10
MAY 1, 2023
Smoke Signals
Indian agents applied blood quantum with
no scientific data to back up the numbers
ENROLLMENT continued
from front page
tial yearlong pause in enrollments
and then abandoned the idea at the
next meeting.
Tribal Council Chairwoman
Cheryle A. Kennedy said that any
real solution will require a constitu-
tional amendment that will change
membership requirements.
Tribal Council member Kathleen
George said that the Tribe needs
to arrive at a solution that will
pass constitutional muster 3 being
approved by two-thirds of the mem-
bership that registers to vote and
then casts ballots in a Bureau of
Indian Affairs-supervised election.
She also lamented that blood quan-
tum, which was imposed on Indian
Tribes by the federal government, is
ingrained in the Tribal Constitution.
Tribal Council Vice Chair Chris
Mercier said he is a <big fan= of lin-
eal descent in which a prospective
Tribal member only has to prove
they are descended from a previous
Tribal member to be admitted into
the Tribe. How much Indian blood
they have flowing through their
veins would become irrelevant.
Mercier added that he believes
that blood quantum will eventually
end the Grand Ronde Tribe if anoth-
er answer is not found, yet admitted
that he knows Tribal members who
staunchly defend using it as an en-
rollment criteria.
<There are like two parallel things
going forward right now,= Tribal
Council Secretary Michael Langley
said during an April 25 interview
with Smoke Signals. <There9s one
with the issues within our (enroll-
ment) oles and the errors. There9s
problems within our files around
blood quantum. & But then you
also have that we9re going to run
out (of people). I think it is over 80
percent and maybe 90 percent now of
our people that are enrolled are the
last of their bloodline. If there is an
opportunity where our people think,
8Yeah, you9re right. We need to do
something to address that blood
quantum as far as self-terminating
our Tribe because we9ll run out of
blood quantum. Is there also an op-
portunity at the same time then that
these issues in our oles around blood
quantum are no longer relevant?9 So
if we make that change, then these
are no longer relevant, then great,
we just go forward with the change.
But it takes 67 percent to get there.
The worry is that while that would
be nice and great that that would
solve the issue within our oles, it
might not happen, so then we9re
stuck with the issues in our oles.=
******
When the Grand Ronde Tribe9s
Constitution was adopted on Nov.
30, 1984, after Restoration occurred
approximately a year earlier, the
membership requirements were
relatively straightforward.
<The membership of the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Grand Ronde
Community of Oregon shall consist
of all persons who are not enrolled
as members of another recognized
Tribe, band or community,= it stated,
8The risk is that as times change, as Supreme
Court justices change, people will start latching
on to that 8Well, they9re not really Indian,9 so you
run a higher risk of a termination-type event
again if you can9t show and demonstrate your ties
to your Tribe, your people and your land.9
~ Michael Langley discussing lineal descent
adding that the person9s name had
to appear on the ofocial member-
ship roll prepared under the Grand
Ronde Restoration Act and that the
person must possess 1/16th or more
degree Indian blood quantum from a
federally recognized Tribe or Tribes
and be descended from a member of
the Grand Ronde Tribe.
<For purposes of this section, de-
scent from a member of the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Grand Ronde
Community of Oregon shall include
lineal descent from any person who
was named on any roll or records
of Grand Ronde members prepared
by the Department of the Interior
prior to the effective date of this
Constitution.=
Those membership requirements,
including the blood quantum, held
orm for 15 years until 1999. In re-
sponse to an increasing number of
enrollment applications prompted
by the financial success of Spirit
Mountain Casino and the beginning
of per capita payment distributions,
Tribal members approved an amend-
ment that restricted membership.
The biggest change was that the
applicant had to be born to a parent
who was a member of the Tribe at
the time of their birth and who,
unless they had walked on, was a
member of the Tribe when the appli-
cant oled an enrollment application.
The amendment is now viewed by
many as the main cause of several
contentious enrollment problems
facing the Tribe, including split fam-
ilies in which siblings with the same
heritage are and are not Tribal mem-
bers. In 2019, Tribal voters favored
resolving the split-family problem
with 63.5 percent supporting an
amendment, but the two-thirds
majority required by the Tribal Con-
stitution thwarted the effort.
And, as Kennedy and other Tribal
Council members have cited numer-
ous times in public meetings, the
enrollment problems predate Ter-
mination in 1954 and Restoration
in 1983.
Indian agents employed by the
federal government assigned Tribal
members blood quantum amounts at
their whim with little to no scientioc
or genealogical data to support the
numbers. The Tribe inherited those
blood quantum numbers when it was
restored and has since then been
dealing with the multi-generational
problems they have created.
Even today, Kathleen George has
said in meetings, Tribal Council
receives enrollment applications
regarding people who should have
the same blood quantum, but do not.
