Drumming made the floor vibrate and singing filled the conference room of the Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast, as hundreds in tribal regalia danced in a circle.
For the last 47 years, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians have held an annual powwow to celebrate regaining federal recognition. This month’s event, however, was especially significant: it came just two weeks after a federal court lifted restrictions on the tribe’s rights to hunt, fish and gather – restrictions tribal leaders had opposed for decades.
“We’re back to the way we were before,” Delores Pigsley, the Siletz chair, said. “It feels really good.”
The Siletz is a confederation of over two dozen bands and tribes whose traditional homelands spanned western Oregon, as well as parts of northern California and south-western Washington state. The federal government in the 1850s forced them on to a reservation on the Oregon coast, where they were confederated together as a single, federally recognized tribe despite their different backgrounds and languages.
On Thursday, Sandra Hemme plans to have Thanksgiving dinner with her family.
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