Seeing the Landscape through Nez Perce Eyes
Indigenous stories are far more than “myths.” They carry place-based knowledge with stories, names, and understandings of landscape features; knowledge that conveys a deep history and enriches scientific understanding of the Northwest’s geology. This connection between Indigenous knowledge and earth science is known as Ethnogeology.
Heads and Hearts: Seeing the Landscape through Nez Perce Eyes invites you to see the region through Nez Perce, or nimiipuu knowledge and stories. The Nez Perce hold their landscape in reverence, understanding it as a living being that provides spiritual sustenance as well as nourishment and resources. Their stories are handed down through generations and record real geological features and events known (and some until recently unknown) to Western science.
Visitors will discover how:
- Nez Perce, Cayuse, Yakama and other Plateau Tribes’ stories document Ice Age floods that scoured the Columbia Basin 17,000 – 15,000 years ago, earthquakes that shook eastern Oregon, interactions with Ice Age animals, and more.
- Coastal Tribes witnessed the great subduction zone quake of 1700 and have preserved accounts of earthquakes for more than 15,000 years.
- The Klamath people witnessed and recorded the eruption of Mount Mazama and the creation of Crater Lake more than 7,700 years ago.
- And much more…
Indigenous stories inform knowledge of and illuminate relationships with the land and offer powerful insights that deepen our understanding of the Northwest.
This exhibition invites the visitor to practice “Two-Eyed Seeing”—experiencing a landscape from two cultural perspectives. Heads and Hearts is a collaboration between nimiipuu storytellers, linguists, and elders, along with geologists and nimiipuu photographers, all of whom generously shared their knowledge and love of the landscape.
After exploring this exhibit, you’ll realize this landscape and its people with a fuller, truer understanding.
This exhibition is presented by The Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in partnership with Oregon Origins Project and OMSI.
Venue Information
The Museum
1945 SE Water Ave.
Portland, OR 97214
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In partnership with
