00:00.35 heritagevoices Welcome to heritage voices episode 76 I'm Jessica yu quinto and I'm your host and today we are talking about Oregon Cultural Resource management before we begin I'd like to honor and acknowledge that the lands I'm recording on today are part of the nooch or people's treaty lands. The dannata and the ancestral pueblo in Homeland and today we have Dr Jason Yonker back on the show. Jason is the assistant vice president and advisor to the president on sovereignty and government-to-goverment relations at the University Of Oregon and chief of the cokewell indian tribe. He received his ph d in anthropology from the University Of Oregon and returned to Oregon after teaching at the Ross Rochester institute of technology for a decade yonker received the prestigious elisparkeraward from the American Indian Science and engineering society. For his work with tribal governments and students in higher education. He is the past president of the association of indigenous anthropologists and is originally from Charleston oregon so welcome back to the show Jason first. 01:04.64 jason Well thank you I'm very happy to be here. 01:10.32 heritagevoices Yeah, so if any of you missed it. Jason was unfortunately rather briefly on a podcast episode not too long ago. Ah, he had to jump off the call we had had some technical issues so he had had to jump off a little bit earlier. Then we are hoping for and so that episode is episode 73 exploring the ethics in experimental archeology but I was very interested in talking to Jason Moore so I'm very excited that we get to do a ah full episode with you today? yeah. 01:46.24 jason Outstanding I don't know who would listen to me for that long. But I'm pretty happy to be back. 01:54.00 heritagevoices Yes, well you know it's funny I've I've said this a million times in emails. But um I don't think I've ever said it actually on the podcast that ah just about everyone that's on there is like oh my god I hate my voice. Um, so like every single person so you're not alone. 02:10.77 jason Ah, well I don't know if I hate my voices. Some people tell me I like it too much. But. 02:14.58 heritagevoices Oh there, you go so? Okay, I'm really interested. Um in you have a little bit different of a journey to getting to cultural resource management than a lot of people. Um, you started out in in. Communication and gifted and talented did education and so I'm I'm curious like where you thought you were going to go when you were younger and um and then how you ended up in in the Crm world. 02:45.98 jason Oh man that that's going way back but I do recall it finally I had just finished my master's degree in education at Oklahoma City University and was going to return home to Kus Bay and teach that's what I thought I was going to do but at that time it was in the early 90 s and my tribal council desperately needed an anthropologist and they pulled me aside and said you know. We recommend that you go to the University Of Oregon studying under these people ah because we desperately need an anthropologist so whenever your tribal council. You know, encourages you in that way. It really means just go and do so. They sent me to the u of o I studied specifically under John Erlandson and Madonna Moss a number of other people who had already been working with my tribe the cocowell indian tribe on the Southern Oregon Coast ah and 03:45.10 heritagevoices Um. 04:01.69 jason During my time in graduate school. It was my responsibility to build the cultural resource program for the tribe we were very aware and afraid of the implications of Kennewick Man and ah, very nervous that we didn't have an anthropologist to be in the room for deliberations that directly affected us so that was that was my role and that's how I got into it having never taken an anthropology course in my life. I was thrusted into graduate courses I did survive I you know I think it was a pretty bumpy ride for me but I had a cohort of native students who were graduate students in anthropology. There were 7 of us which. Is absolutely unheard of in anthropology at that time. So I relied very heavily on their companionship and and their learned experiences as well. 04:53.22 heritagevoices Yeah. 05:07.89 heritagevoices Yeah, so are they all still working in Crm today. 05:14.69 jason Ah, they're either faculty Crm or ah, a couple of them are chairs of their respective tribes. Um, my son is actually. In anthropology at oregon state university and his advisor is one of the natives native persons that Dr David Lewis who ah was my office mate at the University Of Oregon so the world is you know while it's very large. It's not that big. 05:52.83 heritagevoices Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's I mean that's amazing. You'll have to encourage some of them to to come on this podcast sounds like a ah nice ah group. Ah so that must have been like a. 06:01.51 jason Um. 06:06.62 heritagevoices Ah, very different experience. Were there a lot of um, non-native study or students in your cohort as well or was it mostly these predominantly these seven I think you said ah native. 