8 APRIL 15, 2003
Smoke Signals
Agency Creek Round Dance Lasts Into Early Morning
Native youth find that tradition, culture and fun make a powerful combination.
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ByPetaTinda
The singing and dancing went on
until the early morning at the Agency
Creek Round Dance, until the coffee
had been drunk and the children had
fallen asleep to the sound of the drums.
A round dance is much like a pow
wow in that there is drumming, sing
ing, people dancing, fry bread, and kids
scampering around. But there is also
a sacred element to the round dance in
that the songs are more like prayers.
Each song has specific meaning. Some
songs pray for good health, others pray
for the Dlders, and still others pray for
the children.
"There are some values that are
very sacred," said Clayton Chief, a Cree
Tribal Elder. "The round dance is one
ofthem."
"We dance as we were shown by our
Elders," said Eugene Cardinal, of Loon
Lake Saskatchewan, one of the long
time round dancers invited to the event
to help coordinate. "It's more of a
spiritual dance. It's non-competitive, you don't have
to wear regalia, and it's mostly a healing dance, both
emotional and physical. And there's no alcohol or
substance abuse allowed either."
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First Annual Agency Creek Round Dance - Compared with a pow wow, a
round dance is non-competitive and no regalia is required. The dancers hold hands and
move in counter-clockwise direction around a central drum goup, who use hand drums
instead of the larger pow-wow drums. Each round dance song has specific meaning.
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The round dance was sponsored by the Confeder
ated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Youth Social Ser
vices Prevention Program and organized by Tribal
Cultural Specialist Bobby Mercier.
"It went really good," said Mercier. "It served
its purpose, which for me was the kids, to show
them that they can be culturally involved in some
thing and still have a good time."
Members of Grey Eagle and other well-known
drum groups were at the dance, including Black
The Round Dance was a chance for people of all ages
to dance, visit and socialize while maintaining strong
traditions. People from all over Oregon and Washing
ton came to Grand Ronde for the round dance, held
on April 4, at the Tribal Education Gymnasium.
Lodge and Black Stone, and Em
cee Bob Tom kept the crowd
laughing with his old-fashioned
Indian humor. A traditional
salmon dinner was served to the
guests on Saturday night.
The round dance, which has ori
gins with the Cree Tribe, is slowly
making its way over to the West
coast. As more and more Natives
realized its benefits to the health
of the community, and also just
what a good time the dance is, its
popularity began to spread. As far
as Mercier knew, this was the first
round dance ever in Grand Ronde.
"It's all traditional, and it's been
around a long time," explained
Mercier. "There are a lot of proto
cols in place and rules that have
to be followed. We make sure to
do it the way it's always been
done."
The main focus of the evening
was to get as many kids involved as possible. For a
lot of Native youth there is limited exposure to so
cial activities. The round dance is social in the sense
that there are people there and they dance, but there
is also a spiritual sense. All of the songs have mean
ings, and are sung at specific times during the dance.
There is an opening song, a friendship song, a give
away song, honor songs, Veterans' songs, Elder
songs, youth songs, and a closing song.
"All of the songs are prayers. It's the only thing
that held our people together during the hard times.
And we're still trying to stay together," said Mercier.
"Sometimes it's really hard to live in two worlds.
But these songs and prayers, these things that our
Elders told us to do, will make us strong as a com
munity. I figure any way we can do that is good."
Tribes Take On Planning for 6,600 Acres of Federal Forest Land
Tribes' best forest practices will be applied to federal holdings.
By Ron Karten
Forest land in the local water
shed has a variety of owners.
Among them are the Tribe, the
federal Forest Service (USFS)
and the federal Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). With the
idea that a piece of a forest is bet
ter managed for the entire water
shed rather than simply for an
owner's individual acres, the
Tribe's Natural Resources De
partment has renewed a Stew
ardship Agreement with the For
est Service, and is in the process
of renewing one with the BLM.
The two-year USFS project,
signed recently in Grand Ronde,
will continue development of a
management proposal for 6,600
federal acres of local forest land.
The exact size of the project will
depend on available USFS funds,
according to Natural Resources
Manager Pete Wakeland.
Another part of this effort may
also include a similar renewal
agreement to foster Tribal stew
ardship over about 3,500 acres of
BLM land, said Wakeland. The
Tribes' department has made the
proposal and is waiting to hear
back from the BLM. And these
projects will dovetail with the on
going work that the Natural Re
sources Department does with the
Tribes' 10,052 acres of forest land.
"With 10,000 acres, you're lim
ited with what you can do," said
Tribal Council Vice Chairman Reyn
Leno. "(These agreements) allow
us to do a lot of management, ex
perimental management. We can
basically watch from where (the
watersheds) originate and do the
best we can to make sure that the
water stays clean."
He also added that "building re
lationships with BLM and Forestry
is really important."
It will "test the side boards" of the
Northwest Forest Plan, said
Wakeland. Tribal staffers are seek
ing "to find ways to be creative
within the framework of the North
west Forest Plan."
"This is a good showcase for the
Tribe," said Mike Wilson, who
originally sought this opportunity
for the Tribes in 1999 when the
first stewardship plan was signed.
Wilson was with the Natural Re
sources Department at the time
though he has since moved to
theTribal Land Management De
partment. "This is a project that makes a lot
of sense," said Wilson. "It enables
the Tribe to get a good read on the
health of streams and upland spe
cies." The Natural Resources Depart
ment is proposing to apply and
adapt its current forest plan for
Tribal lands to the federal acreage.
"The plan is the easiest part," said
Wakeland. "We'll use our plan as
a model. All the preparation is the
tough part."
That preparation includes gath
ering prodigious amounts of data
including endangered species as
sessments, water temperature
monitoring and roads evaluation.
It also includes environmental as
sessments and ultimately, propos
als to manage the area.
The proposal will include an in
ventory of resources in the forest
and a list of proposed projects for
the next ten years. There is no
guarantee that Tribes staffers will
do the work proposed or even that
the plans will go forward, but
clearly, the Forest Service antici
pates useful and creative projects
that will serve the forests well into
the future.
For its part, the Forest Service
lacks the staff to do this kind of
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Tribal Vice Chairman Reyn Leno
signs an agreement to enable the
Tribe to plan for the future on Fed
erally owned and local forest lands.
project at the same time that it
"desires to promote innovation in
forest management approaches
and techniques," according to the
agreement between the Tribes
and the Siuslaw National Forest.
"Local participation has been a
good thing for us," said George T.
Buckingham, Ranger for the
Hebo District. B