Preserving the past, protecting the future

Preserving the culture of his people is not just a job for St. Ignatius native Tony Incashola, it’s a calling.

The Montana Historical Society recently honored the 70-year-old Director of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee with its prestigious Montana Heritage Keepers Awards for his efforts preserving, protecting, and perpetuating the culture, history, and language of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people.

Incashola joins Jim McCarthy of Butte and Penny Redli of Columbus as the recipients of this year’s Heritage Keepers Awards.

Incashola, who took over as director of the Culture Committee in 1995, says he was surprised, but honored to receive the award in September.

“I was surprised. I had no idea that I had been nominated, but I found out later that it was one of our staff members who put my name in for this,” Incashola said. “I don’t go out and seek things like this, so it really was a great surprise.”

Incashola’s history with the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee goes back to the group’s beginnings in 1974-75, when Incashola helped find shape and purpose for the new organization. According to Incashola, Johnny Arlee, the group’s first director, called him in January 1975 asking if Incashola would like to come to work for the newly-formed committee.

“Out of the blue, I got a call from him and he asked me if I wanted to go to work. I was unemployed at the time, so I said ‘sure, I’ll come work with you,’” Incashola said.

Incashola became co-director with Clarence Woodcock for two years after Arlee stepped down in 1978 and then served as assistant director until becoming director in 1995.

According to Incashola, the early days of the Committee were spent trying to determine the best way to preserve the culture and heritage of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people.

“When we started, we didn’t really know what a culture committee was, because there was nothing to pattern it after. We spent the first few months of the program trying to figure out what our role should be and what we should do. Like with most things, we finally turned to our Elders to find the answer,” he said. “We invited them (Elders) to lunch so we could discuss what to do. We were sitting there around the table at one of those lunches and one Elder started telling a story. When he was done, another Elder told us a different story. It went on like that for some time. It dawned on us that this was it. This was what we should be doing. We needed to be recording their stories. At the time, all we had were these little, cheap JVC cassette recorders. We put one of those on the table and just let them talk. That was the beginning of what we do today.”

Today, Incashola says the committee has compiled 1,200-1,400 hours of audio recordings, as well as many hours of video interviews.

For 42 years, Incashola and the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee have collected a variety of information from the Tribe’s Elders, helping preserve it for future generations.

“Everything we do goes through the Elders before we do it, whether it is a book or anything else. We want what we put out to be as accurate and as true as possible. There are also some things that remain within our culture and they help us decide what those should be,” he said. “It’s a slow process, but a necessary one. Some of these stories are hundreds or even thousands of years old. We want to make sure we record those stories as accurately as possible. This is not knowledge to be sold. It is a teaching tool that we must care for and preserve.”

Incashola says that some of the stories that have been collected stretch as far back as the most recent ice age and contain detailed knowledge of plants (medicinal and edible), animals, and encounters with other tribes. While all of this knowledge is of great value to the committee and the tribe, Incashola says one of the most important bits of information gathered over the past 42 years involves the cataloging of Salish place names.

“Place names are more than just names of places. There is more to it than that. Place names are more of a description of the place,” he said. “All of our place names have meaning and they range from about 60 miles east of what is now Billings to the Yellowstone area, the Canadian border and eastern Washington. Our Elders say, if we have a name for it, then we were there and we had a use for that place. If it doesn’t have a name, we might have passed through, but we never stayed long enough to give it a name.”

As an example, Incashola explained how the area around St. Ignatius received its Salish place name, Snyelmn, meaning “place where you surround something.”

“The story says that the people who lived here before the people today, lived where Ravalli and Dixon are now. A hunting party had come over the hill during the fall and found a large herd of elk in the swamps. There were only a handful of hunters, so they went back and got more people, came back and surrounded the herd. That way, they were able to get most of their winter meat supply with one hunt. That’s how this area got its name,” he said.

Along with preserving place names and historical information, the committee is also making great strides in preserving the original Salish language, something the Incashola says is particularly important to him.

“To me, language is the base of who we are. Everything comes from language,” Incashola said. “In the past 15-20 years, there has been an increased interest in young people wanting to learn our language. It was one of the tasks that the Elders though was important. One of things the Elders feared most when were started the Culture Committee was the loss of our language. It’s a slow process, but we are making progress. The language is being taught again and there are several young people who are close to being fluent.”

Incashola, who is one of just 26 tribal members considered to speak the Salish language fluently, learned to speak his native tongue from his grandparents when he was a child. According to Incashola, he and his brothers were taken in by his grandparents after his mother died when he was not yet 2 years old. Incashola’s grandparents, who never spoke any English, had the children learn and speak English when at school, but only allowed Salish at home.

“It was Salish at home and English at school. My grandparents knew the importance of me learning English in order to survive and communicate. My grandmother was adamant about us going to school and learning the English language and ways. We very seldom missed school, but when we got home, we were restricted to Salish. It was like living in two separate worlds,” he said. “It wasn’t until years later, after they had passed away and were gone, that I realized what a wonderful gift they had given to me. It’s something that I can always depend on. If I know who I am and were I came from, then I will always know where I am going. These days, I lean on that and it helps me get through from day to day.”

While helping to save the heritage and culture of his people has become very important to Incashola, he says it was not always that way.

“There was a period of time in the 60s when I was ashamed of who I was. I tried to ignore my heritage and to get away from it. But, just as my grandparents said, I couldn’t. They told me that I could never change who I am, and they were right. They said you can’t change who you are, so you should work hard at being who you were meant to be,” he said. “I still see some of that racism today. I still feel it when I am out in public, but I have learned to go around it and ignore it. I have learned to live with it and how to adjust because I know who I am now. There was a time when the government tried to make everyone the same. You can’t do that, and they were not successful with those efforts. You can’t change who you are. Everyone has a role in this world. Everyone is a part of that puzzle, whether it is a big piece or a small piece. Without all of those pieces, the picture would never be complete.”

While Incashola has been helping preserve the culture of his people for the past 42 years, he says his task is far from over.

“People ask me when I am going to retire and I answer with when it is not fun anymore and becomes work. So far, it is still fun. It’s been a good ride and an honor to be here over the past 22 years, and I have learned a lot,” he said. “The only way that we will exist as a people, is to maintain our traditions. That goes not only for our culture, but for all cultures. The only way a people will survive is to maintain those traditional values that make you who you are.”