Closed Captions Audio Described

Ray Gardner, vice chairman of the Chinook Nation, traces Chinook history from first contact with European traders in 1792 through the Lewis and Clark expedition to present-day struggles for federal recognition. He discusses traditional practices, the impact of federal policy, and efforts to revive Chinook culture including the first salmon ceremony in over a century.

Transcript

0:02 Um We are in the National Park Service Mobile Outdoor Exhibit. We're able to travel the Lewis and Clark Trail. We've been on the trail since 2003, celebrating the 200 year anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. And now we're on our last six months returning to Saint Louis. So we're doing a hasty return. Now, Saint Helens is our first venue on our return and we're really glad to be here.
0:27 We're really glad to see the sun shining today. I would like to let you know or introduce Ray Gardner. He is the vice chairman of the Chinook Nation and we're very pleased to have him here today. Today, he is going to talk about Chinook tribal history and culture. So please welcome Ray Gardner.
0:51 Oh, hi, welcome to all of you here. This would be the land of the upper river Chinooks the Wascos, the ___, the cascades, all of our cousins that were up here. I'm from the Lower Chinook we were at the mouth of the Columbia river. We were comprised of the Clatsop tribe, the Wahkiakum tribe, the Cathlamet tribe,
1:18 the Willapa tribe, and the lower Chinook tribe. That's what surprises the Chinook nation.
1:25 We were and still are. I always like to point out right off the bat very much a presence at the mouth of the Columbia River. Even though there is some rumor that I've heard out there that we don't exist anymore. A rumor the federal government would like people to believe.
1:46 But we have and always have been, and always will be, in our homeland.
1:53 I like to point out for myself in particular, I descend from Huckswell. Huckswell was the chief of the Willapa tribe and was a signature signer of the treaty of 1851.
2:07 My family has always been on the Willapa River.
2:13 We can trace it back into the 1700s. and myself from the time I was born, the clinic in, I was born in the windows in the room where I was born, faced the Willipa River.
2:26 The house that I was raised in until I got married, looked at the Willipa River. When I got married, I moved a little bit further up the river, and my wife and mine's first two homes. Again, you can see the Willipa River from our home. 10 years ago. I moved further up the river and I now own to the middle of the river.
2:50 But I'm very proud of the fact that I can point out that my family has never ever left where we came from. I think that's an important element to point out because it proves that we are there, that we are still there. So kind of what I'd like to do is kind of just go back and kind of give you an overview of where the Chinooks were up to where we are today.
3:15 A good starting point is always 1792. That's an important date for the Euro Americans because that was the day when Robert Gray with the Columbia Rediviva and the Lady Washington first showed up at the Columbia River. Now, a lot of sailing ships had tried over the years to find what everyone called the Great River.
3:39 They knew that was gonna be a source of trade. They knew that that would be a place to be a controlled trade that came east and west from way up country down to the mouth. When Robert Gray first showed up at the Columbia, he sat offshore and as anybody that showed up in our river, our land,
4:03 we were watching him seeing what he was gonna do. He sent a couple of his long boats in. He had lost those long boats. He was not able to navigate the bar on the Columbia river. The Chinooks at that point ever the traders, which if any of you know the Chinooks, that was who we were, we were traders. We did control the Columbia river.
4:28 That was our source of power was to be able to control anything that came in and out of that.
4:34 So when Gray showed up, we saw this as another source of, of someone to trade with.
4:40 So we actually took our canoes and paddled out into the ocean. Met Robert Gray and led his ship back into the Columbia. So I'd like to say at that point, I think we can safely say that the Chinooks were the first bar pilots on the Columbia River.
5:00 When we brought Robert Gray in, he came into what's now known as Baker Bay down in the ___
5:08 Trades were started with Gray and if any of you have followed Gray's journals or some of the things that he has done, he did not have the best rapport with tracks and his ethics were not always the best. He had problems up north and unfortunately had not learned from those. Now, trade,
5:33 if you look at trade in itself, the tribes as tribes would meet up to trade with each other, it was a social event and when another tribe would come into the Columbia River, they would stand offshore. They would ask that you have permission to come in. We would grant them permission to come in. We would look to see what they had to trade. If it was things that were worth value, we would invite them into our villages into our long houses
5:57 and trade might go on for days and sometimes even weeks until it was all done. There was always feast. We had, there was dancing in the evenings. It was very much a social event. Gray never did get that. So when he was in Baker Bay, we started trading with him. It started getting dark
6:18 and Gray was very reluctant to have tribes around his ship at night.
