Closed Captions Audio Described

Willie Pitt (Yakama/Wasco) traces his people's thousands of years on the Columbia River, from pre-contact life and trade networks to Lewis and Clark's expedition and forced removal. He discusses Wasco villages, fishing practices, and cultural values, then explains the 1855 treaty by which the Warm Springs Confederate Tribes ceded 10 million acres in exchange for hunting, fishing, and gathering rights. Pitt concludes by addressing tribal sovereignty, government-to-government relations, and the ongoing challenge of protecting Native American ways of life.

Transcript

0:04 Voices for those of you who have never been here before. Just tell you a little bit about us. We are a traveling exhibit. We've been traveling for three years now. This is our fourth year on the road. We'll be doing the return trip back to Saint Louis. Like Louis Park did 200 years ago, but this park was in the area 200 years ago. They came across the Warm Springs, Indians and today we're gonna be have Louis Pitt from the Confederate Work Springs.
0:29 He is the director of Government Affair and training and his, what he's gonna be talking about is a preservations of Jefferson Air to today. So please welcome Willie Pitt.
0:46 Uh, me part one. Good afternoon. My Indian name is Yalu. My, uh, my dad, uh
1:00 on the, uh Columbia and uh, he was enrolled at Yakima. He lived where we, where I live now in Warm Springs and I'll show you on a map where that is. My mom was an enrolled warm Springer. And uh, she's from up river though. The, um, my dad was wasco, my mom was warm spring. So both of those tribes, uh were there when Lewis and Clark and the expedition came through.
1:25 So, some of our relatives were there. And, uh, what I wanna do is to give you, I think, uh, thousands of years of, uh, our, uh, time on the river and where we are now. And, uh, just look a little bit into Thomas Jefferson at the time. That had a lot to say about what the, uh, uh, views were of Indian people.
1:50 And you know, Thomas Jefferson didn't even leave the uh of the East Coast. He basically was an armchair type of uh president, but created a lot of the uh the myths and the stories that drove people to want to see more of the, of the country as it was just a young country at the time of America and uh a young nation. But
2:14 us Indian people talk about our nations that we are nations within a nation. So please keep that in mind.
2:25 OK. Hold on here.
2:34 OK. So uh what we have here is a, a picture, a drawing by an artist uh of the uh in 18 fifties, a Paul Kane who uh captured the way of life that had survived and that our people lived on for thousands of years, a time that we call time immemorial since the beginning of time.
2:56 Um This is down in the Columbia River gorge, down in the Wasco area. We have three tribes that are a part of our confederacy today called the warm springs, the wasco and the pau tribes. And because the US government looked at the land and who was on there and they just put people together, some tribes were put into two or three different, uh,
3:19 Indian reservations and other confederacies. And I'll show you a little later about the interrelated of that life was good. And, uh, for thousands of years, the, the men fished and hunted as a part of our way of life, religious and belief system. The men had certain duties similar to what we do today. Very physical type of duties dealing with the fishing, the building of structures of
3:42 uh warfare, uh hunting, uh and uh uh strategic type of uh planning in the villages and how to interact and work with some of the tribes that surrounded us.
3:59 Here's a romantic depiction of a Wasco village on the Columbia river. Oh, from here, probably be about uh 50 miles up. Well, let's see, it would be uh about 60 miles upriver from here. And again, this is a very romantic eviction because remember the the Columbia River, Mia, the big river
4:21 was a very wild river when the rivers ran wild. Yes. So anybody that built that close to the water had to be uh a little bit crazy because that river would have fresh ships. And if you're there at the wrong time really brought folks that really builders up here because up there was like uh what you call a 500 year water play. Now, um Again, this is uh
4:47 the life was good, Mount, uh Jeff, uh Mount Hood, um uh wide east as we call it. And again, the great waters of the uh that uh Lewis and Clark were looking for. Um, some of you, uh probably don't know how Oregon got its name is that uh there was a, a mythical big river that flowed
5:12 that about. People were on the, I think the upper end of the Columbia and that it's a big river. And, uh, it's, it's mythical name was Oregon or something like that or, or Ryg un Oregon. And, uh, so that somehow with a couple of uh, uh map makers is that, uh,
5:34 gave this area the territory the name of Oregon. So it's an Indian name. So very proud of that as, as well as a lot of things around us are Indian names. This is a wonderful area with uh names like uh, uh Klatz County, uh Kyan, uh uh wai uh che wonderful names. All our tribal names,
6:00 our way of life on the land. Our tribe has celebrations of, of ceremonies throughout the year that we thank the creator. The creator tribe provides us with water with uh fish, deer roots, berries and back to water when we celebrate like, uh, right now we're gonna be celebrating uh
6:24 acquisition and the creator gifting us roots as our women will go out and gather the roots and the men are in the old days would protect their safety and uh they come back and, and bring those on in. And we meet, we used to meet on Wednesday and the women would work Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We would have a feast.
