Recognizing the Sacred- Our Tribal Leaders

Tribes are sovereign governments. All tribes have their unique history. Their history is unique in many ways from that of the colonial countries that took over their lands. All tribes in the United States and Canada have history before this colonization and a new history afterwards. The new history, whether 400 years old or 100 years old include the removal of the tribes from their traditional lands, the subjugation of their people to new cultures and ways of learning, and a modification of their lifeways. At one dimension that is the way things have always worked in the world, when two people meet one another and collide, there is a negotiation that takes place which is not always fair to all. Usually changes come from those encounters. But what has occurred since the Europeans came is so dramatic that whole societies went extinct by diseases, tribes were imprisoned on reservations, and they were forced to alter their ways of living dramatically.

Still, tribes survived the worst of the catastrophe, or most did, and are now rebuilding. Tribal governments and societies now deserve to begin rebuilding the monuments of their society to empower their people. Healing needs to take place, and concepts and images of empowerment need to be part of what is restored. People need these things to look to for pride in their people, culture and nation.

Some years ago I noticed that this development was missing from the restoration of many tribes, and at my own. As a cultural leader, I engaged in several projects to bring back our tribal names into regular usage, then on erecting tribal monuments within our original lands. I engaged in advisory committees to help drive the development of tribally centered histories and programming. From 2006 to 2014, I was successful in helping name bridges, native centers, schools, and parks. Then numerous tribal histories were erected in our lands to teach everyone our histories. I helped with those projects, writing most of the narrative for the signs. Finally, the ultimate development came with the completing of the tribal museum, and the exhibits curation program. This program became award winning and began numerous projects every year telling different aspects of the tribal story.

There are a few projects which never got instituted. The recognition of tribal holidays and tribal chiefs of the tribe. I was able to get the tribe to post the significant events of the tribe on the various calendars, and reader-boards, but never instituted as official holidays. And- perhaps four years ago I put together list of the chiefs I could find on treaties and documents. This list has never been accepted nor implemented by the tribe. The list is over one hundred individuals. On this Presidents’ Day in the United States 2015, tribal people deserve to know and honor their leaders of the past. Our leaders, chiefs, headmen, and women leaders deserve to be recognized for what they did for the tribe, for their tenacity, for the cost they pay for a thankless job, and for continuing and maintaining the tribe through its hard times.  The jobs do not pay nor reward enough those who take the leadership, and in the end, people tend to forget the history of accomplishments.   Leadership is more than making decisions, but charting a direction, employing all resources, and gaining the support of the people.

If we think of the tribe as more than a corporation, and business, with only shareholders, then its a hollow shell. The tribe is in reality a society, a tribal community with great diversity and resiliency. The tribal community is more than the sum of the money or the finances that the tribe invests every year. Cultural development needs to be a equal part of what happens at the tribe on a regular basis. The cultural restoration of life-ways, and an equal investment in healing of the tribe from generations, over-160 years of war, disease, genocide, relocation, death, termination, and the loss of identity. This is a long-term persistent, multi-generational set of issues which deserve the full attention of the tribal government. Recognizing our tribal leaders is only one small part of healing from our history.

For those who read this and want to learn of the chiefs of the tribe – Here they are listed. I do not have all of them fully researched, but they all relate to the tribe. There are others as well, please submit information about the following list and the reference to the information. The leaders recognized in history are mostly men, as most-times women’s stories were never taken down nor did the Americans allow women to be in charge of much of anything. But there are significant women leaders from the 1970s to the present that have served the tribe as leaders. (I will work on a companion page that honors the women leaders.)

And, If anyone wants to take on a project to link of the names on the treaties with their names at the reservation, please connect with me.

Early Chiefs of Grand Ronde in Treaties and Other Documents