Closed Captions Audio Described

An 18-year-old Grand Ronde tribal member presents her senior project on Native American perspectives of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. She discusses the expedition's role in opening the West to settlement, the subsequent displacement and termination of Grand Ronde peoples, their 1983 restoration, and ongoing efforts to revitalize tribal language, culture, and identity. She also demonstrates jingle dress dancing and performs songs in Chinook Wawa and Lakota.

Transcript

0:03 Good afternoon. Um Megan names Koha and that's in the Chinook Jargon or the Chinook Wawa. And um my daughter, Hope Lafferty is going to be presenting. Um She has been working on
0:21 her senior project and it's been Lewis and Clark and different activities that she has been um conducting. We're just coming in to help her and we're going to be doing a couple of uh prayer songs in the Chinook Wawa. This is my youngest daughter, NCUA Morland and she is the junior queen for the Grand Ron royalty. And um
0:46 please do not applaud after um as well, especially after the first song. I just feel it is inappropriate. Thank you.
1:24 Uh
2:00 huh.
2:04 Oh,
2:13 I
2:18 a
2:27 I got Ticky
2:34 one.
2:38 I gotta take it
2:43 long time.
2:46 Uh
2:52 We talk.
3:00 Ok.
3:04 LA So the
3:14 oh
3:16 um basically that was um just, I guess, kind of literal, literal translation, the Great Chief in the heavens or above. And it was giving thanks and it was um asking for his strength, his good, strong spirit. So, thank you. We're gonna be singing a welcoming song and it's also in the Chinook Wa Wa
3:42 and um my daughter and I had sang earlier. But these songs are very specialties. These, this particular song was um gotten through some of the old way through fasting and prayer and uh you know, seeking after, after it. And uh the reason I, I know it was given because within half an hour we have the song
4:07 or have the song. So, and some of the other songs we sing our songs that my um grandmother taught me or great aunts and I had mentioned before certain songs, um you own them personally. Those are your songs. And the one song that we sing, my grandmother gifted that song to me.
4:30 And so like with children, it's a children's song. I share that song and you know, let them sing that song. But if you don't have your own song, you might inherit song or you could pay and get a song to sing. And these are a little bit different than uh the songs that you hear that are sung at the. Pow. Wow.
4:52 So, but anyway, a little information and this is a welcoming song and uh we're really glad to be here and I'm really thankful that um we're keeping these songs alive and sharing these songs and actually, um getting more songs. So we have been blessed to do that.
5:16 Have you seen this
5:38 chocolate? So
6:15 talk,
6:44 he comes
6:54 Echo.
7:02 Yeah,
7:31 my God.
7:41 All the dress and when you're ready for me to my I,
7:57 hello everyone. I'm just gonna talk a little bit about my regalia. It's my native dress. My cousin made this jingle dress for me. It's a very special dress. It's a medicine dress, a medicine dance that we do. Um, originally came from the Great Lakes area from the Ojibwe people. A man, a medicine man had a dream
8:22 that he saw beautiful women dancing with in a different way, in a different style from the traditional, from the traditional way. They had um things that made noise in his dream, these cones
8:41 and he brought this dance and he shared his dream with his people. And thus was born the jingle dance, the medicine dance. And this is a jingle dress. A more modern one. It became popular mostly in the powwow area in the 19 eighties. But um there's, you can make all kinds of designs on it. Some of the designs are their,
9:06 their families designs that have, it's just for them, you don't really just like make whatever you want to. It's, it's really special. It's personal and private. I don't really like um people just to come up and touch or don't just let anyone wear, wear this only. I wear it. I was actually um
9:29 got it from my cousin who made it, who makes dresses. These are very expensive regalias, you can buy them. I think it's more important to have it made by a family member. But something like this can run about $800 very expensive. And you don't ever wash them, just keep them clean and dancing them.
9:53 I'd also like to talk about my order first. These are our, um signs of like in a social class. Chiefs,
10:06 descendants. Chief's daughters. You were like an upper classman. If you wore these long ago, these long arter people do wear them down to their calves or so they do get really long from the ones from Canada.
10:23 Um these are my hair ties, they're black lipped abalone with they're beaded around the abalone right here. This is one of our coastal shells. My mom made these for me. I do have a neck piece that I made. It hangs right here and it's a beaded rose in the shape of a diamond and I made that myself. But my accessories, I'm not wearing them because they're on display in the
10:45 vendors tent. My moccasins were made by a man from Canada
10:51 and they have the Sioux Star design which along with being a confederate tribes of Grand Ronde member. My father is Oglala Sioux from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. And this is one of the su designs. My belt. I made this purse on my belt. It's a rose
11:10 and my traditional dress. I did have roses on it. A beaded.
11:21 My fan was gifted to me by my mother. My mother gifted me these feathers. I earned my first eagle feather when I was in eighth grade
11:30 um for doing good. And
11:35 in school um I was a straight a student, my eighth grade year and my mom wanted to honor me with that and my eighth grade promotion by gifting me with the Eagle feather, which I was very proud that day. Um, I'm gonna demonstrate a few steps for you. So, um, I don't know if you've all been to powwows or anything or seen the jingle dress style, but it's very unique how they move, um, very fast, quick steps