6:49 The feast dealt with again, the same order of things as we've done for thousands of years, starting with water, ending with water where we thank the creator and we eat the foods in order and we have lessons. So we have uh like Sunday school would be for kids. We have that every Sunday for us even today. Talking to us about our native American values, our Indian values,
7:12 our values that are connected to those lands that we were, that we don't say that we lived on that. We come out of that. We're in the land, the way of life, very circular. The uh earth provided a lot waters provided a lot of sustenance. Uh We use not only to sustain ourselves, we used fish and deer and such to trade
7:37 and uh Trading Center, uh all through the Columbia River because uh a number of rivers, rivers are all highways. As uh historians talk about rivers, unite mountains, divide. And so the river is a, a avenue, a channel for commerce and always has been. So, uh our folks, uh at a wonderful, wonderful place called
8:03 Clio. W is the other name for that up river about 100 and 20 miles from here. Is that, uh, that place is, uh uh now inundated because of uh uh dam construction. Our opinion on that. We have varied opinions. Uh But one of them is, is that, uh, the Bonneville dam and all of the dam on the, uh on the Columbia were done to for progress.
8:27 But like the Bonneville, like the Bonneville Dam was built for uh uh uh, to maintain our n our American way of life. Of which part of that is the Native American way of life too. Like one of our wasco chiefs said is that if, uh, the Hitler would have won the war, those treaties that we cut that you'll hear about later that we made, wouldn't, uh, have any meaning then.
8:52 So anyway, we, uh, we are too, is an interesting fact is that, uh, our, our people, the Native American people have, uh, probably, I think it is proven to be the highest amount of participation in military service back in World War One. We actually had people that participated in World War One and at that time, weren't even citizens of the United States.
9:18 Geronimo's people too. Geronimo's people were moved away from their homelands. They made war on the United States and they, they were just protecting their way of life similar to what any people would do. And one of the stories I just heard about about a week ago was that when they were in prison, they were in prison in Oklahoma. Uh They were kind of in a different status and didn't quite know
9:42 what to do with Geronimo and his warriors is that they, uh let them out to join the battle in World War One. And then when they came back, they had to go back to prison. That's one of those things when it comes to native Americans. I just, you know, I just cringe because again, this is our homeland too. We were here first
10:05 and that's been part of the Lewis and Clark story is trying to get the story out and tell it our way. That's not good. That's not bad. It's just the way it is. So the way of life again, we lived off the land for thousands of years. The land produced very well. You take care of the land, it takes care of you.
10:26 Part of our songs talk about the water being the lifeblood of the land. And uh anyway, it's a combination that's worked again successfully for thousands of years. Remember America is still a pretty young country,
10:42 the uh Thomas Jefferson and in that era of the revolution, uh again, the revolution was done to get out from the under underneath the unfair treatment of King George the third and Prince Philip in the parliament, all kind of history that if you're like me, you avoided it too. Is that well,
11:02 it comes in handy nowadays as as a Native American trying to explain our situation to, uh, go back to those times to talk about it. This is pretty much a real good example of what, uh, everybody thought about Native Americans in those days. This was on the east coast where Indians were basically a majority and, uh, at any given time, could have wiped out those colonists,
11:26 those folks. But, uh, they were, uh, pretty much different nations that really didn't coordinate well with each other. And uh basically, uh uh believed that people living up to a deal in the United States was only gonna take so much. But as they gain power and confidence and uh almost to the point of arrogance at some time
11:49 is that, uh this is one of the statements talked about the savage as the wolf to retire being both being beasts of prey, though they differ in shape. And uh like the wolf of those days is that the wolf can survive only if the wolf adapts to the, the people, the, the uh colonists and later the, uh
12:14 the uh 13 American States. And same thing was said about the Indians. We have to learn how to survive. Uh George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, uh both, uh I think uh felt an honor to work and battle with Indians uh on their side. And then they also found them to be notable enemies too,
12:38 to battle against their great warriors because again, we were those folks I'm sure were like we would do if somebody attacked, uh, in North Carolina or somewhere, would we be there to fight? I think we would be, our folks were fighting for their homelands too. So, as the wolf is, what many people were thought of in those days
12:58 and, uh, part of the, uh, whole move in those days, what's called the league of nations where the Christian pretty much, uh, white nations are male dominated, uh where talking about some sort of rationale to be able to uh live with their Christian ways and to live as a people of honor. How do we deal with this?
