First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim (Paperback)

~ Judith Roche (Editor), Meg McHutchison (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Writers from traditional cultures based on the Pacific wild salmon remember the blessedness and mourn the loss of the fish, while alerting readers to current environmental dangers and conditions. Represented are the Ainu from Japan; Ulchi and Nyvkh from Siberia; Okanagon and Coastal Salish from Canada; and Makah, Warm Springs, and Spokane from the United States. 72 photos.

Product Details

• Paperback: 199 pages
• Publisher: University of Washington Press; 1st edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295977396
• ISBN-13: 978-0295977393
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 8.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #966,390 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not enough stars on Amazons scale, February 12, 2001

By	Edward Bosnar (Zagreb, Croatia) - See all my reviews

This collection of poems, stories, narratives, folktales, oral histories and essays very aptly portrays the vital importance of salmon to the native peoples of the entire northern Pacific rim - not just as a food resource, but as a basis for their culture and a component of their identities. Several of the contributions, particularly an essay by Jeanette Armstrong, note how sustainable yield was applied in salmon fishing for thousands of years and how the discarding of this principle in modern times has led to the excessive depletion and near extinction of this species. Since I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, I am more or less familiar with the importance of salmon to the local economies and the Native American cultures of the region, so I found the sections of the book dealing with the Ainu of Japan, the Ulchi of eastern Siberia and the Nyvkhs of Sakhalin particularly informative and enjoyable. It is also a bit depressing to learn that like the U.S. and Canada (although not nearly as brutally), Japan and the USSR/Russia similarly mistreated the local populations by, among other things, limiting or restricting their access to traditional salmon runs and/or trying to force them to adopt non-traditional ways of life (assimilation). "First Fish, First People" may be attractively published, with striking cover art and attractive photos and illustrations, but it is not a coffee-table book - its diverse contributions, taken together, outline a philosophy of respect for and wise use of natural resources, as well as (and just as importantly) respect for different cultures and different ways of life. It is almost a cliche to say that it is high time that such lessons sink in at all levels of our modern globalized and hyper-industrial societies.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars International perspectives, September 21, 2000

By	James Stripes (Deer Park, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This book is a work of art, and provides evidence that the University of Washington Press, through its cooperation with other smaller publishers (such as One Reel) is doing the work that needs to be done in Northwest history and cultural studies.

This book is a collection of perpectives on salmon from representatives of the peoples around the pacific rim whose lives have centered on salmon for thousands of years. The contributors are talented indigenous writers from the United States, Canada, Japan, and Siberia. The engaging text is amply illustrated with historic and contemporary photographs, as well as drawings. The historic photographs are not the same ones that usually appear. For example, nearly every book on salmon in the nortwest has a twentieth century photograph of Indians fishing at Celilo Falls. Most books use the same photo. This book uses one that features in the forground the cable system that was used to get down to the fishing platforms, with the fishing platforms themselves in the background.

Some of the work in this book has been published elsewhere. But the context it is given here accentuates it in useful ways. For example, Sherman Alexie's poem, "The Place Where Ghosts of Salmon Jump," is engraved into a sculpture in Overlook Park behind the Spokane Public Library and is published in _The Summer of Black Widows_. But in this book it appears beside a nice photograph of the falls as it appears today, and a photo of Mr. Alexie standing on the footbridge above a section of the falls pointing downstream.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read on Salmon as a cultural driver in the N.Pacific., March 31, 1999

By A Customer

Buy it especially for the Sherman Alexix poen at the beginning. It's touches the core of the Salmon environmental and cultural dilemna in the Northwest.