id, an extremely slow process, dissolved the metal and produced the cavities that you see now" (AMNH Cullman Hall).
             The Willamette meteorite crashed into earth long before the Native Americans even arrived in North America. Thousands of years later the Clackamas people inhabited the Willamette Valley area. Although they did not have sophisticated scientific equipment, the Clackamas people knew of where this large rock came from. They knew that sometimes shooting stars fall to the earth, and that was their explanation. They called it Tomonowos, and that can be translated as "Heavenly Visitor" or "Visitor From the Moon" (Kohnen). Just like all different cultures around the word the Clackamas people created a spiritual story that explained the presence of the meteorite. Young men went to the meteorite to have secret initiations. The Clackamas believed the water that collected in the cavities was holy, and they would wash their faces in it, and dip their arrowheads in it. "A Blackfoot Indian, Ryan Heavy Head says that because of the hollows filled with rainwater and air, the meteorite represents all three elements in native religion: air, water and earth" (Oregon Live). However, by the time the meteorite was discovered by Ellis Hughes in 1902, the Clackamas no longer existed as a tribe.
             The Clackamas were deeply affected by disease, and we re driven out by the white people that own the land now. They were sent to the Grand Ronde Reservation that is 50 miles southwest from their homeland in the Willamette
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