A GIANT FELL IN THE FOREST

ROBYN MAKARUK

"Shush", she said to her seven-year old granddaughter, who was badgering her for a story before going to bed.  "I will tell you the story of our people, the Ko-Kwel".

"Our ancestral Homelands once encompassed more than one million acres that included all the watersheds of the Coquille River system from the ocean to its headwaters and along the south Oregon coast as far south as Cape Blanco and Port Orford.

We were a peaceful Tribe.  Most of our permanent villages were located at places where year-round food resources were abundant. Along the coast, estuary shorelines and sheltered coastal bays offered food of all sorts, and travel by canoe was easy. Other villages were located in the interior, where streams and rivers full of fish, and valleys where deer and elk wintered provided all the food we needed.  These villages were where we built our plank houses made of timbers from the densely forested mountains and valleys. One day, a 200 foot giant cedar fell in the forest.  It had been hit by lightning and slid down the mountain into the middle fork of the Coquille River.  When it made its way downstream close to one of our villages we saw it as a sign.  Men from our Tribe guided it ashore and its abundant gifts provided our village with three 20 foot canoes, and enough timber to make four plank houses.

The Seasonal places in the uplands and interior valleys away from the estuaries and coast were hunting and food gathering areas used by our and other Native groups.   When our Ko-kwels and other groups gathered for berry or nut harvesting, or root digging, or at hunting and fishing sites, it was a time for celebration and for renewing old relationships and making new ones.  We returned to these places year after year, and as you have learned, we still celebrate these annual events like the Mid-Winter Gathering, Restoration Day Celebration and Solstice Dances in response to our ancient Ko-kwel traditions.

In 1851 and 1855 when our Chiefs signed treaties which ceded more than a million acres of our Ancestral Homelands to the US Government they were never ratified by the US Senate.  Because of this, our reservation lands and other considerations promised in the treaties never materialized and our People were denied permanent Tribal homelands.   Finally, more than a hundred years later on June 28 1989, Congress passed a law which re-established our Tribe as a federally recognized Native Tribe.  This is known as the Coquille Restoration Act.  This Act re-affirmed our Tribe as a sovereign government and validated its authority to manage and administer political and legal jurisdiction over our lands and resources, our businesses and our Tribal community members. It also restored the Tribe's eligibility to participate in federal programs and to receive federal funding to provide health, education, housing assistance and other services to Coquille Tribal members.

So today, sweet one, you are of the new generation of our Ko-kwel Tribe.  You can show us how to uphold our ancient traditions and be a beacon of light in our Coquille Tribal Government. You have the opportunity to serve on our Tribal Council, become one of its Officers.  You can become a forester, a physician, officer of the law, a lawyer, a teacher, anything you wish all because your ancestors fought to preserve those rights.  Whatever path you choose to follow, you will have your grandmother's blessing".

2013