13:23 Well, the way we lived off the land as what they said were nomads. We were nomads and that we were wanderers and hunters is that, that was a quote unquote, a heathen uncivilized, savage way of life. And therefore at, at, at that time, we weren't even human. And so it uh it was a, I think a real dark time
13:48 in early American history is a pretty dark time. Pre early American history was a time of slavery and what's called conquest. And uh to leave us out there in control of these wonderful forests without making things square and farming them and civilizing the land
14:08 is that uh that's civilizing it, that's making it more productive. Is that to leave the Indians in possession of their country was to leave the country in wilderness, which was a waste of lands. John Locke, the great philosopher of the, I believe strongly in discovery, the rolling uh you know, not only in America from the going from east to west, but also throughout the world.
14:34 This league of nations were these nations of uh trying to civilize, be civilized. And uh again, part of the thing was to try to Christianize the world and uh change people no matter what. So there was a lot of things that happened that again because of our religious uh I think uh
14:54 doctrines that we kept in place and develop more in the US constitution and basically respect throughout the world. The world is, you know, now we talk about that global economy. It's dealing with communications and we use a lot of uh of, you know, people uh keep an eye on each other, the ass, keep an eye on each other.
15:16 Discovers have ultimate Dominion over Indian lands. Wow, we were here for thousands of years. We lived off the land. It was our land where we had nobody telling us what to do. People come in and say they have Dominion. It means they have control and power over us because we don't build our houses square,
15:41 we don't civilize the, the ground uh and make it into productive farmlands and uh we're not Christian and so they have Dominion over us.
15:54 Well, this is one of the individuals that uh didn't know that America had Dominion over him. His name is Comic and his a Wasco knew that again was uh the, if you think about and know where the Dallas is, but from the DLL up is the Warm Springs people. And then from the DLL down to even here, we're called the uh the Chinook. In our case, it's the WASCO
16:18 people. We spoke a language called kicks and thin is uh, I get a kick out of his hair too because it looks like he always has a bad hair day too. Is that uh Indians with curly hair is uh it's a curse, but he's doing OK. Tomic's notability is that he, when he was young, I had to put him on three different uh,
16:43 articles I read and uh do the research I read is that he was there. Uh part of the, uh first he was part of the team that took away uh uh Clark's dog, Seaman and uh, and the Lewis and Clark threatened to kill those guys and they had to drop the dog and bring them back. And uh for us is that our view of it was more of a rescue mission because,
17:07 you know, Lewis and Clark when they're coming down river, one of their favorite diets was, of course, dog, they just ate dog and they ate more of the, our, our roots were too rich for them. Our salmon was too old for uh, the elk didn't quite hit some of them just right. Uh, the bear that we had and the, and the different type of, uh, other foods of, uh,
17:30 that we added to our food. Just some sometimes didn't hit them. Right. And so they had a totally different diet than we thought. So, Toma, and this was painted in 1847 and he was just a young fellow back in, uh, in 18, uh, 06. Again, he's one of my relatives on my dad's side.
17:51 This is uh uh one of the ladies here. This is about uh 1938. This picture was taken notice the slope of the forehead. She's one of the last ladies that was um um actually went through the uh the, the action that people did on the lower river here. The notable people, the high noble folks that had the higher classes had the shaped foreheads.
18:16 And so she's a was scope of status. And uh again, she's a, a person that uh I'm not sure if I'm really related to this individual or not, but there's um this is uh P PM. He's from up river. He was uh as far as I'm, I'm concerned, he was kind of like a stra strate
18:36 strategic, strategic person when it came to negotiating firmly with war. So he was always seem to be on the edge of uh certain firm actions of his people that were upriver. Again, what I'm trying to do here is connect you that we are a people. This is uh Kayin. He's from north of the area we talked about. He's a Yakima warrior chief.
19:00 And also the main thing he was trying to do is try to get peace for the lands uh along uh his homelands up north of the river Lewis. And Clark stated when they were got here into Wasco country that they saw square buildings, the first square buildings that they saw on their long journey since they left Saint Louis
19:24 here, that was again Wasco territory. This is a plank house of the Wasco folks. I just learned about uh two weeks ago that those roofs
19:35 that the roofs with the planks like that in the summertime when they dried up, they, they shrink so it had air between them so the air could go through it. Well, in the winter time, they would swell shut. So then the water would come through the average of water that uh comes down in rain at Cascade Locks is 70 inches.
