Tent of Many Voices: 04010603TMB

on scen what on the scen that his DVD all right I'd like to welcome everybody to nenda Min voices once again this is where um the park service is working with all the communities we go to for everyone to present something and have their voice heard so it's a very special place to be um today for our 4:00 program we have Brent Merill and he's going to speak on tribal restoration his program is entitled from table root to Grand Rond and I'm going to turn it over to Brent so please welcome him today how you guys doing so uh what I've got is a film that I made about the tribe and it's a tribal history and uh in 2003 the tribal council asked me to make a movie about the tribe and so I put together a 15minute film about the tribe and its history um tribe was terminated as you know and had gone through some relocation and some things like that brought them here to Grand Ron so the film tells about that and uh like I said it's only about 15 minutes long so rather than going to a whole lot of prepared statements I'll just show the film and if you guys have questions about it you can ask me about it after that does that sound okay you guys want to just go ahead and show the film all right y we are not from here we are from here this is not our land This Is Our Land the 1850s the United States government used the Cavalry to round up Indians in the Northwest to forcibly re locate them to what we called reservations the story of the people of the confederated tribes of grand R begins when the Cavalry came through Northern Nevada Northern California and Southern Oregon Gathering Indians from as many as 25 tribes and hurting them like cattle to The Table Rock Indian reservation in southern Oregon Territory time we thought we were having hard times so when we come into the office we'd have to look those tombstones think what we're going through is a near as half as bad as what they would do to actually be hearded like cattle with soldiers we were better off we could read and write say our names and they couldn't they had news ureters we could speak for ourselves we shall that was our duty to speak for them on February 23rd of 1856 under the direction of Indian agent George Ambrose 325 Indians 106 Cavalry members and eight wagon teams and all their horses and cattle set out from Table Rock to Grand R by way of the Applegate Trail the line would have stretched out for over a mile 263 mile journey through muddy deep Wagon raded Trails took 33 days they crossed rivers and streams and climbed through the mountains of Southern Oregon and Into The Valleys of Western Oregon they walked they walked with their children they walked with their Elders eight people died and eight babies were born babies and burials in the rain there were many walks in all the Mary's River tribe walked in from Coralis the ttans had a short walk in from their Valley to the north many tribes UMAS lower Umpqua Salmon River clup Clackamus nsta Rogue River Northern Pou P tiu San yanala Chasta Chasta Casta Cow Creek ILY Lam mute katkin Northern Malala shinuk Southern Malala calap puya the mhill tribal people were already here when the other tribes arrived on Tuesday March 25th of 1856 upon arrival in Grand Ron life was harsh each tribe spoke a different language they had different forms of religion they had different reasons for dressing a certain way or painting their faces each tribe had leaders and Customs that were uniquely their own the grand Ron Indian Reservation was established from 1854 to 1857 and Encompass 69,000 acres of land at the headquarters of the South Yam Hill River and the base of Spirit Mountain after a failed attempt by the government to make Farmers out of a race of hunters and gatherers 25,000 Acres of the tribe's reservation were made available to settlers as Surplus land in 1901 eventually the tribe's land base was reduced to a 7 acre Cemetery 1954 brought about termination and change termination meant an end to the treaties that had been signed by our people only a century before it meant the government's responsibility to tral people had ended promises made would no longer be kept termination stole the trib's identity and AE away at the social structure that made tribes unique termination was a gateway to the problems that had already begun to plague the dominant culture health problems social problems problems economic problems and the demise of spirituality as a center of Life following termination the government came up with what they called the Indian relocation act government Representatives came into the area and offered jobs but if you took the jobs you had to move away from what was left of the tribal Community today the tribe has members located in nearly every state in the nation generation of babies were born into a tribe that officially did not exist in the late 19 1970s a core group of remaining Grand Ron tribal members began the process of putting the pieces of the tribe back together again they met in a small building in the travel Cemetery that housed the lawnmower Margaret Provost Marvin kimsey and Merl Holmes began the process known as tribal restoration a core group of people then helped these tribal Elders achieve a dream 20 years ago today on November 22nd 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed the grand Ron restoration act into public law 5 years later on September 9th 1988 the government saw fit to return 9,811 Acres of Timberland to the tribe as a reservation land base and I happen to be a strong believer unless you have some sense of where you were you're just sort of floating in space just not attached to anything but once you have that and understand it then you become an identifiable part life uh Margaret Provost was the one who called the first meeting and we were there um and we of course encouraged her uh Marvin kimsey and ml Holmes were the three that began that effort and Jackie was the recording secretary and just kept the momentum going it took a lot of years I think more than we even thought it would um but no one gave up IO was at all the meetings know she stands up my mind but there there were sever Elders they were the back one and the Trib still are and they supported the garage sales the bag sales and they never give up on our people that were trying to do the restoration we sort of developed the whole concept that it was time to make good those commitments that have been made through trees and other arrangements with the American it was a idea whose time was too long and coming the early efforts were really for uh certain benefits there were health education welfare and self-sufficiency those were the goals and I think that it is very important that young people know that these things don't happen just because you want them there was nothing inevitable about restor ation that's hard work I think people don't realize we didn't to snap our fingers we got to convince the traditional people and something I think a lot of our tribes can learn from us today is you know Le we were told by Elizabeth and Senators don't go back there