Taylor began a decades long immersion in cultural practices to heal himself from the trauma he experienced in childhood and reconnect culturally. The Northern Ponca were targeted for termination in the 1960s, as the Osage were. Generations of Taylor’s family were separated from their culture, which isn’t surprising given the multiple assaults on Northern Ponca sovereignty by the U.S. In Astoria, Norwegians like my spouse, left treats out for the Nisse. Written during his last year in Nebraska, Taylor describes the book as “storytelling, sharing, personal history, and remembrance of these spiritual beings popularly thought of as gnomes, elves, leprechauns,” who he said the Northern Ponca call the Chahochina, the little people. He sat backlit against a pane of glass, a spindly purple leaf hanging above his head. Taylor’s coworkers from the Astoria Coop and friends filled the room. There’s an open expanse of water-it’s about five miles to the other side-a fish processing plant, an echo of early salmon fishing days. Before the reading, my husband and I walked at Tansy Point, where the Chinook signed the treaty that took their land. The reading was held on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a library located in an abandoned bank building in Warrenton, Oregon, at the very mouth of the Columbia. When Cliff Taylor (enrolled with the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska) read recently from his memoir, The Memory of Souls, it was like being in church.
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