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KLAMATH TRIBES RESTORATION: CELEBRATING 25 YEARS

 

‘We’re still healing’

 

Elders, young leaders talk about impact of losing tribal identity

 

By LEE JUILLERAT 

H&N Regional Editor

August 25, 2011

 

     CHILOQUIN — It’s been a quarter of a century since the traditional hunting and fishing rights were restored to members of the Klamath Tribes. Former tribal chairman 77-year-old Chuck Kimbol remembers the fight to reinstate those rights as difficult, an uphill political battle. It was a battle, he says, that left wounds. “Restoration restored us to federal recognition, but we’re still healing,” he says. The loss of tribal status affected families, especially men. Tribal elders today compare the impacts to the Klamath Basin 2001 water cutoff, when many farmers felt a sense of loss of self-identity. “It’s spiritual, it’s physical, it’s emotional,” says Don Gentry, 56,     who was born after the Tribe was terminated. “I didn’t realize everything that happened to us, what we lost. It was symbolic that we were Indians again. People had said, ‘You’re not an Indian anymore.’ ”

 

   The Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin were stripped of tribal status in 1954. It took decades to get that status back.

 

   Members of those tribes — the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin   — begin a four-day celebration today in honor of 25th anniversary of the August 1986 federal reinstatement of their tribal status.

 

   “We’re reaffirming who we are, who we’ve been,” Gentry says.

 

   Kimbol agrees.

 

   “There were a lot of controversial issues,” he says. “There are a lot of things people didn’t understand — the social and emotional impacts of restoration.”

 

   After termination, as many as 70 percent of the Klamaths moved from the area, Kimbol said.

 

   He credits the late Sen. Mark Hatfield and former Rep. Bob Smith as key politicians who helped move restoration legislation.

 

   When the tribe was reinstated, three of Kimbol’s nine children had been on the tribal rolls.

 

   Despite termination,   Gentry’s father, Gene, emphasized Indian ways.

 

   “Dad took it seriously, being a father and teaching us to hunt and fish,” he says. “He taught us the values of why we fished, how we fished and the traditions of how we hunted.

 

   “We were fully aware we weren’t in compliance with state laws,” he admits, “but those were our traditions.”

 

Side Bars

 

Elder to be honored   

 

   Former Klamath Tribes chairman Chuck Kimbol, 77, is among surviving tribal elders who will be honored for their restoration efforts during a cake reception from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday at the tribal offices in Chiloquin.

 

   The gathering is intended to honor Warriors of the Past, those who started restoration efforts, and Warriors of the Future, 2011 high school graduates and enrolled college students.

 

   Now-deceased Klamaths who played important roles in tribal restoration include Gene Gentry, Marie Norris, Corrine Hicks, Buddy Hicks, Millie Wilson, Ronnie Wilson, Eldon Miller, Teresa Delorme, Clayton Schultz, Florence Watah, Evan Schonchin and Donald Schonchin.

 

About termination   

 

   Termination of Indian tribes, including the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin in the Klamath Basin, was a post-World War II effort to remove or “free” Indians from government responsibilities.

 

   According to Roberta Ulrich in her book, “American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration, 1953-2006,” Congress removed the tribal status of more than nine dozen tribes with nearly 13,000 members from Oregon to South Carolina.

 

   Sen. Arthur Watkins and Interior Secretary Douglas McKay led termination as part of, according to a federal commission, an effort to “integrate Indians into the rest of the population as the best solution to the ‘Indian Problem.’ ”  The Klamath Tribe was terminated in 1954 under the Klamath Termination Act.

 

   Under termination, members of the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin tribes were required to choose between remaining as tribal members or withdrawing and receiving monetary payments of $43,000. Of the 2,133 members, 1,600 withdrew.

 

   The Klamaths sought to preserve treaty hunting and fishing rights through the courts. The landmark case was Kimbol v. Callahan, when the Ninth Circuit ruled termination did not specifically void Klamath hunting and fishing rights.

 

   The remaining members voted to end their trust relationship with U.S. National Bank of Oregon in 1971, which led to liquidation of the remaining former reservation lands in 1972. Each remaining member received $273,000.

 

   Edison Chiloquin, however, refused to accept payment and began a vigil that later resulted in Congressional legislation that ceded Chiloquin ownership of land along the Sprague River, which remains in his family.

 

   After years of political efforts, legislation restoring tribal rights to members of the three tribes under the Klamath Tribes was signed in August 1986. Restoration means the tribes are eligible for programs and benefits provided through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

 
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