this when you need something make a CHP to thank him I often Marvel how they could those leaders of Indian tribes how they could remain So Cal so unagitated I would been pound on the table you know is this is the time to move you know I never heard a voice raised they were always there to answer the questions to offer information to coach me that's what they were I call them my not only my friends but my coaches so I think the shows you what people been doing they work together of course our community supported us yeah the whole thing just you know so thankful that I was Parton the road to self-sufficiency was just beginning we are doing the things that we feel that will make sure the termination doesn't happen to us again the tribe today is a vibrant people the tribe today is a family of families the tribe has a dream for success is learn to celebrate his success the tribe continues to look Seven Generations into the future we learned through those years that they would say oh you just want hand out that's all you want now we paid already we paid in advance what we were just getting for our people in the future I always said you know my grandson started walking that he's First Step at be up on our ws and our own land he didn't take his first step there but he's walked up there and it means a lot to say this belonged to us it belonged to our past and I hope our grandchild and great grandchilden you know dur in the Seven Generations they should be able to have that same opportunity you know your past you'll never have a future and I think it's we're part of God's plan because you look at the world it's okay we're the red and they need lots of red because that's strength if we didn't remember and if we didn't practice then I believe that termination worked but it's really from uh our heart and all of the things that were instilled within those who went through that era was to bring all of our ways back again and so for me it's really uh a matter of your identity knowing who you are how you believe and what your values are so in order to maintain that we must involve our young people we must uh create in them and instill in them at an early age just like I was with my grandmother this is who you are and this this is why you're like this you're from a family of chiefs this is who your Chief are this is who your family is this is what we believed we are generous caring people we took care of others we took care of each other the tribe pays respect to its loved ones if we forget then it can happen again so we must remember what happened and what that all meant what are you what are you most proud of and and do you do you feel like there's a lot of lot of things for the tribal people to be proud of yes the main one stands out in my mind is bringing back the language I'm still determined to learn part of that I know couple words the little kids when you sit there and watch them never will forget to look and eye Do's face or what you sat there smiling for me to talk thank you so uh that's the story of our people and how we ended up in Grand Ron because there's no such thing really as a grandr Indian and although members of our tribe are now referred to as members of the grandr tribe there's no such thing as grandr Indian I myself am Northern payou caluya and we're made up of many tribes um we're the confederated tribes of grand Ron so what that means is many tribes brought to one place so there's as many as 26 tribes that were brought here as many as 40 different bands of Indians families can be traced to this Roundup and basically what happened was a Cavalry showed up in the evening right before the evening meal and they gave our people a few minutes to pack what they could gather what they could carry with them because they were moving they took them to a place called Table Rock in southern Oregon and it's a plateau it's a flat topped mountain and they put them up there they put all of our people up there all these tribal people that they had gathered from Northern Nevada and Northern California and Southern Oregon and they gathered them there because it was an easy place to put a lot of people there was only a coup couple of ways up and down so they could put a lot of people on top there and keep them there and then what they did is they marched them 265 miles north to a place called Grand Ron so that's how we ended up here in Grand Ron known as the people of the confederated tribes of grandr so it's important that you know that there's no such thing as a grand Ron Indian there are there are tribal people who now live in Grand Ron are known as Grand Ron travel people so I think that's important that you know that I also think it's important that you know that as a member of the tribe I'm not here to honor Louis St Clark um that's not my goal um I I don't mind commemorating Lewis and Clark and I don't mind using this opportunity to tell you my people's story but I'm not here to honor them you know I I I went to school in the dominant culture and and I'm a history freak and I love I love history and I love adventure and so I understand their place in the dominant culture understand why they're respected and what they did but as the harbringer of the Apocalypse that came to our people I I want you to know that I'm not here to honor them but but I am here to commemorate that memory and and and I understand the place that they have in our culture so I think it's a great opportunity to tell you about our people and hopefully the movie helped do that um the the voice that you hear talking in our language is one of our elders that passed away in the last couple of years um her name was Isa d one of the last fluent speakers of the language and somebody who I admired and loved greatly um her sister was also a great teacher and a great speaker of the language and we had always planned on uh getting the language down on film and we'd talk about well we'll do it next time we're together next time we well she passed away before I could do it so as soon as I got back to Grand Ron I grabbed the video camera and beelined it to isa's house and set it up in the corner and said just talk to me just tell me stories and just talk to me and I let that camera run and I had no idea that it would end up being the centerpiece for the movie that tells tells you about our tribal history but that's how that came about so I'm I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody has and I want to just say thanks for allowing me to be here and talk to you about our tribe at this point does anybody have any questions or comments for Mr Merill did you enjoy the film uh perhaps you're a little bit shy right now and asking questions um you want to make yourself available as you walk around I'll be around come has any questions yeah the the film is available if you're interested um if you just contact the tribe we have copies available at the tribe you can get a hold of the film there and uh I guess that's about it I appreciate you guys coming out all right thanks thank you um every at 5:00 we are going to have Mr spider moccasin e e