Illumination: Current Project Team

Meet the Story Collection Team for the American Indian and Alaska Native Collection

Kunu is the owner and Creative Director of Morning Star Creative leads a life of creative endeavors. Whether writing, recording, and performing original music or finding and developing documentary film stories for Oregon Public Broadcasting as a freelance Producer, Kunu maintains a professional curiosity about the world around him. In the case of Springfield History Museum’s Illumination Project Kunu accepted the role of portrait photographer because the work was in alignment with the mission statement of Morning Star Creative, to uplift the stories and people of Indian country and historically disenfranchised communities.

Sote Princi Bass-Mason mai naniha. Sote nanamenee Tokopatti tease Klamath Falls naitte. Princi Bass-Mason is an enrolled Klamath tribal member and is also Western Shoshone. She recently graduated from the University of Oregon with a BA in Political Science. They are passionate about language revitalization and evolution, hopes to contribute to tribal language programs, and indigenous sovereignty. They plan to go into the field of law. Princi loves to write, do graphic eyeliner, and play stick game. They also enjoy making film projects that revolve around Native American experiences and currently has a documentary focusing on the Klamath-Modoc-Yahooskin (Paiute) Languages. “

David G. Lewis, PhD and member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, is a recognized researcher, scholar, writer and assistant professor of anthropology and Indigenous studies at Oregon State University. His publications include “Willamette Valley Treaties,” “A History of Native Peoples of the Eugene, Cascades & Coast Region,” and others. For more than twenty years, Lewis has been passionate about studying the original histories of the people of Oregon and California and has an extensive record of collaborative research and exhibits with regional scholars, tribes, local governments, and communities. Lewis’s research specializes in the history of Kalapuyans and other Western Oregon tribes, which he explores through journal essays and on his blog The Quartux Journal. He currently resides in Chemeketa, now Salem, Oregon, with his wife, Donna, and two sons, Saghaley and Inatye.

Megan is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians with Chetco, Tututni, and Gros Ventres ancestry. She grew up in Walterville and now lives with her family in Springfield. Megan is a historical writer and researcher with a special interest in Native history. She was a contributor to the Chetco Indian Memorial in Brookings, Oregon and is currently working on a collection of biographies about historic elders from the Siletz community. She is a co-author of the forthcoming Historical Atlas of Springfield, Oregon as part of her service on the Springfield History Museum Committee.