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For six decades, the 6-acre park on Southwest Capitol Hill Road was known as Custer Park. Then, in 2020 it got the temporary name “A Park” after retired Parks Commissioner Amanda Fritz directed Portland Parks & Recreation to start a community-supported renaming process.
“It’s long been clear to me that the name of Custer Park in the Multnomah neighborhood needs to be changed,” Fritz said at the time, adding that naming the park after Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer glorified a military oppressor of Indigenous peoples. Custer died in 1876 at the Battle of Little Bighorn in present-day Montana.
Finally, this month, the Southwest Portland park has its new permanent name: ‘Scht Wiwnu (pronounced “ish-chit, way-el-noo”), which means path of the huckleberry in the Ichishkin Sńwit language. The language is spoken by Native tribes from the Columbia River area, including the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama.
There will be a naming ceremony at ‘Scht Wiwnu on March 28 with Native drumming, songs and food, family activities, and remarks by Fritz and members of the naming committee.
‘Scht Wiwnu is the third PP&R park named in partnership with local Native communities, after Cully’s Khunamokwst Park and East Portland’s Luuwit View Park.
“Using our language to name this park is really something special,” says Dallas Winishut, Ichishkin Sńwit language teacher with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, in a press release. “I learned this language from my family members, and we’re in turn teaching it to our younger people to make sure it’s carried on.”
GO: Naming ceremony at ‘Scht Wiwnu, Southwest 21st Avenue and Capitol Hill Road, portland.gov/parks. 3-5 pm Saturday, March 28. Free.
