# “Pray Into That Tree”: An Interview with Chief Mak’wala Rande Cook ## “Pray Into That Tree”: An Interview with Chief Mak’wala Rande Cook Thinking with Plants and Fungi Conference 2025 **Natalia Schwien Scott**, Advisor and Program Associate, Harvard CSWR Thinking with Plants & Fungi Initiative ![Green color block](/sites/g/files/omnuum4346/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2026-01/mid-green-01.png?itok=I6NBIxSf) *Harvard University is located on the traditional, unceded, and ancestral land of the Massachusett, the original inhabitants of what is now known as Boston and Cambridge. We pay respect to the people of the Massachusett Tribe, past and present, and honor the land itself which remains sacred to the Massachusett People.* --- In March 2025, Thinking with Plants & Fungi Initiative partnered with Awi’nakola, a non-profit based in what is now known as British Columbia, to organize a field trip that brought students and scholars into the forests and along the shorelines of the Pacific Northwest.[1](#references) Founded by Chief Mak’wala Rande Cook (*Galapa*) of the *Ma’amtagila* Nation, Awi’nakola brings together Indigenous knowledge keepers, scientists, and artists with a shared commitment to developing tangible solutions to the climate crisis and educating communities on collective land values. During our time together, the Awi’nakola team guided us not only through primordial rainforests but also into meaningful conversations with their community. We gathered seaweed with Nuu-chah-nulth herbalist and artist Petrina Dezall, who explained the many uses of its varieties; we sat with *Pacheedaht* Elder Bill Jones, who shared stories and teachings on the importance of being a good guest; and from W̱SÁNEĆ Elder ZȺWIZUT Carl Olsen of Tsartlip, we learned about the fight to protect ancient salmon streams.[2](#references) We came to see how deeply creative expression and ceremony were woven together in the collective work of Awi’nakola as well as in Cook’s own biography. Cook is a Hereditary Chief and prolific multimedia First Nations artist known for his inventive reinterpretations of traditional forms of Indigenous design through mediums including printmaking and wood carving. Born in Alert Bay, British Columbia, he now works out of his studio in Victoria, and his work has been displayed at galleries internationally. Cook holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria and previously served as the Audain Professor of Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest in the university’s Visual Arts department. In this interview, we explored origin stories, ritual as an act of reciprocity with the more-than-human world, and the ways in which his people have maintained that relationship since time immemorial. **Natalia**: Tell me about the West Coast Kwakwaka’wakw homelands. **Rande**: Where do I begin? The love that our people have had for the land for thousands and thousands of years can be seen when you go into ancient village sites. The cultivation, the care, the tending, all of it—from root gardens to villages by flowing rivers to culturally modified trees to traditional harvesting areas. There’s so much poetry, created by hands consistently moving throughout centuries, beautiful lyrical motions within song originating with the wind in trees or in healthy soil, or the sound of rivers and birds—all together building healthy ecosystems. **Natalia**: I love how you invoke a sense of time that is both expansive and deeply personal—to me, that contrasts the fast-paced individualism so pervasive in today’s mainstream culture. You hold chieftainships from both your maternal side and your paternal side—from your father’s side, you are *Gigalgam* (The First Ones), Making the Thunderbird (*Kwanusila*) the crest of the *Namgis* (*Nimpkish*) tribe. From your mother’s side, you are from the Seagull (*Hamatam*) of the *Ma’amtagila* (*Matilpi* Village) tribe. I imagine that training to be a community leader and cultural knowledge keeper was integral to your upbringing. How did “learning the land” play a role in that education? How were you taught to lead a community that includes more-than-human kin? **Rande**: I was fortunate to be raised by my grandparents. My grandfather was a residential school survivor, and he shared traumatic stories of his experiences. His family was secretly keeping our culture alive, moving from village to village throughout the winter and holding ceremony in the summer. Though he was seldom allowed to be with them, when they were reunited, he participated by dancing and singing in those ceremonies, and he shared with me the stories that he remembered from visiting villages while the beautiful forests were still healthy and our people were still harvesting, whether it was salmon and from our root gardens. My grandmother had a unique story. The missionaries came into our villages with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to extract children and send them to the residential schools—if parents resisted, the RCMP would arrest them and remove the children anyways, then force the parents into prisons. So, parents