At 09:25 PM 8/15/97 -0000, you wrote:

>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.

Before we get too eager to scrap such doctrine, keep in mind that this is
precisely why
there's public access to every beach in Oregon.

>I do not understand that the right to take whales was adjudicated within
the context of the Boldt
>decision (50% of harvestable numbers).

I wasn't saying it was, I was asking a question. Norway and Japan insist
on treating whaling
as a "fishery". As you point out, fishing treaties with Indians seem to
treat shell"fish" as
equivalent to real fish.

I'm just curious if clever legal minds couldn't wiggle whaling by the Makah
under this
decision?

>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!).

Heh heh heh. Yeah...so many want to pretend the treaties were never signed.

Well, parts of them.

You never see these folks say "we'll just end the treaties - the tribes
will give up their
rights to hunting and fishing, and we'll give them ALL THEIR LAND THEY GAVE
UP TO GET THOSE
RIGHTS BACK TO THEM!!!!"

Naw, all you see is that the tribes should give up the parts of the treaty
beneficial to
them, while letting us non-Indian folk hold onto the parts beneficial to us.

Is it any wonder they started hiring lawyers?

Non-BIA lawyers?


>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.

Ummm, yet, in certain cases such restrictions have been imposed. I'm
unaware, though, of how
well accepted they are in Native American circles. Even if accepted, they
were under protest,
i.e. as a result of losing in Court.

Unfortunately (for them), these treaties, which limit sovereignity (as well
as protect this
limited form), do place them in the hands of their enemi...urrr, sorry,
respected fellow
citizens of the Supreme Court who just happen to have never included a
single Native
American.

What you are saying is that we've used the courts to illegally breach
clearly-written
treaties signed by tribes who believed the words in them really stood for
something.

Gosh, Jon, as usual, you're right! :)


>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.

Or a love of baseball inside a sterile, concrete dome with fake Astroturf. :)

>>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.

And here we disagree to a point. I'll support their efforts - as long as
they lie within the
boundaries of their culture and our mutual treaty - but at the same time
hope that they'll
willingly give it up.

Transform it, perhaps? Maybe they'll become the global singers of the
whale songs after
beaching, featured on MTV for bazillions of dollars? :)

No, I don't really mean to trivialize the importance to them of their
cultural heritage, but
if they put their minds to it, they might find ways to spiritually as well
as economically
benefit from not killing, rather than killing, whales.

But ... we're in agreement that, fundamentally, it is their choice.

>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?.......

You know those baskets they use to gather these eggs could be used to
gather the heads of
enemies executed on the guilliotine, after all, the French used baskets for
this...

(tastless, but meant in fun, though it does make a point, no?)



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net