PORTLAND, Ore. – Their ancestors helped the struggling Lewis and Clark expedition stay alive, but today’s Chinook Indian Nation says the tribe will not participate in the official bicentennial celebration for the explorers.
The tribe says it will boycott events sanctioned by the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, saying the council’s decision to include another tribe in the region threatens the integrity of the Chinook Nation’s identity.
“We went to great lengths and effort to keep them onboard,” said Amy Mossett of the Circle of Tribal Advisors, a bicentennial council affiliate. “But we’re not forcing Lewis and Clark on anyone.”
Other tribes want to be involved in the Lewis and Clark bicentennial because they see it as an opportunity to talk about what American Indians have endured over the past 200 years, Mossett said.
But Tony Johnson, Chinook culture committee chairman, said it became clear that the national and local bicentennial organizations are “not interested in a historically accurate story.”
Johnson said bicentennial organizers solicited then ignored the tribe’s opinions on native language used in a commemorative map and guide. They also created an image depicting a Chinook canoe with the wrong type of paddle, he said.
Topping the tribe’s list of complaints, however, is organizers’ decision to include the Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes in the Northwest’s premier event – “Destination: The Pacific,” which is scheduled for Nov. 11-15, 2005.
Johnson argues that the Clatsop-Nehalem is an illegitimate group threatening to usurp the Chinook Nation’s treaty and territorial rights, and that including them would give them an identity separate from that of the Chinook. Neither tribe has been recognized by the federal government, but both want to be.
Joe Scovell, chairman of the Clatsop-Nehalems, said the expedition journals also mention the Clatsop and Nehalem-Tillamook people who lived in villages along the northern Oregon coast.
“They have branded us an illegitimate tribe,” he said. “But historically, that is not correct.”
The Chinook Indian Nation, with 2,300 members, includes the Clatsop people as well as the Wahkiakum, Cathlamet, Willapa and Lower Chinook, according to tribal leaders who say they are the rightful descendants of the tribes recorded in the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Clatsop-Nehalem numbers about 100 members, Scovell said.
Cyndi Mudge, director of “Destination: The Pacific,” said she was disappointed by the Chinook decision.
“Honestly, it’s like being in the middle of a huge family disruption,” she said. “These are good people.”
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