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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 2012)
10 DECEMBER 15,2012 Smoke Signals Dear Smoke Signals: Firstly, I have no problem with the budget, but there is Homething that makes me more curious every year. Where does this magic number "gaming dividend" come from? It just ap pears, provides the bulk of revenue and everything seems to balance with this number. I would really like to see an income statement from Spirit Mountain. An income statement has sales less expenses that equal income. I can only as sume that this magic number "gaming dividend" is a percentage of income, and I wonder why we, the members, don't get to see where this most important number comes from, or do we and I don't recognize it. Just curious as I said; it would be a learning experience to see how this number is arrived at. Judith Pettibone Roll 717 Dear Smoke Signals: I want to find out why the Community Health is not going to deliver the meds to the Elders anymore. I am in a wheelchair and when it rains I am not going to get wet. This is crazy. Are they going to stop going to see the Elders on the home visits, too? If you ask me, this is just stupid. Some of us don't want to get sick and this is not saving money for the Tribe sending out the meds by mail when we live here on Tribal land or not too far away. We can go collect them ourselves. Or if we can't, we had someone from Wellness deliver our meds to us. So if you want to save money, quit sending them here locally. Start saving and quit spending. Samantha Dala Roll 382 Elders' garage sale seeking donations Tribal Elders are regularly seeking donations for fundraising garage sales. To donate an item or items, contact Tribal Elders Linda Brandon at 971-267-0918 or Duane Wheeler at 541-992-3254. D Cultural Trust Board seeking grant applicants The Tribe's Cultural Trust Board received $6,359 for the 2013 grant year and is accepting grant applications through Dec. 15. The board will finalize grant awards by Jan. 10 and applicants will receive notification of their grant application status by Jan. 15. This is the earliest the board has ever opened the grant cycle to allow more time for grantees to complete their cultural projects since final reporting is due to the Oregon State Cultural Trust each year by Aug. 31. Since 2009, when the Grand Ronde Cultural Trust Board started giving cultural grants, it has funded individuals' participation in Tribal Canoe Journey, sewing classes, moccasin making classes, an ethno botany project, a Chinuk Wawa project, research for a book about Tribal member families, camas digging, huckleberry picking, regalia making, wood carving and other cultural projects. Grand Ronde Cultural Trust Board members include McDaniel, Contreras, Vice Chair Betty Bly, Secretary Stephanie Wood and board member Claudia Leno. D O'Neal can now teach and work with students ARCHIVIST continued from front page Indian was "a perfect fit," she said back in 2009, she had spent eight years in the nation's capital when she accepted the University of Or egon job. "I had never really anticipated staying on the East Coast for so long," she said. "It's difficult be ing so far from home and a large extended family." In addition, the archives at the University of Oregon and the scope of the new position looks to be a big jump and provide challenges that O'Neal has been looking for from the beginning. Just by the numbers, the Na tional Museum of the American Indian holds some 1,700 linear feet of manuscripts and media with about 325,000 photographs, while the university holds more than 20,000 linear feet and more than 3,000 collections. "The University of Oregon Spe cial Collections and University Archives is a major regional reposi tory," she said, "holding primary sources of national importance in areas including Northwest history, culture, environment and land scape; documentary photography; intentional communities; lives of women; children's literature; pulp literature; film, radio and TV; and the history of the university." The National Museum of the American Indian has been ar chiving material for only 10 years while the university has been at it for more than 60 years, O'Neal said. In addition, the Oregon position enables O'Neal to teach and work with students, possibilities not af forded by the national museum. In Washington, she reported, "I oversaw the daily management of the Archive Center and worked on innovative projects with amazing staff, but I hadn't had the opportu nity to teach or work directly with students, which was something I really wanted to do with my ca reer." One of O'Neal's "immediate" goals for this position is "to increase our instruction efforts with various disciplines across campus. Our goal is to have our collections utilized as much as possible across numerous disciplines and incorporated into the various curriculums so that all undergraduates have a chance to use our collections." She is also seeking to document university professors' research, to find and fill gaps in historical records and to conduct research projects documenting university history. For example, she said, "I would like to create a comprehensive timeline for milestones in uni versity history and develop an interactive Web site with images and details. I also want to create a 'frequently asked questions' page about university history." O'Neal serves on the universi ty's Native Strategies group that "works collaboratively to ensure that Native issues and projects are archieved across the university." The group focuses on Northwest Indigenous Research Center, Na tive Studies, Recruitment and Retention, Tribal Outreach, Gov-ernanceInfrastructureDevelop-ment, and Communications and Collaborations. "I hope that through serving on this group and focusing on specific projects I will be able to make a difference for the Native people of Oregon and across the country," she said. "I want to ensure that our history is told from our perspective and that we are represented cor rectly at the university." Another university project cur rently moving forward comes out of the faculty papers of Ted Stern, an anthropology professor at the university from 1948-87. "He worked with and studied the Umatilla and the Klamath Tribes. Thus, we are currently undertaking a project to have each specific Tribal community work with and process the records from this collection that relate to their Tribe. The collection not only contains manuscripts from his book, but most importantly the field notes and genealogical infor mation about individuals in each community. "This collaborative effort will en sure that the records are properly described by the communities and that they have an opportunity to utilize the records for their own Tribal history. The goal is to also eventually organize a gathering in each community with scholars and Tribal Elders to discuss the records and the project." While her work took her to the U.S. Department of State's Office of Treaty Affairs in Washington, D.C. as well as archival positions at Princeton University and the University of Arizona before land ing at the National Museum of the American Indian, O'Neal also has participated more recently in archi val projects in Oregon. In August, Oregon State Univer sity Libraries hosted the Oregon Tribal Archives Institute, a project created through a two-year grant from the Oregon State Library that focused on providing in-depth archives and records management training for Oregon's nine federally recognized Tribes. O'Neal gave the keynote for the opening event and taught sessions on archival basics, social media and professional development net works. The Institute was designed to help Tribes establish an archives program and gave representatives of Oregon Tribes a chance to col laborate and identify ways to work together. The Institute was an opportunity for professional development, net working and community building. "The group also took field trips to the Siletz and Grand Ronde Tribal communities and the Benton County Museum to look at their archival and museum facilities," she said. In addition, as one of the organiz ers and current chair of the Society of American Archivists' Native American Archives Roundtable, she said that the organization "continues to grow" as it advocates for continued and growing profes sionalism among Native American archivists. O'Neal earned a master's in Li brary Science from the University of Arizona, as part of the Knowledge River program for Native American and Hispanic students, and a mas ter's in History from Utah State University. Her research interests include international indigenous activism, cultural heritage, tra ditional knowledge, intellectual property rights, digital humanities and indigenous use of new media and technology. "I couldn't have received these degrees without the help of Tribe," she wrote. Tribal financial help included the Eula Petite Scholar ship. She continues to work on her doctorate through Georgetown Uni versity in Washington, D.C. "My research focuses on the move toward international activ ism within the American Indian Movement in the later 1970s and early 1980s, specifically focusing on the international interactions between U.S. and Canadian indig enous activist groups, specifically the National Congress of American Indians and the National Indian Brotherhood." O'Neal is the daughter of Al and Tribal Elder Marta (Parazoo) Clif ford of Springfield and Ron and Sue O'Neal of Bend. Her heritage is Chinook, Cree and Cow Creek. B
