Going Native

From his first sight of Chopaka, a mountain sacred to the Okanogan people, Harmer felt at home. He formed close relationships with members of the Okanogan band living on allotments amidst white ranches and orchards, finding work as they did, feeding cattle, irrigating alfalfa, picking apples, and eventually becoming an outreach worker for a rural social services agency. Gradually absorbing the language, traditions, and practical spirit lore as one of the family, he was guided by an elderly uncle through arduous purification rites and fasts to the realization that his life had been influenced and enhanced by a shumix, or spirit partner, acquired in childhood.