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73
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v. 20
no. 17
August
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Coyote News, est 1976
August 18, 2005 Vol. 30, No. 17
ivnrjc
Business on
reservation
is challenging
By Brian Mortensen
Spiyay Tjmoo
Over the past 12 years, 98 mem
bers of the Confederated Tribes have
graduated from the Oregon Native
American Business and Entrepreneur
ial Network (ONABEN) Starting a
Successful Business course.
Some of them celebrated a class
reunion recently. They shared their sto
ries of the trials of starting a new busi
ness, and they met economic develop
ment researchers who are impressed
with what has happened in the area of
tribal business development
The reunion was held Aug. 10 at the
Warm Springs Small Business Center.
Twelve graduates-attended the luncheon
celebration, which coincided with a visit
from ONABEN executive director
Tom I lansen.
Also on hard were Jonathan Taylor,
a research fellow with the Harvard
Project on American Indian Economic
Development and researcher with the
Native Nations Institute at the Univer
sity of Arizona; and Joan Timeche,
assistant director of the Native Nations
Institute for Leadership, Management
and Policy, also of the University of
Arizona in Tucson.
Each of the graduates at the lun
cheon had the opportunity to speak.
Among the graduates was class of 2004
graduate Beverly Arthur, who operates
Arthur Landscaping with her husband
. Pedro. Another graduate on hand was
Billy Joe Berry Speakthunder, and his
wife Wanda Berry, who plan on raising
organic cattle on the reservation and
creating a haven for people who are
returning from drug and alcohol reha
bilitation. 'The Warm Springs tribes have been
one of the strongest leaders in small
business development," said
ONABEN's Tom Hampson. "You are
fortunate to have the level of tribal
support that you have here."
He said Onaben has been nominated
by the Harvard Project for Economic
Development as one of the finalists for
projects that contribute to tribal eco
nomic development and governance.
The nomination brought Taylor
and Timeche to Warm Springs for the
day.
"The object of the awards program
is to investigate where tribes have been
innovative in creating programs that are
sustainable, creative, transferable and
effective in solving the problems of
nation building in Indian country," Tay
lor said.
EBUSINESS on page 9
Project seeks
(AP) - Every two weeks or so the
last elderly man or woman with full
command of a particular language dies.
At that rate, as many as 2,500 native
tongues will disappear forever by 21 00.
David W Lightfoot is helping spear
head a government initiative to pre
serve some of these dying languages,
believing each is a window into the
human mind diat can benefit the world
at large.
"If we are going to lose half the
world's languages, that endangers our
capacity to understand the genetic ba
sis of language," said Lightfoot, who
heads the directorate of Social, Behav
ioral and Economic Sciences at the
National Science Foundation.
The foundation recendy joined the
National Endowment for the Humani
ties in the effort to preserve languages.
The project has awarded $4.4 mil
Tribes move forward with casino plan
The Confederated Tribes of
Warm Springs arc beginning the
evaluation of how a casino at Cas
cade Ixcks would impact the envi
ronment. The evaluation process will result
in an environmental impact state
ment, or EIS.
The EIS process is a large, nec
essary step toward bringing the 25
acrc development site into trust.
Once the land is in trust, the federal
government will consider the gam
Youth gather
1,200 eels
at falls
By Dave McMechan
Spilyay Tynoo
I Iigh school students this sum
mer gathered hundreds of eels at
Willamette Falls, a traditional eeling
place of the tribes.
The eels were brought to the res
ervation, prepared and then cooked
and eaten as part of the Huckle
berry Feast.
The eeling trip was the most popu
lar part of the Natural Resources
Summer Youth Program, a new pro
gram this year (see story Mow).
Eeling at Willamette Falls is im-
-portant to -the tribes, said Tribal
Council Chairman Ron Suppah.
Young people need to learn of the
tribal members' off-reservation
rights in order for these rights to
remain strong in the future, Suppah
said.
Twelve young people of the
tribes made the trip to Willamette
Falls.
See EELING on page 9
Variety of work at Natural
By Ashley Aguilat
Spilyay Tymoo
There was a new option this sum
mer for students wishing to pursue
a career in natural resources. The
program is called the Natural Re
sources Integrated Education Pro
gram, and it is funded by the tribal
Natural Resources Branch.
Students in the program also col
laborate closely, almost on a daily
basis, with the Education and
Workforce Development Depart
ment. This year the Natural Resources
to preserve
lion to 26 institutions and 1 3 individual
scholars to investigate the status of 70
languages that are believed to be en
dangered and to help preserve them.
The project is now asking researchers
to apply for additional grants, with the
expectation that at least $2 million a
year will be available.
Some experts say there are up to
10,000 different languages left in the
world; others put the estimate thou
sands lower depending on how many
are characterized as dialects of another
language.
Languages aren't just words, linguists
say, but a people's way of looking at
the world.
Lightfoot gives the example of
Guguyimadjir, spoken by people in the
Australian state of Queensland. They
have no uvrds for "left" or "right" but
orient themselves and their world by
ing compact between the tribes and the
state of Oregon.
The first public meeting toward de
velopment of the EIS will be from 6
to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 1 5 at the
Cascade Ixicks Marine Park Pavilion.
There will be another meeting at the
same location from 9:30 a.m. until noon
on Saturday, Sept. 17.
