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Aggie Pilgrim: Grandma and Oldest Descedant of Takelma People
Named a living legend by her tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz in Oregon and a founding member of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers , Aggie Baker Pilgrim has been a energetic voice for the land and environment for over two decades, restoring the ancient connections between the and environment and the local native traditions that supported the earth for thousands of years.
With her late husband, Grant, Aggie Pilgrim, brought back the Salmon Ceremony to their ancestral homelands back in 1994. A very simple ceremony but significant enough to reconnect the missing connections between the River, the Salmon and the people that had been missing for over 150 years.
In an interview with The Ecology Center, Aggie said "After the ceremony, the Fish and Game told us that was the most salmon they had seen and they wanted to thank me," says Agness Pilgrim, the self-described clan grandma of the Takelma. "We gave thanks to the Creator for returning our food to us."
With her late husband, Grant, Aggie Pilgrim, brought back the Salmon Ceremony to their ancestral homelands back in 1994. A very simple ceremony but significant enough to reconnect the missing connections between the River, the Salmon and the people that had been missing for over 150 years.
In an interview with The Ecology Center, Aggie said "After the ceremony, the Fish and Game told us that was the most salmon they had seen and they wanted to thank me," says Agness Pilgrim, the self-described clan grandma of the Takelma. "We gave thanks to the Creator for returning our food to us."
13 Indigenous Grandmothers
Grandmothers Counsel the World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet
Amazon Price: $12.89 (as of 12/26/2009)
Atlas of Pacific Salmon: The First Map-Based Status Assessment of Salmon in the North Pacific
Amazon Price: $30.73 (as of 12/26/2009)
It started at the headwaters of the River
It all started for Aggie and her late husband, Grant Pilgrim back in the late 1980's when Aggie retired as an alcohol and drug counselor and went back to the rivers of her ancestors.
I met Aggie and Grant at the Salmon Ceremony in 1994. The idea was to simply reintroduce the Salmon Ceremony. I think it was, for most of us, more an act of faith and trying to reconnect with something older and bigger than our selves. To instill some awareness of our connection as human being with our relations - with the Salmon and the River. We didn't really think the Salmon would respond - to us - and dramatically.
But when the Fish and Game reported that next year that the salmon numbers jumped, it was really surprising for a lot of people. Really affirming for us at indigenous people that there was significant, proof of the connections between ancient indigenous environmental practices, native ceremonies and the living, breathing world around us.
Not just for the group there in Takelma, but for all traditional indigenous peoples who believe that there are inexplicable connections between their traditions and the health of the environment.
As the years have gone it seems that those inexplicable connections have had healing affects on the land and the salmon, but also on each of us as human beings, associated with the process.
As Aggie worked to reintroduce health to the land, the land strengthened Aggie, breathing life back into her and nurturing her through her struggles with cancer, the loss of her husband Grant and the slow and unpredictable changes of environmental politics.
Today her work has become increasingly more focused on the native spiritual connection to the land and her voice has gained audience and distance.
As part of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Aggie along with the other grandmothers have been all over the world, even to the Vatican trying to share this understanding about indigenous traditions and the environment.
I met Aggie and Grant at the Salmon Ceremony in 1994. The idea was to simply reintroduce the Salmon Ceremony. I think it was, for most of us, more an act of faith and trying to reconnect with something older and bigger than our selves. To instill some awareness of our connection as human being with our relations - with the Salmon and the River. We didn't really think the Salmon would respond - to us - and dramatically.
But when the Fish and Game reported that next year that the salmon numbers jumped, it was really surprising for a lot of people. Really affirming for us at indigenous people that there was significant, proof of the connections between ancient indigenous environmental practices, native ceremonies and the living, breathing world around us.
Not just for the group there in Takelma, but for all traditional indigenous peoples who believe that there are inexplicable connections between their traditions and the health of the environment.
As the years have gone it seems that those inexplicable connections have had healing affects on the land and the salmon, but also on each of us as human beings, associated with the process.
As Aggie worked to reintroduce health to the land, the land strengthened Aggie, breathing life back into her and nurturing her through her struggles with cancer, the loss of her husband Grant and the slow and unpredictable changes of environmental politics.
Today her work has become increasingly more focused on the native spiritual connection to the land and her voice has gained audience and distance.
