The Makah: A Case Study of Resilience and Resistence

1
The Makah A Case Study of Resilience and
Resistence
Makah Maiden, Edward S. Curtis, 1916
2
One visual indicator of how the Makah resiliency
and resistance is seen in this photograph of a
Makah man standing on the beach at Neah Bay in
1897
The image of Young Doctor, the canoe maker,
demonstrates how the Makah adapted to white
culture - without giving up their own. While he
is wearing jeans, he also has a traditional
blanket around shoulders and a traditional
kerchief tied head-band style. Today, we will
examine five unique features of the Makah Nation
features that when coupled with their resilient
commitment to tradition and their resistance to
Euro-American culture and customs have provided
them with a great deal of autonomy.
3
Unique attributes of the Makah

• The Makah continue to live on part of their
  traditional tribal lands.
• The Makah Nations remote geographical location
  has helped them maintain much cultural, economic,
  spiritual, and political autonomy despite various
  federal assimilation endeavors.
• The Makah are the only Native American people
  whose right to hunt whales is guaranteed by
  treaty with the United States
• The Makah have been involved in a long legal
  struggle for their right to hunt the gray whale
  and maintain their cultural self-determination.

4
1 The Makah continue to live on part of their
traditional tribal lands.
The land belonging to the Makah is 47 square
miles, much of which is dominated by rocky
coastline and small mountains between 500-1,000
feet high - with the highest peak at 2,000 feet.
It is one of the most isolated, rugged, and
remote Indian Reservations in the continental
United States.
The reservation is located at the farthest end of
the Northwestern United States and is bounded on
the west by the Pacific Ocean, to the north by
the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, and to the south
and east by Olympia National Park.
5
This map provides a clear picture of the vast
amount of land the Makah lost over 300,000
acres of their traditional homeland. They were,
however, able to hold onto their territory at the
northwestern portion of the Peninsula territory
that included four of their five traditional
homelands. Ozette remained outside Reservation
boundaries.
6

• On the map
• 1 is the site of Ozette Village - an ancient
  village no longer inhabited by the Makah
• 2 is the Makah Cultural and Resource Center
• 3 is the site of Neah Bay - the largest village
  on the reservation
• 4 is Koitiah Viewpoint
• 5 is Cape Flattery Viewpoint and Lighthouse
• 6 and 7 are Hobuck Beach and Campgrounds.)

Retaining and living on part of their traditional
land put the Makah in an excellent position to
maintain much of their tribal autonomy.
7
2. The Makah Nations remote geographical
location has helped them maintain much cultural,
economic, spiritual, and political autonomy
despite various federal assimilation endeavors.

• Economic Autonomy
• Until 1931, the reservation was so remote that it
  was only accessible by water.
• It also included only two possible agricultural
  areas that had only a few acres of cultivatable
  soil.
• Consequently, the vigorous federal assimilation
  measures that required Indians to settle on
  agricultural land and become farmers was not
  possible for the Makah.

8
So, as Euro-Americans increasingly arrived in
this remote region to compete for the rich
fishing resources surrounding the reservations,
the Makah recognized the opportunity for
commercial competition and economic autonomy.
9

• In 1868, commercial sealing schooners hired Makah
  tribal members to accompany them to the Bering
  Sea. Some Makah became relatively wealthy from
  this relationship and some annual incomes were
  reportedly 5,000 a person.
• In 1880, a Makah tribal member invested his
  sealing earnings in the tribes first small
  schooner. By 1893, the Makah owned ten schooners
  and were competing directly with their white
  counterparts.
• In 1897, the federal government outlawed
  commercial hunting of pelagic seals and the
  following year, federal officials began seizing
  Makah-owned commercial schooners that were still
  hunting seals. In response, the Makah turned to
  the commercial halibut industry.

Halibut Fishing 1903
10

• In 1920, due to the threatened destruction of the
  gray whale, a ban began on commercial whaling. 
  The Makah voluntarily stopped their whaling
  practices in 1926.

• By the 1950s, when whale, seal, and halibut
  hunting had either been banned or was no longer
  profitable, the Makah had turned to other sources
  of economic autonomy  salmon fishing, working in
  the canning industry, selling timber stumpage to
  local timber companies, building roads for the
  government.

