“When Harvest Moon read about Mary Sam – an early 20th century Native American living on Bainbridge – she realized how alike they were. Sam and Moon were both accomplished basketweaver, Moon discovered.The two were native women raised away from the families they were born to, and both moved between the native and white worlds with ease.The discovery gave Moon extra incentive to play Sam onstage, as she does Aug. 20. Her life is so very similar to mine, Moon said, It’s amazing to be able to portray her.After being placed in foster care, Moon was displaced from her Quinault culture by adoption into a white family.Sam was a Klickitat tribal member captured by the Suquamish. As an adult, Sam spent many years on Bainbridge making baskets, telling stories – and helper settlers’ wives. Moon does her own form of outreach to the white world, living the formal title of ambassador conferred on her by the Quinault tribe by representing her culture. She plays Sam to non-native audiences and she teaches white people to make baskets. According to Moon, there are natives who appreciate what she does – and others who do not.Some of them call me an ‘apple,’ she said, red on the outside and white on the inside. The natives who say such things, Moon says, believe she gives away their culture. Moon believes, however, that she functions as a bridge between worlds. The literal translation of her name, a light shining forth in the midst of the darkness she takes as her mandate to shed light upon the history and culture of her people.She finds the white world accessible because she was raised in it.Because I was brought up in a white man’s society, I am able to use those skills when I lecture, Moon said. And the program that I give – all of that came from a book; it’s not like an elder told me the information.Moon says she loves her adoptive parents, but notes that she experienced anti-native prejudice growing up. She was not invited out on dates in high school, she says. Her desire to blend in took the form of applying her mother’s white makeup to try to disguise her true skin tone.As an adult, Moon decided to search for her birth family. She found them – and a warm welcome. I don’t call them ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ Moon said. The people who cared for me and raised me are that. Moon credits her adoptive parents with exposing her to the natural world, encouraging her to become a member of 4-H to forge the links with nature that she, as a native person, should have.Nonetheless, Moon is glad to re-establish ties with her birth family.She found a stage career by chance in the 1980s, when the TV series Northern Exposure was filmed in Puget Sound. Moon was a regular on the show, an experience she describes as fun.The show also enabled her to save up enough money to buy property and get back to country living.Now, her presentation of Mary Sam has been accepted by the Washington Commission for the Humanities 2001-2003 Inquiring Minds series and will be widely-seen state-wide. Moon sees irony in the woman she calls the shyest girl in her high school class, making a living onstage. I still get real nervous about a day before I go on, Moon said, but about five minutes into the performance, it all goes away. * * * * *Quinault basketweaver and storyteller Harvest Moon plays Bainbridge Island Native American Mary Sam at 7 p.m. Aug. 20 at Island Center Hall, and teaches Northwest coastal basketry and weaving Aug. 21-22 at Strawberry Hill in events co-sponsored by Bainbridge Arts and Crafts and Bainbridge Island Parks and Recreation District. For class schedules and costs, call the 842-2306. “