19:59 I think it's almost 30 inches here, 27 inches in Portland. So notice to the uh
20:08 the canoes, canoes are again a main mode of transportation. There were also uh uh trading materials and like Lewis and Clark did. I think a few times when you're out of wood, one of the things you really needed when you, you go anywhere is you need good dry wood. And if you're in the rainy season as they later found out when I came down here, it's really hard to find dry wood
20:33 because uh they, they talked in the, in the book by uh Ivo. They complained for almost 30 days about the rain at the fort class area. And all I can say is welcome to the Oregon coast.
20:51 There was a canoe that Lewis and Clark saw that was so fancy and they couldn't see anything that was similar to it. They figured it was something that was treated the north, uh, north of Upper Puget Sound.
21:05 This is the inside of the, uh, Owasco Village, a Wasco Lodge. Pardon me? This is a pretty wealthy cheat with the size, the size of it is pretty large. See, the plank roof there. He's got the salmon areas to, uh, dry and hang salmon, got the trophy, uh, looks like a deer head there.
21:27 I think these guys are playing, uh, gambling a little bit, uh, holding a discussion over here. Um, just like the French. We keep our dogs inside to keep the place clean and critters out and certainly, uh, places to sleep.
21:45 And, uh, again, our folks were a little bit different that when we have these celebrations that we get together, people give away a lot. That's how you show how wealthy you are, how much you give away, not what you hold on to, but what you give away. It just totally a different group. One of the, uh, uh, later uh explorers when they met with the Indian tribes. And this one other situation outside of Lewis and
22:10 Clark gives you an idea of the cultural clash is that um this uh non Indian fellow was trying to remember what, what's the best thing I could give to these uh Indian people, maybe like this similar to this is that, oh my price cheese that I've been saving for um you know, 400 miles on my journey from somewhere from the east. And, uh,
22:33 he went in there and he walked in and the smell of the salmon and the smell of the, uh, of the deer meat and the smoke. He thought it was really repugnant. But then when he looked at the smell of that cheese, the L A Indian folks had their nose covered, but because they couldn't stand the smell of that cheese, it was so different. So something you know, that our cultures can clash sometimes we don't even know it.
22:59 You're jumping to take a look at the area without the house there. This is what it would have been like for thousands of years. Uh, just below Clio Falls. Clio was this wonderful place that, uh, had, uh, he falls channelizing where, uh, an area where fish would have to go through this. And our folks used to be able to buy,
23:21 like my dad used to do was to be able to fish there when the fish were running. You could make a lot of catches. And depending on the season, whether it be a commercial, whether it be sustenance for my own use or uh um a ceremonial for religious purposes is that you could really catch a lot of fish to help take care of your bills for the rest of the year. And uh
23:46 there was a, a very narrow channel to me, the Falls was one thing, but this where the mighty Columbia River narrows down to like a 45 to 50 yard width and all that water just amazing. And, uh, right here you have now like the, uh, the roads and freeways right here
24:09 and I think the water level would be right about there now and then go over to right about over there. There was Lewis and Clark like this crazy guys that they were, the Indians all lined up right here when they were coming down and they were, they just didn't give it a second thought. They went down these really dangerous falls where this water just shot down there. Um, just past the, the,
24:33 the Indian folks got up on the edge there and I'm sure they made bets one way or the other if they was gonna make it or not. The guy that bet that make it through won a lot of money because they made it crazy guys. But the Indians wouldn't do that because it was way too dangerous.
24:49 Science. This is a place called Cascade Locks right here today. There was, uh, the, the gentleman to my, uh, Toan is, uh, he used to fish in this area. There was three sets of falls, one right here, one set right there. And the falls right there. Those are called the Cascades.
25:11 And Cascade Locks today is right in this area. And, uh, Toma can used to fish in here, but he lived here and, uh, so I'll tell you a little bit more about it later. What this is is science is found through research and through oral histories and through actually digging into the ground where people live.
25:34 And uh we couldn't say anything about it because we were moved by this time to the reservations by the US army. And uh again, the, the Bonneville, I think it has part of the uh Bonneville Dam. You can see part of it right there. So this is Portland's over this way. Mahoma County starts right about it here.
