The daily Astorian., April 07, 2016, Page 4, Image 16

Coastal Life
Story and photos by DWIGHT CASWELL
A great
frustration
Chairman Tony Johnson is doing everything he can to
gain federal recognition for the Chinook Indian Nation
T
The house in Bay Center, Washington is
weathered and gray; frayed blue tarps pro-
tect the leaky roof. Inside, two women are
preparing eggs and baskets for the Easter
egg hunt that will take place in a few days.
The house was once the home of Lewis
Hawkes, the late hereditary chief of this
Chinook village, and the family made the
house available for the tribal office.
“It should be obvious that we are Indi-
ans,” says Tony Johnson. “Our existence is
self-evident to us, but the federal govern-
ment says we don’t exist as a tribe. Where
do you start with such a situation?”
Johnson starts by doing everything in
his power, as Chairman of the Chinook In-
dian Nation, to have his
people recognized, once
and for all, by the federal
government. Recognition
was restored to the tribe
in 2001, after a 23-year
struggle, but rescinded 18
months later by the Bush
administration.
Today,
Tony Johnson is a man on
a mission.
“We live in a crazy
gray area,” Johnson says.
“Everyone but the federal
government recognizes us as Indians, but
we’re not able to receive any funding or
services. Our great frustration is that we
can’t move forward. I want to see our sta-
tus clarified in my lifetime.”
In his youth, Johnson went out of his
way to work with the elders in his commu-
nity. “What I learned gained me my whole
career,” he says. “There weren’t many
young people who had the great good for-
tune to learn what I learned.”
He left home for college and to work at
various jobs, eventually spending 14 years
with the Confederated Tribes of the Grand
Ronde working to revitalize the language A Chinook Indian Nation sign is located on Bay Center Road.
and culture. He is now education direc-
tor for the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe,
where he is responsible for the education
and heritage departments. He has a dream,
though: “to retire from a job with my own
federally recognized tribe.”
The Chinook Indian Nation does more
than work for federal recognition. “Our ef-
forts are all about the survival of the com-
munity,” Johnson says. “We operate the
tribal office to take care of the needs of
both the individuals and the community.”
As you might expect, Johnson is im-
mersed in Chinook culture. “My grand-
father was born a stone’s throw from the
tribal office. My grandma
was born in 1886, at the
time when the salmon-
berries are in bloom, in a
village near Pillar Rock,”
he says. “Our lives have
been defined by our mem-
bership in Chinook. This
is our experience.”
Johnson is an expert
on Chinuk Wawa, the Chinook Indian Nation Tony Johnson has been active in reviving Chinook canoe culture.
language that originated
as a pidgin trade patois tion to a weeklong potlatch from another loss of the “blue cards” that allowed them
of the Northwest. He and Northwest tribe. This year’s trip will be to hunt and fish in their traditional lands.
his wife, Mechelle, also Chinook, were to the Nisqually Indian Community, little
The Chinook refused to sign an1854
married at Johnson Beach, named for his more than an hour by car but considerably treaty because it required the tribe to be
family and now part of Bush Pioneer park more by canoe.
resettled elsewhere. “We would not leave
The unresolved situation of the Chi- the bones of our ancestors,” Johnson says,
in Bay Center, Washington, and their five
children (“Five is a sacred Chinook num- nook Nation is almost unique, and very and he and his people are still not ready to
ber”) are being brought up in their native present to tribal members. “I’ve heard relinquish their tribal claims.
many times, ‘this is old stuff, get over it,’”
culture.
“I am simply the last in a long line of
Johnson has also been active in reviv- Johnson says, “but this has happened in men and women who have led the Chi-
ing Chinook canoe culture, which had tee- my lifetime.”
nook Indian Nation on its quest for jus-
When the 1974 Boldt decision estab- tice,” Johnson says. “We have an unbro-
tered on the edge of disappearing. Canoes
are used for the First Salmon ceremony in lished native fishing rights, the Chinook ken 10,000-year history in our territory. It
June and for yearly intertribal canoe gath- were not included because the federal is too strong an inheritance to ever think
erings, in which canoe journeys of a week government had never ratified their 1851 you could extinguish it. We’re not going
to a month are taken to honor an invita- treaty. Johnson remembers the resultant away.”
‘I am simply the last
in a long line of men
and women who
have led the Chinook
Indian Nation on its
quest for justice.’
4 | April 7, 2016 | coastweekend.com