Subject: Makahs and Whales
Date: Aug 15 21:25:03 1997
From: "Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney" - festuca at olywa.net


Hi folks,

Interesting thread, this. The Makah signed one of the Steven's treaty, which generally
reserved the Tribes' rights to take fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with the
citizens, etc. etc. This has been regularly interpreted by the federal courts (since 1890, the
year after Washington became a State...) as inviolable - most recently in the US vs Washington
"Boldt Decision" cases, which not only re-affirmed the rights of the tribes to fish and gather
shellfish, but also adjudicated allocations of harvestable numbers of salmon and shellfish.
Because this right was reserved by the Tribes when the treaties were signed, they maintain
them. It's kind of like your selling me a lot off your property, but "reserving" a right-of-way
across that lot, so you can still get to your house.

I do not understand that the right to take whales was adjudicated within the context of the Boldt
decision (50% of harvestable numbers). The rights of the tribes to hunt is generally recognized, however,and former Game Dept director Smitch fanned the fires of the Indian-haters when he
entered into agreements with the Tribes over hunting rights -- and avoiding the millions of
taxpayers' dollars wasted in useless litigation, as was done with the salmon, steelhead and
shellfish (Let's all thank Slimy Slade for that debacle!).

To think that their rights to take fish or whales is only a right to take fish and whales the way they
did when the Treaties were signed is erroneous. Their rights cannot be legally subjected to such
an interpretation. A right is a right, and is not subject to being diminished by, certainly such
rules and regulations that the State might impose on its other citizens. It does not matter whether
they choose to hunt the whale with a cedar or a modern harpoon.

The Makah people have a thousands-of-years-old tradition of taking sustenance from the sea.
Salmon, shellfish, birds' eggs, seals and whales. I think it's pretty presumptuous of us, as
middle-class whites (for the most part), to impose our cultural biases on a people. This is no
better than forcing Christianity, the work ethic, whiskey and diseases on a people.

Anyway, I guess that I'll support the efforts of the Makah Tribe in its ceremonial whaling. When
a whale beached over in Whatcom County a few years ago, the Lummi Nation had to get the
Makah to come to sing the songs, because the Lummi had lost the whale songs in the last 140
years. The Makah have the spirit, they have the songs, and they have the right. More power to
them.

Being's this is a "bird" discussion group, I wonder if the thread should turn to the rights of the Tribes to gather Murre or Coot eggs?.......

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, Washington
festuca at olywa.net