openly relinquished their children, but my grandmother’s grandfather, who was a high-ranking hereditary chief, wrapped her in a blanket and took her into the mountains. From that mountainside, she could hear all of the community members on the beach, crying as the children were leaving on boats. A lot of families packed their bags and left the next day, moving to be near the residential schools, so they could be close to their children. And this is how our ancestral villages were abandoned. My gran was raised underground, hidden, throughout the prohibition against practicing our culture. If you were caught, you were sentenced to prison. So, her grandfather moved with her from village to village, secretly keeping the culture alive, and she grew up witnessing this survival of culture. Her grandfather’s focus was to keep resource negotiations alive between families who were upholding our traditional rights to the rivers and different areas of land. He knew that by removing Indigenous people from their communities and homelands, it opened the door to resource extraction. So, I was raised with those stories. And my grandmother was very adamant that I was to be initiated into our culture’s relationships with land by my great uncles who brought me into the forest. I was taught not only to sit in silence, to meditate and pray through fasting and bathing, but also to connect with trees. One morning, before a big potlatch, my great-uncle asked me: *Do you feel fear?* I was a young boy, and I responded that I was very scared. He asked me: *What are you scared of?* I said, *I don’t know—that something might happen to me while fasting and bathing, and I’m scared of ghosts; I don’t want to be presented with something I'm not ready for yet.* My uncle said, *look to the trees you’re sitting with—reach up to the highest tree and grab its lowest branch, pull the branch as hard as you can with both hands, and hang on, and pray into that tree while holding that branch with all your strength.* So, I did as I was told to do; I was holding this branch with all my strength until I couldn’t anymore, and when I let it go, it whipped so high. And he said, *that tree will take all of that fear from you. That’s your connection—trees are always there to help and guide you.* Likewise, my grandmother used to say that, as Indigenous people, we don’t own the land—we never have. The land belongs to our children and to future generations. It is our responsibility to make sure that it’s taken care of for them. We speak for the land, and we must do what we can to bring our people back, so that we’re able to fish and plant thriving root gardens. It brings me back to origin stories; my favorite is the story of Umeth and the Great Cedar Tree, who teaches her the ceremonial idiom—“As you breathe life into me, I will breathe life into you.” In exchange for song, Great Cedar Tree gives Umeth the roots she needs to weave beautiful baskets. I keep a transcription of the tale with me, always. If you are interested in reading our origin stories, I would suggest Kwakuitk Tales in *Kwakiutl Legends: As Told to Pamela Whitaker by Chief James Wallas*.[3](#references) These stories like this one teach us that the Kwakwaka’wakw people recognize that humans are the youngest species on this planet. We’re infants, we're still learning. Our first ancestors descended from the heavens, and for survival, they needed knowledge from the rest of the world. In fact, it was the forest that taught them how to build the first house—to build a home. **Natalia**: This question on learning from other species brings up a tension I often hear in conversations on land relationality: the difference between land owned through financial transactions and traditional territories stewarded by a social group—whether that be an other-than-human pack or a human community. During our trip to British Columbia with Awi’nakola, you, your team, and your community taught us about protocols for how one respectfully enters and treats land that is the territory of another tribe: For example, one must know from which elders to ask permission, which spirits to honor upon entering; that there are rules about gathering, fishing, and hunting; that there are rituals which must be observed in order to establish safety and trust. This is a completely different understanding of care for familiar land than how modern capitalism has approached “payment” and “land ownership.” When a social group or an individual has a close and intimate relationship with land, they know what trees can be felled, what berries can be picked, what animals are not to be touched, what balance in that particular ecosystem looks like. They have a responsibility to care for that land—as opposed to “ownership” which indicates a kind of control that I did not experience in your teachings on territory and protocol. Could you speak to where you understand the nuances, intentions, and approaches to “ownership” as opposed to “territory”? **Rande**: Yeah, it’s an interesting one, right? Our Kwakwaka’wakw origin stories outline a form of governance that contributed to thousands of years of harmony