Honoring Tribes As Neighbors

I t appears that an invi- tation from Waitsburg Mayor Walt Gobel to the Confederated Indian Tribes of the Umatilla Reserva- tion has been well received. Earlier this year, Gobel sent a letter to the tribes asking them to join the May 18 parade marking the 100th anniversary of the Days of Real Sport.

According to the April edition of the Confederated Umatilla Journal, a group on the reservation is form- ing an all-volunteer parade contingent to prepare for the tribes' participation in the ceremony.

"To ensure readiness for such an undertaking, the group has set aside 1-4 pm on April 27 at the Tribal arena on Patawa Road for a grooming and parade prep clinic," according to an ar- ticle in the newspaper. "The clinic is free and horses and tribal members are welcome."

Inspired by Waitsburg's invitation, the group may even spearhead a reviv- al of the tribes' presence at ceremonies throughout southeast Washington and northeast Oregon, where their ancestors once roamed the bunchgrass hills of their homelands.

The tribal group's vision for the parade contingent is to "participate in parades throughout the CTUIR's ceded lands to remind citizens of the tribes' historic and contemporary presence and relationship to the homelands."

As we have opined in these pages before, the invitation to the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla tribal members and their acceptance of it would be a homecoming, a fitting way to honor a people who took care of these lands around us long before us.

But how well do we really know our neighbors and their roots in the Palouse? Most of us could use an introduction or at least a reminder.

The three tribes once had a homeland of 6.4 million acres in our corner of the Pacific Northwest. In 1855, a decade before the town of Waitsburg was founded, the tribes and the U.S. govern- ment at the time negotiated a treaty in which they ceded most of these lands in ex- change for a reservation homeland of 500,000 acres. Politics further reduced this territory to the current 172,000 acres, though the tribes reserved the right to fish, hunt and gather tradi- tional foods and medicine on public lands within the ceded areas.

Today, nearly 3,000 trib- al descendants live on or near the reservation east of Pendleton, where their entrepreneurial activities are thriving. Though many tribal members are still involved in the more traditional pursuits of hunting, fishing, farming and forestry, many others have embraced the new economy of recreation, commercial development and high technology.

Who in these parts isn't familiar with the Wildhorse Resort, for instance? The complex, built more than 20 years ago, includes a casino, hotel, RV park and 18-hole golf course and has a staff of 760. About 15 years ago, the tribes added the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute and eight years ago, they opened the doors to Cayuse Technolo- gies, a software development firm that employs 300.

Much of the profits of these enterprises go back to the reservation's com- munity. In 2007, the last year for which figures were available, tribal members each received $1,400 from gaming revenues alone. The remaining gaming income is used to operate the CTUIR government and provide so- cial services. The reservation has a newspaper, a radio sta- tion and a language program to preserve and teach the tra- ditional Sahaptin language.

"Tribes have to be cre- ative to survive and are looking for ways to partner with local governments and off-reservation businesses to grow," according to the of- ficial CTUIR website.

But all new economic ac- tivities aside, the tribes have not forgotten about their connection to land. Salmon, one of their traditional food staples, was reintroduced to the Umatilla River in the 1980s. The first fall Chinook in 70 years returned there in 1984.

As a short history on the tribes' website puts it: "Wa- ter was created first, life and land were created next, land promised to take care of all life, all life promised to take care of the land."