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Tribal contingent connects with Tomanowos at Museum of Natural History
By Danielle Harrison
Smoke Signals editor
NEW YORK CITY – When Tribal Elder Tammy Anderson learned that her sister, Trixie Lopez, had put both their names in a drawing for the annual Tribal delegation trip to New York City to visit the Tomanowos meteorite, she didn’t think anything would come of it.
“It was such a surprise when they called me,” Anderson said. “Trixie and I went to New York about 14 years ago. We really enjoyed the city. There is so much going on, it’s hard to fit everything in that we would like to do.”
She didn’t know a lot about the history of the meteorite, a sacred object to the Tribe that is as old as the solar system itself, so seeing it up close left Anderson filled with amazement.
“My reaction to seeing the meteorite was one of awe,” she said. “I didn't know a lot about Tomanawos before this trip. I read some articles about it before the trip but actually being there was really spiritual. It was just a very touching experience.”
Anderson was one of two Tribal Elders selected in a drawing for the Tribe’s annual trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City near Central Park. The other was Tammy Childs, who lives in Colorado.
“I read the articles in Smoke Signals about the trip and it sounded very interesting so I decided to put my name in,” Childs said. “I didn’t think I would get selected so when I was, I was excited and honored.”
Like most Tribal members, Childs had never seen Tomanowos up close before, and the first thing that struck her was its location within the vast museum.
“The location seemed off-putting to me,” she said. “It appeared to be in a part of the museum that doesn’t get visited as much.”
Childs added that she was shocked by how large the meteorite was in person.
“You just can’t quite envision it until seeing it for yourself,” she said. “I didn’t have any expectations going into this trip and I think it was a very spiritual and very humbling experience for me, and knowing that our ancestors used it as a spiritual guide and we can’t really do that anymore.”
On Thursday, June 27, Anderson, Childs and other Tribal members reconnected with Tomanowos during a private and confidential ceremony.
The Tribal member and employee contingent included Tribal Council member Matthew Haller, Communications Manager Sara Thompson, Tribal Communications Copywriter Elaine LaBonte-Robertson, Member Services Manager Shannon Simi, Social Media/Digital Journalist Kamiah Koch, Youth Education Recovery Teacher Adam Langley and Tribal Council Administrative Assistant Shannon Ham-Texeira.
Tribal member attendees also included Tribal Elders Simone Auger, Jennifer Weiss and Lopez, Senior Miss Grand Ronde Anavey Smith and her mother, Youth Prevention Manager Lorena Rivera, museum interns Lauren Howerton and Laney DeLoe, and their chaperones, Chinuk Wawa Program Manager Justine Flynn, Language Preservation Specialist Zoey Holsclaw and Cultural Education Specialist Cristina Lara.
The annual Tribal ceremony was led by Lara in the Frederick and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth & Space. She requested that the details of the event remain confidential.
Smoke Signals staff in attendance included Koch and Publications Department Manager/Editor Danielle Harrison.
After the ceremony concluded and everyone had left the museum, Weiss stood outside and quietly reflected on the moment. Although she lives in New York City and has much easier access to Tomanowos than most Tribal members do, it is meaningful to her to be able to experience it with the delegation.
“I enjoy seeing it and knowing the historical significance to Grand Ronde,” she said. “It is a physical connection between the heavens and the earth, and a significant part of our ancestry and cultural history.”
Tomanowos’ history
Tomanowos is the iron-nickel core of an early planetoid that was formed and orbited the Sun millions of years ago. After that planet was shattered, perhaps in a collision with another proto-planet, the core fell at approximately 40,000 miles per hour to the Earth’s surface, landing somewhere in southwestern Canada.
The meteorite eventually found its way to present-day West Linn in the Willamette Valley as a passenger in the Missoula Floods that carved out the Columbia River Gorge. The Clackamas Chinooks named it Tomanowos and revered it as a spiritual being that healed and empowered the people since the beginning of time. The rainwater that collected in the meteorite’s crevices and pockmarks served as a powerful purifying, cleansing and healing source for the Clackamas and their neighbors.
Tribal ancestors also dipped their spearheads into the crevices and pockmarks of Tomanowos to obtain spiritual strength before a hunt.
But the Native connection was broken when the Clackamas and other Tribes were removed from the West Linn area and relocated to the Grand Ronde Reservation in the 1850s.
With the Native peoples gone, Tomanowos’ story grew more complex and convoluted. In 1902, it was kidnapped by part-time miner Ellis Hughes, who moved it off land owned by Oregon Iron and Steel Co., and he charged people 25 cents to view it.
Eventually, Oregon Iron and Steel won a lawsuit to regain ownership of the meteorite, which was then purchased in the early 20th century by a wealthy New York City philanthropist who moved it across the country and donated it to the American Museum of Natural History, where it sat, waiting patiently for almost 100 years for its Native peoples to find it.
In 1999, the Grand Ronde Tribe submitted a claim to the museum seeking return of Tomanowos under the provisions of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The museum countersued and eventually the two parties reached an agreement that Tomanowos would remain in New York City provided that Tribal members had annual access for religious ceremonies and the museum sponsored an internship program for Tribal youth to spend two to three weeks working at the museum every summer. This marks the 24th anniversary of that agreement, although in-person visits and the internships were suspended in 2020, 2021 and 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Museum breakfast
On Thursday, June 27, museum staff held a breakfast in the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals for the Grand Ronde delegation.
