Indigenous Creatives Roster

Qahir-beejee Peco (all pronouns: he/she/they/them) is a Grand Ronde elder from the Umpqua and Rogue River tribes. They are a wood carver, using traditional and modern design to create pieces based on cultural imagery. Their carving is rich in story, history, skill, and precision. Qahir’s passion for working with wood and how it connects to their ancestors can be felt in the pieces, deepening the connection for those who see the carvings.

They retired from a career in Early Childhood Education as a Division Director for Children and Family Services. They continue their contributions to the field as a board member for the Threads of Justice Collective. This collective works with early childhood educators and policymakers to do anti-bias work, bringing justice, inclusion, and cultural sensitivity to marginalized and underrepresented people. Qahir recently published a Chinuk Wawa and English-language children’s book, Beat The Drum, and a traditional-style comb titled Two Spirit, both of which were featured in My Father's Father's Sister: Our Ancestor Shimkhin.

Qahir-beejee also has a piece in a current exhibit described below:
It's a carving of a traditional story, called an ikanum, of The Hazel Drumstick Gambler. For many regional cultures including ours, these types of stories are only to be told in the wintertime, but we can reference and summarize the story any time of year. This ancestral story follows a family, a lonely hunter wishing for companionship, finding it with another man, later also finding it with a woman, then a love between three people and their children, the impermanence of life and of wealth, and ultimately, loss, grief, and acceptance.

For Qahir, this is why they wanted to make a carving about this story.

"What impacted me in this story is that families are units of love bonds. The genders of the parents, or how many there are, don’t matter. The most important thing is loving each other. Finding ways to live together in harmony. All families change. People grow and change. Sometimes adults change and leave, as the Stick-Drum Gambler did. Children grow up and leave, as the boys did. If the adults have done a good job, they have taught their children how to move out into the world. Though they would miss them and weep, as the mother did, they knew that their work was done. They need to clear the way for the children, open the door, and welcome them to their new lives. It is how life is and should be."

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Portland, OR