10
NOVEMBER 1, 2020
Smoke Signals
History and Culture Summit moves to virtual format
By Danielle Harrison
Smoke Signals staff writer
Like virtually every other large
indoor Tribal event since mid-
March, the Tribe’s annual History
and Cultural Summit was present-
ed via Zoom this year due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
“This year’s in-person Grand
Ronde History and Culture Sum-
mit has been canceled, but I am
happy to share however that the
Cultural Resources Department of
the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde has worked with some of our
partners to offer a number of virtu-
al presentations in place of planned
collaborations for 2020,” Cultural
Resources Department Manager
David Harrelson said in an e-mail.
The four virtual presentations
include “Changes in the Land: Ore-
gon 1800 to 2020,” “The Surprising
Adventures of George Gibbs, 1816
to 1873, on the Oregon Frontier,”
“Revisiting the Rogue River Wars of
Southern Oregon: A Photographer’s
Journey and a Tribal Perspective”
and “StoryMap: Indigenous Nam-
ing of Creeks on Marys Peak.”
The first three presentations
were held on Oct. 14, 22 and 26, and
the fourth one will occur at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 18. All videos
will be available to view for three
months at www.grandronde.org/
history-and-culture-summit/.
To register for the Nov. 18 Zoom
event, visit www.grandronde.org/
events/hcsummit-10222020/ and
scroll to the link at the bottom of the
page, “Complete Agenda: History
and Culture Virtual Summit.”
The History and Culture Summit
has been an annual event hosted
by the Cultural Resources Depart-
ment since 2013 that highlights
the Tribe's relationships, places
and practices throughout its ceded
lands. It began as a means to help
remedy that the histories of Ore-
gon’s Tribes have not been properly
documented.
The Oct. 14 Zoom event was pre-
sented by the
Marys Peak
Group of the
Sierra Club,
the Spring
Creek Project
and the Tribe,
and featured
Dr. Stephen
Dow Beck -
David Harrelson
ham, a pro-
fessor emeritus of history at Lewis
& Clark College.
The program looks at the chang-
ing landscape of Oregon from settle-
ment through the industrialization
era to the present, and uses 165
images to convey how different his-
torical periods affected the state’s
landscape.
The presentation includes images
of Native American fire ecology, the
fur trade and emigration with the
resulting new diseases and animal
de-population, mining, fishing,
farming, logging, river and harbor
projects.
“Oregon has gone through many
different things in the past 220
years,” Beckham said. “The land
has remained the same, but its face
has changed.”
The Oct. 22 presentation was
organized by the Oregon Historical
Society and includes panelists Beck-
ham, University of Washington pro-
fessor Sara Gonzales, Washington
State University professor Shannon
Tushingham and Harrelson.
George Gibbs traveled to Oregon
in 1849 and remained for 11 years
to work in Oregon, Washington and
California as an ethnographer, lin-
guist and collector of cultural items
for the Smithsonian Institute in
Washington, D.C.
Gibbs was a Harvard Law School
graduate and participated in the
Willamette Valley and northwest
California treaty councils of 1851,
and wrote the fishing rights clauses
into the 10 ratified Pacific North-
west treaties of 1854 and ’55.
The presentation includes art-
work by Gibbs and his associates,
as well as his maps, artifact collec-
tions and scholarly publications.
Afterward, there is a panel dis-
cussion.
The Oct. 26 presentation was
organized by the Oregon Historical
Society and includes commentary
by Harrelson and work by Corvallis
photographer Rich Bergeman.
For centuries, southern Oregon
was home to a collection of Tribes
who remained largely unscathed
by white settler migration. But
in 1851, the discovery of gold and
the opening of Indian Territory to
white settlement brought miners
and other settlers, which resulted
in years of conflicts that culminat-
ed in 1856 with the Tribes’ forced
removal to the Grand Ronde and
Siletz Reservations, creating Ore-
gon’s “Trail of Tears.”
“When you look at these images,
it’s a reminder that the ancestors
of this place had been there since
time immemorial,” Harrelson said.
“Our ancestors wanted to stay in
their homes. They didn’t want to
move to a Reservation. People were
force marched to the Reservation
under threat of murder. When they
arrived, 500 died in the winter be-
tween 1855 to 1856. We need to tell
these stories to make sure things
like this don’t happen again, and
to know the full history, even if it
is painful.”
During the virtual event, Berge-
man visits landscapes where the
conflicts began more than 160 years
ago, and uses an infrared camera to
photograph various images.
He told viewers that he is not
a historian, and before beginning
the project he was only vaguely
aware of Oregon’s dark history of
the Rogue River Wars.
“After I became interested in the
project, I tried to find everything
I could read about it,” Bergeman
said.
During the photographic presen-
tation, Bergeman discusses the var-
ious sites where battles took place.
Battles were frequently instigated
by gold miners in the area, who
taunted the Indigenous people and
often started skirmishes out of bore-
dom. In one case, miners got drunk
at a local bar and then headed out
to burn down a Rogue River village,
killing women, Elders and children
while the men were away. The next
day, the men returned to their vil-
lage and saw the destruction, then
began retaliating against settlers for
the murders of their people.
“These wars were mostly swept
under the rug,” Bergeman said,
adding that many of the earlier
books on the subject were portrayed
only from the settlers’ perspective.
It wasn’t until the last part of the
20th century that publications
written from the Native American
perspective were widely available.
The Nov. 18 video will be pre-
sented by Grand Ronde Cultural
Policy Analyst and Tribal Elder
Greg Archuleta and Tribal member
Jesse Norton.
In 2018, 10 unnamed creeks on
Marys Peak near Corvallis were
approved for naming by the U.S.
Geological Service, and included
words from three different Indig-
enous languages, which received
broad local support and participa-
tion. The process was hailed as a
success story among naming efforts
nationally and served as an exam-
ple of how Tribes can be engaged
and represented.
The presentation will provide an
overview of Marys Peak and the 10
creeks through narrative, maps,
photos and a video, followed by a
moderated discussion panel.
The Tribe has been hosting a His-
tory and Culture Summit annually
since 2013. Last year’s gathering
was held at Chachalu Museum &
Cultural Center and was focused
on Chinookan art, with a collab-
orative carving project by several
artists and hands-on activities for
attendees. n
Since the Tribe has not been
able to meet for the month-
ly sobriety dinners, I bought
my own coin as it was a
really, really big
achievement for me. Many
people are struggling with
their own sobriety and my
hope is this will inspire
them to remain on track
with their own sobriety. I
celebrated my 35 years of
sobriety in May 2020
from illegal drugs.
Nov. 11, 2020
Veronica Gaston
Roll #2332
Native American Heritage
Month
Enjoy this time to celebrate our
culture, traditions, histories, and
contributions this month and all
year long!
Are you a Vietnam-era veteran?
If so, I’ll have more information on Blue Water Navy in the
next issue.
Email: CTGRTribalVSO@grandronde.org
Office Phone: (503) 879-1484
Cell: (541) 921-3063
Mailing Address:
Attn: Social Services/TVSO
9615 Grand Ronde Rd.
Grand Ronde Oregon, 97347
Respectfully,
Ramona L. Quenelle
CTGR TVSO
US Navy Veteran