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General Council briefed on investments — pg. 6
OCTOBER 15, 2016
Former Tribal
leaders discuss
irst female
majority on
Tribal Council
Native colors
'The face of leadership is changing'
By Brent Merrill
Smoke Signals staff writer
A
s the Confederated Tribes
of Grand Ronde continues
to move into the future,
one thing is clear – the Tribe is
evolving.
And now, for the first time in
modern Tribal history since 1983’s
Restoration and possibly for the
irst time since Tribal peoples ar-
rived in the Grand Ronde Valley,
ive women hold a majority of seats
on the nine-member Tribal Council.
The glass ceiling-shattering event
did not go unnoticed.
Denise Harvey, who won her
second three-year term on Tribal
Council in September, mentioned
the fact in her October Tilixam
Wawa statement to the member-
ship.
“The majority of Tribal Council
is now comprised of women, a irst
since Restoration,” Harvey wrote.
“The face of leadership is chang-
ing.”
There have been many times
that women occupied four seats on
Tribal Council, but this year marks
the irst time women have attained
a majority. However, the Tribe is
no stranger to women in leadership
positions.
The irst post-Restoration Tribal
Council in 1984 had two women
– Kathryn Harrison, who was the
Tribal Council chair, and Candy
See LEADERSHIP
continued on page 8
Photo by Dean Rhodes
Tribal Historic Preservation Oice Manager David Harrelson accepts an award from U.S. Attorney for Oregon
Billy J. Williams in the sixth loor conference room of the Mark O. Hatield U.S. Courthouse in Portland on
Wednesday, Oct. 5. The award commemorated the posting of nine Oregon Tribal lags inside the federal
courthouse and the government-to-government relationship between the U.S. Attorney’s Oice and the
federally recognized Tribes in the state.
Tribal lags now standing in federal courthouse
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
P
ORTLAND – The Grand
Ronde Tribal flag flutters
in front of the Governance
Center in Grand Ronde, naturally.
It also lies along with the lags
of the eight other federally recog-
nized Oregon Tribes in Salem at
the State Capitol and in Eugene
at the University of Oregon.
In addition, it also hangs in-
side Willamina School District
buildings, where approximately
a third of the students are Tribal
members.
And now it is posted in a sixth-
floor conference room of the
federal courthouse in downtown
See FLAGS
continued on page 14
Photo by Michelle Alaimo
Tribal Historic Preservation Oice Manager David Harrelson shows an award from U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy
J. Williams as he stands outside the Mark O. Hatield U.S. Courthouse in Portland on Wednesday, Oct. 5.
Enrollment Board dismisses Tumulth disenrollments
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
T
he Tribe’s Enrollment Board voted on
Monday, Oct. 3, to dismiss its decision to
disenroll 67 descendants of treaty signer
Chief Tumulth, concluding a more than three-
year process that created sharp differences of
opinion about what constitutes being a Grand
Ronde member.
On Tuesday, Oct. 4, the Tribe’s General Man-
ager’s Ofice sent an e-mail stating that the de-
scendants were “once again eligible for services.”
The Chief Tumulth descendants, who were
irst enrolled in the Tribe in 1986, were identiied
for disenrollment after an enrollment audit was
approved by Tribal Council in June 2011 and
started in early 2013.
Although Cascades Indian Chief Tumulth is
a treaty signer of the Willamette Valley Treaty
of 1855, he never made it to the Grand Ronde
Reservation to validly appear on an oficial roll or
record of Grand Ronde Tribal members created
by the Department of the Interior. Tumulth was
executed in April 1856 by the U.S. Army before
the Grand Ronde Reservation was established.
The Tribe argued in its legal briefs that pre-
vious Tribal Councils and Enrollment Boards
had erroneously enrolled the irst members of
the family and then compounded the mistake by
enrolling additional family members, sometimes
based on lateral and not lineal ties.
The Enrollment Board, which determined that
the Willamette Valley Treaty is not a roll or re-
cord of Grand Ronde Tribal members, forwarded
recommendations of disenrollment to Tribal
Council in March 2014 after holding approxi-
See ENROLLMENT
continued on page 12