Indian No More Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used

  fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text and photographs copyright © 2019 by Charlene Willing McManis and Traci Sorell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

  without written permission from the publisher.

  TU BOOKS, an imprint of LEE and LOW BOOKS Inc.,

  95 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

  leeandlow.com

  Cover art by Marlena Myles

  Title hand lettering by Michelle Cunningham

  Map illustration © 2019 by Tim Paul Piotrowski

  Edited by Elise McMullen-Ciotti and Stacy Whitman

  Typesetting by ElfElm Publishing

  Ebook production by Abhi Alwar

  EPUB ISBN 978-1-62014-840-2

  MOBI ISBN 978-1-62014-841-9

  First Edition

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress

  For all the Native Nations and their citizens

  who suffered the terrible impact of termination and relocation.

  Table of Contents

  A NOTE FOR READERS

  GLOSSARY

  The Walking Dead

  Rez Life

  Divisions

  The Oregonian

  Southbound

  Courtesy of the Government

  Meeting the Neighbors

  The Wrong Kind of Indians

  Plankhouse People

  Bows, Arrows & TV Indians

  Summer in the City

  A Different Style of Cowboys & Indians

  Budlong Blues

  Miss Elsie’s House

  Pork Chops for Dinner

  Halloween Carnival

  Trick or Treat

  An Indian Like Tonto

  The Jacket

  Pilgrims & Indians

  Thanksgiving Day

  Living the Dream

  No Service

  Indian No More

  Beaver

  Umpqua Always

  DEFINITIONS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CO-AUTHOR’S NOTE

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  THE BEAVER AND THE COYOTE

  OUR AUTHORS

  A NOTE FOR READERS

  Indian No More focuses on an Umpqua family in the 1950s and includes both words and sayings in Chinuk Wawa — the language of The Con­federated Tribes of Grand Ronde — and a number of historical references. If you would like help with or want to know more about anything you encounter in the text, please check the list of Chinuk Wawa words below or the glossary and pronunciation guide. Thank you for reading.

  GLOSSARY

  Chich (chitch): grandmother

  Chinuk Wawa (chah-nook wah-wah): a jargon used by tribes in the Pacific Northwest to communicate and trade with one another. The nearly thirty tribes that form The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community spoke various languages, so the use of Chinuk Wawa helped everyone be able to speak and interact with one another after their forced removals by the federal government to the reservation.

  Chup (choop): grandfather

  khwiʔim (kwa-eem): grandchild

  khɘpít (kah-bit): Stop!

  mimɘlust·r (mee-maah-loos): to die

  sax̣ali-tayi (sah-HAH-lee tah-ee): Grandfather or High-up Chief, similar to God

  tɘnɘs-man (tuh-nas-mon): son

  t’siyatkhu·r (tsee-yat-koo): a tall, hairy creature that lives in the coastal woods, often referred to as Sasquatch or Bigfoot in English

  wawa-lax̣ayam·r kitɘp-san·r (wah-wah thlah-hyam kah-bit-saan): to greet the sunrise

  1

  The Walking Dead

  Before being terminated, I was Indian.

  Now I certainly don’t mean I was killed off or anything. It was 1954. The United States govern­ment didn’t do that anymore. They just filed away our tribal roll numbers. Erased our reser­vation from the map.

  What were our tribal roll numbers? They were the numbers the tribe assigned to its citizens and used by the federal government to see who belonged to the tribe. So my number verified that I was Regina Petit (roll number 3669), daughter of John Petit (roll number 858), granddaughter of Maude Petit (roll number 25) and Sid Petit (roll number 18).

  And that was what made you Indian to the US government — numbers.

  Even after all that counting, the government chose to terminate us. I really don’t know all the reasons why, but my chich, my grandmother, said this much: “Termination means we’re the walking dead.”

  Now I ask you, how can we be dead if we’re still walking?

  2

  Rez Life

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. I was born on the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation, just over thirty miles west from the state capital in Salem, Oregon. I had lived there all my life. I didn’t know any way to live other than as an Umpqua Indian. My family was Umpqua. I was Umpqua. That was just how it was.

  Living on the rez, I played outside with my younger sister Peewee. (Her given name was Theresa, but nobody except our school teacher ever called her that.) We ate wild blackberries and plucked blue larkspurs without any adults watching. Ours was a small reservation compared to others in Oregon. My people didn’t bother the whites that lived around us. Our rez owned a cramped trailer that housed our health and dental clinic, a post office that used to be someone’s house, and an “everything you need from canned beans to carpenter nails” store on the corner of Highway 22 and Grand Ronde Road.

  My elementary school was painted yellow, and we had an old cemetery down the road. Our ancestors were buried there like, Chup Tim-Tim, my grandfather, as well as Daddy’s five-year-old sister Bertha, who died from the flu epidemic of 1934.

