methow Valley, where she gave birth to her son, Sam C. Miller Jr. The Miller family continues to live on the historical Moses Allotment number 27 to this day.

Rose Marie Chus-chutl, who would one day become Sam C. Miller Jr.’s mother-in-law, lived on an allotment at present day Azwell Dam. President Grover Cleveland reserved the Moses Allotment No. 20, “for the exclusive use and occupation of Chus-chutl and her children,” by an Executive Order in 1894.

Chus-chutl’s daughter Lucy married Sam C. Miller Jr., and they had three sons, Albert, Jerome, and Henry Miller. The family planted 40 acres of orchard and cared for both Rose Marie Chus-chutl and the land.

When Chus-chutl passed away in October 1939, the Wenatchee Daily World cited her as one of the, “most interesting and influential Native Americans of North Central Washington.” Upon her passing, her sons Jerome and Henry acquired ownership of Moses Allotment No. 20.

In the late 1950s, the Douglas County PUD and Chelan County PUD placed condemnation signs on the land and began exploratory drilling. It was soon established that the PUDs had no authority to condemn the allotment, so they removed their condemnation signs — however, the construction of Wells Dam proceeded. The homes and surrounding orchards that had been lovingly tended for three generations were under water. The family was only compensated for “grazing land’” instead of the more valuable “industrial land” that was their orchards. The brothers were forced to move their families.

Jerome Miller moved his family to the Methow Valley and joined his parents on Moses Allotment No. 27 along the riverbank. There, they continued their tradition of caring for the land. Jerome’s son, Lewis Miller, worked with the Gebbers family for many years in their orchards.

Two of the Millers’ family homes were caught in the path of the 2014 Carlton Complex Fire. When asked if she would consider moving, Cyndy Miller responded, “Where am I going to go? My history is here.”

In the days after the fire, the Miller family immediately began clean-up operations. The long-held family home site was one of the first areas to be cleaned up and prepped for home building. Two new homes and landscaping took the place of burned houses.

Cyndy’s brother Mark summed up their sentiments about their historical land: “This land, this family, this is what makes us the Millers.”

Preserving the Salish Language, Nxaʔamxčín

Original publication date January 6, 2016 Methow Valley News

The Miller family helped revive interest in their native tongue

Editor’s note: For more than 13,000 years, Native Americans have lived along the waterways of the Pacific Northwest. Columbia River tribes share the names of waterways they call home: the Entiats, the Wenatchiis, the Chelans, the Lakes, the Okanagans and the Methows.

Members of the Miller family are the longest known continuous residents of the Methow Valley. Descended from indigenous Methows, their story is told through generations by the intricacies of their artwork, their native language, their connection to the land and their dedication to building strong communities.

They generously agreed to share their story with the Methow Valley News. In a five-part series, we will share the history of the Methows through the Millers. Following is the third installment.

Photo provided by Chuck Borg, courtesy of the Miller Family

Mary Miller Marchand’s Pateros High School graduation photo.

By Joanna Bastian

Lower Methow Valley siblings Mark and Cyndy Miller, descendants of the indigenous Methow tribe, have a tradition of preserving. They work to preserve the land, their traditions and their families. Preservation of the Methow culture began with their grandparents, Jerome (Jerry) Miller and his wife, Agnes.

For Jerry Miller, the act — indeed, the very idea — of preserving their Native American language was in direct contrast to what he had experienced as a child.

In Jerry Miller’s time, Native American languages were — literally and figuratively — beaten out of children. When he was a child, the Catholic Church removed Jerry from his home and family in the Methow Valley. Like many Native American children across the United States at the time, Jerry was placed in a white foster home and sent to a Catholic school, the mission at Nespelem. Children were sometimes physically punished if they spoke Salish, their native tongue.

Jerry Miller wanted his children to be successful in life. It was his experience that speaking his native language brought punishment and discrimination. Not wanting his children to experience the same pain, Jerry stopped speaking in his native tongue.

“He did not allow his grandchildren to learn or speak it,” Mark and Cyndy Miller recalled. That was until linguistics professor M. Dale Kinkade from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, approached Jerry Miller about creating a phonetic alphabet.

Daunting task

Jerry Miller was one of the few surviving people in the Pacific Northwest who spoke the Salish dialect, also known as the Moses Columbia. “At first he [Jerry] refused,” Mark said, “but after thinking about it, he thought he might be the best person to help. He was one of the few who spoke and understood several different regional dialects from the coastal areas to the eastern Kootenai.”

Preserving the Salish language is a daunting task. Consisting of 23 languages, Salish is distinctive to the Pacific Northwest. Within the Colville-Okanogan region alone, nine different dialects have been identified. All Salish languages are extinct or endangered, with less than 1,000 fluent speakers.

Jerry and his daughter Mary Miller Marchand, Mark and Cyndy’s aunt, worked with Kinkade to transcribe the spoken language of Nxaʔamxčín using the International Phonetic Alphabet. After Jerry passed away, Mary Marchand continued to work on translating recordings of elders telling stories in their native tongue.

Photo courtesy of Wenatchee Valley Museum

Jerome Miller

In an email from Henry Davis at the University of Victoria, Davis recalls a conversation about the project: “Dale [Kinkade] was my own mentor in Salish linguistics, and he told me about Jerome Miller. He found him working in his apple orchard. Jerry told Dale this shouldn’t take long, there are just a couple of hundred words. Dale worked with Jerome and Mary Marchand for years, and never completed his dictionary.”

