Klahowya!
I can still hear the booming voice and broad smile of Roy I. Rochon Wilson as he’d stride toward me, offering that traditional statement of greeting or farewell, followed by a hearty handshake with one of his big, strong hands.
Or perhaps I should call them paws, as his other name was Bear Who Talks Much, or Itswoot Wawa Hyiu in the trade language of Chinook Jargon, which he was proud to speak fluently. Roy published a comprehensive dictionary of that 19th century mix of English and tribal tongues, and when I recruited him to write a column for The Chronicle in 2012, I asked him to teach his readers a new word from that trade tongue in each weekly installment.
Roy was a remarkable individual, charismatic and charming, friendly and eager to invite anyone who would listen into his world of Cowlitz lore and the broader world of Native American history.
Wilson, who died on Feb. 11 at age 97 after suffering a stroke, was an important leader in the Cowlitz Tribe’s long quest for federal recognition and was a unique character in his own right.
He was deeply immersed in the culture of the Cowlitz Tribe and eager to share it. He wrote dozens of books of history, plus many more on faith, language and even a novel or two.
His father’s family was Native American, his mother’s was European. He was raised a devout Christian and served as a United Methodist minister for 47 years. He also was one of the few Protestants in history, I’d guess, who have been invited to speak at a Catholic service. And he spent the last years of his life working to bridge the gap between Christianity and a pan-Indian faith.
A few years ago, I had the chance to spend some time with Roy and he spoke passionately about his beliefs and his conviction that his Christian beliefs and his Native American heritage both pointed him to God.
That same weekend he also was conversing with our state’s poet laureate at the time, who was also of Native American heritage.
She and I were chatting later. I told her that Roy was working hard to convert me to a universalist understanding that blended religions together. She laughed and said she felt that he spent all his time with her trying to convert her to Christianity.
Such was the broad gap that Roy tried to bridge. He had a devoted following of people who would attend services at a longhouse he built at his property outside Winlock. More than 500 of them discussed his ideas at a Facebook group called Roy Wilson's Rainbow Tribe Medicine Wheel.
Alongside his longhouse he built a place to display tribal art (including many pieces he made himself, like a version of the Catholic Ladder, created in 1842 to tell the creation and salvation story) and a museum/library to house his extensive collection of Native American artifacts and writings (which he arranged according to the Dewey decimal system). He hung carvings he had made of ancient Cowlitz matriarchs and chiefs on each end of the longest shelf.
An entire shelf in his library was dedicated to books he had written himself. This wasn’t to brag — he simply had written so many books over the decades that they needed all the space.
His books ranged from biographies of prominent Cowlitz elders to a retelling of the Gospel of Matthew if Jesus had been born among the tribes of the Puget Sound.
As someone from both European and tribal backgrounds, it’s as if Roy had an unending but endlessly creative urge to find new ways to tell ancient stories.
One day as I was chaperoning my then-elementary school daughter’s class on a trip to the Lewis County Historical Museum, I happened to run into Roy as he delivered a stack of his books to the museum’s gift shop.
I asked if he would say a few words to the kids from our school. He was delighted, of course.
He not only said a few words, he spoke to them in Chinook Jargon and sang them songs, solemnly tapping the glass display case as a drum.
There are more stories to tell about Roy, like the time he received an ovation after making a surprise appearance at the Southwest Washington Writers Conference, put on by a writing circle he helped create many years before.
Roy was a leader, a historian, a writer, a keeper of heritage and a fervent believer that divides of culture, even religion, could somehow be bridged.
That’s a lot to fit into one life. Thank you, Roy, for keeping the flames of old alive and casting your bright eyes always toward a better shared future.
Klahowya, my friend. Klahowya.
Brian Mittge has written about Lewis County life and culture for The Chronicle since 2000. He can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
