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Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians facts for kids

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Confederated Tribes of
Siletz Indians
Total population
5,600 (2020)
Regions with significant populations
 United States ( Oregon)
Languages
English
Related ethnic groups
Athabaskan peoples,
southern Interior Salish peoples

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in the United States is a federally recognized confederation of more than 27 Native American tribes and bands who once inhabited an extensive homeland of more than 20 million acres from northern California to southwest Washington and between the summit of the Cascades and the Pacific Ocean. The tribes spoke at least 11 distinct languages, including Tillamook, Shasta, the Clatsop, lower, middle and upper dialects of Chinook, Kalapuya, Takelma, Alsea-Yaquina, Siuslaw, Coos, the Plateau Penutian languages Molala and Klickitat, and several related Athabaskan dialects (Upper Umpqua, Upper Coquille, Sixes/Euchre Creek, Tututni, Chetco, Chasta Costa, Galice/Applegate, Tolowa Oregon Athabaskan languages. After the Rogue River Wars, these tribes were removed to the Coast Indian Reservation, now known as the Siletz Reservation.

Tribes

The confederation is made up of the following tribes and bands.

Organization and location

The Siletz tribe has 4,804 enrolled members, 70% of whom live in Oregon and only 8% of whom live near on the 3,900-acre (16 km2) reservation. An additional 6% live in the town of Siletz and 22.6% live in Lincoln County. There are 445 households in the city of Siletz and 143 households on the Siletz reservation.

The tribe owns and manages a 3,666-acre (14.84 km2) reservation located along the Siletz River in the Central Oregon Coast Range of central Lincoln County, Oregon, approximately 15 mi (24 km) northeast of Newport. It owns a checkerboard of approximately 15,000 acres (61 km2) in and around the small city of Siletz.http://www.pdx.edu/dmss/sites/www.pdx.edu.dmss/files/styles/large/public/oregonmapcopy.gif

The tribe owns and operates the Chinook Winds Casino and Convention Center, the Chinook Winds Golf Resort in Lincoln City (including the Chinook Winds Resort hotel purchased from Mark Hemstreet of Shilo Inn hotels for $26 million in 2004), the $9.5 million undeveloped oceanfront Lot 57 north of Chinook Winds Casino, Hee Hee Illahee RV park in Salem, the Logan Road RV Park, the Salem Flex Building where the Salem Area Offices currently exist, the $1.6 million Portland Stark Building which was purchased in August 2007, which is the site of the tribe's Portland Area Office, the Eugene Elks building which houses the Eugene Area Office, the Siletz Gas & Mini Mart, the old Toledo Mill site, and a commercial building in Depoe Bay.

In late 2005, the Siletz Tribe partnered with a bankrupt aerospace parts manufacturing company in Dayton, Ohio called U.S. Aeroteam. The original plan included expanding that partnership to create a tribally owned business, called Siletz Aeroteam, to manufacture jet engine parts in the Siletz area. Siletz Aeroteam never began operation and is now defunct, but the Tribe still owns 20% of U.S. Aeroteam, the Ohio company.

The Tribe also owns and runs the Siletz Community Health Clinic. A $7.5 million plan is underway to expand the clinic. $2 million of the funding will come from the Federal government's IHS Small Ambulatory Grant funding. The clinic is currently 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) but will grow to 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2) between 2006-2016.

The Siletz Tribal Police have disbanded, but the Tribe now contracts with the nearby Lincoln County Sheriff's Office to provide law enforcement services to the Siletz area.

The Tribe is gradually accumulating additional property into the reservation, as part of a 2005-2015 Comprehensive Plan. This includes 3,851 acres (15.58 km2) entrusted to the tribe in 2007 by the State and Federal governments as part of the New Carissa oil spill settlement, on the condition that the Siletz Tribe will manage it solely as a marbled murrelet habitat.