6:25 So in his journals, it talks about one of our large Chinook canoes. Well, actually several that were coming out and he fired shots to scare them off. No, we didn't understand that because like I said, trade is something that once you started, you went until it was done. So our news backed off, but they immediately came back
6:47 In his journals, he talks about one of our large canoes. He doesn't say size. He says it was holding 20 plus men. He actually loaded one of his cannons and shot the canoe out of the water, killing everyone on board. That was our first contact with Euro- Americans.
7:07 The reason I tell that part of the story is I think it's important because it establishes how much the Chinooks had the need to establish trade and keep that hold on the Columbia River tribal culture. You lose an elder or lose people in the tribe. Everything ceases
7:29 until you can properly take care of those people. Get them properly buried, have the ceremonies that are needed to take place. It points out how much the tribe wanted to control that trade because the very next morning, they were back out there trading Gray again.
7:48 So it really emphasizes that need to try and control that river and make sure that trade did go through them.
7:59 You come forward from Robert Gray. There was other ships that came and went.
8:06 And our next big contact that was established in history was Lewis and Clark. when I got to the mouth of the river,
8:16 one of the questions I'm usually asked, so I just go ahead and incorporate it in anymore is what did the Chinook tribe think of Lewis and Clark when I got to the mouth of the river? Now you gotta put this all in perspective. When Lewis and Clark got to the mouth of the river, they've been out there, they've been subjected to all of these things on this journey, which I will say is a huge feat.
8:40 I mean, I think it's wonderful that that group of people were able to make that trip and not lose a single person in all the rivers that they were in. That's huge.
8:51 But when they got down there, they basically had gotten rid of any trade items that were of any value. They had no food. They were huddled behind a rock, a dismal,
9:03 their clothes were rotting. They were basically stuck behind this rock. Even in their journals, they talk about how they look up and to their surprise, they see a Chinook canoe coming across the river. No, I would like to say maybe we did it to add insult to injury, but not only were we staying upright in this river that they could not even get their canoes off the beach.
9:27 Our chief was standing up in about.
9:31 So our first opinion of Lewis and Clark was, this is a pretty pathetic bunch of people.
9:40 But again, in perspective, we have been trading for several years with Euro Americans prior to Lewis and Clark's arrival. So this was not our first contact with the outside. So we had other things to judge it off of.
9:55 I always kinda like to add in one thing right here where as much as things change, some things never do.
10:03 You come forward in 2002, the first group was coming down the river from Lewis and Clark making a trial run. Just kind of seeing how things were gonna go being on the river, having their canoes out there, which I might add, those aren't canoes. They have, they're hollowed-out logs, they don't have the news,
10:26 but when they came down, we knew they were gonna be there. So we took one of our canoes and we stuck it in a Chinook cove waiting for them to go by. We had several of our elders down there and our plan was actually to when they arrived, to bring our canoe out, follow them down, come up the shore behind him and give salmon to our elders and then get back in our canoe and leave.
10:51 Now, the significance of that was when we first met Lewis and Clark, we offered them salmon and they turned it down and they wanted to trade for our dogs. So we thought there was some semblance of just offering the salmon to our elders and ladies as we're sitting down at Chinook Cove, waiting for their canoe to come by, And one of our elders came down to the cove and they said, well, we're already down in Chinook Park.
11:16 And our first question to the elders was, well, how did they get here? We, we've been here for hours. They haven't gone by. They said, well, they couldn't keep their canoes upright, so they tracked it in,
11:28 obviously, some things don't change.
11:32 And as in history at that point, we came out of Chinook cove, paddled down the river and came in to greet them on the beach. They were just as amazed as I'm sure they were 200 years ago,
11:47 but it has been fun with that kind of laughing with the reenactors and, and having a good time with that. But if any of you were able to be down at Chinook Park last winter when we had uh the reenactment of the tribe meeting Lewis and Clark. It was a wonderful day. We came in, we gifted them salmon, and they accepted it. It was great. It's nice to know even in that group that members,
12:13 the direct descendants of the original group 200 years ago were with that expedition
12:21 on our side, direct descendants of the people that greeted him 200 years ago, were there to greet him again when they came back. I that's very noteworthy that that took place
12:35 as you move forward from Lewis and Clark, which some would say is monument as we kind of claim it as a monument they showed up and they left.
