CERT training, healthy families,
pow-wow, Head Start
Pages 7,10-13
Champions, new business,
OIEA, interviews
Pages 14-15
I CHS update, personnel changes,
I
out-of-area care, Tooth Talk
I
Page 20
Indian Week show, Gregg Allman,
comedy, Mercedes, protégés
Pages 22-23
S iletz
rated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Vol. 35, No. 5 May 2007
SiletzTribal Restoration - A 30th Anniversary Celebration
by Brent Merrill
Part 1 - “The People are Dancing Again ...”
The people of the Confederated
Tribes of Siletz Indians achieved Res
toration for their families on Nov. 18,
1977, when then-President Jimmy
Carter signed a document that returned
the tribe to federally recognized status.
When President Carter signed the
Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Restoration Act as Public Law 95-195,
it was the stroke of a pen in Washing
ton, D.C., that would change forever
the future of the people who had been
removed from their usual and accus
tomed areas and forcibly relocated to
the Central Oregon Coast. It continues
to change today.
The Siletz Tribe was the first one
in Oregon to achieve Restoration and
the second in the United States to re
gain its federally recognized status.
“The Tribal Council wants to cel-
ebrate the tribe’s Restoration through
out its 30th anniversary year because it
is a landmark event in modern tribal
history,” said Tribal Chairman Delores
Pigsley. "Because of Restoration, the
future is bright. This generation is re
storing the tribe.”
Tribal leaders felt the same way at
their first Restoration celebration.
“In the long, difficult process of
working for Restoration, there has been
a rebirth of the tribe's spirit and of the
people’s own sense of value as an In
dian tribe,” said then-Chairman Art
Bensell in 1977.
Today’s tribal population traces its
Native American ancestry to 30 bands
of Indians that were rounded up by the
cavalry throughout the 20 million acres
of ancestral land that stretched from
the Columbia River to the Klamath River
and from the Cascade Mountain Range
to the Pacific Ocean.
In the 1850s, the tribes were made
up of people from the Rogue River
(Takelma, Chasta, and Applegate),
Umpqua and Calapooia of Umpqua
Valley, Cow Creek Umpqua Band
(Takelma), Chasta, Scoton, Grave
Creek (Takelma, Shasta, Applegate
Siletz Fair. 1918
River, Galice Creek. Chasta-Costa),
Chinook. Kalapuya and Molalla tribes
of the Willamette Valley and southern
Molalla area.
Many other tribes, like Alsea,
Yaquina, Tillamook, Nehalem,
Nestucca, See-la-gees, Salmon River,
Yoncalla, Luckiamute, and Santiam
already were living in the area around
the coastal range from time immemorial.
Ironically, forced relocation of the area's
Indigenous population brought the people
together who remain in the area today.
By I860, the population on the
Siletz Reservation was more than
3.000 people.
The reason the story of Restoration
to federally recognized tribal status is
so important for the tribal leadership
to share is because of termination and
its devastating effects on tribal life.
"Throughout those years the people
remained strong, practiced their cus
toms, spoke their language, and in their
hearts and minds never ceased being
an Indian,” said Chairwoman Pigsley at
the 2(),h Anniversary of Restoration.
Termination in 1954 meant the gov
ernment’s trust responsibilities to tribes
2
3
14
17
Tribal Council Timesheets
Siletz Clinic
Chinook Winds
Passages
This is the first in a series of
monthly articles by Brent Merrill
about the Confederated Tribes of
Siletz Indians' 30th Anniversary
of Restoration.
Merrill is a public relations con
sultant for the tribe. He has spent
his adult life working for many
tribes throughout the Northwest
as a journalist, public relations con
sultant, and natural resource law
See Restoration on page 17.
Siletz News
Confederated Tribes of
Siletz. Indians
P.O. Box 549
Siletz. OR 973X0-0549
Delores Pigsley.
Tribal Chairman
Brenda Bremner.
General Manager
and Editor-in-Chief
ACQUISITION CEPT. /SERIALS
19
20
2 1
24
First in a Series
Celebrating 30 Years
enforcement coordinator.
KNIGHT LIBRARY
What’s Inside
Letters to the Editor
Chairman's Report
Tribal Program News
Tribal Member News
Notices
had ended. It meant that promises made
with tribes in treaties less than a century
before no longer would be honored.
Termination in 1954 was a death
sentence.
“Tribal leadership wants you to
know that the tribe is alive and vital
today and the death sentence didn't
work,” said Pigsley. “The tribe is alive
and Restoration was the catalyst for the
tribe's revitalization. This year the tribal
leadership invites you to celebrate
along with the people of the tribe. They
invite you to celebrate the tribe’s ef
forts in cultural restoration and recla
mation, the leadership’s venture into
the world of economic development,
and the continued establishment of
the tribe's internal infrastructure with
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