(fire crackling) (music) - [Toma] I think it's important for us, as Natives, to tell our stories and to pass them down to our children.

And so they respect the land.

And they show that there is something out there that we can't always explain, but we show respect for it.

I think that's part of like what I feel Sasquatch is, is he lives out there.

It doesn't take and take, he just takes what he needs, and I think that's something that we can all learn by.

(music fades) - [Speaker] Do you think there could be a large, hairy ape wandering the Pacific Northwest?

- [Speaker On TV 1] On the ground, there was a footprint.

Big footprint.

- [Speaker On TV 2] Some kind of demented creature.

(Bigfoot cartoon growls) (TV character exclaims) (Bigfoot character growls) (TV characters screaming) (music) - [Speaker On TV 3] With thermal imagers, we can see into the tree line and see if there's any Bigfoots hiding in the shadows behind the brush.

(music continues) - He was standing right there.

(Bigfoot growling) (music fades) (music) - It's interesting to see all of these searching for Bigfoot films, documentaries, docuseries, where they're literally out there looking to find Bigfoot, capture him, kill him.

I don't really know what they're expecting to do.

They'll never find him.

Because Bigfoot is spirit.

Being a Native person, especially from the Northwest, Bigfoot is in all of our stories.

Bigfoot is thought about, considered almost weekly in people's lives, almost daily.

(music continues) Bigfoot has always been a part of our lives since the time that I can remember growing up and hearing stories.

All of these stories are passed down through oral histories.

Our parents would talk about what they had heard from their grandparents, and their grandparents told them what they had heard from their grandparents.

(music continues) I never expected that I would be creating a piece for Bigfoot.

And so when I'm thinking about this dress, I knew it needed to have shells.

I knew it needed to have wood on it.

I knew it needed to be a dark, dark color.

- I've always liked Bigfoot.

I've seen him a couple times.

And here we say he, because you really can't see a gender, so we don't know if we're seeing a he or a she.

- Remember when we heard Bigfoot up at Pearson Creek?

- Well, there was logging going on up there and they do not like that.

- [Acosia] Yeah.

- Sometimes even do a little, mm- - [Acosia] Oh- - Destructive stuff to some of their equipment.

- Yeah.

Every time I've heard of somebody looking for Bigfoot, well, it's mostly white men, they never find Bigfoot, but what they do find out is a lot about themselves.

- That's true.

(music continues) Up here in our mountains is where all these stories come from.

These are where the huckleberries grow.

This is where we pick the patishway.

And this is where they talked about sharing berry bushes with whole families of Istiyehe.

Istiyehe is how you would say Bigfoot.

Right now is mushroom hunting season.

This would be an area that Istiyehe would be sharing with our people, because Istiyehe is a gatherer.

(water trickling) This little creek only runs through here through the springtime 'cause it's a snow runoff.

(water trickling) We share all of the water in these mountains with our relatives, our animal and plant relatives.

(Acosia breathes deeply) Oh, such a blessing.

Chúush tashamash.

(water continues trickling) (music) - I think the way we view him is that he's like family, and I think that we have coexisted with him for a long time.

It makes me think of why people might say Sasquatch isn't real.

Like, that's clearly up to you, and you can believe the way you want to believe.

But I've always believed that this is definitely something that has lived here for a long time.

And so I put like all that thought and that kinda energy with this mask while I work on it.

The idea of the mask, I wanted it to be feminine.

I wanted it to not have this creation like of a gorilla or a monkey.

I wanted it to feel like a being or a person, like it has its own character to it.

The eyes, I try to pull from like Columbia River styles, like the She Who Watches kind of almond eyes.

And so bringing those elements in was pretty important to me and to represent Columbia River 'cause it's a big part of who I am as well as an artist.

And while carving, it's like in your mind, you're like, "It's in there.

I just gotta work its way out."

Like, everything that it needs to be is in this block of wood.

I just gotta release it.

And so now this becomes part of our tribe's history.

(music continues) (bird squawking) - In the forest, there's always a feeling that everything is alive.

And at times it can feel as if another thought enters your mind, and that thought is simply some element of the life force around us.

And soon thereafter, you begin to sense and feel that there's another presence here.

(Phil speaking in nimipuutímt) When you look at the larger mainstream, really it comes down to an issue of whether or not you believe in Sasquatch.

For Native people, that's not the issue.

Our oral traditions and our oral history are actually a kind of knowledge system.

Our people will continue to have these kinds of experiences as profound as they are.

And that experience just tells us that we are still a part of this greater mystery in that it helps us to understand at a deeper level the reality of this world that we're in.

My elders always said, "Have one heart and one mind when you go out, because someday something is gonna communicate to you when you think and believe in that way."

(music fades) (animal howling) - The Red Bear is what my grandmother called him, was the Red Bear, the Protector.

And it was always told that they were never to be inhabited or found, to not pursue.

'Cause what are they gonna do?

Are they gonna dissect him and cut him up and test him, see what his DNA and how things are?

He was never to be found, to be studied because he's a caretaker.

When we inhabited all of our lands before we got put on the reservation, he was present everywhere, that he knows and understands that what we do, and we know and understand what he does because he sing the songs.

He knows the language.

Today, we still carry the relationship.

We still carry the kinship.

(music) And I believe he takes care of the songs for the medicine dance.

That's what was shared from our ancestors who are no longer with us, that he used to sing the songs.

