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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (May 15, 2011)
10 Smoke Signals MAY 15, 2011 BOOKS continued from front page right away that the Tribe didn't already have copies of them. One was a Grand Ronde Agency book of allotments from 1889. "We've seen these allotments be fore," he said, "but not the original books." The other book was a pass book recording Natives coming and go ing from the Grand Ronde Agency starting in 1861. Natives could not just leave the Agency, Lewis said. 'They needed a pass and it was in this book that the agent recorded the passes. I had to call back to the staff to see if they had this informa tion," Lewis said. This turned out to be new for the Tribe, Lewis said. "A significant find." On Tuesday, May 10, Cultur al Resources staffers and Tribal members Khani Schultz, Cultural Collections coordinator, and Ju lie Brown, Collections assistant, joined Lewis on the fourth floor of the Oregon Historical Society, the research floor, in the Jefferson Room, with a wall full of south facing windows and plenty of light to photograph the books, page by page. Lewis figured it would take them about four hours. The pages were delicate, and some stuck together at the spine, making it difficult to flatten the pages for the photographs. There was excitement in the find and between photographs, an anecdote was remembered, a piece of history related. Lewis paged delicately through the allotment book, noting names that today's Tribal members would surely know: Martha Jane Sands, Allen (could be an ancestor of Tribal Chairwoman Cheryle Allen Ken nedy), Bob (now spelled "Bobb," as in Tribal Council member Steve Bobb), Apperson, Amos, Foster and Hutchins. "We know for sure that this is a name that has changed over the years to Hudson," Lewis said. "We have records that say that Hutchins or Hudson refers to the same per son or family." All the names in the allotment book refer to Grand Ronde Tribal members or their descendants. "Most were full blood," said Lew is. "You needed to be at least half blood to get an allotment." "Here's Hartless," he continued to read from the book. "Holmes. Here's Jones from the Molalla Tribe. That most assuredly is a relative of Kathryn (Jones) Harrison. Here's LaChance, Lafferty." While the allotments were signed into the book in 1889, Lewis said that most weren't likely delivered until 1891 or so. "Here's Mercier, Metcalf, they're all here. Riggs. We have lists of these allotments from the National Ar chives," he said. It is something else again, though, to see the original. Looking at the pass book, people were named with their Tribes. We now know that "Perry and family" got a 10-day (lOd) pass on June 20, 1864, to visit the "Millers" in "Polk"? yy r : ? :' jy -y ytf : yy- - (if f.. 4J. Ths two pages show records from a pass book that recorded Natives coming and going from Agency starting in 1861. Photo by Michelle Alaimo the Grand Ronde We know that on April 7, 1890, that "Umpqua Charles and wife" and "Cultis Joe and wife" got "7d" passes to visit "Mill Creek"? And that on April 9, that same year, "Muddy Jim and wife" got a "lw" (one week) pass to go to "Marys River"? "This is an amazing archive," said Lewis, particularly for genealogists. "It has information that people don't have. It tells (partial) stories about lineage, and is more detailed infor mation on a daily or annual basis than we have seen before." Natives sought passes to leave the reservation for many reasons, said Lewis, from harvesting crops to fishing to visiting relatives. "When you were here, you couldn't make your own money," said Schul tz, holding down a page for photo graphing, "so they took off." And not all of those leaving the res ervation did so by seeking passes. "There are stories my mother (Tribal Elder Peachie Hamm) tells about trails from the reservation to the coast that only the Indians knew about. We've looked for the Old Coast Trail many times," said Schultz, "but we've never found it." Although the Tribe does not yet know what rules were in place for Indians to get these passes, Julie Brown guesses that a lot depended on the agent in charge at the time, or whether the Indian was in trou ble at the time. Likewise, she said, punishments for taking off without a pass varied from being whipped to a family los ing rations to nothing at all if an Indian had something perceived as valuable to trade. These ideas are strung together from things we know about history and human behavior and from oral tradition. Finds like this add reli able details to the mix that need to be collected and interpreted. Before the professionals at Cul tural Resources work through one batch of data, another arrives full of new information and possibility. As Schultz and Brown continued photographing pages, Lewis went back to the stacks where he uncov ered copies of "what are possibly the first laws in Grand Ronde." Among the information was a list of the Tribes represented in this early legislative body as well as 22 laws governing the peoples of the Grand Ronde Agency nearly at its beginning. B BOOK. FOR 5ALE. "The KaUpuyans:A sourcebook on the Indians of the Willamette Valley by Harold Mackey. Ph.D. This book, th cough collabora tion between the Cultural Re sources Department, Mission Mill Museum, an4 the Mackey Family, has been re-released in a second edition with a new cover, an updated bibliography with more current and accurate sources, new photographs, and a new afterward explaining the Grand Ronde Tribal perspective. Name;. AddrttK. City:. Slate:. Zip:. Checks only. . of book x $ 15.93 each .total. $12.95 per book Books may be purchased from the Tribe's Cultural Resources Department (ocate4 on the secon4 floor of Tribal Bui!4mj 14 CA4ult Education Build ing) for 12.95 each. To have an order mailed to you, please fill out this form and include an additional $3.00 for shipping cost per book. Mail this form toe CTGR Cultural Resources The Kalapuans 9615 Grand Ronde Road Grand Ronde, OR 97347 fill