12:01 usually to, to a very fast drum. This is a medicine dance I was saying, and these cones you can have up to um 365. It's a sobriety dance and it rep these cones represent the 365 days of sobriety and I'm sober. So I do this dance. Um It's a healing dance for personal and
12:25 everybody who can't dance, praying for my family and my people to be sober. So I'm gonna demonstrate a few steps for you on stage. There is um a crow hop that the jingle dancers do a side step and then just the straight that is mostly done at Pow Wow's. So my mom's gonna drum and I'm gonna show you guys some steps on stage.
12:53 Yeah.
12:57 No.
13:08 OK.
13:14 And the fan is kept here at the side. OK.
13:55 And that was just the straightforward, the straight dancing. Um There is another style of jingle called the, the old style where you don't wear um plumes in your hair jingle dancers have the tall eagle plumes in their hair feathers in the old style. If you don't use a fan, you don't wear plumes in your hair.
14:20 And I wouldn't be wearing a fancy dress like this. It would just be more plain just with the jingles.
14:28 Um, the side step, I'm gonna show you guys it's kind of, um,
14:34 also known as the slip and slide. I don't know just what some people call it. It's kind of a rocking motion. You don't really see a lot of footwork. So I'll demonstrate for you guys.
15:03 People do it like that or they can, um, just kind of like the feet like this. You feel rocking or some people like this. It's just however you wanna, um, however you feel in your heart that you need to do it, it's just everyone has their own style, which is how, um com competition.
15:29 What sets people apart. Thank you for my demonstration. Now, I'm going to share
15:37 my presentation with you about Lewis and Clark.
15:51 As my mother has already shared with you. I've been working all year on my senior project, which is um, big project that starts from the beginning of the year. We have to write a 15 page paper, give a presentation to a panel of judges and do at least 20 hours of service working on our project. I've been traveling around with my mother
16:14 and my sister. We go and to different Lewis and Clark events and sing and just share a little bit about the native perspective on the Lewis and Clark. You hear so much about how Lewis and Clark went to West on their expedition and came back and were these great, extraordinary men while the Native Americans are
16:35 a little downplayed, we feel so we like to come and share with everyone. Um So I've been doing my senior project on this and I prepared a presentation which I hope you guys will enjoy. I won't be so nervous to complete. Ok. Um
16:58 President Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to do four main things. He sent them to keep a journal to collect specimens of plants and other things, medicines
17:13 to
17:17 make contact with the Indians and trade with them and to map a water route to the Pacific.
17:25 Um He didn't, he didn't really know what was what they were going to expect. He just, he told them that to use the force that was needed, which he didn't know, you know, he, they could have to kill them to kill Indians who come in contact with them, who might pose a threat. Um they really weren't sure what to expect from the Native Americans.
17:49 Us. On the other hand that Indian people, we had come in contact, Lewis and Clark were not the first white settlers, white Europeans, white people. We had come in contact with the Russians had come down on the Pacific Coast, French Canadians, Canadians to trade with us. So Lewis and Clark were kind of surprised when they came upon some Indians and we already had kettles and beads and
18:13 sailor apparel and linen clothing. So, um, and they like in trading, they didn't, um, they thought our asking prices were too much like we would trade something and then want expect a high price. That's what they wrote in their journals. That's what they thought. But we knew the value of our goods, our otter pelts, our deer hides.
18:38 We knew the value of these from pre trading with previous traders. So it really wasn't a high asking price. Um I'm really here to talk to you today about the impact of Lewis and Clark on native people in general. Um Just forget about those, um, Lewis and Clark
19:03 pretty much. I don't want to be talking bad about them, but they really just came in and invaded us. They set the pathway, the groundwork for more and more settlers to come in and take over. They really, um,
19:20 laid the foundation for that. We as Indian people. We, you know, we didn't really have the resources um, to fight back. We after many years of fighting back, we were finally put on these reservations and pretty much just like stuck in a corner, stuck in a little piece of land where we were designated to live.
19:49 And just the Grand Ronde people specifically, um, our seated homelands were all over Oregon, Southern California, Northern California, Southern Washington, the Columbia River. We were rounded up at Table Rock, our five tribes, the Kapua Malala, Anoro River, Shasta.
20:12 We were rounded up and marched up here to Grand Ronde. Um uh and given a 60,000 acre allotment around these areas and told that this was our homeland. The Dawes Act said that each family could have so much land. There was about after our, this was our 60,000 acres. I was talking about
20:35 after that happened, there was about 26,000 acres left over, which was um considered by the government a surplus and it was sold off. So we were down to about 30,000 acres when land, um land became taxable.
