Bruce Miller shared Spirit by teaching
monica...@yahoo.com
Tribal leader Miller, 60, shared spirit by teaching
By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times staff reporter
They began gathering Saturday, and they will keep coming each day, more
and more, from all over the country, to honor Bruce Miller, a Skokomish
spiritual leader whose teaching nourished a Salish renaissance of art
and culture in the Northwest and beyond.
Mr. Miller died of a stroke Saturday at age 60.
Yesterday morning, family, friends and admirers kept arriving from
around the country and the region to share songs, prayers, memories and
stories of the man who dedicated his life to learning and passing on
the gifts of his ancestors' knowledge and artistic skills.
Young people kept fires burning in wood stoves at either end of the
Skokomish smokehouse, a simple cedar building with a carefully raked
earthen floor at the tribal nation near the southwest end of Hood
Canal. They welcomed elders to seats by the fire, and brought steaming
plates bending with food.
"It is the time of healing, for the mind and the body and the spirit,"
said Neah Martin, 70, a Swinomish tribal elder who came to pay her
respects. "The people that are coming are broken spirits, and it's
going to be up to the family at Skokomish to help them begin the
healing journey."
Tribal cooks began planning a dinner for at least 800 expected tomorrow
and 1,500 Saturday at the Skokomish smokehouse.
"We're making everything he loved," said Nikki Burfiend, one of
Miller's nieces and head cook.
Youngest of 15
Born April 23, 1944, Mr. Miller, the youngest of 15 children, was
raised in an extended-family household in the home of his grandparents,
parents, great-uncles and numerous cousins. The house was full of
baskets, blankets and ceremonial regalia, some heirlooms dating back
eight generations.
"I realized at an early age that these heirloom things were almost like
history books to us," Mr. Miller told The Seattle Times last July.
"They were the way that we retained our history and passed it on."
As a young child, he would go to his great-grandmother's house "and she
would relate the family traditions and stories in oral recitations the
old people talk about. That was the sprouting of the seed of curiosity
that lie within me at that point."
He worked in the theater in New York and in 1967 was drafted into the
U.S. Army. He served two tours in Vietnam, earning the Army Medal of
Commendation.
He was appointed the tribe's cultural and educational director in 1971
and earned stature for his traditional knowledge, including a
repertoire of more than 120 Skokomish tribal stories, some of which
take days to tell.
He was a master of Skokomish basketry, weaving and cedar-mat making. In
1974, he founded the Twana Dance Group, which has performed for
thousands of people throughout the Northwest.
Mr. Miller helped bring back several ceremonies that were once banned
by U.S. government agents and missionaries.
He also developed a substance-abuse program for the tribe based on
Skokomish and Salish legends, and created an herbal and medicinal
garden visited by ethnobotanists from around the world. He compiled and
illustrated 12 books based on his family's stories.
He was honored with a National Heritage Fellowship by the National
Endowment for the Arts in 2004.
Mr. Miller was careful to pass on different skills to each of his
apprentices, so they would need each other.
"Not one of us could walk in his shoes; it takes all of us to take the
first step," said Delbert Miller, one of Mr. Miller's nephews and a
tribal spiritual leader.
"The legacy left behind by subiyay is represented in the rebirth of so
many traditional aspects of the culture," said his nephew Michael Pavel
of Skokomish, referring to Mr. Miller by his Indian name. "There are so
many contributions to celebrate: theater, genealogy, art, history,
language, ceremonial protocol, botany, spiritual ways of behaving
ranging from being generous and always willing to be of service to
never turning away from calls for help.
"Subiyay was and remains a gift given to us by the creator."
Loved a good prank
Called Uncle by everyone, family or not, Mr. Miller also was known for
his love of a good prank, a good belly laugh and for his fondness for
Marilyn Monroe, whose picture greeted visitors to his home at the front
door.
He is survived by his son Carpio Bernal of Taos, N.M.; daughter
Kimberly Miller of Skokomish; sisters Jeanne Everenden, Anne Pavel,
Louella Hansen and Antoinette Lewis, all of Skokomish; brother Ned
Miller; sisters-in-law Peggy Miller, Lucinda Miller and Lillian Miller;
50 nieces and nephews; and numerous great-nephews and nieces.
He also leaves countless spiritual children, nourished through
apprenticeship in his traditional knowledge. Mr. Miller welcomed
members of other tribes as well as his own to train in traditional ways
so they could take them back to their own people.
