Chinook people meet the Corps of Discovery on the Lower Columbia, October 1805
(Charles Marion Russel, c. 1905).
Chinookan peoples include several groups of indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest in the United States speaking the Chinookan languages. In the early 19th century, the Chinookan-speaking peoples resided along the lower and middle Columbia River in present-day Oregon and Washington. The Chinook tribes were those encountered by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805 on the lower Columbia.
Since the late 20th century, the Chinook Indian Nation, made up of 2700 members of several peoples, has worked to obtain federal recognition. It gained this in 2001 but, was later revoked in 2002 because it did not meet the proper criteria of the B.I.A.. The tribe continues to seek recognition.
The Chinookan peoples were not nomadic but rather occupied traditional tribal geographic areas. They had a society marked by social stratification consisting of a number of distinct social castes of greater or lesser status. Upper castes included shamans, warriors, and successful traders, and were a minority of the community population compared to common members of the tribal group. Members of the superior castes are said to have practiced social isolation, limiting contact with commoners and forbidding play between the children of the different social groups.
Some Chinookan peoples practiced slavery, a practice borrowed from the northernmost tribes of the Pacific Northwest. They encouraged their slaves, taken as captives in warfare, to practice thievery on behalf of their masters. The latter refrained from such practices as unworthy of high status.
At birth some Chinookan tribes would flatten children's heads by binding them under pressure between boards, a process said to have been initiated when the infant was about 3 months old and to have continued until the child was about one year of age. This served as a means of marking social hierarchy; flat-headed community members were ranked above those with round heads. Those with flattened and deformed skulls refused to enslave other individuals who were similarly marked, thereby reinforcing the association of a round head with servility. The Chinook were known colloquially by early white explorers in the region as "Flathead Indians."
Living near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, they were skilled elk hunters and fishermen. The most popular fish was salmon. Owing partly to their settled living patterns, the Chinook and other coastal tribes had relatively little conflict over land as they did not migrate through each other's territories. In the manner of numerous settled tribes, they resided in long houses. More than fifty people, related through extended kinship, often resided in one long house.
The Chinook Indian Nation has engaged in a continuing effort since the late 20th century to secure formal recognition as a sovereign tribe by the U.S. federal government. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Interior recognized the Chinook Indian Nation, a confederation of the Cathlamet, Clatsop, Lower Chinook, Whkaikum and Willapa Indians, as a tribe during the last months of the administration of President Bill Clinton. After the administration changed under President George W. Bush, his new political appointees reviewed the materials and, in 2002, revoked this status, in what was a highly unusual action. Efforts by Brian Baird, D-Wash. from Washington's 3rd congressional district, to gain passage of legislation to achieve recognition in 2011 were not successful.*
LAMAT
Kin 248: Yellow Magnetic Star
I unify in order to beautify
Attracting art
I seal the store of elegance
With the magnetic tone of purpose
I am guided by my own power doubled,
The wise one who knows the Self as body-less within the bodies, as unchanging among changeless things, as great and omnipresent, does never grieve.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2017.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Muladhara Chakra (Seli Plasma)
No comments:
Post a Comment