The People are Dancing Again: Bringing Siletz History to the Public

Abstract

 OHQ vol. 111, no. 4 There is an immense responsibility undertaken in the telling of history , whether presenting it live to an audience or writing it for others to read at their own pace, in their own time. When a history is going to be published, there is possibly an even greater requirement to take that responsibility seriously, because the work will exist for a very long time and be referenced and cited by others in their quest for understanding and writing about the same subjects. Diligence in fair and fully honest presentation of facts and investigation into thereliabilityof sources,todeterminewhethercommonlyheldbeliefsandearlier interpretations withstand close scrutiny, are only parts of that responsibility. The failure by others to responsibly engage in those activities in the past is part of the reason the Siletz Tribe asked Charles Wilkinson to take on the project that has resulted in The People Are Dancing Again. The specific reasons we chose Charles are complex,and probably can not be fully communicated here. A summary of the primary reasons would include: first, Charles is a long and true friend of the Siletz people, buying him access to the Siletz tribal people through an established level of trust among the population he needed to work with to successfully accomplish the task; second , he is a popular author with a number of well-received works about tribal communities with whom he has had intimate dealings; and third, Charles is a renowned authority on federal Indian law and federal Indian policy matters, both of which needed to be important parts of the subject matter reviewed and presented as part of Siletz history. Charles, furthermore, was insistent that he would interview, ask questions, listen to answers and input, and research and document, but that a book with his name on it meant that he had final say over the content. It was a comfort to know that he was adamant about maintaining his personal and professional integrity. Many works of history focus on a particular era,period,or event in the past, but Charles’s task was to tell the whole story from before the time of contact Bringing Siletz History to the Public Robert kentta The People are Dancing Again  Kentta, Bringing Siletz History to the Public with Europeans or relations with the young United States to contemporary times. While I think the resulting book succeeds in meeting the challenges of the task,it must be recognized that Siletz is quite possibly the most linguistically and culturally complex confederation of ancestral constituent tribes who are now on one reservation under one tribal government. Each of those ancestral tribal elements came to the reservation with its own unique history and political relationship with the United States. The telling of Siletz history necessarily means recognizing the existence of each of those constituent groups and the contributions of each to the confederation. As a practical matter, in order to end up with a book, and not a multi-volume encyclopedia, detail must be condensed , and generalizations made. During our review of manuscript sessions, long, expanded discussions were held on many specific details and facts contained in the book. Sometimes, discussions led to slight expansion of the text or a simple change in wording, but I dare say, only when a need was seen (with consensus) to ensure future readers would not be led to wrong impressions or conclusions by omission of a particularly essential detail, or use of certain words with connotations that were not exactly what was intended. These discussions, I think, were incredibly useful for all involved. To share thoughts and hear others’ thoughts on a specific point or issue led to questions and further discussion that brought fuller understanding of a subject to all of us on several occasions. There is real value and benefit to approaching the telling of history in the manner that Charles has with The People Are Dancing Again. Tribal histories have to include multiple and detailed discussions with the tribal community being written about, or the result will simply be a restating of what has been written in the past, with all of its imperfections, inaccuracies of fact, and lack of balancing, reconciling, or otherwise settling...