Agnes Baker Pilgrim (Taowhywee) - Grandma Says: Wake Up, World!: The Wisdom, Wit, Advice, and Stories of Grandma Aggie

I remember how hard it was when I was a child growing up because in those times, in Lincoln County, there was signs on restaurants and different places where Indians and dogs werent allowed. And you know, I grew up from that era, but I am not bitter about it. What was is what was. I know I am limited. I can only change right now. I cant change anything a minute ago, an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago, or a year ago, so I know I am limited. So, what I did was I forgave all of that in my background, of what happened to our people. The Trail of Tears that started here in Southern Oregon in 1856. They were all gathered up here, then run north. They lived here for over 22,000 years, and they actually felt that the Creator had given them this land, it was theirs eternally, forever and forever, as long as the grass grew and the water flowed. It was a hard time for my people in those times, you know, going up in rough terrain in inclement weather. They were force-marched in stormy weather with just moccasins on their feet. They could take one thing, and most of them just carried food wrapped in what they could carry. So then their moccasins wore out, and the elders fell along the wayside. The young were taught to take care of the elders, so they would run back and pick them up, and they were beaten. The guards told them that if they did that again theyd just leave the elders by the wayside for the animals to eat.

It was a terrible time for them, over two hundred miles of this land going north and to trails where there was no trails. I can fathom how hard it was. And then, after all that journey, when they did get up to Siletz, the agent had used up a lot of the money, so there wasnt enough blankets to go around. There wasnt enough food, and many of them perished. It was awful. Its a wonder I sit here. But it was all different, you know? With all the Indians together, many of them had to learn the sign language of the Chinook Jargon to communicate. So, it was a terrible time. Before they had to leave, they had their sweat lodges and ritualistically believed in taking sweats and doing the sweat lodges because it was such a spiritual thing. Then they didnt have that. Many of them said they couldnt wear any of their regalia because they didnt want the law at that timethey didnt want an uprising. They didnt want fighting. When they ran out of food, they had no weapon to go hunt for anything because government took away everything. They just went with the clothes on their backs to a land where they didnt know which way to go to get anything to eat. Then my grandfather, Chief George Harney, walked clear across the mountain, clear over there to the Grand Ronde. He helped them over there and worked with the people over there to the point where they had his big, long picture inside of the Catholic church in Old Town in honor to Chief George Harney for helping the Grand Ronde Indians.

The government from the White House said, You Indian people, we cannot help to fund you for housing and health and education and things. Youre going to have to be more self-sustaining. So Vine Deloria, the Congress of American Indians, Ben Campbell, a lot of the political Indian people that were at that time invisible, they came together because the government said they had to do something. So the Indians got together and thought, you know, we have the land; if we could just build something on it.

In all of the tribal people, there wasnt televisions and radios and things for entertainment. They had card games and stick games and bone games for entertainment. After the war, the Spanish left some horses. Some of the Indians, like in Klamath Falls and Chinook, began to have horse races for entertainment and being competitive and creating fun to come together. So the Congress of American Indians and all of these high people in politics said that the Indians have land and they already were gamblers, so they could put a casino up and raise money for their housing and education and such things. Thats how, through coercion, came the casinos, because they said that we had to be more self-sustaining.