News From Native California - Spring 2015 Volume 28, Issue 3 | Page 17

VOICES OF OUR

ELDERS
In December, we had a beautiful weekend working with StoryCorps and our friends at the

Maidu Museum in Roseville to document some of the dynamic oral histories of Native California. It was a weekend full of friendly, familiar faces, good food (fried seaweed tacos!),
jewelry making, storytelling, and hand games. Our fantastic contributing editor Tiffany
Adams, who was one of the leaders in helping us organize such a lovely event, wrote a
lovely piece for our blog where she beautifully summarized the event, writing, “It was a
day of many feelings for most of the storytellers, a day of reflection, memory, of hope, and
a day of healing for many. Gathering community members of different ages, tribes, and different lives to come together and share something we all have in common, stories! The
stories of our lives.” It was a powerful, wonderful time. We formed a deep partnership with
StoryCorps, and are now trained with their mobile recording devices to go out and continue documenting the enduring stories of our community. Here are excerpts from a few of
the conversations that we recorded with elders.

Opposite: Norma Knight. All photos © StoryCorps, 2014.

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