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Construction Stopped near Chief Seattle's Former Home in Kitsap
SEPTEMBER 1, 2000
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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.