06:16.52 jason Oh no, they we had ah lots of non-native um, graduate students as well. But I think the influence that we had the 7 native graduate students on those individuals. Ah, completely changed the way oregon does cultural resource management. 1 of them ended up being Dennis Griffin ended up being the ah lead archaeologist for the state of Oregon um, another is a professor tenured professor. 06:37.86 heritagevoices Nice. 06:46.19 heritagevoices He. 06:53.00 jason Down at Southern Oregon University and ah another is one of the world's leaders in ground piercing sonar and so they were able collectively to provide. 07:03.79 heritagevoices And. 07:11.40 jason Aspects of their particular research that helped the rest of us in our research. Um, so when we developed our crm um department for the cokewell tribe. We had a particular way of how we wanted. To um, disguise some of our cultural sites and so we created a method that eventually was duplicated by the state of Oregon and if it hadn't been for Dennis Griffin and his work. Um with us. And don't think they would have adopted our way of protecting sites. Um, which you know it helps if everybody's protecting sites in the same way. So it. It would truly was a. 08:01.39 heritagevoices Um. 08:07.83 jason Department of Anthropology effort to include Native Americans and then the side bonus was that all of us native students had direct impacts on everybody else as well. 08:27.56 heritagevoices Yeah, yeah, and I'm curious I wonder um, so you mentioned that it was kind of make kind of wick man that brought you um to to Oregon or ah to the University Of Oregon at least um and. So I I mean I wonder if that had an influence on why all 7 of you like happened to to join at at that exact same moment. Um, first of all and then second of all, um, you know I don't know if all of our listeners are familiar with Kennewick man. Um, so maybe if you could give a. Super basic overview I mean anyone that's taken an anthropology class has definitely heard about Kennewick man but there there might be um, some listeners that haven't um so if you could just give a little bit of of background there right. 09:05.91 jason Right? right. 09:14.54 jason Well kennewa man is one of the most misunderstood ancient skeletons that was discovered in the early 90 s eroding out of the banks into the Columbia River and originally it was supposed. That it was a caucasian skeleton that predated any other ah full skeleton or human remains in North America ah unfortunately by determining. 09:34.24 heritagevoices And. 09:47.94 jason Prematurely that it was Caucasoid this also comes at a time when indian gaming was being introduced and so not only was it the implications stating that native americans weren't here first and had no claims to the lands that they were on. Because of Caucasian was here first one lone caucasian ah, it was also being used as fodder to undermine other acts of sovereignty for tribes it and it's also about the same time that we had. Nag for legislation coming through so you know all of these were the perfect storm that attracted native americans to to anthropology departments. Um, and ultimately ah as study went on with kind of Mcmann. Found out that it truly was not a caucasoid so it's it's kind of bittersweet. It's bittersweet in that that kind of assertion would have been made to begin with ah but it also had. The benefits of producing the new anthropology that we now live in where we are trying to understand why are we doing the study that we are doing and ah and are these colonial are these oppressive and. 11:25.26 jason Are they including the voices of the indigenous people in explanations. So I think in the early 90 s we were trying to figure that out and there were. Number of native graduate students at the u of o we had our impact but across the nation natives gathered in anthropology classes. Ah that was the beginning of the association of indigenous anthropologists too. So when we started data. But again it was to bring us all together as a cohort and say oh my gosh you're going through what? yeah, we're going through that over here too. I mean there's when when you're going through troubled times. It's always nice to hear that somebody else is experiencing it as well. And likely able to provide some help or advice in those areas too. So Kenne Wickman is a very complex issue I'm certain we could talk the entire podcast about it. But it. 12:31.46 heritagevoices On. 12:34.21 jason Certainly was the motivation for me to get into anthropology or at least be compelled to get into anthropology by my travel council. 12:44.16 heritagevoices So when you when you came out of of graduate school. You know that was the original goal Um, did you actually end up working on ah things related to kind of wick man or um. Did you end up moving on to very different things and. 13:00.22 jason Oh my goodness you know I could my entire time as an anthropology graduate suit and I asked myself Why am I doing this. Why am I doing this? Okay I'll go get a job with tribe after this and I'll continue working on the stuff that I'm working on so I end up. 13:11.79 heritagevoices To ah. 13:16.65 heritagevoices And here. 13:20.34 jason Graduating and you know I had returned home to become a teacher so and both of my parents were teachers so it was natural for me to say okay I'm gonna go home after graduation just become a teacher or work with the tribe and the chief of our tribe at that time after I graduated said. Um, you need to go teach as a what do you mean? I need to go teach if I was gonna work with the tribe he goes. No, you need to go teach those who are going to determine our future and he was specifically saying go teach go write. And stand up in front of people who are not coquell and make sure that they know about us we are one of the the cocowell indian tribe was ah was terminated in 1954 and we're very afraid of being terminated again. 