- Agnes Vanderburg (b. 1901), Native American, is a member of the Flathead Tribe in northwestern Montana. She is shown pit-roasting camas bulbs by an elaborately layered traditional method requiring two to three days. Preparation of this yam-like food is but one of the tribal customs and skills which Mrs. Vanderburg works to preserve. She conducts a summer camp, sponsored by the tribal council, to teach and practice this lore. Participants are children and young adults from the tribe, who learn applied traditions that might otherwise fade from practice and memory. The campsite, not far from Mrs. Vanderburg’s birthplace, is a wild terrain of conifers and fast-running stream. Campers learn by experience, with their instructor acting as a resource person: she sometimes Page 250 →teaches directly, and sometimes lets them devise their own solutions for primitive living techniques. Skills taught include the old ways of gathering and using berries, roots, bulbs and barks; and of living safely and rewardingly with wild lands and creatures. Traditional ways are not presented as being more primitive, but rather as representing an alternate technology.
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