Overview
Lesson 1: A Treaty is Supreme
Lesson 2: Shopping at Celilo
Lesson 3: Traditional Homelands, Traditional Foods
Lesson 4: How Salmon Teach Us History
Lesson 5: Defining What’s Important in Your Life
Standards
SOCIAL SCIENCE ANALYSIS
- SS.CM.SA.01—Define, research, and explain an event, issue, problem, or phenomenon and its significance to society.
- SS.CM.SA.02—Gather, analyze, use, and document information from various sources, distinguishing facts, opinions, inferences, biases, stereotypes, and persuasive appeals.
- SS.CM.SA.04—Analyze an event, issue, problem, or phenomenon from varied or opposed perspectives or points of view.
- SS.CM.SA.05—Analyze an event, issue, problem, or phenomenon, identifying characteristics, influences, causes, and both short- and long-term effects.
- SS.CM.SA.06—Propose, compare, and judge multiple responses, alternatives, or solutions; then reach a defensible, supported conclusion.
CD Segments to Play
For this topic, go to Elder Wisdom, Tribal Rhythms, Turtle Island Storytellers, and Artist’s Circle.
Tribal Rhythms: Carlos Calica describes how drumming, singing and dancing are important ways of transmitting traditions to new generations. “We have a lot of songs that are shared and sung on a reservation, such as social dance songs, round dance songs, honor songs, chief’s honor song, the women’s honor dance song, the round dance. And it does have a lot of meaning when you sing these songs to how important it is to teach our people to be who they are and be proud of who they are and what they do.”
Elder Wisdom: Adeline Miller describes how she reminds her children and grandchildren of and their special relationship to water and the land and to each other and the importance of song, dance, and laughter.
Artist’s Circle: Pat Courtney Gold describes her basketmaking art and how it defines her being.
Background
Sub-theme: Finding Personal Identity and Meaning Using Traditional Practices
Suggested Strategies
Activities
1. Discuss
- How are traditions passed down in your family?
- Do grandparents have a particular role in your family?
- Do crafts, music and dance play a role in your family’s traditions?
- Do these affect how you look at the world?
- The Turtle Island Storyteller recounts how the tribes of the Columbia helped Lewis and Clark and the later pioneers even though they knew this was the beginning of the end of civilization as they knew it.
- Suggest ways that the class can also provide meaning for their lives by helping others.
- Can these traditional practices work in local, state, national and international situations?
EXTENDING THE LESSON/REFERENCES
- What has happened to the Warm Springs, Wasco, and Paiute tribes originally forced into one reservation in terms of their people, language, traditions, and lifeways? What opportunities for younger members are available? What careers are suggested by the topics covered in this program?
- Are there lessons from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs history for other current events (e.g. intertribal agreements and discord)?
- In what ways were the struggles of tribes like the Confederation like/different from the situations faced by African Americans in the Civil Rights movement during the middle part of the last century? Invite a civil rights activist from the 1960s to visit your class.
- Research Indian casino history in Oregon and invite students to debate the pros and con’s from these points of view: historic traditions of gambling in and between tribes, sovereignty, economic issues, negative impacts of gambling on individuals and families. However, also emphasize how gaming was and is an important part of family and leisure time where having fun was the motive.
Career Awareness Activities for this Unit
- How many career possibilities did you hear in the radio program?
- Which ones of these require lots of math and science? (Marine engineers and healthcare workers were two that come to mind.)
- Are there any of these careers you would like to explore some more?
- Do you know anyone who has one of these careers?
- What kinds of preparation did they have?
- Would you like to talk online or in person with someone in that job?
- If you are a member of a tribe, check with the tribal employment office on who they want to hire in the future and the benefits of working for a tribe.
Publications, Websites, etc.
Death of Celilo Falls (2005).
Written by Portland State University history professor Katrine Barber, this book was published in March 2007, just in time for the 50thanniversary of the flooding of Celilo Falls by The Dalles Dam.
Clark County Historical Society (Museum)
http://www.warmsprings.biz/museum/
Provides an excellent exhibit of Chinook Indian artifacts, including examples of baskets from the lower Columbia region.
Chinook-style plank house
To see an authentic Chinookan plank house updated to meet modern-day codes, contact the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge in Ridgefield, Washington. This impressive structure provides a first-hand view of how families lived along the Columbia. This replica was constructed in time for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial and features designs by Tony Johnson, who is featured in the WOTE radio program.