12:47 But as you move forward with the Chinooks, a lot of things have transpired since then. They have affected our people, our nation.
12:58 As I said, I descend from Hutchfeld, who was a signature signer of the treaty of 1851. That was the Tansey Point treaty. That was some of the first treaties that were entered into between tribes along the coast and on the Columbia River and the Federal government. Now, for some reason,
13:19 obviously, none of us will ever know why Congress failed to act on that treaty. So even though all of the chiefs of the tribes signed that treaty, it has never been put into place.
13:33 The federal government came back in 1855. They wanted us to enter into a treaty at that point. Part of the things with that treaty would have moved our people off of the Columbia River, off of the Willipa, and pushed us all north to where the Crow reservation is
13:55 now. Chinooks and the Crow have never really been friends. So obviously that was not somewhere we wanted to go. Plus the fact that we didn't want to give up the Columbia River and Willipa Bay. So we refused to sign that treaty, which then Stevens stormed out of the negotiations and that was our last official contact with the
14:18 federal government as far as the treaty was concerned.
14:23 Now, after you go through the treaties, the Chinooks were still considered a tribe. They were recognized, they received services from the federal government. My grandmother and my great aunt, actually, all of my great aunts were from the generation that the government came in and took them from their home and placed them in tribal schools.
14:47 Now, the reason for that was as they went forward and they commented themselves, they wanted to assimilate the people into today's society and they wanted to take the Indian out of the Indian was the way they played. Now, my grandmother and my one great aunt ended up in a tribal school together. It ended up, they were punished
15:10 because they spoke a Chinook language and the school did not like that. So they removed my great aunt and took her to a different school to make sure that they could not even communicate to each other in their own language.
15:25 Even beyond that through the land allotment act. When the federal government was giving land to tribal members in trust,
15:38 the tribe was still recognized through different treaties, Treaty of Olympia. Some of those, the Chinooks are mentioned in those treaties. Now, we did not have people that signed those treaties, but we were in those treaties and they were signed.
15:55 One of the things that happened with that is the federal government realized that they had six tribes, they were fish-eating tribes that had never been given land.
16:10 So if any of you are familiar with Crow reservation, the original Crow reservation was 10,000 acres and that was the reservation for the Crows. Now, through these land allotment acts, the federal government came in and bought another 224,000 acres, added that to the Crow home reservation, which makes it the size it is today.
16:34 The reason that land was acquired was to give land allotments to tribes that had not received land.
16:42 Even at that point in time, the Chinook tribe was the largest tribe as far as numbers of people. So individual members of the Chinook tribe actually own 54 to 55% of the entire Crow reservation.
16:58 So through all of that, we were still recognized, still receiving minimal services for health care, very minimal, but there was a little bit there.
17:10 Then you will clear up into the mid 1900s. There was a lot of things going on. There were still Children being removed and put into private schools to get up into the 1960s, The Bureau of Indian Affairs was going through their records and they, as they were reading these tribes
17:32 and going down the list, they had someone in the Bureau of Indian Affairs said, well, I've never heard of this tribe,
17:41 this tribe and they started to cross some tribes off that are registered. That was when the federal government decided that the Chinook tribe and nation did not exist.
17:55 Now, it takes an act of Congress to terminate a tribe that has never happened with the Chinooks are any of the tribes that comprise the Chinook nation.
18:08 So from that point on, we have been fighting to re-establish who we are. The fact that we have never left and that we do have a government that has continued through all of this time.
18:23 I always find it interesting that one of the things that the federal government has used against this repeatedly is that you don't have any land
18:33 and it's like, well, no, you took it,
18:37 you know, and, and when they took the land on the Columbia in the Willipa, if you go back through tribal legends, tribal stories, which is how our history has always been handed down is the tribal people were removed from their land and the federal government took it and put it up for sale, were not even allowed to buy their own land back.
19:01 So they effectively moved them out of the area since then, they have always used that against us. You don't have any land, you don't have a village. How could you have been there? My mother has an article that was published in the Seattle Times years ago when I was as little in that article, it claims that the Chinooks are extinct,
19:25 that we no longer exist. Well, I think there's about 2600 of us that would probably disagree with that very quickly.
19:35 But we have been fighting since that time to be reestablished and put back in our place in history to be granted the rights that are given to any other recognized tribe, to be able to provide health care for our elders and our youth, to be able to provide housing for our elders, to be able to provide businesses that we can keep our people home.
