Smoke Signals 3
AUGUST 15,2012
SftoDH Doffe: Lewis tiaDks albouti PirolhalbDooin)
By Ron Karten
Smoke Signals staff writer
SALEM Grand Ronde Trib
alElders remember their parents
and grandparents making and
selling alcohol during the era of
American Prohibition.
They sold it to outlets in McMin
nville, Salem and Portland.
Elders remember that Tribal
people held parties in private lo
cations. They remember families
keeping a batch in the house.
And they remember their families
using the money they earned from
production to buy clothes and other
necessities.
While the country in general spent
some 13 years living with alcohol
prohibition (1920-33), David Lewis,
Tribal Museum curator and cultural
liaison, used the stories that Elders
have told to describe almost 100
years of Prohibition for the Grand
Ronde people. He also pulled infor
mation from the National Archives
in Seattle, he said.
Lewis told the stories to a group of
30 on Thursday, July 26, at the Wil
lamette Heritage Center Dye House.
"One hundred years of prohibition
at the Grand Ronde Tribe" was the
third in the museum's five-lecture
"History Pub at The Mill" series.
The lectures mostly concerning
Prohibition were coupled with
draught beer served at the back of
the room.
Prohibition came to the reserva
tion far earlier than 1920, when
the 18th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution imposed it on the rest
of the country.
The Grand Ronde Prohibition
era came out of a series of treaties
signed with the federal government
in the 1850s that ended with Tribes
and bands from throughout west
ern Oregon being forcibly marched
to Siletz and Grand Ronde, where
they were held for many of those
100 years almost as prisoners.
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Photo by Ron Karten
David Lewis, Tribal Museum curator and cultural liaison, discusses the
history of Prohibition on the Grand Ronde Reservation during a July 26
presentation at the Willamette Heritage Center in Salem.
Also during that time, many
Grand Ronde people developed cot
tage industries. Traditional knowl
edge led to basket-making, wood
carving and canning all kinds of wild
foods. Among these cottage indus
tries was the unofficial production
and sale of alcoholic products.
Lewis described Prohibition-era
Grand Ronde as a time when alco
hol prohibition came with prohibi
tions affecting nearly every part of
Tribal lives.
Natives in Grand Ronde, as else
where, could not practice their
language, dress or culture.
Intermarriage with white people
was prohibited.
"The early reservation was pretty
strictly controlled," said Lewis.
"David's presentation turned the
customary view of American Indian
history (by the non-Native commu
nity) on its head," said Willamette
Heritage Center Executive Director
Committee & Special Event
Board meeting days and times
Below is the most current information on the meeting days and times for
Tribal Committees and Special Event Boards:
Ceremonial Hunt Board meets as needed. Chair: Shonn Leno.
Cultural Trust Board meets at 4 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month
in Modular No. 2. Chair: Perri McDaniel.
Culture Committee meets at 1 p.m. the first Wednesday of the month
in Modular No. 3. Chair: TBD.
Education Committee meets at 5:15 p.m. on the first Monday of the
month in the Adult Education Building. Chair: Jon George.
Elders' Committee meets at 10 a.m. the third Wednesday of the month
in the Elders' Activity Center. Chair: Gladys Hobbs.
Enrollment Committee meets quarterly in Room 204 of the Governance
Building. Acting Chair: Robert Schmid.
Fish & Wildlife Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of
the month at the Natural Resources Building. Chair: Harold Lyon.
Health Committee meets at 10 a.m. the second Wednesday of the
month in the Tribal Wellness Center. Acting Chair: Patti Tom-Martin.
Powwow Special Event Board meets at 5 p.m. the first Thursday of
the month at the Tribal Community Center. Chair: Dana Ainam.
Rodeo Special Event Board meets at 6 p.m. the first Thursday of the
month at the Tribal Rodeo Office. Chair: Harold Lyon.
Social Services Committee meets at 4 p.m. the second Monday of the
month in the Social Services Conference Room. Chair: Jenny Sanchez.
Timber Committee meets at 5 p.m. the second Thursday of the month
at the Natural Resources Building. Chain Bob Mercier.
Veterans Special Event Board meets at 4 p.m. the first and third
Tuesday of the month in the Tribal Community Center. Chair: Dakota
Whitecloud.
Peter Booth.
"Typically, scholars and others
portray Native people as either
warriors or as victims. This does a
great disservice to the people of the
past in that it steals their humanity.
As David demonstrated, the earlier
residents of Grand Ronde took a
horrible situation and actively took
advantage of whatever they could in
order to do the best they could.
"In this situation, they were
already under pressure from pro
hibition before the rest of Oregon's
population. They already had ex
perience at making homebrewed
wines and other alcohol. So, once
the rest of the state was dry, the
Grand Ronde wine makers had a
market. What a story."
State and local police did not
have jurisdictional authority to
make arrests on the reservation,
so investigating reservation stills
was left to the Bureau of Indian Af
fairs, which had no budget to fund
investigations, Lewis said.
There was a report that the BIA
hired a private investigator to look
into the illegal activity, but there
was not much will to stop the
activities. Reservation stills fed
speakeasies in Salem at the Reed
Opera House, Capitol Towers and
"a malt shop on State Street," as a
member of the audience said.
Many details about the times are
unknown. "We are trying to get
memories of our people out there,
what actually happened," Lewis
said.
Alcohol production for the Grand
Ronde Tribe also became part of
the cultural history of the Tribal
people. It included summers when
families picked hops in area hop
yards, he said. Farmers separated
workers into Tribes or communi
ties during picking season so that
after work, families camped out
and played ball and watched mov
ies together.
Though the constitutional amend
ment prohibiting alcohol was re
pealed with the passage of the 21st
amendment in 1933, Prohibition
hung on in Grand Ronde, and many
other Native American reserva
tions, well into the 1950s when
the federal government washed its
hands of its obligations to Native
peoples. That was the decade of
Termination, 100 years after trea
ties had been signed.
"The Tribes were controlled and
managed for 100 years," Lewis said.
"They had come from a time when
they owned everything to a time
when they owned nothing."
As Prohibition came to an end for
the Grand Ronde people, "the situ
ation on the reservation was grim,"
Lewis said. "Many in the Tribe were
forced to leave with nothing to show
for living 100 years in the U.S." B
Adult Members' Trust and Minors'
Custodial & Rabbi Trust Funds
Effective Aug. 20, 2012, investments in the Adult Members'
Trust Fund and the Minors' Custodial and Rabbi Trust Funds are
updated each business day. If you are a trust participant andor
if you are the parentguardian of a minor member, you can access
and review your balance and your minor child's balance by visiting
www.401Save.com.
To log-in, the initial User ID is your (or your child's) Social Secu
rity number, and the initial Password is "00" followed by your (or
your child's) membership number. Once logged in, you can custom
ize your User ID and password for security purposes.
If you have any trouble logging in to or using the system, contact
the 401Save Call Center at 1-888-700-0808 between 9 a.m. and 5
p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday. H
Youth Center seeks volunteers
The Tina Miller Community Center Thrift Store, 110 B. St., Willamina,
which helps fund the after-school and weekend youth community center
located in the old high school gym, is seeking volunteers who can help run
the store, in addition to donated items and customers. The store accepts
clothes, books, knickknacks, etc., as donations.
It is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed on
Sunday and Monday.
Donations also can be left at the Wildwood Hotel and Restaurant in
Willamina. For more information on volunteering, call 503-876-7897. The
youth center and thrift store that funds it are nonprofit and 100 percent
self-sustaining and volunteer-run. B