14:02.66 heritagevoices M. 14:11.78 heritagevoices I. 14:18.44 jason And so even in the 19 neteen or late 1990 s early 2000 here. They were telling me to go away but it made sense because I ended up getting a job in new york here's people who don't even know where oregon is half the time. Let alone the pokewell indian tribe but they have an impact if I write a paper for a well-known journal and it says cokwell indian tribe cocowell tribe coquel if it says all of those things that doesn't go away if you make an impression in front of ah a. Bunch of students who are non-indigenous your impression as a cokewell scholar doesn't go away so when termination if and when it comes again, people will be able to say wait a minute I had a professor or I've read read a paper. And these are historical documents or historical accounts that attest that we are still here. So the chief chief tanner telling me that I needed to go away and teach and. Teach others about the coke well it made sense to me the vision that my tribe had for me to go become an anthropologist and then afterwards to to really knock me on the side again. 15:51.42 jason Say go away and teach um I I can't you don't question that kind of wisdom I won't question that kind of wisdom anymore. 16:03.29 heritagevoices Well now you're the 1 passing that wisdom down right. 16:05.46 jason Yeah, well I I passed so something down I don't know if with this wisdom but of I'm sure I I'm sure I have confused a few people. 16:22.14 heritagevoices Ah, um, yeah, so okay, um, before we get too far from this I'm I'm curious I didn't realize that cookwell was was one of the terminated tribes. So what was the process like to get that federal recognition back. 16:40.67 jason Oh goodness. Um, so you know yeah, but we we were the last tribe in Oregon to be restored in 1988 um and so the. 16:42.70 heritagevoices Pop quiz. 16:59.36 jason Experiences that I have as a terminated indian I spent 20 years as a term as a terminated indian where you can't say that you are indian they asked you well, what are you? you know they look at me and. People say what are you are you mexican are you chinese sorry but and I can't even say that I'm indian even though I grew up about a hundred yards from where my dad's village would have was so and on the same body of water. Um. So all of the things that I knew growing up were of no value because somebody decided that we were no longer indian um, the restoration process was horrible. Ah we had to. We had to testify. That we were who we were and we were where we were from and we had to convince people that really didn't know much about termination altogether and that it impacted. Oregon more so than any other state in the nation I believe it was 61 bands and tribes were terminated in Western Oregon alone so and now you now you take a look at Oregon and you see confederated tribes of the celettes. 18:30.40 jason That means that there's a whole bunch of those bands and tribes in in that confederation. The cokewell were are a single tribe. But ah we we too have a lot of bands within our tribe so getting. 18:46.12 jason From the point of termination in fifty four to eighty eight our tribal membership had scattered across the globe and now those who had remained home are trying to get restored and the question is is there anything to restore. And so we had to justify our actions from termination till restoration that we had remained a tribe and we truly were the descendants of the cokewell. So that's having to prove who you are. 19:14.96 heritagevoices Are. 19:22.73 jason It's very difficult. Many individual natives are constantly questioned about who they are and how much Indian are they and they have to ask those questions. 19:35.50 heritagevoices So. 19:39.56 jason Or answer those questions over and over and over and over when you have to do that for an entire tribe. It's exhausting and it's defeating and you are reluctant to get restored because. You know if you're terminated again, you might have to go through that pain all over sometimes it's easier just to ignore who you are and and people find comfort in that but to much satisfaction. Cokewell did continue to meet regular sense termination and eventually by 1988 were restored. 20:35.94 heritagevoices All right? Well on that note, we're we're actually already at our first break it always come so fast. Um, but I really when we come back I want to talk more about you know you got sent to New York and let's let's talk about that journey. Ah, when we come back here in a minute.