[ykboo] Tonight's Talking Earth-- Monday 12/6 KBOO : 10 PM (fwd) -Reply

[Tony Johnson]

Kanawi-Laksta,

Nayka na dret sick tEmtEm...I pushed the wrong button and sent this
before I intended.

Forgive me but, this man, his publicity, and his book are really
starting to burn my butt (for lack of a better expression).

For those of you who don't know me let me qualify my statements.  I am a
Chinook Indian.  I am Kathlamet, Lower Chinook and Clatsop.  My great
great gradmother was born in her Kathlamet speaking village just East of
Gray's river.  Her husband, my great great grandfather, was born on the
"Wallicut" River.  They lived in my grandma's village.  Their daughter,
my father's grandmother, was born there also.  She later moved with many
of our people to a still occupied village at Bat Center, WA  (in
Shoalwater Bay, Chinook country).  My grandfather was born in that
village.  Both my father and I were born just a few miles down the Bay
from there in South Bend, WA.

There are many Chinooks living today.  We signed treaties in 1853.  We
were party to a treaty in 1850 (we wouldn't sign because it asked us to
move to the Quinault reservation).  We all fished and hunted as Indians
until 1973 when the boldt desicion took away our rights (we are not a
treaty tribe).  Also, we own over 50% of the Quinault reservation's
land.  We still have a large fleet of gillnetters, and by the way I am
here in Grand Ronde, OR teaching a language made up of 55%of our old
Chinook language.  We still have traditional weavers, gatherers, etc.

All this is to say that this man spent over 10 years reading books about
Chinooks, and it seems that he primarilly learned the misinformation
that tends to fill them.  I don't believe he ever talked to any Indians
when he wrote this book.  To write this book without speaking to my
people, Grand Ronde (Clackamas), Warm Springs(Wasco) and Yakima(Wishxam)
is foolish.

One other thing.  He just did a speaking engagment at the Historical
Society in my home town South Bend, WA.  While there my aunites and
uncles came from our village of Bay Center.  He actually argued with
them about out tribe being extinct.?!?!  These are women and men who are
traditional fishernmen and basket makers, and all of them were given
land on the Quinault reservation as Chinook Indians.

Forgive my ranting, but someone needs to stop people from perpetuating
old stereotypes and misinformed ideas.

I have more to say, but I have got to go.  LaXayEm pi hayu mersi pus
hayu kEmtEks qhata na tiki wawa.

Tony A. Johnson, Chinook
Grand Ronde, OR

>>> peter webster <peterweb at TELEPORT.COM> 12/06/99 02:30am >>>
>X-From_: owner-ykboo at holodoc.peak.org Mon Dec 06 21:53:34 1999
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>Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 13:48:00 -0800 (PST)
>From: MichaelP <papadop at peak.org>
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>To: Yaney_Maciver at ex.cv.hp.com, cherie <cblackfeather at uswest.net>,
>        crowx4 at hotmail.com, ingramm at ccmail.orst.edu,
>        Jessica Lamb <jessl at caclbca.org>, weaverr at ucs.orst.edu,
ykboo at peak.org
>Subject: [ykboo] Tonight's Talking Earth-- Monday 12/6 KBOO : 10 PM
(fwd)
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Sender: owner-ykboo at peak.org
>Precedence: bulk
>
>Subject: Tonight's Talking Earth-- Monday 12/6 KBOO 90.7 FM,92.7FM,
>100.7FM 10 PM
>
>Talking Earth Monday Night December 6, 1999
>Naked Against the Rain and the craft of Enduring and Beautiful Books
with
>Rick Rubin and John Laursen
>
>
> "Once there was a people so wealthy, plump and sleek that they drank
sea
>lion oil straight and didn't have to look for food all winter long.
They
>danced and sang and recited stories instead.  These people's upriver
>neighbors bent under ninety-pound packs.  These people just carried
their big
>boat down to their river, piled in several tons of trade goods--
cranberry
>preserved, smoked salmon, dried clams, six or seven kinds of
vegetables, fur
>robes, and arrow-proof armor-- and paddled a hundred miles or so up the
river
>to trade.
>
>"They were not just rich but highly intelligent and comparatively sane.
>Their numerous villages of fancifully decorated houses lined the shores
of
>the mighty river, from which they drew most of their living and much of
their
>pleasure.  That river-- we call it the Columbia-- was all they ever
wanted.
>It provided them with more than they could use.  Fish in profusion swim
up
>the river-- they called it Wimhl-- salmon, sturgeon, smelt and lamprey
came,
>each in its season, to offer their flesh to the people"
>
>                      from "Naked Against the Rain," by Rick Rubin,
>                        Press-22 Books, 1999
>
>
>Rick Rubin,  in the kind of madness that sometimes seizes writers,
needed to
>do research to pin down some details about the way of life of the
people of
>Portland and the lower Columbia River for the second chapter of a book
he
>was writing, and ended up spending more than ten years researching the
>Chinook.
>
>There is little left of Chinook culture now other than evocative
artifact and
>a scattered written  record compiled by whites, largely in diaries and
>letters, and articles in archaeological and historical journals,
student
>papers, magazines and newspapers. Until Naked Against the Rain, only a
few
>books were published that tried to pull all the historical record
together,
>and those few books were marred by cultural prejudice and a dense
academic
>prose.
>
>Naked Against the Rain combines scholarship and accessability in a
>beautifully written book that opens  the window on a way of life and a
people
>which drew on the wealth of the river to make them wealthy, a people
who
>managed their riches so well that they remained wealthy for thousands
of
>years.
>
>Naked Against the Rain is a book that will endure, but, in the kind of
>madness endemic to this country's literary life, Rick spent years
trying to
>find a publisher until, determined to get it out, he published it
himself.
>Like many other Northwest writers whose aim is to produce enduring
>literature,  Rick turned to John Laursen, master book designer, for
help in
>designing and producing.   John joins Rick at 10 P.M. tonight on KBOO
to talk
>with Barbara LaMorticella about the Chinook, and about process
producing
>"Naked in the Rain."
>
>The end of a century which is perilously close to extincting the
biological
>miracles of the salmon and the smelt seems a good time to get a fresh
take on
>our forerunners on the Columbia, and Rick's labor of love will be read
and
>referred to for many years to come.
>

peter