20:53 A lot of the Indian people here lost their land because we couldn't pay the taxes. And finally, we were just, we were pretty much just reduced down to the bare minimum. Um President Dwight D Eisenhower in 1954 terminated us with the termination act, which is such a horrible word because it terminations like the wiping out like
21:17 we're pretty much told that we weren't Indian anymore. We weren't a tribe. We were reduced to our little cemetery up on Grand Mound Road. That's all we have. It's about um maybe the size of this parking lot. I don't know, it's not that big, but that's all we had left after we were terminated. That's all we were able to hold on to during our termination. And it was just really sad for all of our people.
21:41 A lot of us stayed in this area hoping that one day we would get restored um through the diligent endeavors of many tribal members, a group, tribal elders and leaders step forward to make sure that we could begin the process toward restoration. Um I don't want to name any names because I might lose someone out. But it took about 15 years altogether
22:06 through the process of getting legislation passed in Congress and cooperative efforts from other groups. It just took a really long time for us to get restored after we were terminated in 1954. In 1983. We um our bill was passed in Congress that said that we could be become a tribe again and Ronald Reagan signed it
22:31 and said that we could have um it was almost 10,000 acres back which he gave back to the Grand Ronde tribe confederate tribes. We still have a lot to regain. Even though we have our, our tribe, our land, we've lost so much of our language. All we have left is um
22:52 none of the, none of our elders speak, speak like I don't know if I mentioned but the five tribes, the Kapua um Rogue River, Shasta, Malala. We don't have any specific um speaker from each tribe. Like it's someone who speaks Kapua or someone who speaks Malala. We have a trade language. The, the twa which we were singing in earlier
23:16 that is um a language that a lot of coastal tribes knew along the Columbia River and down that we were able to communicate through. So alongside knowing our own language, we also knew this trade language, which is what we have now in Grand Ronde. And we have um preschoolers learning this language. We are struggling to
23:39 um gain back a lot of what we have lost our culture. Just a, a tribal identity people have um married out of the tribe and the Indian blood is going away. And it's just really sad. We do have about 5000 members and we are struggling to hold on to what we have our through our cultural immersion programs. And
24:02 we've really come a long way that we're survivors, we're fighters, I think um just myself standing here today is a lot, has a lot to say about how far we have come from being wiped off through like smallpox diseases. Just
24:24 we've really come a long way and we're still trying to um as I said, regain our culture back. Certain um
24:39 our casino is our main funding. We were able to build this casino in 1996. We originally, we played bingo up at our, up at our like our um circa the Grand Ronde circus. Uh but we played bingo and um we raised money. We saved a lot of money and that's how we got our casino started in 1996
25:02 which is, has been the number one attraction in Oregon for three years. We're very thankful for that and we use funding for that to provide our 5000 members with health care and dental care. We have um native youth leadership program, which is a program I have been involved in and really is a big part of my life. Um
25:26 I actually just got back from a camping trip. I was a chaperone for about 20 native youth. We took them out to camp Merriweather. We were camping right on the beach. We just have all these programs. Um our forestry that we were able to really work with and just, it's just a big part of our lives. Our tribe is
25:50 and we're working toward the betterment of our people, toward establishing a stronger economic base that we can
26:01 just for future generations. Um
26:08 I'm going in closing, I'm going to sing this song for you guys along with being um Grand Ronde, Indian, Kapua, Umpqua, Rogue River and Shasta. I'm also a Walla Su from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, which I already shared where my father is from. And I'm gonna sing this song to you in the Lakota language
26:32 and the women's Laokot
26:35 on July.
26:40 This song was
26:43 talk to my mother by
26:47 Aunt Agnes. So
26:51 the Lakota woman,
26:55 I ask that you please not applaud and
27:03 Ch
27:07 JD tango
27:14 talk
27:17 who are not
27:24 Che the TGA was
27:33 you are JD Tango?
27:40 I walk on top of
27:45 um Yeah.
27:49 OK. Uh T the tank was
27:57 and you can sing it over and over. Um that's a, a prayer song and it means here I come, praying and dancing. Have mercy on my soul and it's praying to the great spirit, our father in heaven. I'd like to thank you guys for listening to me.
28:19 Um It was great having all these people to talk to. Are there any questions that anyone would like to ask me?
28:29 No, I got your question. Well, here, hold on a second. Let me get to you because then we can all hear you and you're on stage, right? How heavy is your dress? Um,
28:44 maybe like 15 pounds. Maybe they can get, I have another one that has more cones on it. I think this one only has like maybe 100 and 50 cones. But if I had the 365 pounds, it would be like 40 pounds is very heavy.
29:03 Another question. Ok.
29:09 How old are you? I'm 18.
29:14 Ok. Thank you guys. Thank you. All right. Thank you Hope
29:24 in the

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Hope Lafferty on Lewis and Clark and Grand Ronde sovereignty

Hope Lafferty

Grand Ronde

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Hope Lafferty on Lewis and Clark and Grand Ronde sovereignty

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