GENE “RED HAWK” DAVENPORT
For the Storyteller, the world was one huge book. My job is to hand down the stories and history, and to tell the things I know so they belong to all the children to carry on a culture and tradition of the people forever. We are all one people, all related. With the same father, the creator, and the same mother, the earth. We must learn to work together and care for our environment and each other, and to pass these things on, in the best of ways, to future generations.
We discover through Nature the aloneness, truth, and simplicity of life.
Gene “Red Hawk” Davenport travels throughout the Northwest as a Storyteller of Histories of Native America, and using his skills as an accomplished craftsman, teaches the old ways to make daily items tools, artifacts and jewelry using highest-grade gems. He teaches at colleges and grade schools, libraries, youth camps, and all-age campfires. He has entertained at the Tsalila Festival in Reedsport, at Rhododendron Days, Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrations, and the Winter Folk Festival at the Florence Events Center. He has also presented all-day seminars at Lane Community College in Florence. His program, “The Great Tsunami of 1700,” has been especially popular.
Gene served as a fisheries culturist in Idaho and Oregon and worked with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Salmon and Trout Enhancement Program (STEP), which has the goals of rehabilitating natural habitat and native fish stocks, and insuring that harvest does not exceed fish reproductive capability. He is also a horticulturalist and speaker on Native American herbs, plants, and landscaping for audiences that range from elementary school students through adults at garden clubs.
Gene is a musician, published poet, and photographer, as well as a fine chef of open-fire and Indian cuisine. His book, “Old Indian Cookbook,” combines recipes, philosophy and poetry. He is a Pow Wow dancer in Men’s Traditional style, and a hunter and fisherman who prides himself on his ability to camp out for months at a time and live off the land.