"Even though he is on the other side, he will never, ever be gone,"
said Vi Hilbert, an elder from the Upper Skagit Tribe who tearfully
called Mr. Miller "my pet."
"We are selfish people. We want them to stay with us forever," she
said. "It is part of being human. We have to let them go. But his
memory is here forever."
In recent months, Mr. Miller seemed to know his time was near. He began
giving things away and telling his apprentices he was at peace, knowing
he had taught them what he knew they needed to carry on.
Mr. Miller told The Seattle Times last July, "It is the satisfaction of
seeing the living knowledge of my people carried on one more
generation. It is not just a picture that you can look at in a book and
say, this was what once was.
"One of my greatest satisfactions is to see my apprentices become
master teachers. It's all connected to our ancient need to become
immortal. Some of us write our names on the walls, some of us write
them on the rocks, some of us carve them in trees. My sense of
immortality is when the people I teach the various things begin to
teach it themselves. Then I am assured I won't become an empty memory.
My breath will continue to breathe into the future generations."
Lynda Mapes: lma...@seattletimes.com
redb...@bigmailbox.net
time to post them right now, but I will. I saved the papers they are
in, also. I still can't believe he's gone.:(
monica...@yahoo.com
When I first talked to Kimberly, I asked her how everyone was doing.
She said they were well, too good. She thought they were in shock. But
they did such a good job with all the ceremonies. He did a good job
teaching them. I think everyone was okay because he accomplished so
much in his life. He was so generous. You see when a lot of people
leave, they take most or all of their knowledge with them. He made sure
all his people could carry on without him. I saw some people I haven't
seen for a long time. I stayed for the first week, then another to
rest. Now I'm back in the fray. The next step out here is starting a
Human Rights commission with some teeth. The existing human rights
commission and Multicultural Task force are toothless. The taskforce
was started to coverup racism in Port Angeles. I don't think we can
change that. We tried. Now it's time to find another method. With the
Makah getting ready to hunt again, racism will hit another high. I
dread it but we have to be ready.
redb...@bigmailbox.net
on the sunday before that. My friend Joi was at smokehouse the week
before he died. He told them "I have set the table for you for the last
time. I have taught you all I know. Now it is your turn." So when she
got the call that he had died, she was not surprised but very very sad.
redb...@bigmailbox.net
http://www1.kitsapsun.com/bsun/local/article/0,2403,BSUN_19088_3544578,00.html
'Father, son, grandfather ... character'
Skokomish tribal leader's life touched hundreds.
By Julie McCormick, Sun Staff
February 13, 2005
In classic Northwest native style, a lone bald eagle gazed from the
heights of an old, moss-crusted Big Maple into the smooth flow of the
Skokomish River late Saturday morning just as hundreds of vehicles
passed only yards away on Highway 101.
They were bound to pay their respects to members of the House of slanay
and bid a last goodbye to its most widely known member, who died Feb. 7
from a stroke at the age of 60.
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Subiyay was known to the world as Bruce Miller, a man also of classic
Northwest native style.
Miller returned to his tribe after two tours of duty in Vietnam, to
reinvigorate a fading culture.
He had been an actor and a playwright in New York, but traded that and
other promising careers for a life on the reservation at the far end of
Hood Canal where the Skokomish and eight other bands of the Twana
people were re-located after the Treaty of 1855.
He was a master basket weaver and blanket weaver, a storyteller who
roved wherever he was asked to tell one of his 120 native tales, a
demanding taskmaster to the children of his 14 siblings, but a man of
humor who loved pranks about as much as the native bone game slahal.
Sons and daughters of Miller's 14 siblings rose to tell their own
tales, like the time Uncle Bruce unscrewed his prosthetic leg during a
first introduction to a 4-year-old grandniece.
"I can do that to my head, too," he assured the astonished child.
Or the time he drove off from a weekend of slahal gambling, leaving his
teenaged nephew Michael Pavel behind with the words, "I sold you to
those three women over there."
"I won't say they were big, but they were warm," Pavel told the
laughing and approving audience that lined two walls of tiered seats in
the long tribal smokehouse on Saturday, and spilled into tents set up
nearby.
"Father, son, grandfather...character," said Pavel, "Did I slip that
in?"
Tributes to Miller came from elected and appointed government officials
as well, including a letter from Gov. Christine Gregoire proclaiming
his "a life well-lived."
Miller was the appointed spiritual and cultural leader of his tribe,
and the celebration drew people from throughout the Northwest and
beyond.