25:56 This is a, a map that they made of Clio Falls. The falls can be, um coming down here flowing this way in just a wonderful place. I'm a, I was old enough to be just a six and seven year old boy at the time part of the fishing on the river. This is a uh uh at the Dallas would be the wasco folks. There was so much fish to be had
26:21 that uh they, they actually almost on industrial type of level, there were thousands of pounds, Lewis and Clark, uh, said there was a, there must be 10,000 pounds worth of salmon, uh, sitting on the racked up, stacked up to for sale and trade. And, uh,
26:42 but again, salmon, you could, if once you had AAA something to trade and barter, you really had some wealth because there are people that, uh, we kept control of these areas where not everybody could fish, just our friends, just our relatives and a guest, but they could only fish without approval. The Trade Center that was Cilla Falls going north, south
27:08 west east. Tremendous trading that happened. Uh Again, one gentleman that's from down this way. Uh uh What's his name is Max, uh the Los um two olds. What's his name? Jeff Painter? Um He was talking about how the system worked here.
27:29 They had like a relay race type of folks where we would trade materials, but we trade with somebody here and they would in turn, you know, get something that they could easily trade maybe up this way and then so on. So on. So on. We have uh materials that we get all the way from uh up here at the Alaska uh down here in the northern California, the Year Rock.
27:53 All of this was uh another tribal group called the Paiute folks that uh basically help uh stayed in the uh uh high desert type of areas. And our folks uh roam from Canada and, uh, I think it just about all over it is that depended, you had to know how to get through somebody else's territory just like today.
28:14 When you go through Idaho, Idaho recognizes that if your car is licensed and you've got insurance and you got a driver's license, they recognize that similar things had to happen in our earlier days of our nations too. We had to know how to get through these other nations. This is the dolls area right here. The Wasco territories are all the way up to the
28:38 dolls and the hood river would be. Well, here's Wood River. Again, look at all of these villages that were along that area. Wood River has uh villages in that area. Um The many villages of the Lasco area, the Discovery Center is right there, fishing and hunting, winter villages, uh summer villages. Uh Basically our lands,
29:01 Lewis and Clark came down here in a camp at a place called Rock Fort. And uh they were told by the up river by some of the uh people that helped them come down river. The, that's first that uh these Indians down here's language changes and that's when they started talking to the wasco people. These people up here were speaking Ichiki,
29:25 the uh the the the land of that, that area that that happened to
29:31 here. So looking at the different tribes, I'm not sure how, well you can see that in the Oso family. There's the dolls, the Dog River or the Wood River was coasts, the Cascades, the Cascades also known as the Kalas or the Walas, the Claus Pla River, Plama County named after that. Um the Kas,
29:54 another group, this is all the language group of the picture of the Wasco folks and chic speakers called Nomas
30:02 Skis. Cats. Uh The fas
30:06 and also the uh chain on the north side here spoke a similar language to uh the K folks. Now a lot of them speak the Chinook Jargon, kind of a trade language made up of a lot of uh the languages of the, of the area. Plus uh whoever came into the area like the Chinese and the uh the uh the British people and the French and uh
30:29 just like any other language. Uh According to the book that uh Carolyn Gilman wrote is that uh they also is a part of the language uh great book from uh the uh Missouri Historical Society. And that as a present by Carolyn Gilman, talked about them learning some languages, uh words that weren't really
30:52 proper to say except uh I guess in training. And uh please note every acre in the Oregon had a tribal group on there. This is just what they took snapshots of and figured out from the late 18 hundreds. And uh the language groups of the tremendous amount of diversity culturally.
31:15 And of course, this is the West side and I live on the east side. Tai is one of our west side tribes, the uh a tribe here to climb up in the Moocs again. Lived this way for thousands of years. Lewis and Clark only came down on the river to uh basically got, like they say, the tip of the arch view of what we had in this area as far as nations.
31:40 Excuse me, we have at Warm Springs, the Warm Springs, confederate tribes as Wasco Warm Springs and pau
31:49 excuse me, there's 13 different bands of Paiute in the state of Oregon. Now for New York is the name of the Besots River. The original name which means that's the place the snakes, the fays come out of, they used to get down to the Columbia but they would use the river. He shoots now to get through the big river.
32:19 And again, look at the uh the language group of the kids through the Dan River. Chinooks
32:29 down river Chinooks are about from here. Upper upper Chinooks are here. Basically the same language called kicks. We're Wasco cascade. Uh we have cous people in our tribe. We have some Olala, the mula of people pushed over here for a while in 1810 and 1815, somewhere in there we pushed them back over.
32:51 But of course, in any interaction that you have anytime you uh for whatever reason you, you know, you, you interchange, we uh we kept some of the, the good looking women and the hard, hard working young boys and some of the men that they had to help us out as tribes, tribes weren't always done just by blood. If you had a guy that was a good horse trader who was a smart leader or a smart chief,
33:16 that would draft that person to be a part of his tribe or her tribe. They're also matriarchal women leaders too.