The tribal government is attempting to get old treaties recognized by referencing them in the Tribe's Constitution, and also by mentioning the treaties in a work by Charles Wilkinson, who has been hired by the Tribal Council to write a history of the Siletz. There have also been attempts to retrieve the remains of tribal ancestors from the Smithsonian Institution, and to retrieve various other tribal artifacts distributed throughout the United States of America.

Delores Pigsley
Tribal Council Chairman Delores Pigsley

The current Tribal Council includes Chairman Delores Pigsley; Vice Chairman Bud Lane; Secretary Tina Retasket; Jessie Davis; Loraine Butler; Lillie Butler; Reggie Butler; Treasurer Robert Kentta; and Sharon Edenfield, who was appointed to take elected member Lisa Brown's place. Lisa Brown was elected in 2009 with one of the highest vote counts in tribal history, but was removed from office by a 6 to 2 vote of the Tribal Council soon after taking office. The tribal government's Public Information Office publishes the monthly Siletz News.

Cultural activities

Artifacts and historical documents are stored and displayed at the Siletz Tribal Cultural Center, located on Government Hill, under the care of Cultural Specialist Robert Kentta and Cultural Activities Coordinator Selene Rilatos.

Tolowa is taught as a common tribal language. Beginning Athabaskan language will be taught at the Siletz Valley Charter School, opening in the fall of 2006.

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Many Native Americans gather around a drum, preparing for a powwow in 1990

The second weekend in August of every year the Tribe is host to its annual Nesika Ilahee Pow-wow.

Every summer and winter solstice for hundreds if not thousands of years, a dance has been held, called, the Feather Dance (or Naadosh), which would be held for 12 days at a place called "Yonkentonket," which means, "the center of the earth."

In recent years a new tradition has been started. During the winter solstice, dancers, singers, and tribal members from the Confederated Tribes of Siletz visit the Tolowa peoples' cedar plank dance house near Smith River, California. During the summer solstice, dancers, singers, and tribal members of the Tolowa tribe visit the peoples of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz's cedar plank dance house.

History

Interim-reservations

  • Table Rock Indian Reservation

After the war of 1855-1856

After the Rogue River Wars of 1855-56, most of the peoples were forced onto the Coast Indian Reservation, which later split into the Siletz and Alsea reservations, where they were to form a single unified tribe. The Coast Reservation originally comprised 1.1 million acres (4,500 km2), which was established by the executive order of President Franklin Pierce on November 9, 1855, only weeks after the start of the Rogue River Wars.

Termination act of 1954

The Western Oregon Indian Termination Act of 1954, Public Law 588, came into effect on August 13, 1954. This new law severed Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) supervision of trust lands and BIA regulation of services to the Indian peoples.

Restoration bills

In June 1974, Rep. Wendell Wyatt introduced a first restoration bill, but it did not pass.

On December 17, 1975, Senator Mark Hatfield introduced restoration bill S. 2801. At the time Senator Hatfield presented his restoration bill he was quoted as saying that the Siletz People were "ill-prepared to cope with the realities of American society" when the Termination act went to effect and that they had been "tossed abruptly from a state of almost total dependency to a state of total independence ...[forcing them] to leave the only way of life they had known." The bill included wording to grant or restore hunting and fishing rights. This bill also did not pass.

Senator Hatfield and Senator Bob Packwood introduced a new bill, S. 1560, in the month of May 1977. Unlike its 1975 predecessor, it did not include that the hunting or fishing rights be restored (although a companion bill was sent by Rep. Les AuCoin to the United States House of Representatives, H.R. 7259, which the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission fought and helped to stall). On August 5, 1977, the United States Senate passed the restoration bill and on November 1, 1977, so did the House. The bill was then sent to President Jimmy Carter on November 3 and then approved November 18.

