Through Eyes of an Eagle
Steven Warnstaff was born Steven Simonis, his father Elvin, and his mother Evon Sevy, both attended Union High School. The Simonis family were one of the first families to live in the Baker Valley, and eventually landed in North Powder, Oregon.
In 1976 he moved from California to Eastern Oregon to a town named Elgin where he worked in a lumber mill a few miles away in Alicel.
One day as he visited with his grandparents he asked his grandmother Olena, what it was like to live during the latter years of 1800 and early 1900's when the state was being settled by the pioneers.
His grandmother told him she had lived out in the valley between Baker City and North Powder as a child, attended school in a one room schoolhouse, to which Steve's father had since moved into North Powder as his home before he passed.
Several stories were shared of the Nez Perce travelling from their villages in the Wallowas to hunt elk and deer in the Blues and Elkhorn mountains above Baker City. She mentioned they had always stopped to ask permission to camp the night on her family's property, and as her father agreed, on the return trip the Nez Perce stopped and offered a deer and an elk in gratitude.
This story had stayed with Steve since its inception and has brought many questions to lie unsettled as the government had stated just the opposite, the Nez Perce were not a friendly tribe and had threatened the settlers.
Truth be told, Steve says it was the settlers who first broke the treaties and promises made between the two peoples in order they both could live peacefully side by side.
First there were the gold miners who tore the landscape searching for their fortunes. Then ranchers and farmers came with plows that tore at the heart of Earth Mother as they turned the fields to grow hay for the cattle and horses to survive the long and cold winters.
Do you remember Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery?
Yes, it was the Nez Perce who saved them from starvation as they were bogged down in the deep of winter's snow without food.
Steve has stated that he knew there must be a story yet untold that would resonate the truth of American history regarding the Native American Indians of the Pacific Northwest.
This story, the idea bringing it to fruition had begun as Steve sat upon the high rock above Wahclella Falls and began to dream of what is, instead of what was.
He says as he sat looking down upon the clearest of waters it was like a vision as it brought memories of his many journeys through the Columbia River Gorge.
Each waterfall had a guardian spirit who lent wisdom to fall upon his heart, and wind spoke volumes as he sat patiently and began to listen to the cadence of its song.
Steve states it is us, ourselves, that must want to see the rise of tomorrow's sun, or one day soon, we will fall from upon the lands and be cast to the heaven as dust and not be seen nor heard again.
Smohalla was a great man, a great leader to those Indian that had not fallen from the graces and beliefs of the Great Spirit. Hope of a better life had invested itself swiftly upon many Indian, sadly, it was through a bottle, or many bottles of whiskey their spirits were stolen from within them.
Cast to the winds their names and memories were spent, quickly forgotten, never to be mentioned again by their people.
This was the government's and settler's method of controlling the Indian as they feared an uprising might occur.
From the dream, the prophet Smohalla had been chosen to share, came the religion of Washani. This was a religion that spoke of peace and honor, respect, and thankfulness for all the Great Spirit had offered their people so they could too live to see the rise of all their tomorrow's suns.
Close your eyes and smell the sweet scent of the Cedar in summer as the softest of breeze carries your thoughts upon journeys yet untold.
This is the way to reunite one
