Smoke signals., June 15, 2000, Page 2, Image 2

Smoke Signals
2
Portland State offers Indian
PORTLAND, OR. (AP) - The state
has linked three Indian Tribes to
Portland State University by a high
speed computer network that allows
students in a master's degree pro
gram to take classes without leaving
the reservation.
The state Department of Adminis
trative Services test program allows
instructors in Portland to teach and
meet with students by video.
"I can just go upstairs, 100 feet from
my office, leave five minutes before
class starts, and be in class and learn
ing," said Chris Leno, director of op
erations for the Confederated Tribes
of Grand Ronde.
Leno is one of a handful of Indi
ans studying Tribal governance
through a new master's degree pro
gram from the Mark 0. Hatfield
School of Government at Portland
State.
Theresa Julnes Rapida, an associ
ate professor of public administration
and member of the Shoalwater Bay
Tribe of coastal Washington devel
oped the program.
Rapida said she wanted to bring
training opportunities to Northwest
Tribes at a time when casino gam
bling profits are fueling record
growth of Tribal governments.
"There are more jobs, but fewer
qualified Native Americans for the
jobs," Rapida said.
In 1989, two of every three employ
ees working for Tribal governments
across the nation were Indians.
By 1996, that number had dropped
to one in three, she said.
"Still, the majority of management
long-distance classes
positions are held by non-Tribal
members," Rapida said, "so we're get
ting more Tribal members who are
in there wanting the skills."
She said the remote master's pro
gram teaches the same basic public
administration skills as the more tra
ditional program.
However, Rapida has worked with
faculty to tailor the examples and
projects used in class to those a Tribal
government might face, such as pro
tecting petroglyphs or public areas
that the Tribes consider sacred.
Rapida started the program last
fall, connecting Portland State with
the Grand Ronde, Siletz and
Umatilla reservations.
The Department of Administrative
Services has lent equipment to the
three Tribal sites through next year
and is covering transmission costs in
exchange for being test sites.
Rapida has applied for a $420,000
grant though the U.S. Department
of Commerce's Technology Opportu
nities Program, which would help all
nine of Oregon's federally recognized
Tribes get connected, as well as Ev
ergreen State College in Washing
ton state.
She's also talking to local Native
American organizations, such as the
National Indian Child Welfare As
sociation, about the possibility of us
, ing the network to deliver training
and workshops.
"I would really like to see a North
west regional hookup that would in
clude the Tribes being able to access
any higher education instruction,"
Rapida said.
Yakamas seek custody of Kennewick Man skeleton
SPOKANE, WA. (AP) The
Yakama Nation is seeking custody of
Kennewick Man for reburial in the
long-running legal battle over the
9,000-year-old skeleton.
A counterclaim the Tribe filed says
eight scientists who sued for the right
to conduct studies of the skeleton have
no rights to the remains "in any way."
The counterclaim says the Yakamas
"are culturally affiliated" with the re
mains and are entitled under the 1990
federal Native American Graves Pro
tection and Repatriation Act "to cus
tody for traditional reburial."
The Tribe filed the counterclaim
recently in U.S. District Court in Port
land, OR., along with a motion to in
tervene in the scientists' lawsuit as a
defendant.
The federal government is now the
sole defendant. The Army Corps of En
gineers had jurisdiction over the Colum
bia River shallows where the bones were
found in July 1996, and planned to turn
them over to Indian Tribes when the
scientists sued that fall.
The Yakamas are part of a coali
tion of five Northwest Tribes that
claimed the bones, asking that they
be reburied with no further studies.
The Yakamas' court filing makes
no reference to the other Tribes' joint
claim to the remains, which is based
on a belief that Kennewick Man was
an ancestor of modern-day Tribes.
The scientists' lawsuit is based in
part on their contention that initial
studies indicated the skeleton has
non-Indian characteristics.
Tribal Attorney Tim Weaver said
recently the Yakamas consulted with
other Tribes before going ahead with
their filing.
"We can't make the (ownership)
claim on behalf of the other Tribes,
and the other Tribes have not decided
whether to intervene," Weaver said.
"This is not evidence of a split be
tween the Tribes," he added. "The
Yakamas just decided that time was
getting very short to assert their in
terests in the court case, and decided
to do so to protect what they see as
their rights."
The Tribe is trying to enter the case
in part because the government's de
fense of Tribal rights to the remains
is uncertain, Weaver said.