33:27 The human kill us,
33:30 the Cayuse
33:32 Nesper different nations. She was
33:44 so this morning, I heard a gentleman that uh Jeff painter talking about the Behm classics. Here's the classics right there. And um sometimes we got along sometimes we didn't. This was the Wasco folks, the large Springs folks in here and the high folks lived around here.
34:06 And again, that's the way it was for a lot of years. The Umatilla folks, this is their area here. The Yamas up here. Let's take another look at that. This is a, a little bit broader picture. Here's my tribe. We gave to the United States 10 million acres, a title for promise for our way of life, the right to fish,
34:30 the right to hunt the right to dig roots and the right to pick berries and also to raise our, our stocks. And so did the Atas, they gave up 12 million acres. The Matildas gave up uh less than nine acres. The that first gave to the United States title of. Uh I think it was 1010 million acres, 10 million. I hope I said that right. Um
34:55 So that's the deal that people have to live up to. People say all those treaties that you made with the United States are all documents and they shouldn't be honored. Well, what happened in 1776 is the constitution an old document too. Should we honor that? Heck, yes, we do. We are, we have good people that pay the highest price of all for that uh
35:18 their lives and liberty for protecting the constitution, which in turn is really our way of life that we love as Americans. So that's the deal we gave up title to 10 million acres in return for treaty rights that the United States is supposed to honor in all states and all people under the United States too. So that's what we
35:43 talk about uh in Indian country. That's the thing that we're always looking to is trying to make sure that we're having our way of life taken care of and uh people listen to us. And again, this is uh this doesn't mean that those tribes no longer exist. They're, they're all through here. There's 50 some tribes in the State of Washington.
36:04 Uh an amazing country with uh the people that we have uh a diverse country that we do have uh with uh many, many cultures including native Americans. My reservation. We call it a reservation because it was reserved for the exclusive use of said Indians. And I'm one of those said Indians that was in the treaty of 1855. We have land use.
36:28 We're taking care of our land and I can brag that we're taking care of our land better than anybody else that I've seen in the northwest. And we have, uh, set aside for our, uh, riparian zones, which is the area around the streams and creeks and rivers. We set aside our wetlands. We have wilderness areas that we set aside. These are links for linking
36:53 uh uh the habitats for wildlife to go through up and down. And uh another set aside here, we have, uh, we're water rich in warm springs. This is, uh, the Cascades is pretty much right here. Portland would be up here, uh, from here down to Cascade Locks. The little hint is uh 36 miles. That's a straight flying crows,
37:18 36 miles. If some of you know why I'm mentioning that some of you don't. Um But we have 650,000 acres that were reserved for ourselves. I'm really proud of uh our lands here because we, uh,
37:34 compared to other tribes that the question can be asked how much of those lands are tribally owned and controlled. If you go to the Ns first, it's like 15% tribally owned and controlled under reservation. The Umatilla o maybe 55% tribe will be owned and controlled. The Y come out probably 50% owned and controlled. You come to my tribe,
37:58 99% owned and controlled by the Warm Springs. Tribal government. Are we real proud of that? You bet we are strong element of sovereignty. We're the big dog of land use. We're the energy that has to be worked with. How did that happen? Part of it is, we're out of the way of the, uh, of the river. We're out of the way of the Oregon trail. We didn't have great lands.
38:20 We had this terrible thing on our lands called trees. The the people in those days in the, in the 18 fifties is that they want to land like you have down here that are open plains that you can get rid of the trees and make them into the productive farmland real quick in uh the forest that we had there. They were so thick that people just did not want to have anything to do with them.
38:45 And so this was kind of uh located in the back door of uh of the Oregon territories. But you know what happened after that trees had value. We built uh bought our own mill, uh a mill that was put on the reservation by non India. They took the they call, they did what's called hydrating. We didn't do that. They did and we eventually uh bought the mill. We built a resort called Kita.
39:10 We did a whole bunch of planning with those dollars. Large spring folks are amazing. Uh When the Dallas Dam was flooded is that uh flooded our uh um uh Saliva Falls, there was money given out most of the other tribes. The other three tribes gave their money to their tribal members. Our tribe gave a part of it to tribal membership and put the
39:32 rest of it to study about where we should be going. So, we worked with Oregon State College at the time and, uh, a lot of money in those days we spent, I think upwards of $80,000 working with them on, uh, talking about the potential for how do we, uh, use our lands and our waters and our resources. So, yeah, I just, uh,
39:55 I can brag all day on War Springs and like Muhammad Ali says it ain't bragging if you can back it up and we, we're gonna continue backing it up at Mar Springs again. This is the lands that we gave to the United States, 10 million acres. I put this in there. This is Jefferson County that, that they don't have any authority on reservation 13 different counties.
