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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 2000)
3 Construction Stopped near Chief Seattle's Former Home in Kitsap SEPTEMBER 1, 2000 Wssm disco mm msasss SUQUAMISH INDIAN RESER VATION, WA. (AP) - Contractors digging footings for a new home near Old Man House a former home of Chief Seattle just north of Bainbridge Island have unearthed what ap pears to be a midden, the archaeologi cal term for a garbage dump. Chunks of material from the site are deeply layered each layer record ing activities by Suquamish Indians at the Old Man House, a longhouse destroyed in the 19th century. "It's like a time capsule hanging together," said Archaeologist Dennis Lewarch holding up a chunk laced with shells and fire-cracked stone. The site was accidentally uncov ered recently as a track-hoe opera tor began digging in the area. Lewarch, an Archaeologist for Larson Anthropological Archaeologi cal Services, has identified it as an archaeological site and a Kitsap County inspector has issued a stop work order. "It's like a history book," said Charlie Sigo, a Suquamish Tribal Council member, museum curator and archivist. "When something like this is destroyed, you lose a couple of pages. You never get that back." The Tribe is irked that county offi cials didn't alert them that construc tion was taking place near the Old Man House site. "We knew there was something there," Sigo said. "It was a 600-foot-long house, so that whole spit area is suspect." Pat Osier, the local real-estate agent who owns the site, isn't happy either. He didn't think the footings would be so deep that they would disturb anything at the site near Old Man House State Park. And he's los ing $2,000 a day for the idle track hoe and archaeological fees. Osier said he expects he will even tually be able to build on the site, now covered with landscape fabric and rock. If the Tribe or federal govern ment would like to excavate later, he said, they can buy it. Sigo said he'd just as soon the site was covered back up and left undis turbed for a later date, when more refined archaeological methods might be used. Rick Kimball, Environmental Coor dinator for the Kitsap County Depart ment of Community Development, said the county is waiting for recom mendations from Larson and the Tribe on how building should proceed. The county has nearly finished de veloping a database of area archaeo logical sites that would have labeled the site as potentially significant early in the permitting process, Kimball said. As it was, the county and neighbors were so concerned that the proposed single-family house would block views that its proximity to Old Man House "simply got missed in the process." . "We're just relieved that so little happened before someone noticed it," he said. Research at the site suggests people have lived on the north side of Ag ate Passage for nearly 2,000 years. Old Man House, built sometime around 1800 as a fortress and festi val hall, housed as many as 1,000 people at a time. It was home to Chief Kitsap and Chief Seattle, who eloquently spoke of his Tribe's connection to the land during 1854 treaty negotiations. "Every part of this country is sa cred to my people," said the chief, who died in 1866 and is being, honored during Chief Seattle Days. . , Trader and local Indian agent Wil: liam DeShaw is said to have had the Old Man House burned down around 1871. Much of the land around the reservation was sold to the Army for a base, but Army plans changed and the land was sold to General Con struction, which advertised building lots "rich in historical significance ... and steeped in Indian lore." An excavation of Old Man House in the mid-1970s turned up a wealth of artifacts, now in the Suquamish Museum. It's unclear if the new site will contain as much. American Indian Democrats hope to Mobilize Tribal members, Bolster Gore LOS ANGELES, CA. (AP) Blackfeet Tribal member Stan Juneau believes the thousands of Indians who live on Montana's economically troubled reservations are the key to averting a Republican conquest of the state this fall. Their votes could help derail the conservative majority that often steamrolls candidates into office every election, said Juneau, a Montana delegate at the Democratic National Convention. But the Democrat says he is not sure whether American Indians will make it to the ballot box reservation communities often vote in low numbers. Hoping to alter that reality, delegates returning from the convention had a renewed sense of urgency about taking the campaign to reservations. "We're going to need every vote; every single one this time around," Juneau said. "Al Gore doesn't want to leave anyone behind and we have to make sure we don't leave anyone out." Part of the reason state Democrats want to work harder to court the demographic is their perception that the convention may have done more to push away the state's