Other Tribes may decide to make
similar filings in coming weeks, he
said.
The Yakamas' filing offers no spe
cifics as to the basis for the Tribe's
claim of a cultural affiliation to
Kennewick Man, and Weaver would
not elaborate.
But Tribal Councilman Clifford
Moses has previously said the
Yakamas likely could make the best
case among the Tribes for such an
affiliation.
The Yakama Reservation is about
50 miles west of Kennewick, but
Moses said his people historically
used the area of the Columbia River
where the bones were found.
However, Moses said it did not mat
ter which Tribe eventually is able to
lay claim to the remains, as long as
they are reburied.
Yakamas refer to Kennewick Man
as Techaminsh Oytpamanatityt
"From the Land the First Native."
The 380 bones and fragments com
prise one of the oldest and most com
plete skeletons found in North
America. Radiocarbon dating of the
bones place their age at between
9,320 and 9,510 years old.
A federal judge has given the In
terior Department until Sept. 24 to
conduct DNA tests on the remains.
The tests recently got under way
in Seattle at the Burke Museum of
Natural and Cultural History.
The museum has been the
skeleton's home while the court battle
over what to do with the remains has
dragged on.
Native languages offered at NW high schools
PORT ANGELES, WA. (AP) - The
letters on the board are unfamiliar,
as are the sounds that fill the class
room at Port Angeles High School.
"Hshoooo," say the students, trying
to imitate Klallam language teacher
Jamie Valadez' gentle sound, like an
exhalation of breath, like a light wind
sighing in the cedars.
The students are taking the Klallam
language class for credit toward college-admission
language require
ments just like French, Spanish,
German and Japanese under state
legislation passed in 1993.
About half the students are mem
bers of the Lower Elwha Klallam
Tribe, hoping to be part of the resur
rection of their Native tongue.
"I wanted to learn my own lan
guage," said George Charles, 15, who
is also doing traditional dances and
participating in canoe journeys to fa
miliarize himself with his heritage.
The others are non-Klallam natives
and white kids, curious and interested.
"I thought it would be fun and it is
fun," said Jacob Zappey, 17, a senior
who likes the way Valadez weaves
in Tribal history, lore and art.
On a recent spring day, Tribal El
ders Bea Charles and Adeline Smith
dropped in to hear how the kids were
doing on the sprawling campus in
this community, bracketed on the
south by the snow-capped Olympic
Mountains and on the north by the
Strait of Juan de Fuca.
"I never thought it would be taught
in schools," Charles said, quietly
pleased. "You're the people that are
going to carry it on," she told the
Tribal members in the class. "Be
proud. You come from strong people."
Charles learned English from her
Canadian mother, and for a time
spoke Klallam as well.
"I was just a child when I stopped
speaking it," she said. "I was pun
ished when I spoke our language,
you know."
"I didn't know English at all in my
time," said Smith, whose first expo
sure to the language came when a
relative dropped her off at school.
Now, more than 65 years later,
she's hearing Klallam spoken again.
Revival of the language, familiar
to only a handful of Elders by the
1980s, began as an Olympic National
Park project financed with National
Park Service grants.
Park staff worked with Elder Ed
Sampson, then 90, who died in 1992.
Adeline Smith recalled him joking
that whites wanted to hear him speak
Klallam after 90 years of telling him
NOT to speak it.
In 1995, Valadez and two other
aspiring language teachers began a
three-year training program fi
nanced by an Administration for
Native Americans grant.
"This is our first year actually in a
school," she said. , .i
First-year Klallam students
learned in six-week increments fo
cusing first on terms for the body,
.then those for family, community,
the environment, the salmon cer
emony and canoe journeys.
Next year, in the second phase of
this class, "we hope to get to the point
that we can carry on conversations,"
Valadez said.
The Klallam class and two others
in Northwest Native languages a
Makah class at Neah Bay High
School and a Lummi class at
Ferndale High School were made
possible by 1993 state education leg
islation that inserted the phrase
"which may be American Indian lan
guages" into a section on language
studies in public schools.
The legislation addressed the In
dian perspective on ."foreign" lan
guages, which from the perspective
of many should include English, and
Tribal concerns about the lack of Na
tive history in standard curricula.
Pascua said Makah "is still used
routinely by some" in the Tribe's re
mote community at Cape Flattery.
And as each year passes, between
five and 15 more young people learn
it in school.