  Down from the cemetery was the Petit family home. Our house, with chipped white paint and warped boards, was surrounded by acres of tall grasses, plots of fragrant mock orange, and a forest filled with chirping squirrels and robins. We had three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a mudroom, and a newly built bathroom with an indoor toilet. Getting a toilet inside was one of the happiest days of my life. When I was little, I dreaded stepping off the back porch to the outhouse before bed. It was too close to the woods! Daddy would have to coax me to go out.

  “But Daddy, I’m scared. What about ­t’siyatkhu·r?”

  I’d peer out into the woods as Daddy grinned.

  “Old Sasquatch won’t bother you. First, he’s shy. Second, he’s over six feet tall and smells like a wet dog. And third, well, if he does bother you, you must’ve been misbehaving.”

  I wasn’t too sure about the shy part.

  Regardless, my trips to the outhouse at night were few and far between — and extremely brief.

  Daddy’s cousin Harlin’s house was just a half mile away from us. Cousin Harlin and Daddy were really close. Like brothers close. They talked story all the time, especially about World War II.

  “It was right after Pearl Harbor,” Daddy began, “when I conned Harlin into joining the navy with me. We both needed to get off the rez before we got into any more trouble with the law.” He meant that the way they were going, jail would be their next
residence.

  According to Cousin Harlin, it was a rainy summer morning when this big bus came barreling down the road.

  “It squealed to a stop, splattering mud everywhere, right in front of the Grand Ronde Community Center. Then the Indian agent jumped off and said, ‘Any man who comes on this bus will be guaranteed three meals a day, clothes on his back, a place to sleep, and a paycheck. All he has to do is get on this bus!’”

  “And you got on the bus?” asked Peewee.

  “Well, yeah,” Cousin Harlin said. “Lots of young guys from the rez took advantage of that deal. John and I were no exception. Hey, we pounced on that bus like a rabbit jumping into a snare.”

  “After everyone came aboard,” Daddy said, “the bus blew off the rez, zipped down Highway 22, and didn’t stop until it was in front of an army recruiting station in Salem! But I told Harlin that I didn’t want to join the army — you get shot at there. So I convinced him to sign up for the navy. They promised anyone who joined them would see the world.”

  “Yeah, but they forgot to tell us that the world was made up of three-fourths water,” Cousin Harlin said. Then they both howled, holding their coffee mugs in the air.

  After the war, Daddy and Cousin Harlin still did everything together. They both got married and worked for the Long Bell Lumber Company and its mill up in Longview, Washington, on the Columbia River. Daddy sometimes stayed away from home for weeks on end, but he didn’t mind. It was a job that paid money. He had a family to support. That was what he cared about.

  When Daddy’s big frame stomped home on those rare weeks off, he’d brush out wood chips stuck in his buzz-cut black hair. Mama usually had a steaming pot of seasoned deer meat, potatoes, carrots, and onions in salted gravy stirred up on the old woodstove. She’d greet him in the kitchen.

  “Dinner will be ready soon,” she would say as she checked the biscuits in the oven.

  Daddy would take a whiff of the stew and then grab Mama around the waist. “You’re the prettiest girl on the rez, and I’m the handsomest guy. How about a smooch?”

  She’d shove him off and threaten him with a wooden spoon and a smile.

  “Johnny Petit, the girls are watching.” Mama didn’t care for showing affection in public.

  “No, we’re not,” Peewee would say, giggling from the kitchen table and drawing pictures to decorate the walls.

  Mama wasn’t an Indian, by the way. She was Portuguese from the Azores. But with dark brown eyes and hair, she didn’t stand out. Everyone on the rez called her “the Portuguese Woman,” not by her nickname, Cate, and definitely not by her real name, Catarina. If that bothered her, she didn’t say so. And for a Portuguese woman, that was pretty hard to do.

  Best thing of all was that Chich lived with us. Most Grand Ronde homes had three genera­tions in one house. Each night, Chich combed my long dark hair, saying, “Never cut it. It’s a powerful part of your Umpqua identity. When we cut our hair, it shows everyone that we are mourning the death of someone close to us.”

  That always made me think of Chup. He had lived with us too until his big heart attack. Since the rez doctor only visited the clinic two times a week, Chup died on a day when the doctor wasn’t in. He died before our tribe was terminated, so he was still Indian when he was buried.

  Chup’s funeral was over at St. Michael’s Church, with a big giveaway afterward just up the road at the community center. Giveaways help family and others in the community remember a person or an event.

  For Chup’s giveaway, smoked salmon, homemade breads, and every kind of berry pie covered long tables. Another table held homemade doilies, tablecloths, and extra pies as giveaways. Some elders and those close to Chup received gifts. Everyone in the community gathered at the center and shared a meal. The grown-ups visited while us kids ran around the hall.

  From the wake to the burial, there was a lot of singing. Our voices helped Chup get to the next place, making sure he felt comfortable and stayed there.

  There in the hall, as daylight faded, an elder pounded the table with his hand flat. Then he’d pound again. And again. A rhythm sprang from the pounding. A drumbeat. Three poundings, then a pause. Three poundings, then a pause. Soon the other men in their dress slacks, shirts, and ties sat down at the long table and joined in. We kids stopped running around.