Important events in tribal history

Chinookwinds
A sign in front of Logan Road, owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians
  • November 9, 1855 Siletz Coast Reservation Established
  • On November 18, 1977, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz became the second tribe in the US. to have its federal status restored, and returned to being a sovereign government.
  • On June 2, 1979, tribal members adopted a constitution.
  • On November 1, 1979, people of the town of Siletz, voted 148 to 134 to give back to the Tribe approximately 36 acres (150,000 m2) of former tribal land, which was originally the site of the old Siletz Agency, "Government Hill". The tribe had given this land to the city at the time of termination.
  • In 1994, the Tribe voted to lower the blood quantum, to 1/16, which allowed new members to join.
  • In 1995, Artist Peggy O'Neal was commissioned to paint "Trail of Tears of the Rogue River Peoples."
  • In 1995 the first "Run to the Rogue" took place, in which tribal members took turns carrying an eagle flag staff from Government Hill in Siletz to Agness, Oregon (Located on the Rogue River) on foot.
  • In 1995 The Siletz Tribe opened up a 157,000-square-foot (14,600 m2) casino/convention center, called Chinook Winds Casino, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean from Lincoln City, Oregon.
  • In 2005 a 227-room hotel adjacent to Chinook Winds Casino was purchased and added to the casino.
  • December 6, 2016 S.817 Bill Passed in US House of Representatives Real Property located within Siletz original reservation boundaries lines is now deemed "on reservation."

Name

The confederation takes its name from the Siletz River, which surrounds the reservation. The word "siletz" translates into "coiled like a snake," describing the route of the river winding around the land and mountains to the ocean. It includes remnants of the Siletz, a Coast Salish people who inhabited the area up until the middle 19th century but who are no longer counted separately in the larger confederation.

Population

Finding records of the ethnic and cultural history of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz is somewhat difficult. A partial attempt at the tribal population makeup before it was forced on reservation lands in the mid-19th century is as follows:

  • Upper Rogue River or Shasta Tribe:
    • John's Band 172
    • George's Band 222
    • Joseph James's Band 160
  • Coastal Tribes:
    • Joshuas's Band 179
    • Choallie's Band 215
    • Totoem's Band 202
    • Macanotin's Band 129
    • Shasta Costa 110
    • Port Orford (a Qua-to-mah band) 242
    • Upper Coquille 313

Language

Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians spoke 14 different languages:

-Oregon Athabaskan languages:

1) Lower Rogue River (or Tututni),
2) Upper Rogue River (or Galice-Applegate),
3) Upper Umpqua (or Etnemitane),
4) Tolowa-Chetco;

-Oregon Coast Penutian languages:

5) Alsea,
6) Suislaw and
7) Coos;

-Takelman language:

8) Takelma;

-Kalapuyan language:

9) Kalapuya;

-Chinookan language:

10) Chinook;

-Plateau Penutian languages:

11) Mollala and
12) Sahaptin (Klickitat dialect);

-Shastan language:

13) Shasta; and

-Salishan language:

14) Tillamook.

Siletz Dee-ni (a.k.a. Chetco-Tolowa and Tolowa) is a Oregon Athabaskan (a.k.a. Tolowa-Galice) language, one of the Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages that were historically spoken by Native Americans on the Siletz Indian Reservation in Oregon. According to a report by the National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, it is the last of many tribal languages spoken on the reservation. In 2007 only one living speaker remained. However, according to a later report in The Economist, the language has since been at least partially revived thanks to an on-line dictionary project; in some areas, "many now text each other in Siletz Dee-ni." The tribe has a language revival program with classes in three area offices and Siletz Valley school.

Notable Siletz people

  • Peter "Last Walking Bear" DePoe, drummer for the band Redbone.
  • Sister Francella Mary Griggs, advocate for the restoration of federal recognition
  • Mary "Dolly" Fisher, activist to restore federal recognition of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians from 1974. She won the Nanwood Honeyman Award for significant contribution to the advancement of women in Oregon. She won The National Congress of American Indians award, honoring Indian and Native Women's leadership. Named tribal casino as "Chinook Winds."
  • Calvin Leroy Van Pelt (1924–2011), businessman and tribal elder
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