20:01 We live in a very depressed area in the state. Our Children as they grow up have no recourse. But to leave, to find work, we would love to be able to have our own businesses and to keep them,
20:14 we fought through the system. The first time with the Bureau of Indian Affairs were unsuccessful. So we started again 27 years ago with the fight to get our recognition put back into place.
20:30 After a lot of years. Finally, in January 2001, we saw all of these efforts come to fruition. Our city council at that time, went back to Washington DC, went in, met with the Assistant Secretary Department of Interior while our recognition was signed and we were placed back on the federal registry
20:55 when our council came home. That was a huge day, huge day. It's hard to even explain that you had generation after generation have been fighting the same fight. And all of a sudden you can call your people back home and say, guess what we find
21:14 went to appeals. We had several different groups that appealed the decision. It's Excuse me. there was only one group that was actually actually successful in having an appeal that was put forward that was heard and that was actually another try
21:33 which is very disheartening to us because not only was it another tribe, it's a tribe that's comprised of mostly Chinooks that have been adopted into that tribe, but they chose to appeal. So I went to the Court of appeals. We still felt with all of the documentation we had provided with all of the testimony that had been given that we would be successful
21:59 in the court of appeals. And we were the court of appeals upheld the decision. They did come up with some questions that they asked when it went back, but there was nowhere in their decision that it says the outcome of these questions will change their mind. Their decision was final. So that should have been the end of it.
22:23 But unfortunately, it wasn't Bureau of Indian Affairs used that as a way to open our entire case back up and review it. Now, during that time, we went from one administration to another administration away from all new people and the Bureau on the upper levels and the Department of the Interior. So now there's a whole new group of people that are now looking over this do
22:49 while our chairman and his wife were back at the White House having lunch with George and Laura Bush at their invitation for the kickoff for this event because they specifically invited all of the recognized tribes along the trail to come back to the White House for lunch
23:12 to kick off this whole celebration while our chairman was there. That event was over, we actually took things back and gifted them to President Bush. Things that actually have been handed down for generations within families. There were things of great value to the Chinooks, that they felt that it was deserving to gift the president with these things
23:38 before the chairman could get back onto the plane to come home. His cellphone rang,
23:44 he answered the call and the call was from Neal McCaleb, Then Assistant Secretary Department of Interior. His comment to our chairman was that they had re evaluated our decision and overturned.
24:00 So in that short of period of time, after all of those years of fighting to get our recognition, we turn around and lost the.
24:07 So now we're kind of where we are today.
24:11 None of us are willing to give up this fight. We've been added to ___. We're not going to go away.
24:19 We've been forced to do different things as far as how do we go forward on this quest for recognition? The Bureau of Indian Affairs has specifically told us we're done with you. We will not deal with you anymore. You used every avenue that you have with us. Go away. We didn't think that was a viable answer.
24:44 So the chairman myself and another council member went back and spent some time back in DC when talked to 29 members of Congress and the Senate and said, why don't you guys submit a bill? The grant us our recognition, which is within their power to do when we were back there. They first offered us a bill that they said we'll submit this,
25:08 which is basically what it recognizes in name only we would have had no gathering rights. We would have had no fishing rights. We would have had no hunting rights. We wouldn't have been entitled to health care. Basically, it would have been, we'll give you your name back. Well, nobody's ever taken her name. What? So we refused it. We worked with them while we were in DC and
25:32 came up with a bill that we thought was appropriate that would grant us our recognition back as any other tribe in the United States.
25:42 And what I would like to point this out too, what some people don't realize if, if the chinooks, I won't say when the Chinooks get their recognition because we will, that does not immediately grant us the right to fish. That's a whole separate matter. So, and that's a whole another legal battle. It could take years and years and years in itself to establish that.
26:06 So the concerns we get from fishermen are kind of unfounded because it doesn't necessarily mean that we get recognition the next day, we're flooding the river with boats, that isn't the way it goes.
26:18 So after working out this bill back in DC, feeling confident that our representatives would put a bill on the floor, it would be heard and history would take care of itself.