As I come today to provide an offering and to those that we speak of, to our relatives out there, that we're always thankful for the gifts that we have and that are given to us, that I provide to my ancestors, my spirits this beautiful day.

(drumming) (Carlos chanting) I know he's there, he's present, he's amongst us, and that he's our relative.

And one day one of us will be able to carry the songs, or maybe our children will bring those songs back to bring strength to our people.

(Carlos chanting) (music) - Bigfoot is a belief system.

It's something that we believe in for some reason.

'Cause everything in life is a call and response.

"What is Bigfoot calling us for?

Why are we so yearning to find this Bigfoot?"

(music) Along the way, we're learning a lot more about ourselves and learning a lot more about our environment because Bigfoot lives in relationship to their environment.

(helicopter blades whirring) We are in a time of emergency.

(music continues) Our environment is sick because of our actions.

The way that we've been living is night and day to the way that Bigfoot lived his life.

Bigfoot's calling to us to remember something about our humanness, about our relationship to the soil that we live on, that we walk on.

- All the changes that have happened all across the landscape, could be forestry, it could be mining, it could be climate change, all of these events have an impact on the landscape.

And when you think about it carefully, some of the encounters in the mainstream really do relate to logging and other things like that because they're disrupting these environments, and that's wherein lies some of the reasons why they appear to non-Native people as well.

(music) - You look at corporate greed today, what's that gonna do to the climate in time?

How's that gonna be for our animals?

How's that gonna be for our relatives that are out there?

It hits me hard.

Hits me hard to see what they're doing today, how they're raking the land for money today.

That's really changing our seasons, that's taking away our foods.

When we go beyond our means, then it's him that takes away from us.

"You guys aren't doing right.

I'm gonna take your roots from you.

I'm gonna take your snow from you.

I'm gonna take your water."

We've seen drought.

We've seen drought with our own eyes.

We've seen where we've had our roots season, then it snowed on and all our roots went back under the ground.

We've seen where there was no huckleberries one year.

And those are things we have to be mindful of under our unwritten laws today, of what he can control as a protector.

(cryptic music continues) - Tamánwit's Law is our origin story and the first law that tribal people live by.

Every tribe has a different name for it.

It means that everything that we do has a ripple effect.

And that our actions, our reactions to others and even our thoughts will ripple into the future to affect the seventh generation and beyond.

We are the seventh generation.

Look at all of these things that are starting to happen and how Native people are starting to stand up and kinda wipe the fog off of their glasses.

We've been hitting snooze for a very long time.

But we do have a lot of work to do and we have a lot of changes we need to make environmentally.

That's where Bigfoot comes in.

Bigfoot teaches us to take care of the land, to walk lightly, to leave no trace, to be one with the soil, one with the trees, one with the earth.

'Cause in every rock and in every tree and in every piece of soil is also us.

'Cause we are the land.

- There were laws when they were given to us under Nchi Tamánwit, the big law.

That's not written on paper.

When we take, we have to give back to the rivers, we have to give back to the land, and also give back to those that caretake of our natural resources and as well our foods.

(Carlos chanting) We let him know, and we'll either sing a song, just like when we go to our cemeteries or we go to certain sacred areas.

We introduce ourselves with our name, where we come from, who we are so the land will recognize us, so that he or she will recognize us.

(drumming) That was always what was shared to me: to respect everything that's above this earth, that you don't take beyond or you don't waste.

Everything is related to this earth.

Everything was gifted.

We all have a time above this earth, and every living thing has a body, heart and spirit.

(Carlos chanting) (drumming) (object clatters) The flat cedar, tobacco, the kunć.

(object clatters) And our First Foods, which were laws that were given to us.

As I offered a tobacco, I leave a little bit of money.

(coin clatters) Indian money.

Thankful for the gifts that you see and set in front of us that the Creator has provided, and that it's the protector that provides each and every one of us that I give back this beautiful day.

- I've never worked on something like this before, so thank you for sharing how grandma taught you.

- She always told me, you know, "I'm not gonna make these for my grandkids because I make this stuff to sell."

The bead work and everything.

So she always said, "You need to learn how to do this."

- [Acosia] Mm-hmm.

- So she did teach me the way of this tribe.

The length of the sleeves, traditionally, for a dress you lived in and worked in, it came right there.

- The other night, I actually added more pieces on to make the sleeve longer, so now it hangs over the elbow.

- Yeah.

- And I tried to make big stitches because I'm thinking like Bigfoot wouldn't have these perfect stitches.

They would be big stitches probably out of deer sinew or something.

So I did try to make those stitches bigger.

(fire crackling) - So masks, as we work on 'em, we put our energy into it.

A lot of thoughts, memories, maybe even the future.

And the people that wear 'em, they definitely take on that energy as well.

(Toma blows) (music) - Just having respect within your heart for the gift that we have today under Nchi Tamánwit, our unwritten laws.

Knowin' and understandin', you know, and having that relationship, and as well the respect for those relatives that we hope will never get found, that people know they're there just like we do.

We can sing the songs, and they sing their songs for us too.

(music) - Like, how closely related are we to Bigfoot?

How much of Bigfoot is actually in our DNA?

And have we really been looking for Bigfoot or just searching for clues to learn more about ourselves?

Because Bigfoot is also in us.

It's our relative.

I'm positive that Bigfoot is more closely related to us than we even realize.

(music) (music fades)