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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 21, 2015)
4A OPINION THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015 Western tribes strive to keep the light alive G rowing up is hard enough without having to worry about your civili- zation going extinct. In the s ummer 2015 edition of Gil- crease magazine, young Cherokee Tribe member Danielle Culp draws a quite bril- liant metaphor about surviving within a maelstrom of wor- ry about whether the culture that defines you is fading away. “One of the scar- iest things for me to think about is the death of a star. Some stars are close enough that the light reaches Matt us in minutes. Some Winters stars are so far it takes tens of thousands of years for their light to travel to us. Like all things, stars die. If a star dies and it takes hundreds of years for the light to reach Earth we will see the light of that star even after it has passed. By the time that we realize it is gone it will have been gone a long time. “I am afraid that cultures are like stars, that they can die too. We know they do, even if we do not like to admit it or talk about it. The original inhabitants of the eastern coast were some of the first ones to come in contact with the new ex- plorers. There were some tribes that were wiped off the face of the planet. Either by disease or by the sword. Those cultures are lost in time. There was no one left to pass on their stories, their language, their legacy. I equate them to close stars, for we can see the immediate effect of their demise. I am afraid that other cultures have died and we are still seeing their light in present generations, but when we realize that they are truly gone it will be too late to save their memory. I know that this is not a happy thought, and if I allowed myself, it could be too big a bur- den to bear. Instead, I allow it to inspire me. It inspires me to fight for my culture to show the world that I am still here, that WE are still here. I refuse to let our light go out, because I want it to continue to shine in generations to come.” The Chinook — and the Clatsop on the Oregon side of the river — continue hoping, in the words of the young Cherokee woman, to receive some acknowledgment that ‘We are still here.’ Photo courtesy of the Confederated Umatilla Journal A group of Native Americans attending a first-ever White House-sponsored event in sup- port of tribal youth poses with the Washington Monument while waiting for the Smithso- nian Museum of American History to open during a visit to Washington, D.C. in July. M y first boss was a full-blooded Cherokee, a profoundly likable Oklahoma man named Henry Gourd, whose name always comes easily to mind because he was distinctly pumpkin shaped. Living all my life in the West, I can’t gauge how common it is for white Americans in general to have such Native Americans in their lives. But certainly for me, after my parents decided to build a house just inside a reservation, it was in- evitable that I’d have a stronger-than-or- dinary interest in their fate. There have always been some whites who cross the line into being tribal groupies. I know far too much about their internal feuds, corruption, school bullying and other or- dinary human foibles to so idolize Indi- an life. But it would be outright sinful to not pay attention when despair haunts too many Indian people, good folks just try- ing to have decent lives. There are glimmers of hope dawning on the horizon, much of this light com- ing from people like Culp who aren’t de- feated and who feel a renewed sense of direction. In northeast Oregon, the Confederat- ed Umatilla Journal’s August 2015 issue reports on six Umatilla Youth Leadership Council members attending an inspira- tional gathering convened by the White House to improve the lives of n ative Photo courtesy of Confederated Umatilla Journal Umatilla Indian Reservation Youth Leadership Council representatives Cece Hoffman, left, and Alyssa Farrow hurry to put on rain gear during a wet ride around the nation’s capital aboard a tour bus during the White House Tribal Youth Gathering July. youth around the country. Visiting the capital ought to be a rite of passage we arrange for every young American — this would surely be a far better use of taxes than most of the ridiculous ways in which they are wasted. But for small-town teen- agers from Indian Country, making con- nections at the center of national power and visiting the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian might be the kind of spark needed to ignite a life of activism and political engagement. Attendee Alyssa Farrow, secretary of the Umatilla youth council, reports be- ing moved by irst l ady Michelle Obama’s speech to the 1,000 participants in this first-ever White House Tribal Youth Gathering in early July. And youth coun- cil Treasurer Cece Hoffman said, “I’m very thankful that we were able to rep- resent our tribe and bring back knowl- edge and ideas for the future. It was an eye-opening experience I will never for- get.” Considering that it takes almost no ef- fort at all to learn that reservation youth are among America’s most at-risk citi- zens, it’s head-spinning to think it’s taken until now for it to sink in at the top level that it was time to toss them a life ring. But good to see anyway. It’s also emotionally affecting to read in the latest issue of Archaeology mag- azine about Yup’ik Tribe wooden dolls dating between 1540 and 1650 washing out of a prehistoric site destabilized by melting Bering Sea ice. Archaeologists mounted an emergency response to in- vestigate the mound from which the dolls were emerging. Sometimes a couple of hundred of these figures, along with ritu- al masks and other well-preserved wood- en objects, were recovered each day. It is a strange but invigorating irony that destruction of a place so saturated with tribal history is reawakening local young people. “In part as a result of their experience with the dig, a group of children from Quinhagak petitioned the elders for and received permission to form a traditional dance group,” the magazine reports. In 2013 at an exhibition of newfound arti- facts, these young dancers performed. “They were welcoming the pieces back,” the lead archaeologist said. “That was the fist time there had been traditional danc- ing in Quinhagak in more than a century. It’s all part of this revival that is growing along with the finds.” A somewhat similar renewal of trib- al identity happened near the mouth of the Columbia River when archaeologists uncovered Chinook tribal remains at the Middle Village unit of Lewis and Clark National Park in the run-up to the 2005 expedition bicentennial. This tangible evidence of their ancestors was sad for local tribal members, and yet at the same time appeared to strengthen their passion for asserting a right to endure and even prosper in the tribe’s traditional home- land. Shamefully, this hasn’t ignited a sim- ilar interest on the part of national lead- ers to right wrongs against this essential Pacific Northwest tribe. A letter-writing campaign now in its 54th day has yet to elicit any response whatsoever from the White House. The Chinook — and the Clatsop on the Oregon side of the river — continue hop- ing, in the words of the young Cherokee woman, to receive some acknowledgment that “We are still here.” — MSW Matt Winters is editor of the Chinook Observer and Coast River Business Jour- nal. STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager • CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager • DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Founded in 1873