The Seattle Times | May 5, 2025 | by Tony A. Johnson
Imagine being denied the ability to lay your family members to rest or to even access their sacred objects, prized possessions and religious relics. We wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but it is exactly what is happening to the Chinook Indian Nation because of the Washington and Oregon congressional delegation’s inaction.
For centuries, the United States and its most prestigious academic institutions funded looting expeditions to steal Indigenous remains, grave goods, and sacred objects. Our ancestors were especially sought after and even our most powerful chiefs’ graves were not exempt from those efforts. Early anthropologists measured our ancestors’ skulls to prop up their racist theories. Museums of natural history displayed our ancestors alongside rocks,fossils and animals, encouraging visitors to view us as curiosities.
Our Chinook Indian Nation, where I serve as elected chairman, is not a federally recognized tribe today, largely because we resisted the United States’ efforts to remove us from our lands. During treaty negotiations, we refused to leave “the bones of our ancestors,” which allowed us to maintain sovereignty and an unbroken connection to our place and culture, but also led, over time, to a lack of clear status with the federal government. We suffered another setback in 1954 when Congress named three of our five tribes in the Western Oregon Termination Act.
We were finally federally recognized in 2001, only to have it revoked 18 months later by the incoming Bush administration. We have been fighting to regain our status ever since because it has real-world consequences, including denying us the protections guaranteed under the law that mandates the return of our stolen ancestors, their grave goods and sacred objects.
When the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act was passed in 1990, our community began receiving inventories of museum collections from across the country. We were excited to welcome our ancestors home, and I corresponded with many of those museums.
But we quickly learned that NAGPRA protections did not extend to Chinook because we lacked federal recognition. Our ancestors’ bones stayed on museum shelves, labelled as “culturally unaffiliated,” not because their provenance was unknown but because they were unaffiliated with a currently recognized tribe. While this was not ideal, we knew that with restoration our ancestors would return home.
In 2023, the Biden administration updated the regulations governing NAGPRAto require all federally funded universities and museums to prepare all remaining ancestors and objects for repatriation by 2029. This is an admirable and worthy goal, but much like the original law, leaves nations like ours without protections.
Even worse, these new regulations set up a new cultural genocide for the Chinook Indian Nation. As I write, inventories of our ancestors, their grave items and significant cultural objects are being re-published with the mandate to return them to any recognized tribe that claims “cultural affiliation.” We have now seen communities from hundreds of miles away from us make those very claims.
To be clear, Chinook ancestors must come back to Chinook Country, a territory which has been regularly reaffirmed by the United States government. Just last year, the BIA, Congress, and federal courts reaffirmed us as the sole heirs of our Lower Chinook & Clatsop people and lands– from where many of these individuals and items were stolen. Despite our heirship, our continued existence here, and our clear and acknowledged connections, this injustice will continue unless our status as a federally recognized tribe is restored.
U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, from Washington; Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, Oregon; and U.S. Reps. Marie Glusenkamp-Perez of Washington and Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon are on notice. Their continued inaction in restoring our recognition is leading to an irreversible crime at the mouth of the Columbia River. Let every night that they go to sleep and every morning that they wake without having acted to stop this nightmare be a growing weight on their spirits.
Our congressional delegation is powerful. They need to champion our Restoration Act to completion.
Tony A. Johnson: is chair of the Chinook Indian Nation.
