Gerald "Bruce" Miller

b. 23 Apr 1944 d. 5 Feb 2005 on Skokomish Tribal Res., Shelton, WA. MEMORIAL: Mason County Journal Family, friends gather in memory of subiyay. by Jeff Green They came from near and far last Saturday afternoon to honor Skokomish tribal member Bruce Miller, who died unexpectedly on February 5 at age 60. Miller, who was more than six fee tall, cast a large shadow across the landscape of the Skokomish Indian Reservation north of Shelton and well beyond. he was a master storyteller, a keeper of Skokomish traditions, a traditional artist and revered tribal elder. Hundreds of people, many of them clad in traditional cedar-bark hats, red-and-black button blanket-style clothing and other traditional garb, crowded into the Skokomish longhouse and one of two large tents just across the driveway from the Miller's home. They came on a brisk, windy day for a memorial celebration of the life of the man known by his Indian name, subiyay. Young women handed out bottled water and cups of coffee while singers chanted in the background. OUTSIDE, ON the road running past the Skokomish Tribal Center and up on State Route 106 near Hood Canal School, young men and boys with blankets draped over their shoulders and wearing red arm bands directed traffic. "We've felt a sadness, a heaviness that has gripped our soul," Miller's nephew Michael Pavel told the crowd huddled inside the longhouse. "If the rains come, it's washing away the tears of this Earth." Later, Pavel quoted his late uncle. "I may be gone, but my breath is still here," Miller once said. "Art is a powerful form of expression. Our art tells our stories." Miller also said, "I will teach whoever comes to learn. My immortality is the teaching I leave behind." "WE KNOW this man was thought of highly throughout the world," Pavel said. Indeed, a representative of Governor Christine Gregoire, State Senator and Mason County Commissioner Tim Sheldon and Mason County Commissioner Jayni Kamim each spoke about Miller and the richness he brought to the community and county. "He has intertwined our past with our present and future," Kamin said. Inside one of the tents, George Amiotte stood and spoke about his good friend. "When I pass on some of my ashes will be here in this valley, be here on the beaches, be here amid the trees because this is my home. And the man that did all this was subiyay by saying, "Come, come and listen to the people," he said. Years ago, the first time he went into the old longhouse he was able to cry. For a long time he wasn't able to, Amiotte said. "I spent time in Veitnam as a warrior and I seen some horrible, terrible things and my spirit was fractured and I didn't know that." Thanks to subiyay and the Miller family, he said, he was able to balance himself. "I know the man has touched each and every one of you in his own way. and it's going to be through the prayers, the songs and the time that he spent (that) he is going to live on. My daughters called him uncle Bruce, uncle subiyay," Amiotte said. ALAN PARKER, who teaches at The Evergreen State College in Olympia also talked about subiyay. "I didn't know Bruce Miller as well as many of you, maybe, but I knew him enought to have great respect for him and to love him as a gift from the creator, somebody who had dedicated his life to the people, dedicated his mind to his art and he was always so gnererous and willing to share that with whoever." Parker added: "Bruce was just so generous with his time. He enriched everything we try to do at Evergreen because he would bring his generous spirit and his gifts from the creator onto our campus and everything that we try to do to make our school a place that can serve the Indian people, a place of learning for the Native students who would come there. We owe so much to Bruce."