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A new exhibition at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry combines wonders of the natural world with Indigenous storytelling and artwork. Heads and Hearts: Seeing the Landscape through Nez Perce Eyes opened Jan. 10 and runs through Feb. 16. It pairs Nez Perce legends with geologic facts about various natural phenomena: Ice Age floods, the eruption of Mount Mazama and creation of Crater Lake, the extinction of Columbian mammoths and more.
It’s a field called “ethnogeology.” The Nez Perce (nimiipuu in their language) tribe’s landscape is located primarily in present-day Washington, Idaho and Oregon.
To wit: Elephant Rock is a natural formation on the banks of the Umatilla River, an important and sacred site for plateau tribes like the Nez Perce, according to OMSI’s exhibit. The Nez Perce legend is that it’s a mammoth turned to stone by a coyote so the beast wouldn’t harm human villagers. The geologic story is that Columbian mammoths were extinct by about 12,500 years ago but shared the landscape with the Nez Perce for at least 4,000 years—the tribe must have had many encounters with the 11-ton animals, and perhaps hunted them. The Nez Perce language includes “Wíití,” a word meaning mammoth.
“How do they have names for these Columbia basin mammoths? No one else does, except these cats that were here 17,000 years ago. I guess that does add up,” says Roger Amerman, consulting geologist on the exhibition and an elder in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Amerman hopes that the exhibition helps inspire the next generation of earth scientists, including Native American youth, to consider geology as an occupation. Heads and Hearts includes artifacts such as rocks used for paint pigments, mortars and pestles, and a basalt rock petroglyph with tribal clan symbols, pointing people to a superior hunting location for bighorn sheep.
The show is a partnership between the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph, Ore., and the nonprofit Oregon Origins Project. Entrance is included with regular museum admission.
GO: Heads and Hearts: Seeing the Landscape through Nez Perce Eyes at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, 1945 SE Water Ave., 503-797-4000, omsi.edu. 9:30 am–5:30 pm Tuesday–Friday and Sunday, 9:30 am–7 pm Saturday, through Feb. 16. $15–$20.