between us and the land. As you say, if a community lives in a specific area, they’re going to know that land extremely well, which is why protocol is necessary. Capitalism teaches that humans can just buy land and do what we want with it—but in our homelands, traditionally, the multiple tribes had the different areas they occupied. Some tribes resided near a river with flowing salmon, but some rivers didn’t have salmon. Some tribes may have had massive clam beds, while others had bigger root gardens. So, we had a structured system based on intermarriage and the transfer of dowry with the goal of creating abundance for our children. And these children were raised *with* the land, and the knowledge of how to care for it integrated throughout that education. This would then be shared between communities. **Natalia**: I love how you put that. It seems like relational specificity is really the key, and it’s what makes possible the kinds of exchanges—of resources or even community members—that weave a network together. **Rande**: Yes—in different territories, relationships to land are going to be different, and that influences how a system of reciprocity and responsibility between the human communities is structured. And so, rituals are really important. Not only for understanding and articulating relationships between human groups, but also with the land. Our people would go and connect to specific trees, depending on their territory. It could be a cedar tree, it could be a spruce, it could be a yew or a hemlock. All of these trees have their own communication and spirit. Connecting with them through ritual is important—it would even inform our relationships between other medicinal plants. In our culture, the penalty for destroying or harming any resource was death. Even during warfare—like all cultures, there would be disputes between nations, and we would go to war, and people were slaughtered. The Kwakwaka’wakw were headhunters; they would take the heads of the offending people and put them on stakes all along the rivers, and the river would flow red until they placed a down-feather from an eagle on the water as the symbol of peace. We did this to reset an imbalance—it was a warning that nations causing harm must take responsibility and rebuild. That rebuilding could take a hundred years or more, and through that time, they would have to live with the memory of the wrong they committed. But, the land would remain intact, ready to help them in that work. We never took land. Ever. **Natalia**: That brings me back to questions on ritual. Would you be willing to share about Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs)? **Rande**: Culturally Modified Trees are trees whose bodies indicate intervention by humans in some way. Living trees who carry scars from where their bark has been harvested or pulled to build planks for our homes. Prayers are said before we pull the bark from a tree. Something like*, I will breathe life into you as you breathe life into me*. Our earliest Kwakwaka’wakw philosophies teach us that trees are alive and each have a spirit, so we must leave them alive. When our ancestors would utilize parts of the tree to build a house, they would pull from many trees, rather than cut an entire tree down. They are all we really have left of this kind of practice to clearly demonstrate our relationship, as Indigenous people, with the land that is now known as British Columbia. They are monuments. They should be protected; technically, legally, they are, but industry moves very quickly with machinery now. While clear cutting, the timber industry will just cut down the CMTs that are in their way. The trees are immediately chipped up, so we don’t know they were felled until we see the stump which holds the scar from the pulled bark. And it’s devastating. I stood on one such CMT stump—it must have been 1,000 to 1,500 years old with massive rings—surrounded by clear-cut forest and logging roads. They tore up the whole area, but from the geography and the kinds of stones that were there, I could tell that before colonial contact, the land would have been a valley bottom with a flowing river. So, the presence of CMTs would have made sense, because, from the village, one could walk up and harvest the bark in close proximity to home. Sure enough, when I went back to research notes, there was an ancient Indigenous name connected to that place, so, it was indeed a village site, now completely abolished, wiped out from logging with blasted roads, graveled and leveled. But the CMT stump reminds us of the relationships that once governed that land—the ritual and ceremony central to balance. My good friend the forest ecologist Suzanne Simard and I work together on projects that honor Indigenous knowledge systems while integrating art and science so that we might renew our connection with land and find solutions for healing forests and oceans.