26:35 Unfortunately, that bill was never submitted
26:39 while we were back there. One of the comments I made to several members of Congress in the Senate was that at this point, we have two options. We can either have all of you back here, pass a bill and grant us our recognition or we can go to federal court. Now, there are some advantages of going to Federal Court
27:02 The one main advantage is if you sue the federal government for recognition, no one else is allowed in the courtroom other than you and the federal government. So all of the people over the years that have appealed this, be it, the crabbers and the salmon fishermen or the other tribes would not have a say in court. One of the things I pointed out when I was back there is, that's not the way we wanna go,
27:26 it would cost us a lot of money. It would cost the federal government a lot of money and it would be a lot easier to just go through the bill process. Unfortunately, the response that I personally was given by several members back there was it's not our money.
27:45 But I didn't think that was a very good answer either because basically they were saying if you wanna go forward, go to Federal court.
27:54 So it's kind of where we're at at this point right now. We're still vocal that someone in Congress that was set up will submit a bill on our behalf. But we're also in the process of interviewing attorneys and, and getting ready to file a federal court because like I say, we, we always were and still are a very proud people.
28:17 We're proud of who we are. We're proud of where we came from. We're proud of our culture. We're proud of the fact that we have been reviving our culture over the last five years, we've brought our first salmon ceremony back. It's probably been the first time in about 100 years that, that had been practiced. We're now in the process, we're gonna start opening that up to other people
28:42 and letting them come in and see what we do and we don't find it at all odd that since we started having our salmon ceremony again, the salmon population in our area has increased.
28:56 I'm sure that the salmon are happy that we're back out there doing what we have done for thousands of years and doing it the way we were told to do it. We're having our winter gathering again. We're bringing our people together. Wintertime was the time of stories. Winter was the time that history and tradition was passed along. We've now got that back last winter, we invited five other tribes.
29:20 They came in, they danced with us, they sang with us. They told stories of their tribes. It's wonderful to see those things come back.
29:29 We're gonna continue to move forward. We're gonna continue to get more of our culture back and bring more of our people home.
29:36 One of the things I always like to add too because I get asked this question a lot by I'm the one that unfortunately gets to go talk to government officials, city officials and such because of my status on the council. A question that I get lost is so with recognition, when are you gonna build the casino?
29:58 Now, obviously, anyone that would answer that question knows nothing of who we are or what we stand for. They know nothing of the fact that when the federal government illegally took our recognition away and we started this process to get it back. But there was not a tribal casino anywhere in the United States and one had never even thought
30:21 when we restarted our, our process still there had been no casinos anywhere
30:29 about 11 years ago, we had a gambling consortium from the east coast, came down to one of our annual meetings and basically offered to give us a million and a half dollars to fight the government to get our recognition in return. What they wanted was to build a casino.
30:54 It was turned down by 99% of the tribal members that were present at that meeting. Casinos is not who we are.
31:04 Like I say, we're a very proud people. We want to be back in our homelands. We wanna be able to provide for our own people. That's what we're all about. We took our canoes several years ago now and put them in the Willipa bay probably the first time in 80 years. One of our canoes was seen out there on Willipa Bay.
31:28 Let's kind of briefly get the story of what took place that day because I think it really says how much we're grounded in that area and how happy the ancestors are that we're back. Well, we're getting ready to launch our canoe. We looked across the Long Island, which is where we were. It was actually a place at three of our village sites.
31:51 There was a black bear came out of the timber, walked across the grass out into the mud and sat there and watched us launch our canoe.
32:02 When we got our canoe in the water, the bear turned around and went back into the timber.
32:08 We turned and started to go around the island, we made it maybe 150 ft and a fish and jumped into the canoe.
32:18 We carefully placed it back in the water. We went a little bit further around the island. An eagle came out and circled over the top of us, and went back into the island.
32:30 We went further down and there was a herd of elk standing there. Beautiful elks, while we were going by,
32:39 we got around to the back side of the island. We had another eagle came out off of the island, flew over the top of us and kept going. And we all just kind of stopped paddling, put, put our paddles in the air and turned to watch this Majestic eagle. He went back, made a huge turn and came back. And when he was flying back, he was flying directly in the line of our way.
33:03 When he got to us, he flew down over the top of us to where any of us could have reached up with our paddles and touched me.
33:11 As soon as he got in front of us, he turned and went into the island
33:15 and without this aside, and we were ready for a break. So we went into the island there and we pulled up right where the eagle had gone back into the timber.
33:26 When we got out of our canoe, we didn't walk 30 ft and there was a timber at one of our longhouses sticking out the back with about a 60 year old emerald on top of it that Eagle knew exactly what it was doing was taking us home. It was showing us where one of our villages,
33:46 things like that happen. Every event we have everywhere we go, we get silence.