The meetings arc an open-house
type of event, where people can com
ment and ask questions about the
tribes' proposal, said Ed Manion, of
it 'i'
if r i
wsr n
1 .. '."ffvv.'.i;
. v i ' - r.
A,
5 ..
111. h t'i ('
youth crew was different from the
crews Natural Resources has had in the
past. Instead of focusing on one job
or one line of work, the crew experi
enced some aspect of each department
in the branch.
Natural Resources Branch Manager
Bobby Brunoe wanted to design a pro
gram that would create interest in natu
ral resources, and careers in natural re
sources, among high school students.
Brunoe then asked Joseph
Sheppherd, tribal archeologist, to head
the new program. Sheppherd has ex
perience in development of curricula.
languages in
the points of the compass unlike most
of us, who see things in relation to
ourselves rather than to the world as a
whole.
People in Brazil's Amazon rain for
est who speak Piratapuyo say "The cake
ate John" where English speakers would
say "John ate the cake" in other words,
they put the object of a verb first and
the subject last.
Such peculiarities feed research on
how the human mind works, how it
perceives relations in space, how chil
dren learn complex languages so quickly
and easily, Lightfoot said.
These types of research will be aided
by one method of saving languages: by
recording their speech, analyzing their
grammar, and preserving them digitally.
Other researchers are interested in
a broader range of knowledge that is
more difficult to save. To do so requires
the project development team. The
meetings are recorded, and made part
of the EIS record.
Following the meetings at Cascade
Ixcks, there is an I CIS scoping meeting
in Portland on Sept. 19, and one in
I lood River Sept. 21. The tribes have
hired the architectural, engineering and
consulting firm of 1 1DR to produce
the EIS.
The EIS will evaluate all environ
mental impacts of the tribes' develop
ment proposal. An example is the im
V -
Photo, courtesy of Natural KesourceaSummer Youth
A member of the Natural
Resources Summer Youth work
crew, Simeon Kalama catches
an eel at Willamette Falls. The
eels were placed on ice and
brought to the reservation in time
for the Huckleberry Harvest.
Resources
1 le began working on the project in
December of last year and put the
pieces together to set up the program
within six months.
The purpose of the program is
to help develop well-prepared staff
in natural resources to replace those
who retire in the future. It is a long
term process.
The program was flexible, and fo
cused on three main aspects of natu
ral resources work: observation,
hands on participation, and discus
sion. See YOUTH on page 9
danger of disappearing
encouraging younger people to learn
their language from their elders, pre
serving not only the words themselves
but unwritten traditions, arts, religion
and more.
For example, plants used by tradi
tional healers around the world have
led to the discover)' of new medicines,
including aspirin. Some small and de
clining tribe in Africa or in Papua New
Guinea a country where there are
820 languages among fewer than 5.5
million people, by one count may
know something about a plant that
could help treat cancer or Alzheimer's.
For decades children in American
Indian schools were discouraged from
speaking tribal tongues and punished
when they did. That policy has long
been abandoned, but generations were
lost to many languages.
Anthony Woodbury, who heads the
pact of creating the interchange to die
casino site off Interstate 84.
The EIS and its recommendations
will be submitted to the BI A. The pro
cess is expected to take about a year,
said Manion.
The casino has the support of the
Port and City of Cascade Locks, I lood
River County, and other nearby com
munities. The casino development site
is zoned for industrial use. Part of the
development process will involve re
zoning the land for commercial use.
Language
experts meet
with teachers
By Brian Mortensen
Linguists from around the nation
worked with tribal language teachers
during a three-day seminar at Kah-Nce-Ta,
Aug. 3-5.
The goal was to work toward bring
ing the traditional languages of the
Confederated Tribes back into the class
room at Madras High School, said
Valerie Switzler, of the Warm Springs
Culture and Heritage Department
"We have a lot of hope in the new
school administration," Switzler said.
"We're working toward building a cur
riculum for the high school."
Robert Moore, a linguist from Chicago
who specializes in Kiksht, spoke with
Wasco language teachers. He empha
sized that the language can be taught
to older students.
Hank Millstein, from the University
of California at Berkeley, and Tim
Thornes of the University of Oregon,
also worked with language teachers.
As part of the retreat, Ronica
Comingore, a second-grade teacher at
Warm Springs Elementary School, dem
onstrated how teachers make assess
ments of each student's progress ac
cording to the lesson plans.
Nola Queahpama of Warm Springs,
and George Talman, language teacher
at Madras High School, spoke on class
room management
The language teachers were given a
lesson on how to use computers to edit
video language lessons.
Using Apple computers, a digitally
shot video is imported onto the screen,
and subtitles, using the traditional lan
guages, can be superimposed onto the
screen to describe the action. Sound,
to teach pronunciation, is not yet avail
able. See LANGUAGES on page 9
linguistic faculty of the University of
Texas at Austin, suggests that if the
motivation is strong enough, even a
virtually dead language can be revived.
He points to Hebrew, a language
learned for centuries only in its ancient
written form. A modern version is now
a vital part of life in Israel. Another
example: Irish has survived with politi
cal support.
At a conference sponsored by the
two federal agencies, the NSF described
how technology helps. Scholars used to
embalm a little-known language in a
single book, available in a few research
libraries.
Now data, including the actual
sounds, will be widely and cheaply avail
able on the Internet, standardized so it
can be compared with data on other
languages.
t