40:18 Part of my job as government affairs is to figure out how do we go about protecting our way of life that deals with water, fish, deer, roots, and salmon, and other medicines and materials. There's a gentleman had buckskins on and had all sorts of, uh, outfits that he got from the land, et cetera. Is that all that comes from the land. How do you, how do you go about
40:41 making sure that those 13 counties understand how important those are to us. Here's, uh, there's that point cascade logs 36 miles. But as you know that as a straight flying crow to drive there is about 100 and 20 miles and, uh, we have our boundaries and, uh, this was recognized as owned by us.
41:05 Have you heard it's on there too. The Louisiana purchase, the Louisiana purchase the biggest real estate transaction ever. It was not a real estate transaction. There was no land that actually changed title at the Louisiana purchase. What happened? There was the, the great uh Nations of United States and uh I think it was, what was it, France
41:30 is that uh they just had preempted rights and then the United States had the right to be the first in line to buy from the rightful owners of the land, the many nations uh that were all through there and some of them didn't want to sell. So they went to war with them and they had an element of conquest in there. So get your facts right? The legal owners of those lands were the native
41:54 nations of that era, Thomas Jefferson. This is wonderful. I thought Jefferson uh that they believe that people are capable of self-government. They believe that decentralized small government units, they believe in the need for public deliberation and civic education through participation in politics. That sounds like what we're doing today, doesn't it? For the most part anyway,
42:17 I won't say anything about our international presence. I, um, don't wanna get to own argument here, but there is another side of this too. There was a lot of other folks that just wanted to be once they got elected there, they kind of like the king again. They're gonna tell the rest of us how to live. No. So I like Jefferson's idea.
42:39 Back in those days, the founding fathers all argued about what should happen.
42:45 And here's another thing, unfinished revolution that the constitution and that these governmental institution that we have today. That's where we are. Part of my pitch is that not only do you have to get used to people culturally but governmentally too, we have different types of governments within your, your state here in your nation. You have to also learn how to get along with us.
43:08 That unfinished revolution includes a different type of not only people but types of governments, not only within the United States, but outside of it, here's Bidal Mill Creek. Our treaty was signed right up there. I don't know. Let's see. I don't know how to show this. I guess the mob words over here. This is depiction by a depiction by an artist that uh put a time wheel on here.
43:33 And uh at this time, I give you Lewis and Clark didn't make the list. And, and I think later at the end, the Custer uh defeat didn't make the list, but certainly disease and the loss of horses that got stole by this other truck, made a volunteer. So the Indian folks uh kind of had a different view of what was important. Where are we going for the next 200 years?
43:56 This is something that uh Oneida chairman, uh New York, Oneida, there's two Oneidas when they, they split the Oneidas and move some of them to Wisconsin, moved some of them to upper New York. And uh he says the casino is not a statement of who we are, but only as a means to get us where we want to be. We had tried poverty for 200 years. So we decided to try something else
44:22 in 200 years up to now. We don't have casinos a part of who we are. We'd be using other things in our sovereignty of using that. Um And so we're not quite sure where we're headed, but we're not, we've been tired of your poverty. So we want to have a fair shot at having a, a good life. So I uh I just wanted to touch on a number of things. I I recommend, you know that
44:45 even though Lewis and Clark is all over with is that it's really exciting as an adventure. I've got the devoto book. This is the Missouri Historical Society book, uh Carolyn Gilman. Wrote this wonderful book. I swear, I've got some of my credits, um, uh, some of my pictures. Um Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson's got a lot, a lot. If you go to Powell's bookstore,
45:09 it's amazing how mu, how prolific he was. It means that he wrote a whole lot. But everybody wrote about him too because he gave a lot of his thoughts out on paper and he argued with these other founding fathers of America. And it's just wonderful, Oregon Historical Society, wonderful things. You young folks, you should grab one of these and read them as I get older.
45:31 These are getting more fantastic, become more live to me all the time. I just really am amazed that um I wonder why I didn't like history when I was a kid because right now for me, that's really where it's at. So I uh again, I uh as a tribal person is that uh I love being an American and I love my Indian ways too. It's that we're gonna be continuing our way of life
45:54 with our values, being native American and also as Americans too. So again, I uh appreciate your time uh to sit here and listen to me and I guess we have some, some time for some questions. So true. So, do you have any questions for the registration here? And I'll come around the mic.
