PENDLETON — Selene Rilatos made a visit on a rainy morning Friday, Aug. 25, to Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton to see her son.

She arrived in town from Siletz close to midnight the night before, driving seven hours with a friend after a full day of work.

Rilatos and her son are members of the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians. They and many more were taking part in a pow wow at the prison, the first inside EOCI since 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The weather did not matter. The pow wow was dry and secure inside EOCI’s gym.

Pow wows are a time to celebrate life, pray and share traditional Native foods. The volunteer-run event brought light and community to inmates and their families.

Shawna Gavin, member of the Umatilla, Walla Walla, Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes, said inmates are “paying their dues to society” and not only deserve the opportunity to practice their religion but have the legal right to do so. Another volunteer, Michael R. Johnson, member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, said the pow wow helps give inmates a sense of their cultural being and spirituality that brings them together.

Even if those attending are from different tribes, he said, at the pow wow they are one family, there together.

An important part of the ceremony was the serving of traditional foods, including fry bread, salmon, meat and huckleberries. Before eating, Gavin spoke to the room about the story of the First Foods, with salmon being the first to offer themselves to humans as food, followed by deer and other animals.

Trish Jordan, organizer of the pow wow and member of the Creek Nation, said First Foods are served in an intentional order. Fish are served first, to honor them being the first to offer themselves to humans, with meat, roots then huckleberries coming after. Although roots were not present at the pow wow, salmon, venison and huckleberries were.

Jordan said sacred foods have been brought to the pow wow since 2006, but the volunteers weren’t allowed to bring the food in the kitchen this year because it doesn’t have a U.S. Department of Agriculture stamp.

She explained there is a process to preparing and presenting First Foods that follows long-existing cultural traditions. The food is hunted and gathered, she said, and the process involves prayer and humane animal killing. Jordan said between 80 and 90 pounds of venison meat was donated for the pow wow from Native people in the Klamath Falls area, and salmon was donated from the Grand Round tribe on the Oregon coast.

She said the sacred food is shared as much as possible, and at the pow wow there were plastic bags available for guests to take some food with them — sharing it with more of the community.

“Everybody takes care of each other,” Jordan said about the Native community.

Jordan also said practicing cultural traditions, such as preparing and eating traditional foods, can help heal generational trauma.

“Culture is best practiced,” she said. “And it will heal us if we allow it.”

Echoing Jordan, Rilatos said being at the pow wow was a healing experience for herself and her son. The pandemic made visiting her son in prison difficult, she said. Visitation was limited and when she did visit there was plexiglass between them. The pow wow was the first time she hugged her son since 2020, she said.

With the pandemic taking away the annual pow wow and other extracurricular opportunities, Rilantos said every inmate that could attend the pow wow did. She said the inmates wanted to see people and have good traditional food.

Rilantos wanted to bring light to the lives of the inmates at the pow wow, noting in challenging times “we all have to bring light to each other.” She said the pow wow brought smiles, laughter and medicine.

“They needed it, I needed it,” she said. “We all needed it.”