As part of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Aggie along with the other grandmothers have been all over the world, even to the Vatican trying to share this understanding about indigenous traditions and the environment.
Songs for the Salmon
Check out my favorite songs! I've handpicked these MP3s from Amazon. Take a listen. If you like, you can click to buy them on Amazon.
Articles about Aggie Pilgrim
- Salmon Ceremony on the Applegate River, 1994-2006
- After 140 years, this ancient ceremony to welcome the returning Salmon was brought back by Grandma Aggie in 1994, and held on Kanaka Flats on the Applegate River through 2006. In 2007, the ceremony was moved to the original site of the Takelma Indian Ceremony at Ti'lomikh (Powerhouse Falls) upstream of Gold Hill, Oregon
- Slow Food in Eugene, OR
- In these videos, I interviewed Aggie about what she ate when she was growing up. She talks about fishing for eel and salmon on the Klamath. She talks about running a smoke house and the huge apple orchards around her home and how her mother used to break wild horses.
- Joining Prayers
- travel to a lot of different lands being a "voice for the voiceless." All things created need a voice. I am called to pray for the Bengal tigers, for animals in Africa, for wolves, for salmon, and for the Ganges River in India. I went to Australia to pray for the Murry Darling River and its pollutions. I prayed for the Condors and now they are coming back after being gone for over 200 years from Oregon.
- 2003 Ecotrust Honoree
- Agnes Pilgrim is honored as a finalist for the 2003 Ecotrust Award for Indigenous Leadership for her cultural preservation efforts, environmental advocacy and work with Native American youth. She is a member of the Oregon Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and resides in Grants Pass, Oregon.
- In the Ancestors' Garden Stories of Indigenous Revival
- Done on 40 acres with the cooperation of the US Forest Service, Jobs in the Woods, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the cultural landscape restoration on the Applegate River is part of a burgeoning movement among tribes to reclaim their role as biodiversity protectors. Guided by increasingly open and vocal elders, helped by the occasional dedicated forest service staffer, and backed by federal environmental justice mandates that require tribal consultation on land management, tribes up and down the West Coast have found ways to revive long-dormant practices - and cultures.
- The Ceremony at the Heart of "Salmon Nation" | Spirituality & Health Magazine
- Issue: 2008 May/JuneArticle Type: Feature About 18 months ago, an extraordinary woman came to my home on the Rogue River in southern Oregon. At age 83, Agnes Baker Pilgrim is the oldest living Takelma
Got Salmon?
2008 Aggie Pilgrim In Eugene with Gary Nabhan and Dennis Martinez
13 indigenous grandmothers: Aggie Pilgrim, Takelma Elder
Aggie Pilgrim speaks at the Willamette Valley Indian Cultural-Ecological Restoration workshop
Runtime: 3:51 | 625 views | 1 Comments
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CoStarring with Aggie Pilgrim in the 2008 YouTube Video
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A Living Legacy
At 83, like the river moving round a bend, Aggie seems as though she may be slowing down a bit but not without a certain grace and resilience. And it's that quiet grace that this Native Grandmother, Indigenous Grandmother is using to restore traditional connections to the environment.
Like the Salmon we must all make the journey to return home one day. Yet the salmon's legacy lives in the both the journey and all also in the seeds that it will surrender to the river and the larger ocean.
A living legacy, Aggie Pilgrim has seeded projects that will live longer than any of us. By restoring the Salmon Ceremony to her ancestral lands, she restored the hope of her people, restored her people relationship to the land as traditional caregivers and ensured protection of the river for generations.
Through her work with the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, she gives hands to the work of grandmothers to come and children of the future.
Speak your voice.
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- Rachel Rachel Oct 5, 2009 @ 10:25 am
- Aggie has been speaking to me in dreams for 6 years now. I don't know whether or not she is aware of this, but I am curious as to the meaning of the connection. I did not know it was her (thought it was someone from the other world) until she told her name to me last night. She is on a wonderful path.
The 13 Indigenous Grandmothers - Conversations from Penn State
Grandma Aggie - Conversations from Penn State
http://conversations.psu.edu/episodes/grandma_aggie Grandma Aggie, spokesperson and eldest member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, speaks about the grandmothers hope to change the direction of the world, save Mother Earth, and ensure peace and prosperity for all following generations.
Runtime: 3428
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