  Then the elder wailed. “Aaaahhh . . . aiye . . . oooh . . .” The other men joined in, repeating this and singing a song I’d never heard.

  I leaned over to Chich, my curiosity piqued. “What are they singing?” I whispered.

  “It’s an honor song, sweetie, for your chup,” Chich said.

  “How do they all know the song?”

  “They heard it many times before. It’s been passed down from family to family.”

  Daddy leaned over too. “We used to sing this during the day. But now we do it at night.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The Indian agent told us to stop.

  Frightened the next-door neighbors.” He leaned even closer. “Thought we might be on the warpath.” Then he winked. Daddy seemed to find everything funny.

  Later that night, we had a ceremony to burn Chup’s clothes and other items not given away. It was a special time.

  Our family visited Chup every Sunday after Mass. His old, beat-up logging cap sat atop the cedar board above his grave. Most of the graves had cedar boards covering the plots so family and friends could place items on them that the dead had enjoyed when alive. Chich had placed some cattail dolls on Bertha’s board.

  Strolling around the cemetery, I would check out all the neat stuff on the graves, like silver thimbles on top of Aunt Ivy’s or metal carving tools on top of Uncle Joe’s. But there was no taking or removing anything from the cemetery. Chich and other elders taught us that anyone who disturbed and disrespected the spirits like that would put themselves at serious risk! I didn’t doubt that for a minute.

  Things changed at home after Chup died. Chich had her long, silver-streaked hair cut short in a ceremony to mourn Chup. Each chilly grey morning, as she twisted Peewee’s and my straight dark hair into two lengthy braids, we missed hearing Chup’s stories. After she finished, she would put on her well-loved yellow apron and make us hot, clumpy oatmeal with dried huckle­berries and cups of coffee mixed with lots of canned Carnation milk and sugar. Then Peewee and I would head outside to play or head over to the Indian Agency school. Daddy would hitch a ride with Cousin Harlin to the mill while Mama whisked down the road for her waitress job at the rez diner. And Chich, well, she sewed, made pies, and did whatever else grandmothers did.

  If I got up early enough, I’d join Chich on the porch to wawa-lax̣ayam·r kitɘp-san·r, or greet the day. We’d sit together — she with her coffee and me wrapped in my favorite wool blanket — waiting for the morning sun to reach Spirit Mountain.

  “Remember that mountain is sacred to our people,” she would say. “It is a good sign if you see sax̣ali-tayi, so pay attention.”

  I’d keep my eyes peeled. And sometimes I’d see a great bald eagle soar beyond the pines, thankful to call Grand Ronde home, just like me.

  3

  Divisions

  The year I turned eight, I knew change was coming to Grand Ronde. The rez buzzed continuously with reports. Almost every night that winter, our family ­hustled over to the community center for what were called “informational” meetings hosted by the Indian agent. Even the elders’ Friday night bingo was canceled, which almost never happened.

  I never understood everything being said. Us kids usually ended up inside the large community pantry playing with old toys or outside on the church’s playground with the merry-go-round and swings.

  Even when it rained, I preferred to be outside with my cousins, but that day it was cold. Indians shouted at the white men in suits or at one another. Angry words flew. Threats of battle. I cowered near the pantry window. r />
  “No! We won’t leave our homes!” one Indian said.

  “We do not want your money!” said another.

  “You cannot trust the government!” Chich said.

  “They are offering us a better life,” said Daddy. His view did not seem to be shared by the others.

  Frustration poured from the community room. Indians against the government. Family member against family member. Old against young.

  I stared out the window at the soggy playground outside. I felt like this was what the Indian agent must have wanted all along. Us fighting.

  At home, I asked Daddy what the meetings were about. Why was everyone so angry?

  “The government just doesn’t want to be in the Indian business anymore,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  Mama said, “Someone from the Bureau of Indian Affairs had the nerve to say, ‘Cate, you might as well get used to it.’” Then she struck a match to light her second cigarette with the first one still burning in the ashtray.

  The Bureau of Indian Affairs, or the BIA for short, was the govern­ment agency that sent those white men in suits to tell us Grand Ronders we were about to be terminated.

  Our old schoolhouse had just been painted a new coat of yellow. You would think if the government painted it, they were planning on keeping it. I didn’t understand what they wanted with all our old buildings anyway. I worried about Chup.

  “What about our cemetery?” I asked, looking over at Chich.

  “They have promised to not take our cemetery from us,” she said. I didn’t know if I believed it. But maybe the government couldn’t sell a graveyard anyway.

  The fighting at the community center didn’t change anything. Our tribe was against termination, but the BIA superintendent lied and said we were for it, claiming we took a vote. But no vote was ever taken in Grand Ronde.

  But I didn’t know any of this had happened. Spring came, then summer and my birthday. I was starting to think we would be left alone. But we weren’t.