The Northern Paiute Reservation in Burns, Oregon - Remnants of a Thriving Culture
As I drove
west along I-80 and I-84 following the path of the transcontinental railroad
and the Oregon Trail, I noticed all the historical landmarks with information
on the settlement of this vast frontier conquered by the brave pioneer men and
women, immigrants from Scotland and Ireland lured to this country with the
promise of land and opportunity, loggers and mountain men, cattlemen,
prospectors and railroad entrepreneurs heeding the call to get in on the ground
floor of opportunity for great wealth from empire building. I knew the story
well since I had taught it for 23 years as a public school teacher in states
from coast to coast – the last being the state of Oregon.
During the
last part of my teaching career, I had begun to explore the true story of
American history - a great country being built upon the destruction and even
genocide of indigenous people who had lived here for centuries before the first
Europeans arrived in the 15th Century claiming the whole of North
and South America for their kings and queens to colonize and use to fill their
coffers.
After the United States established preeminence in North America following
the American Revolution the Founding Fathers continued the pattern of empire
building across North America under the guise of Manifest Destiny and taking
over land they claimed they owned at the expense of the indigenous cultures in
the way. These stories are now coming to light and I have spent my years in
retirement focusing on raising awareness about what happened to the cultures so
destroyed in two major novels and several short stories. The first was a generational saga entitled
“The Peacemaker.”
This year I
published a sequel to that novel entitled “New Pangaea – An Evolution into the
Fifth World.” Both books are available at http:kentuckywoman.net. “The
Peacemaker” ends on September 11, 2001 and sets the stage for the price America
has paid for its destruction of the very people who knew how to take care of
the land and keep it producing for the Seventh Generation and beyond.
“New
Pangaea” is set on the Hopi Reservation in Northeast Arizona. The Hopi are the
only people who never fought the United States nor made treaties and have
remained true to their culture and way of life until the Peabody Coal Company
came to mine the Black Mesa area on their land. Like other tribes in Standing
Rock, North Dakota and the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota,
the Hopi are beginning to organize to reteach their children the “old ways” of
land management and farming. It is these people who will once again become the
stewards of the land to bring it back to what it was before the Western
European destroyed it. Because I now have a website that includes a blog, I
decided to use my social media platform to write short pieces that describe
what is happening with indigenous groups across the country because the media
certainly is not doing it.
This year I
decided to finish my fifty state bucket list by driving across country from
Louisville, Kentucky to Seattle, WA to take a cruise to Alaska. On the return
trip I will complete the bucket list by visiting North Dakota and Minnesota
with the intent of blogging to raise awareness about what is happening with the
water protectors in these locations. I had intended to start my blogs then, but
on the way out driving across the Lewis and Clark Trail, I stumbled upon the
Northern Paiute Indian Reservation in Burns, Oregon and had the opportunity to
visit with Diane Teeman a tribal member and anthropologist who consented to
speak with me about her tribe and answer questions about where they came from,
what happened and where she sees the tribe headed today.
To
understand the present we must begin with the stories of the past. What has
happened with most North American Indians, sadly, is that through the process
of land takeover and genocide, all Indian cultural groups are struggling with
rebuilding something of value for their people with what has been left for
them. The story of the Northern Paiute is no different than the stories of the
Eastern Woodlands people, the pueblo people of the desert Southwest and the
Navajo and Hopi. I have written some of the stories but for the purposes of
focusing on the current situation, I am including a link to a site that gives a
little overview of who the Northern Paiute are, where they lived and how
American seizure of their lands and deprivation have reduced what were large
numbers of people living in Great Basin area of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and
Oregon to 410 enrolled tribal members living in these states and 150 members
living on the Northern Paiute Reservation in Burns, Oregon. Of these 150 people
2/3 of them are children under the age of 18. https://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/indian-tribes/paiute-tribe.htm.
Diane Teeman
is a dark skinned, heavy set woman about 40 years old with the blue black hair
associated with people of her heritage. She is well-educated and articulate and
unexpectedly candid about her tribal history and where the people of her tribe
are headed today. The remnants of the Northern Paiute live from Las Vegas, NV
to Northeastern and Southeastern California and the Boise area. Many live and
work in cities and have blended families from marriage into the Anglo
population.
The
Reservation I visited was established in 1934 as the result of two federal acts
– the Indian Reorganization Act and the Recovery Act associated with Franklin
Roosevelt’s New Deal which provided loans to purchase acreage around the city
of Burns for the Reservation. The loans have since been paid back from funds
produced by an agricultural corporation that produced alfalfa. That corporation
has since been disbanded with no real plans to replace it. Some of the land has
been leased and the Reservation operated a casino for a while but it was shut
down due to lack of viable revenue. There
is an economic development council that has been established and the tribe is
now using this as a means to have a voice in land management. In order to do
this, Ms. Teeman is studying archaeological sites to validate the skills of the
indigenous cultures in land management.
Ms. Teeman
reported that there is archaeological evidence going back thousands of years of
settlements of people in the Great Basin area numbering 14,000 people. These
people lived here and managed the land so well that when the Europeans arrived
in the 15th Century the land was pristine – quite different from
what it is today. As more and more evidence is uncovered about the unique
relationship indigenous North Americans have with the land, and the tribes
recover from the damage done to their people from years of crippling military
and domestic actions of the United States government, these people will lead
our country into a “new Pangaea” and a return to land stewardship.p that
produces peace and prosperity for the Seventh Generation
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