Haller gave the invocation and played a flute song, and Museum Director Lisa Gugenheim welcomed those in attendance.
“It’s really my privilege to mark the 21st delegation visit to the museum and it’s really quite remarkable to reflect on the time that has passed since our historic agreement in 2000. Over these 20-plus years, this agreement has become a model for collaborative and reciprocal relationships between Native American Tribes and museums, certainly a model for us. We cannot overstate the importance of this partnership and the meaning of it to us as individuals and as an organization.”
Gugenheim added that it’s meant “a great deal,” to her personally as well.
“I had the privilege to be one of the first museum staff members who worked directly with Grand Ronde leaders such as Kathryn Harrison to develop this partnership and today I’m feeling particularly nostalgic because at the end of this week, I am stepping down from my role as director of the museum and during this time of transition, I’ve done a lot of reflecting,” she said. “The work that I was part of with the Grand Ronde has been among the most meaningful of my career and in my time at the museum.”
Gugenheim also extended greetings from Museum President Sean Decatur, who was unable to attend the breakfast due to a business trip.
“Last year, he was able to share some of his emerging thoughts on some of the historical legacy of museums, including this one, when it comes to the Native American Tribes and other communities that have been subjects of, rather than equal participants in, scientific studies. This work has made its way into our strategic plan that was just adopted by our trustees earlier this month. I know he would look forward to telling you more about it in the near future and to learn together how best to activate those ideas.”
Attendees then heard from Holsclaw, who introduced museum interns DeLoe and Howerton.
“They’ve prepared some really good words for you guys,” she said. “So as you listen, I just want you to take into account that while this is a really amazing opportunity to come connect with our meteorite, the girls have done a lot of tough conversations and ended up with a lot of heavy feelings.”
DeLoe introduced herself in Chinuk Wawa and English, and then talked about her family history, including the results of forced assimilation and the loss of cultural identity her ancestors faced, especially after the Grand Ronde Tribe was terminated in 1954.
“This made our Confederated Tribes no longer federally recognized and termination caused my family to spread out from Grand Ronde when they left to find work,” she said.
DeLoe then talked about how the family moved back to Grand Ronde after Restoration and began to rebuild.
“I graduated from the high school in Willamina that my great-grandma Val couldn’t attend,” she said. “I work in the same building that my grandma Penny worked in. I’m a first generation college student. There is resilience with our people. The Chinuk Wawa I can now speak…everything comes full circle. But in my opinion…we continue to improve that circle. How I push forward today in this internship. As I sat and watched Tomanowos, I watched the museum visitors come and go. Of the majority of people, only a small number of them cared for Tomanowos. That the people who don’t learn about Tomanowos like how I have and how our community would…it hurts to know how our community would be able to heal with Tomanowos but she lays here stagnant…I like to think that although Tomanowos lays here today, that is only for the time being and we will continue forward.”
Howerton talked about how when she arrived in New York City, the first thing that caught her eye were the “larger than life,” skyscrapers.
“Everything looks taller here…It makes me dizzy sometimes and I remember thinking about how easy it would be to get lost here in the literal sense but also in the way that the masses of people and the size of buildings might make one feel small and insignificant,” she said.
Howerton added that when the internship began, she wanted to be heard and find people who would listen.
“But coming into this space as a Native woman, I felt unsure of how much voice I had,” she said. “I found myself wondering whether what I said truly mattered in the grand timeline of a museum such as this one. A lack of grounding wasn’t the only hurdle I faced in coming here. Like Laney said, the Grand Ronde Tribe was terminated by the federal government in 1954. Stripped of their status and land, several families dispersed throughout the region. This included my family’s ancestors, who migrated to Spokane, Washington.”
She shared that termination is what prevented her from being enrolled until she was 12 years old, and that she only learned of the Tribe through her grandma and aunt.
“When I found this internship, what I found was an opportunity to reconnect with my Tribe through Tomanowos,” Howerton said. “It has always been a source of healing and strength for our Tribal people and I have felt that in my time here this past week…By being with Tomanowos and advocating for her, I have felt empowered in my own identify in ways that surpass everything that I used to know. This year’s internship has been special. In actualizing last year’s idea to redo the (meteorite description) plaque, we are enacting real change. … Although updating an outdated plaque may seem small, it is a chance for us to create a feeling of hope that allows us to not just dream of change, but create it…to ensure our voices will always be heard and never to fall on deaf ears again.”
After the interns spoke, Lara gifted beaded necklaces to Gugenheim and Senior Director of Communications Roberto Lebron.
Following the breakfast, Grand Ronde Tribal members received a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum’s newest wing, the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation, led by Vice President of Exhibitions Lauri Halderman. Delegates also got to explore the museum’s extensive library archives. The tour wrapped up with a visit to the Northwest Coast Hall. The hall features a cedar and clam shell hat made by Tribal member Carol Colton and donated by Tribal Elder Joanne Colton-Comeaux.
In addition to the Tomanowos activities, Tribal members and employees also visited the Statue of Liberty, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Times Square, Central Park and the Lego Store. The Tribal contingent returned to Oregon on Saturday, June 29.
“I just feel really lucky to have been a part of this delegation,” Anderson said. “It was a fun trip and it has me feeling closer to my Tribe. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. I just think it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trip and feel honored to have been a part of it.”
Added Childs, “We packed a lot of activities into a few days and it was an incredible journey.”