[4](#references) I first got to know Suzanne during my Master’s research at University of Victoria, where I wrote my Master’s degree thesis on CMTs, the language surrounding them, and the knowledge they hold. She and I were exploring tree communication and looking at how different plant species are connected to different tree species, and I started to think it through with my Indigenous lens. I realized that we, as Kwakwaka’wakw people, have culturally mirrored those plant cultures. There are different “societies” in our human culture, each with a special and specific role. Hereditary chiefs, like myself, are groomed in the *Hamatsa* society, which is deeply connected to the cedar tree. My daughter, who is a *Paxala*, or a medicine keeper, has been groomed within a different society—one that connects with hemlocks and the spruces for their healing qualities. *Winalagalis* societies groom our warriors, and they are connected to yew and balsam and spruce trees. But, in the end they are all interconnected and depend on each other. So, with this in mind, I invited Suzanne to the Great Bear Rainforest to get our hands in some soil. While we were walking amongst the trees one day, I had a realization; in my research, I had looked at CMTs from a material perspective, considering how we have harvested bark to make baskets, planks, etc.—and from a cultural perspective, exploring the spiritual relationship we create with a single tree through ritual and ceremony. But, ecologically, I had not considered the impact. I asked her, *Let’s say that you’re on the same land every year. You’re harvesting, you’re berry picking, you're using the medicines. And one year, there might be a drought, and you know the plants need nutrients to fuel that area. Could you activate that area by pulling the bark?* And she goes, *Oh! Absolutely. Pulling the bark would signal to the surrounding trees to send nutrients, which would then rush into that dry area to make sure that it thrives again.* Sure enough, in the area where we were, there were CMTs, and the ecosystem was thriving, abundant with salmon berries and blueberries, all interconnected like our ancestral cultural systems—each species like a Kwakwaka’wakw society with a role in mutual activation and balance. **Natalia**: So, ritual is not only central to maintaining a strong relationship with trees, but through the very act of ritual, the entire surrounding ecosystem responds and flourishes. I understand that the Kwakwaka’wakw people have a number of traditional dances that also act as rituals to honor the more-than-human world—and, you recently developed and debuted a new dance to honor the Fungal Kingdom at the Kinship Ceremony this past March. Could you speak on what inspired you? And what is the significance of introducing a new branch of dance into the traditional repertoire of relational-movement? **Rande**: Responsibility comes to mind first. Asking myself, what does it mean to be a chief? I spend a lot of time in our territory, and I witness the destruction. As a culture, we didn’t know how to even start the process of mourning for our forests, it’s happening too fast. So, last year, we held our first *sała* for the trees—a traditional mourning ceremony. We hold these *sała* for our loved ones who have passed, but we’ve never held a ceremony for the trees that have fallen. Throughout that work, our community and the Awi’nakola team had been talking about the importance of fungi, and how they are not protected. It’s actually mind-blowing—the most regenerative species on the planet carries on with no regard. Then, I started to think about stories, and I started to think about how we celebrate different so-called “kingdoms” culturally in our ceremonies. We have a bee kingdom, bird kingdoms, sea kingdoms; we have a forest, an animal kingdom, but nothing around mushrooms, nothing around fungi. As I sat with that, I wondered what future generations—100 or 200 years from now—might say when they look back and ask, *What did our ancestors do for us?* We need to be a living culture, we need to be in the moment, doing what we can—not just talking about it. For example, creating the “Tree of Life” gatherings with Awi’nakola was a way to “not just talk.” We wanted to bring people together in action, in community—so, at these gatherings, we bring Western scientists, artists, Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, and community members to work together to restore ancient village sites. To put our hands in the dirt, to feel the soil, to feel all the emotions that come along with that relationship in action—the grief, the joy, all of it. Then when folks leave, we can process those emotions and find ways to move forward. I asked myself, *what is the land asking of us?