The 'slow-motion genocide' of the Chinook Indian Nation knba.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from knba.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Chinook Indian Nation’s 120-year fight for sovereignty
Federal recognition provides tribes with critical health care and education. But there are nations the U.S. refuses to recognize.
by
High Country News / April 7, 2021
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.