A Community of Heritage Practitioners: Keeping the Past in the Present at Grand Ronde

Summary

For the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, care of tribal heritage is an expression of sovereignty, cultural creativity, and connection to place. We discuss three arenas in which the Tribe draws on information about the past to reaffirm connections in the present. First, exhibits at the Chachalu Tribal Museum & Cultural Center, language immersion programs, and artistic pieces showcase how the diverse Native peoples of western Oregon overcame dispossession and removal to form the contemporary Grand Ronde nation. These Native-centered histories counter colonial narratives that relegate Native communities to a distant past and tragic present. Second, the Tribal Historic Preservation Office utilizes broad conceptions of heritage--placing tribal knowledge systems at the center--to protect archaeological sites and cultural properties threatened by development in the Tribe’s homelands. A collaborative field school has contributed to these efforts by implementing a Grand Ronde-specific form of archaeological practice to investigate historic sites on the reservation. Third, tribal heritage infuses contemporary cultural practice, from song and dance at the tribal plankhouse to loans of historic objects to tribal members for ceremonial use. Within the Grand Ronde community, the past is present in ways that include and transcend conventional archaeological practice.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22223