Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2001)
SlMLYAY Tymoo Warm Springs, Oregon January 25, 2001 9 A Day at the Opera 4'. V.t -'V it Vj 4' i' fipilchniio Tribal comimicdB cinaarinniairii Editor's note: Following is the ' text oj a speecn uj uiney run jr., chairman of the Warm Springs Tribal , Council, given at the Government to , Government Summit, Portland State i" University, in December 2000. My fellow Tribal Chairs, Gov ernor Kitzhaber, tribal representa tives, agency heads and liaisons, I ; have the honor to represent the Tribal '' Council of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of !! Oreeon at this Dotentiallv historic ; o r w , gathering. This is the last such gath- . enng ueiore a legislative session uui ing the term of this Governor. This legislature is less combative and more interested in working together for r solutions than any of the last decade. ' We have a brief moment to combine solutions to the primary problem of , our time and our region. Of rnnrse I'm l:ilkincr ahont ' real salmon recovery: fish enough to catch, not just to propagate. I'm talk ' ing about needed responses to over use oi our natural iesuuii.es, luiai ' economic development and education 1 initiatives. And I"m talking about the responsibility of all Oregonians to f 4 - - - ;)'' . , . i t r n restore our birthright of salmon-rich streams and not to be deterred and distracted by Measure 7 and limited ideas of property rights. We approach sesquicentennial of our Treaties with the U.S. The as tounding decline of salmon can only be understood by looking at the wealth of our rivers at the time of treaty-making. The Creator gave our people a gift without price: abundant salmon runs that made us as rich as any people in what is now the United States. We didn't need a livability initiative; just follow the plan the Cre ator set in place for us. When our lead ers turned over most of land to the newcomers, they had no idea that this gift would be thrown away. Few than five percent of the salmon return to the rivers today. Governor, you are well aware of the problem. We applaud you for putting salmon recovery at the top of the agenda. We know you will keep it there despite challenges of Measure 7. This measure is a warning sign that some do not understand the damage they are doing by their land abuses. At this critical time, the Treaty v .'Shis' '! i " i, Tribes and the States need to partners, not opponents, in salmon recovery. The Columbia River Fish Manage ment Plan works for harvest. The CRFMP just needs to be revised to include production. When it was first put in place it was a model agreement for the entire nation. It can be again. Let us devote ourselves to this im-,, provement and end the need for fre quent trips to the federal courthouse. Even as we do this, we must , respond to our depleted natural re sources with rural economic develop ment and education initiatives. The real wealth of Oregon is in healthy forests and streams, not in money banked from the destruction of these priceless wonders. With lots of help from our trustee, we made the mis take of converting too many trees into dollars. Today we pay the price with sharply reduced revenues from our forests. Our story is the story of all of Oregon. The sad fact is our losses translate into the need for more eco nomic development. Livability with poverty is still w hat one-third of our people - and so many rural Orego nians - have to look forward to un less the state gets serious about incen tives and education. 1 f ) " - i ;r:; -1 f!f . caBBs ffoir The answer lies not in crowd ing more Oregonians into cities, but in innovative development in rural Oregon. The Warm Springs Tribes continually seek business opportuni ties on or near our reservation: tour ism in the Cnlnmhia Gorce. industrial ii ' development and energy acquisition near Warm Springs, to name a few. We can work together to see incen tives for rural investments enacted in the 2001 Session. We must work to gether to improve funding for capital improvements to rural schools so that our people can benefit from the jobs we create. A final point: I urge you, Gov ernor, not to let Measure 7 slow your hand. We opposed Measure 7, and we urge every Tribe to join in stopping it. We agree with you that Measure 7 is not about preventing salmon recov ery. Still it opens the door for the greedy to profit from doing what they should do anyw ay. It is a test of our determination to achieve a return to the way of life all Oregonians have as our birthright. Streams should be full of fish, as they were for so many thousands of years. This is how the Creator made this world. People of Warm Springs Elementary Treated to Portland Opera's Cinderella Students at Warm Springs Elementary spent an afternoon at the opera last Friday - and never left school. Instead they were visited by members of Portland Opera's artist-in-residence program who staged a fabulous production of Cinderella. The performers, recruited nationwide for the opera's educational outreach program, were well-received by students, staff and guests. With only a few movable sets, minimal costume changes and the accompaniment of the school piano, the young troupe transported the enraptured audience to Cinderella's home as well as the Prince's palace. One of the goal's of the outreach program is to introduce opera to students as an entertaining as well as significant art form. Judging from the laughter elicited by the antics of Cinderella's jealous step sisters as well as the hushed attention to Cinderella's lovely solo, the troupe succeeded in their goal. In true fairy tale tradition, both the performance and the school week ended on a happy note. umty oiro ignorance have injured the streams. No one gave them the right to do this damage. Our people had no concept of the destructive force of some of the newcomers to our coun try. Your people could not foresee this in 1855, either. In both of our ancient traditions, owning land has meant taking stewardship for all the people, fish and others who must live there and pass through. Ownership is not a license to bring devastation upon our fellow beings. It is not an entitlement to destroy the way of life, the very livelihood of our neighbors. Observing this principle is very important to our whole range of prop erty rights under our Treaty and the federal laws that protect these rights. Measure 7 cannot touch the Tribes' Treaty property rights. This is not just about the fish, but about the deer and elk and other game animals that must have a home. Our cultural plants that the Treaty guarantees our gathering are also immune from Measure 7. Huckleberries, cam as, and cous are important foods as they have always been. We call upon you. Governor, to help us preserve these resources from greed, as you have been work Cinderella (far left), sung by mezzo-soprano Marie Bafus, wins the heart of the handsome Prince, tenor Ken Lavigne (below), despite the efforts of the wicked stepsisters and their father played by Esther Moses, Jade Edwards and Virginia Peche (near left) to capture him for themselves. saDmrnoin) ing to do in the riparian zones. Also, we call upon you to protect our buri als and other cultural resources that this process promised two years ago. At the beginning of this talk, I called this a "potentially historic meeting." The potential lies in our work together in this Legislative ses sion and for the last two years of the Governor's term. 1 If we work together to restore salmon to harvestable levels ... If we labor to improve business opportunities in and near Indian Country, with public education fund ing so that our children may have the skills to benefit from the opportuni ties... If we unite to stop extreme ver sions of property rights from saving salmon habitat and die homes of other important animals and plants and sav ing our ancestors and cultural re sources on and in the land . . . then this government-to-government process and this meeting will prove historic for our people. Thank you.