Many wore the trademark button-blanket regalia in traditional red,
black and white, same colors of the proscribed, geometric native art on
the walls inside the smokehouse, not unlike the longhouses where Twana
ancestors once spent their winters telling tales, dancing and singing.
Singers from the Suquamish brought their own songs to honor Miller, and
Pavel called out a compliment to Jo Jo McKenzie and his troupe from the
Makah Tribe at Neah Bay.
"You warm the hearts of my people," he said.
With each story, with each song, native women and men "ho"ed in
response, open palms swaying in customary fashion.
The celebration, accompanied by huge amounts of freshly prepared food,
went on for six hours, the public part ending with a showing of a
documentary on Miller that will be shown on public television later
this year.
Miller's play "Changer," the first Indian musical, was written by him
as co-founder in the 1970s of the Red Earth Performing Arts Company in
Seattle. His old colleagues from the troupe have reorganized the group,
and have been planning for a year with Miller to re-stage the piece
sometime in October.
The private part of the celebration was to include laying to rest the
body of Bruce Miller inside the box handcarved by nephew Ray Krise.
"I'm his spiritual son," Krise explained. "He's been training me to do
this my whole life."
Visitors leaving before dark could see scores of ravens roosted in the
Big Maples along the highway, turned away from the reservation of the
Skokomish, the big river people, like flocks of grieving mourners,
another classic Northwest native scene.
Reach reporter Julie McCormick at (360) 415-2683 or
jmcco...@kitsapsun.com.
To give
Donations in memory of Bruce Miller may be made to the Skokomish Seowyn
Society, North 170 Tribal Center Road, Skokomish, WA 98584. For
information, call Dr. Michael Pavel, (360) 877-0603.
'I may be gone but my breath is still here.'
- Bruce Miller
redb...@bigmailbox.net
http://www1.kitsapsun.com/bsun/opinion/article/0,2403,BSUN_19097_3532802,00.html
2/9/05: Tribal leader will be missed
February 9, 2005
Bruce Miller, longtime spiritual leader of the Skokomish Tribe and a
master basket weaver, died Saturday of a stroke. He was well known
among tribal members and others for his repertoire of more than 120
Skokomish tribal stories. He also taught traditional Skokomish basket
weaving, and his baskets and cedar mats have been displayed in museums.
In addition, he established the Twana Dance Group, which has performed
for thousands of people.
In 1971, he was appointed the tribe's cultural and educational
director. He also developed a drug abuse program based on Skokomish and
Salish legends and created a herbal and medicinal garden visited by
ethnobotanists from around the world.
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He was given a Governor's Heritage Award in 1992, and last year
received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for
the Arts.
In 60 years, a relatively short lifespan by today's standards, Bruce
Miller did much to preserve his peoples' past and to perpetuate it for
future generations yet unborn. He will be missed by members of his
tribe and by countless others with whom he shared the richness of his
Skokomish heritage.
redb...@bigmailbox.net
Gerald Bruce Miller, Skokomish tribal leader, dead at 60
By Associated Press
February 7, 2005
SKOKOMISH, Wash. (AP) -- Gerald Bruce Miller, an award-winning
Skokomish tribal arts and spiritual leader, master basket weaver,
author and founder of a dance troupe, is dead at 60.
Miller, whose Skokomish name was Subiyay, died Saturday of a stroke,
said relatives and tribal officials on the reservation near the elbow
of Hood Canal.
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His traditional knowledge included more than 120 tribal tales, some of
which take days to tell, and he compiled and illustrated 12 books based
on his family's stories. His baskets and cedar mats have been
displayed at a number of museums, including the Henry Art Gallery at
the University of Washington.
Miller was given a Governor's Heritage Award in 1992, and last year
he received a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment
for the Arts.
The youngest of 15 children, he was reared in an extended family of
parents, grandparents, great-uncles and many cousins in a house filled
with traditional baskets, blankets and ceremonial regalia, some dating
back eight generations.
"I realized at an early age that these heirloom things were almost like
history books to us," Miller told The Seattle Times in July. "They were
the way that we retained our history and passed it on."
His great-grandmother "would relate the family traditions and stories
in oral recitations the old people talk about," he recalled. "That was
the sprouting of the seed of curiosity that lie within me at that
point."
In 1974 he founded the Twana Dance Group, which has performed for
thousands of people throughout the Pacific Northwest, and he worked to
resume performances of ceremonies that were once banned by the
government. He also was the founding president of the Northwest Native
American Basketweavers Association and producer of a documentary film
featuring his principal basketry teachers.
He developed a drug abuse program based on Skokomish and Salish legends