46:19 How did the dogs act affect the Indians? Uh I understand you now, American system but also the status of another nation. The Da's Act, you're talking about the Inheritance Act. Uh uh The DAS Act was the uh an attempt at the United States.
46:39 There's folks uh in Congress that felt, uh what do we do with these Indians? Is that how do we uh help them survive? And so in their good intent, they figured, let's make these Indians uh civilized and farmers like us. So, right at the time, we had land that we own in common with each other. Tribalism. That's kind of the classical uh interpretation of tribalism. And uh
47:05 all that said that uh every head of household was could get 100 and 60 acres. And then we were responsible for farming those acres, but they didn't tell us that they were also gonna become uh taxable in the county. And so a lot of our folks, what's this all about? They didn't pay the taxes. So they lost those lands
47:28 where the county foreclosed on the reservation. Our reservation, uh actually grouped up and talked to the superintendent at the time to get the superintendent to find money on these lands that were gonna be lost through tax, uh um tax problems and bought those lands. So that's part of the leadership that I say that was good there. What was the second part of that? So, I
47:53 thought,
48:02 oh, well, well, we do, we do. I think all of us have different type of statuses of, uh, I mean, I, I, uh I'm an American citizen, a tribal citizen and the state citizen. Part of the challenge is the way of life and uh part of the kind of the understanding of sovereignty is trying to figure out, you know, what are we here for? And, uh
48:27 it's our way of life. And I tell people that they all, we all have to learn how to use regardless of your status. You have to learn, you learn to use the, the governments for the energies around you to help you better protect your way of life. But our primary focus is uh as tribal folks because there's a,
48:48 there's a tremendous difference in us for other minorities because the treaty and, and the US constitution have us in the uh constitution that says all the United States will deal with Indian people and in the Act of Commerce only uh con Congress will deal with the Indian people. And these treaties were done between the United States and the tribal nations.
49:14 So we have this different status that uh we uh see if we took a vote just like here, if we took a vote, now let's vote for something that would be good for just me. You guys, you may vote with me. You may not. But most of the time out there like in Oregon, I think we're just barely pushing like 2% of the population. We always get out voted.
49:37 So we run to that unique distinct political entity status to be able to help protect us government to government. That means we have to go talk to Congress. That means we have to work with the senators. That's my job. Uh representatives by lobby in Salem and that's utilizing that government to government status. And of course is that uh we have this land that we have,
50:00 we have this offers reservation rights too. And most of that isn't because of unique status. We try to just to talk with people in common sense. If you protect something that uh gets better water quality, that's good for everyone. Can't cut that water in half and say this half is mine. This half is yours. It's good for everybody. So, yeah, I think all of us kind of
50:23 claim some sort of different status, but I'm definitely an American. I, I pay my taxes every year and, uh, I don't pay taxes on the reservation because that's part of the deal. But, uh, if I work for a state government, so I have to pay taxes. So we pay a fair share. And since, uh you got your land from us too is that we feel like, hey, we don't want to pay taxes.
50:49 So we don't, that's part of the deal. So I hope that in close to answer,
50:54 uh, how, OK, all over the place and nobody else can. Well, the, uh, that's one of those rights that we had that, uh, were limited until the United States got concerned about. It's, uh, it's, um, impact on the,
51:16 the constituents of Congress people which are everybody but the Indians. So, uh, with, it's not any and everywhere it's, uh, clearly we can build on our own reservations with pretty much without much hassle. And then now we're pushing to, uh, aboriginal areas like the Cascade Locks for the Warm Springs tribes is, uh, our people have been there for thousands of years
51:41 and I agree there are some folks that we see that are ruining it for everybody. They want to build the casinos 3, 405 100 miles away from their reservation and it's closer to the city and all that. But if you look at that reservation too, they have a need to be able to try to get money somehow because they don't have anything. And so it is a balancing act. You have, uh, Senator mccain from Arizona
52:06 and you have, uh, Representative PBO from California that are trying to answer exactly that same question. The question is, how do we do this fairly with this bevy of different tribal situations? And, uh, there Indian country again, it's just such limited resources and, uh, it's a problem. So we're hoping to
52:28 get fairness across the board and that's what, that's all we're asking for, for us. Any other questions.
52:39 So, thank you so much for coming and we'll be in your area coming up pretty soon. So
52:45 thank you.
52:48 My next we'll be on the.