hardened conservatives, who may not have liked the stands Gore took on gun control and the environment. "This week, we've heard a lot about how the parties are different," said Bob Ream, Chair of the state Democratic Party. "Specific issues that separate Republicans and Democrats." Deciding how to increase American Indian turnout is a tricky problem. Juneau says it's not just a matter of looking for an issue that resonates with Tribal members. "That would be easy," he said, noting that the high schools on his reservation have a dropout rate that has exceeded 50 percent and 75 percent of Tribal members have no health insurance. The problem, Juneau says, is convincing Tribal members that their vote matters. Several Montana Tribes have been involved in disputes with the gov ernment this year, including a barrage of complaints from American Indians that a federal law prohibiting the sale of false Indian jewelry is not being enforced. . "There is a tendency for some people to feel as though politics is not worthy of their time," Juneau said. "Sometimes the system seems so broken that Native Americans decide not be involved." . Carol Juneau, also a delegate from the Blackfeet Tribe, said the party hopes to counter the idea that the system cannot be fixed with a stron ger message: conditions could get worse. She hopes to stress that the next president could nominate up to four new Supreme Court justices. "We have treaties with the federal government," said Carol Juneau. "They must be respected. It is up to us to make sure that the treaties are not reinterpreted by new justices on the Supreme Court." Indian Mascot just fades away NEW LEBANON, N.Y. (AP) - In some school districts across the state, dropping an Indian nickname or mas cot has led to angry words, protests and even physical confrontations. Not so in the New Lebanon Cen tral School district, 25 miles south east of Albany, N.Y. where district officials quietly decided to drop its decades-old Indian mascots partly because the school is building a new gym and doesn't want to lay down an Indian symbol then be directed to remove it. "It would be horrible to put down a new gym floor only to have to pull it back up again," said School Board President Jeanette Linville. Linville said the board has dis cussed the issue every month for about a year with nary a word of opposition. That, combined with a State Education department survey that showed 90 percent of leaders of Native American Tribes would like schools to stop using Indians as mas cots, was enough for New Lebanon. "We recognized that symbols that may not have been thought to have been offensive really are and we aren't interested in having that af fect our education efforts," she said. Linville also said the State Educa tion department is likely to direct schools to drop Indian mascots within five years. The school probably will let its 650 students pick a new mascot within the next year. The issue flared in the early 1990s when opposition mounted against the use of Native Americans as mascots for pro teams like the Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins. At schools around the country, team names and logos were under scrutiny. While some school district officials defended the use of the mas cots, saying they honored the Tribes and their culture, others said they were trying to gradually do away with the symbols because they de graded or stereotyped Indians. In Canajoharie a central New York community the community was so upset about losing its "Redskins" nickname, it voted to have no mascot at all. In the Ulster County District of Onteora, the meetings were boister ous, numerous votes were held, a school board election revolved around the issue and there was even a shoving match between support ers and opponents of the mascot. New York is especially prone to such controversies, given its rich Indian heritage. The Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas and Senecas five nations of the original Iroquois Confederacy are among the Tribes indigenous to the state, which is home to several reservations. Spokane Tribe Breaks Ground for New Clinic WELLPINIT, WA. (AP) A new clinic on the Spokane Indian Reserva tion will provide health care to hundreds of American Indian families through out the region. The David C. Wynecoop Memorial Clinic is a pilot project to improve the delivery of health care to isolated populations. The clinic is being built, in part, with a $500,000 federal grant matched by the Spokane Tribe of Indians. It will serve clients from the Spokane and Kalispel Tribes, as well as other Tribes in the region. It will replace the current clinic, which is housed in three trailers. The new clinic will feature 10 examination rooms, five dental stations, two treatment rooms and expanded space for records, X-rays and offices. The clinic is named for the late David C. Wynecoop, who was director of the existing clinic.