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC)
The Portland-based Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission is the technical support and coordinating agency for fishery management policies of the Columbia River Basin’s four 1855 treaty tribes: the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and the Nez Perce Tribes. Its mission is to ensure a unified voice in the overall management of the fishery resources, and as managers, to protect reserved treaty rights through the exercise of the inherent sovereign powers of the tribes. Formed in 1977, CRITFC employs biologists, other scientists, public information specialists, policy analysts and administrators who work in fisheries research and analyses, advocacy, planning and coordination, harvest control and law enforcement. While the Chinook Tribe is not a part of this commission, the work of CRITFC benefits all Indian people of the Columbia River system.
Southern Poverty Law Center
http://www.splcenter.org/center/tt/teach.jsp
A poster series and Teaching Tolerance magazine are free for teachers.
Elizabeth Furse. “Indian Tribes, Their Rights and Responsibilities” (1999).
The Institute for Tribal Government was established in the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. It was founded by its director, former Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse. Contact:
Institute for Tribal Government
Portland State University
PO Box 751
Portland, Oregon 97207
503-725-9000
Another valuable resource at the Institute: recorded interviews with many Indian leaders from tribes across the country.
Robert J. Miller (Law professor at Lewis & Clark College). Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny (2006).
Foreword by Elizabeth Furse. To order, visit http://www.greenwood.com or call 1-800-225-5800.
Josephy, Alvin Jr. Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes (2006).
New York: Alfred Knopf.
“American Holocaust: When It’s All Over, I’ll Still Be Indian.”
A short film comparing the Jewish Holocaust to the Native American Holocaust. $30 DVD. E-mail spiritworldproductions@worldnet.att.net, or contact:
PO Box 352
Northridge, CA 91324-2974.
Winds of Change.
The only nationally distributed, full-color magazine published by and for American Indians with a focus on career and educational advancement. The magazine is published quarterly. Its key features include:
- American Indian role models
- Stories of personal achievement and leadership
- Educational programs, scholarship opportunities
- Corporate contributions and opportunities
- Career development and job position listings
- Columns, news, book reviews and articles that bridge traditional and modern perspectives on Native issues.
The Chinook Trilogy
Available from Wild Hare Media, 1-800-WILD HARE, the trilogy consists of a teaching guide, three approximately 30-minute broadcast quality videos and a 20-page booklet with an historical chronology, maps, and charts. The first video in the series, “My Strength Is From the Fish,” contains interviews with tribal elders and members, revealing that the culture and spirituality of the four Columbia River treaty tribes is inextricably tied to the water, which is the support to all life, and to the salmon. The second video, “Empty Promises, Empty Nets,” examines the treaties, landmark legal cases and judgments that confirmed fishing rights of Columbia River tribes. Historical footage and interviews with Federal Judge Robert Belloni and others directly involved in these decisions define the legal foundation on which Columbia River salmon survival may well depend. The final video in the series, “A Matter of Trust,” describes the biological and political strategies the tribes propose to overcome nearly 150 years of river development, habitat destruction and ineffective regional and federal salmon management.
Attachment
CRITFC handout
Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) handout
Salmon at the Intersection of Cultural Preservation, Social Justice and Constitutional Rights
In the traditions of the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Nez Perce, the spirit of the salmon—Wy-kan-ush-mi Wa-kish-wit—is sacred life. The tribes believe that the salmon was created along with an ideal habitat in which to enjoy its existence and that for thousands of years the salmon unselfishly gave themselves for the physical and spiritual sustenance of human beings. The salmon’s abundance shaped the culture, religion, society, and even languages of the four tribes. The majority of calories that the Columbia Basin tribes consumed came from salmon, elevating the reverence that the tribes placed on this incredible gift. Their religions always thanked the Creator for the bounteous blessing of salmon; they also thanked the salmon for offering themselves as food for humans.
Although the salmon’s spirit has not changed, the human spirit has. Today, the real world of the salmon is in total disarray. Their very existence and worth is being debated. The four tribes believe that human arrogance has brought the salmon to the brink of extinction. Rather than serving as a dignified cultural icon, the salmon is being redefined as a problem, as something that makes unacceptable the human laws designed to protect the environment. In their view, crude science and perilous politics have reduced the salmon to a struggling species living in a polluted and life-threatening home. The four Columbia River treaty tribes see themselves as the keepers of ancient truths and laws of nature, and as employing the depths of their hearts and the expanse of their minds to save the salmon. Respect and reverence for the perfection of creation are the foundation of their actions. Among these actions was the creation of the Spirit of the Salmon Fund, because the tribes knew that only by working together with agencies, foundations, and individuals could meaningful restoration and renewed respect for the salmon be brought to pass.