33:55 I don't know if any of you have been following too much about what's been going on down towards the mouth of the Columbia River. But we're now in the middle of a situation that's going on station here,
34:06 which is said to be the newest National Park
34:10 during the construction at station camp, a subcontractor
34:17 went off of the plan as it was written
34:23 on the diagram and with a V dug right through the middle of one of our gravesites.
34:33 where nine of our ancestors were buried there,
34:37 the bones were scattered by this.
34:43 I was one of only four of our tribal people that actually were there to hold our ancestors. I went down and prayed with these people
34:53 and we placed them back in the ground as they should have been doing it. Very traditionally, we have now got this covered up and protected, and hopefully no one will disturb it, but it has put the national Park on hold
35:14 because obviously the tribe is not favorable of now having a highway run right over the top of our ancestors. It's not something we wanna see happen. We had a special council meeting in January at 94 or 95% of the people who were there that were voted, voted for the tribe to shut the project down.
35:40 There's been mixed emotions from the public when they heard that that's what we did.
35:46 One was, how could you shut down a national park that needs to be there.
35:52 Most of them can't understand why we would take the stance that we did.
35:58 I can understand it. And I think if you could, if it was your family, they had been disturbed and now they just want to put them back in the ground built highway.
36:11 I don't think anybody would want to see their ancestors subjected to that.
36:16 We are still at the table with all of the state agencies and the federal agencies. I have met with them several times. We're gonna be meeting again next week. We do want to work out a compromise that our ancestors could be protected and they can build their park. We don't want to deny the people the right to know what went on there with Lewis and Clark, but also with the Chinook tribe.
36:41 So to have that park there is to our benefit as well.
36:47 Now, one of the reasons I brought this and it's actually a question that I was asked before I even started is the first question I got was, what is it?
36:57 Well, obviously it's one of our new paths. The next question is, well, why did you get a hold of it?
37:05 These were Chinook river valleys, probably the only tribe that I've ever known and ever made tablets like these. This is carved out of Oregon ash. So it is a hard wood. The tips are very strong. The reason for these is when we would get into shallow water and you get rocks and ruts that the canoe would get hung up on
37:29 if any of you have ever spent any time in a canoe and you have a paddle with a nice point on it. You try and hook that on something to pull yourself through that shallow water. It slips off. Well, with this, we can actually hook over rocks or ruts and pull. The other purpose for this was, this was used for gathering ___ So when the women would go out to harvest roots,
37:54 not only is this a functional paddle to get them up into the small waterways in the shallow water. But once they got there, they could actually use the points to stick into the ground and turn it back and forth towards the roots out. So it was actually a very functional tool as well as a paddle. we did have when we were ocean going, we did have the full tip on our path,
38:20 which we did spend and have been spending more time out there in our canoes. We were known for going as far north as Vancouver Island area in our trade. And as far south as including northern California. So we have over the years spent a lot of time going up and down the ocean, but we also spent a lot of time coming up and down this river.
38:42 It's pretty well documented that some of our canoes that came up to the line with all the trade runs. were in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 ft long.
38:53 Now, when you think about that half of the boats that are out there now aren't as long as our canoe.
39:01 The Hyde is also were known for the length of their community. They were known for coming down the coast and they're 60 to 70 ft working.
39:10 I work with a, a hired member that actually works in the Grays Harbor historical seaport and we've done a lot of work between the tribe and the seaport with the Lady Washington because of actually Robert Gray, the captain of the Lady Washington was shocked to hear that we had canoes that were longer than his,
39:31 kind of puts into perspective how large these canoes were
39:36 with that. It kind of gives you, I mean, I could spend all day long talking about who we are, where we were, how we got to where we're at. But I think it's probably a good place to go ahead and cut it off and see if anybody has any questions so that I can answer.
39:54 If you have any questions, we'll bring a microphone around. So everyone can hear you.
40:02 I know, I know. Legit with what the highway
40:09 the second, correct.
40:13 I won't argue that.
40:17 But personally, if it was directly, my ancestors, I wouldn't want traffic running over the top of day in and day out. Now, does that happen all over the place? Probably. Now, they also, uh they also moved but they also moved the remains to other, to other places. Couldn't that be done?