* The land is asking for presence. The land is asking for us to return. The land is asking for our hands to be in the soil. Fungi are the embodied symbol of that soil’s regeneration, and if we aren’t going to recognize their regenerative properties, and if we're not going to protect them, it says a lot about where we are as a culture. But there are value systems and natural laws that once governed our cultures that did prioritize and protect regeneration. We can celebrate these ancient parts of culture that unify us all—our love for our homelands. We continue to protect that land, we continue to show respect, and that’s what I’m trying to do with the Fungi Kingdom Dance. And it is symbolic of the issues we are currently facing; it aims to inspire new stories which can grow into respectful and reciprocal governance. When it’s performed in our traditional Big House, it’s a statement from me as a hereditary chief—that I am saying fungi need to be protected. It is a recognition of those connective and regenerative qualities, because we are in a time when we need to regenerate. And the future generations—200, 300, 500 years from now—if they’re still performing this dance in their way, I hope that it’s in celebration and gratitude, a thank you to their ancestors—our current leadership who, together, had the vision to actually make a statement where rituals still inform ceremony which structures relationship, building an interconnected network of species that our culture then mirrors. By introducing the Fungi Kingdom Dance into our sacred spaces shows we are a living culture, rebuilding our ancient village sites, inspiring our children to bring back the practice of cultivating root gardens, protecting the CMTs, remembering the songs of the rivers and birds, and all together building healthy ecosystems and sustainable communities. Author Biography ### Natalia Schwien Scott Natalia is an herbalist, wildlife rescue & rehabilitation apprentice, and Ph.D. candidate in the Study of Religion at Harvard University, where she recently completed a Master of Theological Studies degree with a focus on the intersection of ecology and spiritual practice. She researches relational ontologies, posthuman ethics, and diction on personhood in scientific discourse, specifically neuroscience. Her secondary work is in Celtic Studies on trans-species soul migration in mythology and plants addressed in the vocative in Old Irish poetry. She holds three research and administrative positions at Harvard University. First, she serves as the Charter Coordinator of the [Program for the Evolution of Spirituality under Dan McKanan](https://hds.harvard.edu/faculty-research/programs-and-centers/program-evolution-spirituality). Second, she leads "Interspecies Dialogues: A Conversation Group Exploring Animism, Posthumanism, and Entangled Roots of Interrelation" which regularly features scholars, writers, scientists, filmmakers, and animacy practitioners. Finally, she serves as an Advisor and Program Associate for the Thinking with Plants & Fungi Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religion, where she leads the Reading Group. Her work has been featured in New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, Vice, For The Wild, and more. For more information + publications, visit selkieprojects.com. ![Natalia Schwien](/sites/g/files/omnuum4346/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/hds_cswr/files/jbsse6dz.natalias.newsletter_0.jpg?h=6fcc8516&itok=zrZpjPir) #### Footnotes 1. Vancouver Island is the traditional and unceded territory of the Nuuchanutl, Kwakwaka’wakw, and lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples, today known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations, Malahat, Pacheedaht, Scia’new, T’Sou-ke, W̱SÁNEĆ (Pauquachin, Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum) peoples, the K’ómoks First Nation, including Sathloot, Sasitla, leeksun, Puledge, Cha’chae, and Tat’poos Peoples, Snuneymuxw, Snaw-naw-as, Quw’utsun, and Tla’amin First Nations. We honor the deep connections of these peoples to their lands and waters, spanning countless generations. May our actions as visitors on their lands be guided by the humility of a guest and the dedication of a friend, helping to honour and sustain the life that thrives there. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 2. To read about the whole trip, see: Jeffrey Blackwell, “Harmonizing History: Journey through Vancouver Island’s Indigenous Heritage,” Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, April 16, 2025,[ ](blank) [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 3. Read more origin stories here: Ma’amtagila Nation, “Our Origin Stories,” n.d., . Rande also suggests: Chief James Wallas, *Kwakiutl Legends: As Told to Pamela Whitaker* (Hancock House Publishers, 1981). [\[Return to Section\]](#section2) 4. For readers unfamiliar with her work, Suzanne Simard is a Canadian forest ecologist whose groundbreaking research revealed how trees in forests are connected through underground networks of mycorrhizal fungi through which they cooperatively share nutrients and communicate. In her seminal book *Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest* (Penguin Random House, 2021), she presents her research findings alongside her memoir to a wider audience. [\[Return to Section\]](#section3) #### Suggested Citation Scott, Natalia Schwein. "'Pray Into That Tree': An Interview with Chief Mak’wala Rande Cook" in Thinking with Plants and Fungi: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Ecology, Mind, and the More-than-Human World, edited by Rachael Petersen, Russell Powell, and Natalia Scott Schwein. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2026.