11

• By 1931, the average income of each Makah family
  was 600 - a figure bolstered by their low cost
  of living.  They took fish from the sea, raised
  their own vegetables, and owned their own houses
  and land. 

Drying Fish at Neah Bay, 1900

• As a federal agent noted, as a whole, the
  economic status of these Indians is exceptionally
  good when one stops to consider the fact that it
  has all been through their own efforts and
  industry.

12

• Such economic autonomy was noted by several other
  20th Century observers of Makah life.
• According to Elizabeth Colson writing in the
  1950s, the Makah possessed
• adequate resources to allow them to expand
  their economy and enter into economic
  relationships with the whites The Makah have
  never had their economy so disrupted that they
  have been forced to turn to occupations for which
  they had no previous training they found
  themselves in a position where they could exploit
  more profitably their traditional subsistence
  resources because the presence of the whites in
  neighboring areas made available to them new
  techniques for application within their usual
  occupations and also opened to them new markets
  for disposing of their surpluses One agent
  commented, These Makah Indians are really much
  better off as a whole than many settlements of
  white people on the Sound or elsewhere.
• As a federal agent noted in the 1940s, , as a
  whole, the economic status of these Indians is
  exceptionally good when one stops to consider the
  fact that it has all been through their own
  efforts and industry.
• Makah resiliency and resistance contributed to
  such autonomy.

13
To repeat, the Makahs resiliency and resistance
were supported by the Nations remote
geographical location. Because hired help was
always scarce, commercial fishing required the
work of all villagers - including children. This
meant that assimilation and educational efforts
on the reservation were disrupted for almost half
the year while the village brought in the
commercial take.
Indeed, when a whale or any fishing expedition
was finished, the entire village was needed to
bring in the catch.
14
Such economic autonomy also led to some degree of
cultural autonomy. In 1891, Indian agent John
McGlinn reported to the federal government that
every Makah over the age of 50 clung tenaciously
to their own barbarous habits. The same types
of reports consistently appeared for the next 60
years.
Neah Bay, 21st Century
Neah Bay, 1865
15
But any cultural autonomy had been hard fought.
Between the late 19th and early 20th Century, the
federal government began a campaign among the
Makah to kill the Indian and save the man a
campaign that consisted of boarding schools and
cultural encroachments.
Boarding Schools (Chemewa)
Cultural Encroachments
16
Boarding Schools

• In 1862 the U.S. government opened the first
  boarding school on the Makah Reservation a good
  distance from the most populated areas of the
  Reservation. School age Makah children were
  required by law to board at this school which was
  run by the federal government.
• By the late-1870s, most Makah children were sent
  further away to boarding schools in Washington
  and Oregon, most commonly Cushman Indian School
  in Tacoma, Washington and Chemawa Indian School
  in Salem, Oregon.

17

• In his article about the Makah Nation and its
  effort to exercise cultural self-determination,
  attorney Robert J. Miller notes that the federal
  government used cultural and religious oppression
  in the boarding schools designed to
• wipe out the Makah language,
• control and "even eradicate the Makah's culture,"
  
• force them to abandon their own religion and
  accept Christianity,
• "withdraw the children from their culture and
  families and raise them as 'white children.'"

He additionally notes that Makah parents were
arrested if they did not send their children to
boarding school.
18

• Many first hand reports indicate that federal
  agents working at or involved with the boarding
  schools worked diligently to make Makah children
  into hardworking American boys and girls.
• In 1875, Indian Agent C.A. Huntington traveled
  for three weeks throughout Washington and
  Victoria with a group of Makah children from the
  reservation school. As Erikson, et. al.
  indicate, the purpose of the tour, in part, was
  "intent on revealing non-Indian lifeways to these
  children. Yet the tour also provided an
  opportunity to display the children as exemplary
  products of a civilizing project."

19

• Elizabeth Colson indicated that by 1950, federal
  agents "were able to obtain control of almost
  every child for a greater or lesser period and
  place it in schools run by the government for the
  express purpose of teaching it American ways of
  life and preventing it from learning Makah ways."
  
• Further, Colson found that virtually every Makah
  over the age of 55 had spent some time in
  government boarding school. Additionally, almost
  all those younger had attended boarding schools
  away from their village which were not as rigid
  but nonetheless had served the goal of
  "separation from their own people."

