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Pilgrims take first steps to walk alongside the Yakama People

Mt. Adams
Pahto (Mt. Adams) is the geographical center of the Yakama cosmology. Photographer: Stephanie Weaver.

April 8-12, 21 people participated in the Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples Pilgrimage on the lands of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The experience was led by Sarah Augustine, co-founder and executive director of The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. 

April 8, Pahto (Mt. Adams) greeted 21 participants of the Indigenous Solidarity Pilgrimage, co-sponsored by The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and Mennonite Mission Network. Campbell Farm, near Yakima Washington, provided lodging and excellent meals during the five days of learning and reflection. Pahto means “Standing Tall” in Ichishkíin, the Yakama language. 

“Pahto is the first one to greet the rising sun. It is the source of water and the home to which the salmon return,” said Carol Craig, a member of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and docent at the Yakama Nation Museum. “Pahto is sacred.”  

Pilgrimage participants traveled from as far away as the Atlantic Coast of Turtle Island (USA) and represented various denominations — Catholic, Community Churches, Episcopal, Mennonite and Methodist. They came with a desire to become better acquainted with the Yakama People and their profound connection to the land.

The pilgrimage was led by Sarah Augustine, co-founder and executive director of The Coalition. Participants learned that, although the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation have sovereignty, they are also subject to United States government policies designed to wipe out Indigenous culture and spirituality. Photographer: Dan Peplow 

Dewy Bill, director of Mending Wings, and Sarah Augustine led participants through a historical tour of important aspects of Yakama history. Mending Wings offers many youth programs with the goal of “helping our people fly again.” Photographer: Dewy Bill

 

The U.S. government violently took Mool-Mool, a sacred oak grove named for the gurgle of natural spring water and desecrated it by building Ft. Simcoe to subjugate the Yakama People in the late 1850s. Photographer: Ruth Kauffmann.

 After three years, Ft. Simcoe was turned over to the Indian Service, now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Indian Service opened a boarding school on the premises with the goal of “civilizing” Yakama children. The Indian Service was responsible for managing the United States’ policies regarding the Native American Peoples and overseeing trade, treaties, and land transactions during a period of significant westward expansion and conflict. 

The location is named Fort Simcoe Historical State Park with signs glorifying the three years that the land was used as a fort. There is no mention of the centuries that the Yakama people gathered at Mool-Mool for religious ceremonies or the 60 years that children were kept in the concentration camp, that was called a boarding school.


Dewy Bill, seated at right on the canon, gives historical context to Lisa Hughes, Pat Bell and Lynda Hollinger-Janzen. Photographer: Stephanie Weaver. 

The Ft. Simcoe jail became a place of torture for boarding school children. Witnesses described this structure as being so tightly packed with small bodies that the children couldn’t sit or lie down. At Fort Simcoe’s boarding school, Indigenous children faced systemic abuse beyond the jail, including forced labor, inadequate food, and exposure to diseases like tuberculosis due to poor living conditions. The jail was one part of a punitive system that included whippings, public humiliation, and other forms of corporal punishment in attempt to coerce Indigenous children to accept assimilation into White settler culture. Photographer: Lynda Hollinger-Janzen 

Many pilgrimage participants felt the horrors that occurred at the boarding school from 1860-1920s in physical manifestations of great sorrow as they walked over the bones of children dumped into the ground without burial rites or markers. Here, Pat Bell, stands inside the jail, remembering the children, who suffered and died. Photographer: Lynda Hollinger-Janzen.

 

Dewy Bill, third from left, leads the Mending Wings singers and drummers. Photographer: Sarah Augustine.
Mending Wings youth dance their prayers through a variety of traditional steps. Videographer: Lynda Hollinger-Janzen.

Pilgrimage participants visited a farm and a ranch that work at healing the land. Here, Sarah Augustine leads the group through grasslands on Island Road Cattle Ranch, located on the Yakama Indian Reservation that she and her husband, Dan Peplow, manage. The ranch operates as a sustainable beef cattle operation, emphasizing environmental justice and ecological restoration. It was established to transform a conventional cattle ranch into a model that balances conservation and production, supporting native ecosystems and Yakama cultural values. Photographer: Roger Piper-Ruth.

Each day of the pilgrimage began and ended with reflection and prayer. Photographer: Sarah Augustine. 

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Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples Pilgrimage

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The main portion of this map is Section 22 of Elkhart Township. The Elkhart River is on the left side of the overlay. The blue line highlights the trail. Map courtesy of Google. Overlay courtesy of Luke Gascho.
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