40:41 That's like I say, we're still negotiating. We don't know where it's gonna go. That is something that does happen. Uh They have offered to remove our people and, and put them somewhere else of our choosing and they have even offered some possible sites for that to take place. They're also working with us as
41:02 back at the Smithsonian, there are remains of 29 of our ancestors back there, which we would like to bring back home. So, yes, there's a lot of different options that are out there. We haven't ruled any of them out. But as of now with our ancestors where they are, we have clearly said we do not want a highway building on top.
41:26 Any other questions? Yeah. Did you hunt whales? No, but we were, we did hunt seals and sea lions, but we were not a whaling tribe. It, it is documented back in our history that occasionally if a whale would come up on the beach, we would harvest it and use the parts of it, the Makah and that was actually a question I
41:50 had earlier today when I was walking around, it was about whaling and about the Macaws and they asked if we were involved in that at all, which we weren't. I have the greatest respect for the Makah tribe. And the fact that they want to win, the reason for that is I'm a firm believer in treaties and the treaties need to be upheld. The Makah tribe was the only tribe
42:15 to specifically leave language in their treaty that granted them the right to whale. So that is in a treaty that was signed by the Makah tribe and signed by the federal government. So I feel like they need, they have to be right right to. whale, and I feel that the government needs to observe that treaty.
42:35 No problem.
42:38 Would you be interested in harvesting some more seals for us, please? Yes,
42:45 we would love to. And actually, if you look at any of our chinook canoes, you'll see that there's a groove in the valve where it comes up. Those canoes historically would have never been in the water without harpoons in it.
42:59 there's many of us myself included that would love nothing more than to go out and start using those again and kind of diminish the seals of the seals or eat too many of our fish,
43:21 If you include in the animals that you harvested the sea otters were those I noticed they're mentioned uh several times in this newspaper that's produced here. The sea otters were very important to the tribes, one of the most valuable fruit. So the tribe did harvest sea otters a lot and actually with Gray and a lot of those other first traders that came in,
43:46 that's what they were after the sea otter. And I know that when the tribe would trade with the Euro Americans, that was very, usually the very last thing we traded them because we also knew it was the greatest outcome So that beaver, Muskrat thing really just about any animal fur. The had fur. We use, uh,
44:11 a lot of deer hunting elk hunting. We use all the hides for, you know, our box and to whatever we weren't ones to wear buckskins, not on the coast because they rot. So we were seated, which,
44:26 uh, I would think it would be kind of our company very functional. What
44:39 if the government closes down the salmon fishing for this season? What effect will that have on your tribe?
44:46 On our tribe? It really wouldn't have any because without recognition, we have no fishing rights anyway. So the members that we do have that are fishing commercially or fishing on state licenses. The rest of us are recreational fishermen. So on us, it wouldn't have any impact and I'm not quite sure going through the whole decision and have to follow that down if they could actually shut the project down or not
45:12 I think that would probably become a huge court issue in itself. But I know there is talk of, of, you know, really curtailing salmon season back and I'm not quite sure how that fits in.
45:30 Is it true that sales, uh, is, who is recognized as they have in this land here? So, I was dating on that. No, the cele actually pretty much are where their historical land was. I find it interesting to have their casino maybe should not win for. But no, they're, they're pretty much down there and there's other tribes between them and up here
45:54 there are tribes that lay claim to this. Uh Some of them were here and gone. But the warm springs actually further up the warm springs came down to the river. The Nez actually can lay claim to some of the, the Columbia River area, the Yakima Umatilla, the Grand Rs. There's several
46:18 that could actually say that they had been here. Now, the tribes that actually were here were Chinook speaking tribes. Ok.
46:29 So part two of my question is whoever that is recognized, uh say around Bonneville Dam, could you in conjunction with them, do you think helped on the sea lion issue? Uh
46:43 harpoon of some sea lions? Because last night I heard finally they're gonna ask the federal government if they could kill some sea lions, which will be a big hoopla, you know, and that's what a lot of people have said around here is, gosh, I wish the native Americans could go harvest some legally. You know, I, I think it would have an impact and I think we would be able to, interestingly enough, even without being recognized,
47:07 I've had people within the federal government that choose to remain nameless. They have asked if we would be willing to come up and get some sea line to buy that day. They've also asked us if they were to trap them and kill them if we would be interested in harvesting the meat and the skins, which we would. And I told them we would definitely enter into those
47:31 negotiations with them if they get to that point.
47:40 Ok. Well, with that, then thank you very much for being here. Let's get right.
47:51 Our next presentation will be at four o'clock. It's reminiscing about Merryweather.