20
Colson concluded that "the formative years of
almost every Makah were spent partially under the
control of people who were American in culture.
All were taught English and forced to use this
language
in their contacts with each other and employees
of the agency....They were taught also, through
bitter experience, that the way to adjust to the
presence of the whites was to hide any
nonconformities in their own behavior under a
mask of white culture."
Chemawa 1905
21
Cultural Encroachments
In addition to forcing Makah parents to send
their children to boarding school, federal agents
on the reservation spent a great deal of time
forcing Makah adults to dress like while men and
women, abandon their cultural traditions -
especially dances which were considered
"heathenish and barbarous" - and give up their
tribal secret religious and curing societies.
As seen in this turn-of-the-century photograph,
these tribal members are intelligent, worthy
Makahs, presumably because they are dressed in
Euro-American clothing.
22
Further, federal agents segregated elder tribal
members ages 55 and up so that the younger Makah
would not be influenced by these elders and would
thus be more susceptible to learning civilized
American ways. As Miller found, the federal
government supported these cultural encroachments
not only to force Makah assimilation into white
society, but also to end traditional, cultural
practices that might influence Makah children as
they grew up. To Miller, these "attacks" were
nothing less than efforts on behalf of the
federal government to "exterminate the Makah's
identity.
Makah Family 1900
23
The federal government even discouraged the
Makah from building their traditional cedar bark
longhouses and instead, suggested they build more
typical American homes.
To any but the people born and raised in them
these villages are dirty.
Longhouse 1900
24
Despite boarding schools and many federal efforts
to destroy Makah tradition, the Makah responded
in a way that allowed them to straddle two
worlds. Indeed

• By the turn of the 20th century, the Makah spoke
  both their tribal language and English, wore both
  traditional and white mans clothing, used both
  ancient and modern tools, and labored in both the
  local and the market economies.
• For instance, In the photographs below, we see a
  Makah dance celebration in 1941 downtown Seattle
  in which both traditional Indian and non-Indian
  clothing are worn, as well as a photograph of
  cultural leader Charlie Swan performing
  traditional dance in traditional ceremonial
  clothing at the 1945 Makah Days celebration held
  annually in August. Swan wears a button blanket
  and wooden mask, and he holds a painted drum.

25
Thus, throughout most of the 20th Century, the
Makah quietly yet openly resisted the white mans
influence and resiliently held fast to many of
their customs. And as we have previously noted,
the Makahs remote geographical location also
supported such resistance. But toward the end of
the century, the Makah demonstrated renewed
resilience and resistance in their efforts to
reestablish whaling as the center of their
economic, cultural, spiritual, and political
universe.
26
3 The Makah are the only Native American people
whose right to hunt whales is guaranteed by
federal treaty.

• The relationship between Makah and whales is very
  old archaeological deposits of humpback and gray
  whale at date back 2,000 years.
• Whales provided economic sustenance - oil, meat,
  bone, sinew and gut for storage containers - and
  provided the basis for cultural rituals.
• The ability to continue that relationship was
  reinforced by the federal government when it
  negotiated the Treaty of Neah Bay in 1855.

27

• Traditionally, the hunt required time-honored
  ritual. Preparations for the hunt began in the
  winter. Whalers went off by themselves to pray,
  fast, and bathe ceremoniously. Each man had his
  own place, followed his own rituals, and sought
  his own power. Months went into the special
  preparation and whalers devoted their whole lives
  to spiritual preparedness.

Edward Curtis, 1915
28
In addition to the whalers preparing for the
hunt, skilled craftsmen carved cedar canoes
ranging from 32 to 40 feet to be used in the
hunt. This photograph was taken in 1914 of a man
sitting on an upended half-carved canoe, taking
off wood chips with a D-adze. Once the training
and the canoe was completed, the hunt began in
early Spring.
29

• Paddling silently, whalers studied the breathing
  pattern of their quarry. As the whale finished
  spouting and returned underwater, the leader of
  the hunt directed the crew to where it would next
  surface. There the men waited.
• When the whale rose, the paddlers held the canoe
  just to its left, their speed matched to the
  animal's. As the back broke the surface, the
  harpooner struck and the crew instantly paddled
  backward, putting all possible distance between
  the canoe and the wounded prey.
• A float at the end of the line acted as a marker
  so the whalers could follow their prey. If need
  be, they set additional harpoons and stayed out
  over night. Eventually the time came for the
  final kill which was done using a special lance.