Work continues

Kinkade passed away in 2005. His protégé, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Victoria, continued to work with Mary Marchand until Mary passed away in March 2013. Czaykowska-Higgins says of Marchand’s contributions, “Her passion for the language and her encouragement and her knowledge were crucially important for those of us at UVIC and at Colville Tribes that have been working to complete a dictionary of Nxaʔamxčín. It was a privilege and an honor to be guided by her knowledge and wisdom.” Czaykowska-Higgins continues to work on the dictionary with the help of Jerry’s great-granddaughter, and Mary’s niece, Crystal Miller.
An online version of the dictionary is projected to be released next year, with a print version soon to follow. When the dictionary is complete, there will be over 13,000 entries. It is based primarily on recordings that Kincade made with elders of the Colville Tribes during the 1960s and ’70s, which Kinkade and Jerry Miller recorded together, and which Mary Marchand translated.

Weaving Traditions into the Present

Original publish date, 30 December 2015, Methow Valley News

The Miller family, descended from the original Methow tribe, is determined to keep the art of basket weaving alive

Photo by Joanna Bastian

Cyndy and Mark Miller with the cedar root basket woven by Elaine Timentwa Emerson, from roots collected decades earlier by Mark and his grandfather Jerome Miller.

Editor’s note: For more than 13,000 years, Native Americans have lived along the waterways of the Pacific Northwest. Columbia River tribes share the names of waterways they call home: the Entiats, the Wenatchiis, the Chelans, the Lakes, the Okanagans and the Methows.
Members of the Miller family are the longest known continuous residents of the Methow Valley. Descended from indigenous Methows, their story is told through generations by the intricacies of their artwork, their native language, their connection to the land and their dedication to building strong communities.
They generously agreed to share their story with the Methow Valley News. In a five-part series, we will share the history of the Methows through the Millers. Following is the second installment.

By Joanna Bastian
Chuck Borg had a special photo in mind when designing the cover of his book First on the Land  — an informative look at the history of the Moses-Columbia Indian Reservation in the Lower Methow Valley and the Middle Columbia region of the Columbia River.
At the Okanogan County Historical Society Wilson Research Center, Borg found a photo that perfectly captured his memories and knowledge of the Methow Valley. In the photograph, a Methow Indian woman stands next to her horse. Large woven baskets and a blanket straddle the horse’s back. Borg asked Colville tribal elder Elaine Timentwa Emerson if she could help identify the woman in the picture.
“That’s my Mom,” she said. “That picture represents how Mom’s generation lived and how they packed up to go back to the Methow to camp and gather materials and food at different times of the year.” The woman in the photograph was Julian Monse Timentwa.
Borg contacted his friend Mark Miller, a lifelong resident of the Methow Valley and descendant of the original Methow tribe. Borg was working closely with the Miller family to research the subject matter of his book, the history of the first people in the Methow Valley. Mark laughed out loud when he saw the cover. The picture brought back memories of a humorous story.

Photo by by Mable Gavin, used with permission from Elaine Timentwa Emerson

Julian Monse Timentwa with her horse and cedar root basket.

The roots return

Both members of the Methow tribe, the families of Elaine Timentwa Emerson and Mark Miller have been close friends for generations. Whenever Mark saw Elaine about town, she would tell him, “I have something for you, but I don’t know what it is.” This exchange went on for eight years, every time they saw each other.
One day, Elaine gave Mark a cedar root basket that she had woven for him. She explained that after her mother Julian had passed away, she found a burlap sack full of cedar roots and decided to weave a basket for Mark from the roots she had found. “For some reason, you are associated with these roots,” she told Mark.
At that moment, Mark revealed to Elaine that when he was 5 years old, his grandfather, Jerome Miller, took him up the Twisp River to collect cedar roots for Julian Monse Timentwa, a family friend and distant relative. They put the roots into a burlap sack and delivered them to Julian. The roots sat in their burlap sack for over 40 years until Elaine found them, and feeling a connection to Mark, wove the decades-old cedar roots into a basket for him — proving that what goes around, eventually comes back around.

Continuing the tradition

The weaving tradition is being carried on in the Miller family. Mark’s sister, Cyndy Miller, is currently learning how to weave from Elaine and Elaine’s sister, Tillie Timentwa. “I’m learning the differences in types of trees, and geographical preferences. Mazama is a preferred area for gathering because the trees are near to the water,” Cyndy said.
Cyndy first learned how to weave from her grandmother, Mattie Grunlose. As a young girl, Cyndy learned the art of weaving with yarn and string.
“The great, great, generation wove all the time, a utilitarian practice needed for storage and food gathering,” Cyndy said. “When I was a child, we did not do this.” She said that the practice of weaving was set aside for a generation as time was taken up with other pursuits: cooking for families, pursuing careers and education.
Soon, though, the grandmothers began teaching the younger generation to carry on the tradition of weaving.
Modern conditions have made that more difficult. The process of gathering traditional materials like cedar root and wild cherry bark is becoming more and more restricted by property owners. Farm and grazing activities damage the traditional areas where materials were once gathered. Between cultural changes that made weaving no longer a necessity, and landscape changes that limit weaving resources, the art and practice of Native American weaving is in danger of becoming a lost art.
Cyndy is active with the Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association (NNABA) and the Okanogan Basketweavers Association (OBA), regional and local groups dedicated to educating the younger generation about the history and technique of the craft. Classes for tribal members cover the different materials, weaving techniques, natural dyes and regional patterns.
“Each region has a unique design recognizable by location,” Cyndy said. The goal of the weaving associations is to pass the traditional knowledge and skills from generation to generation.
With efforts of people like Elaine and Tillie Timentwa, Cyndy Miller, the NNABA, and the OBA, the art and tradition of weaving will be preserved for future generations.
To learn more about how the NNABA is working to, “preserve, promote, and perpetuate” the tradition of weaving, visit www.nnaba.net.