<For me, the auditor side of me,
I want things settled in the oles in
a way that doesn9t harm people,=
Langley said.
******
Smoke Signals surveyed the en-
rollment requirements of 48 fed-
erally recognized Tribes in the
continental United States. Using
the Department of the Interior9s list
of federally recognized Tribes, staff
searched for Tribal constitutions
and enrollment ordinances on the re-
spective Tribes9 websites and found
that different membership require-
ments are employed nationwide.
Since Tribes are sovereign nations,
they can set their own criteria for
membership.
Other Tribes mostly use a combi-
nation of lineal descent and blood
quantum in their enrollment re-
quirements with most required
blood quantum amounts ranging
from ¼th to 1/16th.
For instance, to become a member
of Oklahoma9s 17,000-member Co-
manche Nation, an applicant must
trace their ancestry back to a Tribal
member who received a land allot-
ment in 1900 and possesses 1/8th
quantum of Comanche blood.
Closer to home, the 5,700-member
Klamath Tribes in southern Oregon
require that applicants be named on
or be descended from someone on the
ofocial 1954 onal roll and possess
1/8th degree or more of Klamath,
Modoc or Yahooskin Indian blood.
For those who think the current
enrollment requirements for the
Grand Ronde Tribe are complicat-
ed, the rules of the 6,800-member
Confederated Salish & Kootenai
Tribes of the Flathead Reservation
in Montana are more so. According
to the Tribe9s website, there are six
different eligibility requirements
based on when an applicant was
born between 1935 and present day.
Examples of Tribes that use
direct descendancy include the
10,000-member Delaware Tribes
of Indians in Oklahoma, which re-
quires applicants link back to an an-
cestor on the 1904 Pratt Roll. <Your
parents and grandparents do not
have to be enrolled,= the Delaware
Tribes9 enrollment frequently asked
questions state.
In Oregon, the Confederated
Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and
Siuslaw Indians9 Tribal code states
that a person is eligible for mem-
bership if their name is on the Jan.
1, 1940, census roll or the person
is a lineal descendant of a person
listed on the roll. There is no blood
quantum requirement. <Nor have
we ever,= said Enrollment Spe-
cialist Debbie Bossley about blood
quantum.
The 81,000-member Muscogee
Nation of Oklahoma also relies sole-
ly on lineal descent. <The criteria
for citizenship is that you must be
Creek by blood and trace back to a
direct ancestor listed on the 1906
Dawes Roll by issuance of birth and/
or death certificates,= the Tribe9s
website states.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma,
which has approximately 223,000
members, has perhaps one of the
most streamlined membership re-
quirements in its constitution. <The
Choctaw Nation & shall consist of
all Choctaw Indians by blood whose
names appear on the onal rolls of the
Choctaw Nation approved April 26,
1906, and their lineal descendants.=
If any of these examples are appro-
priate options for the Grand Ronde
Tribe to consider will be decided by
the membership. The Tribe is cur-
rently in the midst of holding ove
meetings during which it hopes to
ond consensus for a potential con-
stitutional amendment.
The remaining meetings will be
held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May
4, at Portland State University9s
Native American Student and Com-
munity Center, 710 S.W. Jackson
St., and 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June
1, in the Tribal Community Center.
Both meetings also will be accessi-
ble on the Zoom teleconferencing
application.
The Tribe is also conducting sur-
veys on its governmental website
www.grandronde.org about going
with a 4/4 proposal or lineal de-
scent. The 4/4 survey asked Tribal
members which date should the
Tribe designate in making all Tribal
members whole in blood quantum.
Mercier said during the April 25
Legislative Action Committee meet-
ing that he thinks Tribal members
are doing a good job of considering
all of the ramiocations of the differ-
ent options being proposed to resolve
the enrollment issues.
Langley said that although lineal
descent might seem like the most
elegant solution, the membership
would have to agree on which De-
partment of the Interior member-
ship roll or record to begin with and
he also worries about activist judges
and politicians who might one day
decide that Tribal members don9t
have enough blood quantum to be
considered Native American.
He cites the Oklahoma governor9s
criticism of the Cherokee Nation
because people with miniscule blood
quantum can be members of the
Tribe because of lineal descent.
<It doesn9t come without risk,=
Langley said. <What we don9t want
to do is something that burdens a
future council down the line with a
problem just like the 999 amendment
did. & The risk is that as times
change, as Supreme Court justices
change, people will start latching
on to that 8Well, they9re not really
Indian,9 so you run a higher risk
of a termination-type event again
if you can9t show and demonstrate
your ties to your Tribe, your people
and your land.
<If we get to the point where we
double our numbers and those peo-
ple who are doubled are not able to
demonstrate those connections, not
See ENROLLMENT
continued on page 11