6 SEPTEMBER 1,2006
Smoke Signals
Our Story Debuts
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Tribal member Leslie Riggs, Cultural Education Specialist, described the website -' . I j
to Tribal members on August 1 8 at the Tribal F.ducation Center. Interim Cultural Resources Director Tony Johnson
OUR STORY continued
from front page
be added to."
To start, six major groups include
Traditional Lifeways, Making
Grand Ronde Our Home, Memo
ries of Our Elders, Termination
and Restoration, Our Community
Today, and Our Language.
Enter each of these groups and
you can click on pages of more
detailed information. Scroll over
photographs and caption informa
tion appears. Sections come with
song and spoken memories from
Tribal members.
Three Leno brothers Tribal
Elders Merle (passed on), Orville
(passed on), and Russ talk
about the old days. Louisa Selkey
sings a stick game song recorded
in the 1920s. Tribal Elder Leon
"Chip" Tom remembers his base
ball days.
There is a button that translates
all of the entries into the Chinuk
language, Chinuk-wawa.
The project has been "close to two
years" in the making, said Trolan,
who developed content for the project
along with Kim Mueller, Special Proj
ects Coordinator for the department,
and Tribal member Leslie Riggs,
Cultural Education Specialist.
The next piece of the project is
inclusion of a "research library,"
said Trolan. "It will be associated
with every page. It's purpose is for
those who want to do more research,
whether for curriculum, language or
just further cultural enrichment."
The research library compo
nent will include whole treaties,
where current entries include a
visual of one page of a treaty and
a summary of its content. Many
more original documents will be
included, and will be "ever grow
ing," said Trolan.
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1
Explanation Cultural Collections Coordinator Lindy Trolan talks about
the new website as Tribal Council Secretary Chris Mercier listens.
The addition of the research li
brary is currently planned to be up
and running "within the year."
The project was made possible
by a grant from the Administra
tion for Native Americans in 2005,
but in introducing the project to
the Tribe on Friday, August 19th,
Trolan said, "From our commu
nity, acknowledgements must go
to all members of the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde, especially
our ancestors, to whom we dedicate
our time to respecting and preserv
ing their teachings, their stories,
and their memories, and carrying
them forward to the future.
"Many thanks go to Tribal Elders
as well as Tribal Council for your
support and input.
"A great friend of the Tribe, Dr.
Henry Zenk, deserves special recog
nition for not only his contributions
of historic and genealogical nature
to the project, but to the many
hours spent translating text from
English to Chinuk Wawa.
"Kim Rogers of the Policy and Plan
ning Department, as the grant man
ager for the Tribe, deserves thanks for
his active participation in keeping the .
grantors happily supplied with quar
terly and annual progress reports.
"Every staff person in the Cul
tural Resources Department de
serves credit for having a hand
in the creation of this site, from
the initial brainstorming to final
review to today's official launch of
the website. Primary responsibility
of the project fell to Kim Mueller,
who learned XML coding specifi
cally for this project, Leslie Riggs,
who authored much of the text, and
Lindy Trolan, who contributed text
on material culture and historical
aspects of our growing collection
at Grand Ronde, with significant
contributions from Tony Johnson
and Angella McCallister." H
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