The ‘slow-motion genocide’ of the Chinook Indian Nation
Federal recognition provides tribes with critical healthcare and education. What happens to the tribal nations that the U.S. refuses to recognize? Image credit: Greg A. Robinson April 1, 2021 From the print edition
Before the pandemic, the cedar plankhouse called Cathlapotle would have been full of stories and fire. Every winter, the Chinook Indian Nation and neighboring tribes hold their annual gathering here, on their ancestral lands on a Columbia River floodplain, where red-winged blackbirds sing from the cattails and yellow-and-orange-eyed sandhill cranes strut on stilted legs. It’s not far from the remnants of a village also called Cathlapotle, a major Chinookan trading town established around 1450 that once held as many as 16 plankhouses.