Bertha Peters

A Luce Fellow Opens Her Home to Help Preserve Yurok Culture

Bertha Peters lives in a very special home. The 82-year-old family matriarch and pillar of the Yurok Tribe of the Yurok Reservation is the first Yurok person to live in a traditional, Redwood plank house since the removal of the Yurok people from their villages, according to her Luce Fellowship application.

Peters built her home with funding from the Humboldt Area Foundation for the purpose of reclaiming Yurok tradition and providing a place of healing for her family and community. Built from fallen Redwood trees, plank houses have long been part of the rich history of the Yurok people, who believe Redwoods are sacred, living beings and protectors.

“When we are reintroduced to living in our traditional homes, it is like meeting a part of us that we never knew was missing. It helps us reconnect to our ancestors and develop a deeper connection to our cultures,” writes the 2024 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow.

Here, in her newly built plank house, Peters has invited tribal members to stay the night to experience what it is like to live under a traditional Yurok roof. She also facilitates dinners, classes, and workshops in her home to pass on Yurok culture and traditions to the next generation. Classes she has hosted include basket weaving, dying porcupine quills, and cooking traditional foods, such as acorns.

As a certified reiki practitioner and traditional Yurok healer, Peters has also opened her door to community members who have undergone drug rehabilitation. She guides them in healing and reconnecting to their culture through homeopathic alternatives to Western medicine, such as massage therapy, song, prayer, and access to a modern sauna to hold sweats.

These welcoming learning and healing spaces that Peters has created within her home have helped to revitalize Yurok tradition and culture. As Annelia Hillman, the traditional foods coordinator for the tribe, says, “This type of learning space Bertha created that encourages reciprocity is what our communities need to confidently abandon colonial systems and Western practices in order to define for ourselves what it means to thrive and live the way we were always intended to.”

Her plans for the Luce Fellowship

With funds from the Luce Fellowship, Peters will continue to facilitate cultural learning in her home in several ways. First, she will create a series of workshops focused on traditional Yurok food preparation methods that are becoming dormant within the Yurok culture.

As a culture based along the Klamath River, the Yurok Tribe depends on salmon as its primary food source and connecting to salmon plays an essential role in living a healthy lifestyle. The Luce Fellow will hold a three-day workshop on salmon and sturgeon fishing, harvesting, and processing. Topics she will cover include net-making, fishing methods, smoking house protocols, and canning methods for salmon.

Other traditional foods that are becoming rare in the Yurok tribal community are sturgeon bread and acorn soup. At her in-home workshop, Peters will teach participants how to prepare and cook the bread, which involves cleaning sturgeon eggs. She will also hold an in-depth, multi-day workshop on how to gather, process, and prepare acorns for soup, emphasizing the cultural significance of acorns.

As an expert basket weaver, Peters will continue her basketry classes, hosting four annual retreats focused on the sustainable gathering of sticks, ferns, roots, and materials used to dye fibers, based on seasonality.

Lastly, Peters will invite tribal elders and their families into her home every three months for a special Elder Dinner featuring seasonal, traditional foods. Her goal is to encourage community connectivity, cultural dialogue, and intergenerational learning. The dinners will include cultural activities for families to participate in, including making necklaces and drums, and beargrass weaving.

“I believe that coming together to share traditional meals, similar to when we come together to share meals during ceremony, is healing for the community,” she writes in her Luce application.

A celebrated leader and culture bearer

In addition to earning a 2024 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellowship, Peters was also recognized by Seventh Generation for her lifelong dedication as a Yurok knowledge keeper and culture bearer. In 2023, she was named one of 19 Indigenous Healing & Leadership Fellows.

With the $10,000 Seventh-Generation award, Peters hosted a modern gillnet-making workshop for men in the Yurok community, as she strongly believes that Yurok men need to have healthy, cultural outlets.

Peters purchased all the materials and commissioned a male mentor to provide instruction. Participants left the workshop with a brand-new salmon fishing net, and gained confidence from learning an important, cultural skill.

The dedication that Peters has demonstrated over the years to preserving the Yurok culture is illustrated on her face. She had the traditional face tattoo worn by the women of the Trinity and Klamath River Tribes inked onto her chin. It is sometimes called “the one hundred eleven,” symbolizing identity, resistance, and connection to heritage.

It used to be rare to see Yurok women with that tattoo. “Today, crossing paths with women honored to have the traditional tattoo is common. I credit Bertha for paving the way for this tattoo to be alive today; her bravery brought it back to reality,” says Kristen Raymond, a member of Peters’ family.