LINCOLN CITY, OREGON (AP) Hundreds of people in tribal garb danced in a circle while the conference room of the Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast, was filled with chanting and drumming.
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians have celebrated earning federal recognition with an annual powwow for the past 47 years. However, this month’s ceremony was particularly noteworthy because it occurred just two weeks after a federal court overturned restrictions on the tribe’s hunting, fishing, and gathering rights—restrictions that tribal leaders had fought for decades.
“We’ve returned to our previous state,” stated Delores Pigsley, the chairman of Siletz. It’s a great feeling.
The historic homelands of the Siletz, a confederation of more than two dozen bands and tribes, included sections of northern California, southwestern Washington state, and western Oregon. In spite of their disparate origins and languages, the federal government pushed them onto a reservation on the Oregon coast in the 1850s, where they were united as a single, officially recognized tribe.
The Siletz were among the more than 100 tribes whose status was withdrawn by Congress in the 1950s and 1960s under a program known as termination. Tribes that were impacted lost federal cash and services, along with millions of acres of land.
Kimberly Jurado holds her daughter, Delia Rubi Jurado, as they walk during a dance at a powwow at Chinook Winds Casino Resort, Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, in Lincoln City, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Associated Press/Jenny Kane photo
According to Matthew Campbell, deputy director of the Native American Rights Fund, the objective was to try to assimilate Native people and get them relocated to cities. However, I also believe that there was a financial component to it. I believe that the United States was looking for ways to reduce the expenses associated with supporting tribal nations.
The tribes struggled for decades to obtain federal recognition after suffering the loss of their territory and ability to govern themselves. After the Menominee Tribe in Wisconsin was restored in 1973, the Siletz became the second tribe to achieve success in 1977.
But to get a fraction of its land back roughly 3,600 acres (1,457 hectares) of the 1.1-million-acre (445,000-hectare) reservation established for the tribe in 1855 the Siletz tribe had to agree to a federal court order that restricted their hunting, fishing and gathering rights. It was only one of two tribes in the country, along with Oregon s Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, compelled to do so to regain tribal land.
The settlement limited where tribal members could fish, hunt and gather for ceremonial and subsistence purposes, and it imposed caps on how many salmon, elk and deer could be harvested in a year. It was devastating, tribal chair Pigsley recalled: The tribe was forced to buy salmon for ceremonies because it couldn t provide for itself, and people were arrested for hunting and fishing violations.
Giving up those rights was a terrible thing, Pigsley, who has led the tribe for 36 years, told The Associated Press earlier this year. We have endured it over the years, even though it was unjust at the time.
Decades later, Oregon and the U.S. came to recognize that the agreement subjecting the tribe to state hunting and fishing rules was biased, and they agreed to join the tribe in recommending to the court that the restrictions be lifted.
The 1980 Agreement and Consent Decree, according to a joint court filing by the U.S., state, and tribe’s attorneys, represented a biased and distorted position on tribal sovereignty, tribal traditions, and the Siletz Tribe’s ability and authority to manage and sustain wildlife populations it traditionally used for tribal ceremonial and subsistence purposes. The governor of Oregon and Oregon’s congressional representatives have since acknowledged that the agreement was a product of their times.
Late last month, the tribe finally succeeded in having the court order vacated by a federal judge. And a separate agreement with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has given the tribe a greater role in regulating tribal hunting and fishing.
As Pigsley reflected on those who passed away before seeing the tribe regain its rights, she expressed hope about the next generation carrying on essential traditions.
There s a lot of youth out there that are learning tribal ways and culture, she said. It s important today because we are trying to raise healthy families, meaning we need to get back to our natural foods.
Among those celebrating and praying at the powwow was Tiffany Stuart, donning a basket cap her ancestors were known for weaving, and her 3-year-old daughter Kwestaani Chuski, whose name means six butterflies in the regional Athabaskan language from southwestern Oregon and northwestern California.
Given the restoration of rights, Stuart said, it was very powerful for my kids to dance.
You dance for the people that can t dance anymore, she said.
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