Geological Origins and First Peoples

In the first chapter, Aaron Jackson and Lettajoe Gallup elaborate on the geological and climate changes that shaped not only Zena, but throughout the Pacific Northwest in North America. Gallup and Jackson's chapter challenges environmental determinism, in which the eventual state of the land causes the inevitable development of certain types of human society and ecological communities.

The next three chapters explore the sense of place of the Kalapuyan people up through the mid-nineteenth century. Nickolas Lormand and Larissa DeHass relate Kalapuyan stories to the Kalapuya sense of place. Brayton Noll and Summer Tucker analyze how the Kalapuya actively modified and used numerous resources from the earth. Elena Crecelius’s chapter discusses the interlinked sense of place and society of the Kalapuyan people. Taken together, these chapters suggest that, through practice, narrative, and social values, the Kalapuya lived in balance with the landscape of the Willamette Valley.

Willamette University

Willamette University Sustainability Institute

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503-370-6482

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