30
Asahel Curtis, 1910

• The next step was to tow the whale home - a
  distance of only a few miles if its spirit had
  heeded prayers to swim for the beach, perhaps 10
  miles or more if not. Songs eased the paddling,
  welcomed the whale to the village, and praised
  the power that made it all possible.

31
Asahel Curtis took this photo in 1910 of Makah
men cutting up a whale after the hunt while other
men and boys stand around and watch. Although
the Makah voluntarily stopped hunting whales in
the late 1920s after the threatened extinction of
the gray whale, they yearned for a return to
whaling - a return that they believed could
stimulate a cultural rebirth.
32
Again using both their resistance and resiliency,
in 1995 the Makah petitioned the International
Whaling Commission to resume whaling. This act
is directly related to the fourth unique
characteristic of the Makah people - their long
legal struggle to resume the whale hunt.
33
4 The Makah have been involved in a long
legal struggle for their right to hunt the gray
whale.
H.W. Elliot, Makah Whale Hunt, 1883
34
The battle begins

• In 1995, the Makah Nation asked the United States
  to represent them before the International
  Whaling Commission (IWC) in their request to
  resume hunting.
• On October 23, 1997, the IWC approved a renewed
  Makah whale hunt after a lapse in hunting of more
  than 70 years. The Commission allowed the Makah
  to kill up to 5 whales a year through 2002. Some
  members of the Makah nation began to immediately
  make preparations for the first hunt ? which was
  to guided by strict tradition.

35
In May, 1999, the men from traditional whaling
families who had trained for almost a year
paddled their 32-foot cedar canoe out to hunt a
whale for the first time in over 70 years.
36
On May 17th, they captured and killed a female
gray whale.
37
As the news of the successful hunt spread, the
village of Neah Bay welcomed the whale to the
community as their ancestors had over the
centuries. Canoes from many surrounding villages
came to help the Makah bring the whale to the
people.
38
After the whale came to shore, prayers were
offered to thank the whale for giving its life to
sustain that of the Makah and to free its spirit
for passage to the other side. After proper
respect was paid, the whalers began carving and
distributing the meat and blubber to the people
to taste for the first time what had been a
staple for their ancestors for thousands of
years.
39
The whale was butchered through the night and the
meat and blubber was either frozen, smoked or
stewed. Later that week, Neah Bay was host to
the largest celebration in its history. American
Indians from all over the U.S. and Canada and
indigenous people from all over the world came to
celebrate the Makah's return to whaling.
40

• But the celebration was marred by the reaction
  from some members of the environmental community
  - they not tried to stop the whale hunt from
  occurring, they filed suit to permanently
  prohibit the Makah from whaling.
• Thus, as the 21st Century unfolded, the Makah
  entered another period of resilience and
  resistance by continuing their struggle to
  reunite their culture with their whaling
  tradition.

41

• In conclusion, while it is clear that several
  generations of Makah children and adults were
  subjected to continual efforts to strip them of
  their religious, economic, cultural, and
  political traditions, it is also clear, as
  Elizabeth Colson notes, that through resilience
  and resistance, they have maintained many of
  their tribal attributes
• The Makah and whites have "... developed an
  interacting society" in which they "live together
  at the same village, work together on the same
  jobs, trade together at the same establishments,
  and visit together in each others' homes" - yet
  still the "Makah remain a distinct group.
• There are principles or theories controlling
  Makah behavior where it affects other Makah and
  which do not govern the Makah in their relations
  with whites.

42

• There is a body of traditional associations or
  meanings common to the Makah, but not shared with
  the whites.
• Finally, the Makah exist in a political structure
  which is not shared with the whites and they
  continue to think of themselves as a distinctive
  people in contrast to the whites. All these
  indicate that the two groups have not merged into
  one body with a common culture."

But are these traditions enough to retain tribal
sovereignty, or does sovereignty depend, as many
elders claim, on resuming traditional whaling
practices???