For the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla people, this land has always been home, shared and used with relatives and neighbors including the Palouse, Wanapum, Yakama, Wishxam, Wyam, Tenino, and Nez Perce. In 1805 and 1806, Lewis and Clark became the first non-Indians to travel through the area, but they misunderstood much of what they encountered, including how people knew where to find firewood, why salmon were dying, and the abundance available from the surrounding land. They bought many dogs for food, noted a rock resembling a hat, but did not record the Cayuse Sisters, two basalt pillars just upriver near today's state border line. For thousands of years, tribal homelands were defined not by state boundaries but by natural landforms, rivers, and trails; people spoke their own languages, lived by their own laws, maintained their own forms of governance, and lived with the land. The mountains provided roots, berries, deer, elk, and antelope, while the rivers provided abundant fish, and thousands of people lived along the rivers near important fishing, spawning, and trading sites. Tribes traveled from afar to trade along the Columbia River for dried foods such as fish, meat, roots, and berries. Today, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation exercise their sovereignty, preserve their cultural lifeways, and protect the species and habitat that have sustained their people for millennia.