When Warriors and Poachers Trade

When Warriors and Poachers Trade: Duncan MacDonald’s Through Nez Perce Eyes and the Birth of Separate Sovereignties during the nimiipu War of 1877 Stuart Christie Within contemporary indigenous studies, arguments on behalf of sovereign separatism are warranted both legally and culturally. Sovereign autonomy is evident in legal structures and precedents established by bands and tribes first, through tradition and second, given the colonial context, as the basis for on-going survival. Despite the clarity of this indigenous-centered sovereign position, the on-going debate between scholars about the nature of indigenous sovereignty rages on—whether the latter is understood as absolutely separate and apart from settler colonial nations, domesticated by settler states as the consequence of a common experience of colonial modernity, or as a shared dynamic reframing the dialogue between historically distinct nations in a pluralized form.2 Beyond survival, tribal and band traditions have always retained a distinctive separateness, and will continue to do so. To acknowledge this is to reassert a sovereign and autonomous future on strictly proprietary terms, with indigenous stakeholders as the sole and best custodians of their own traditions and practices, past, present and in the future. It is my view that, within the domain of Native American literary studies, this is the honest and laudable position taken most notably by Craig Womack, among other scholars.3 Accordingly, Womack’s position is no threat to me, a non-sovereign “poacher,” to use Daniel Justice’s term.4 On behalf of their peoples, bands and tribes have a continuing sovereign right to maintain their right of refusal to barter or broker with agents of the colonial surround. I argue in the essay that follows that this right was first formulated among the nimiipu (Nez Perce) in their initial responses to, and eventual flight from, the encroachments of settler colonialism in the Oregon Territory after 1855.5 In more recent years, warrior/poacher relationships have had their sovereign uses, perhaps illustrating the continuing effectiveness of the policy. In Whatcom County, Washington, for example, the Lummi nation invited non-tribal volunteers to assist them in successfully convening the first pan-coastal Salish potlatch since 1937. In 2007, the “Paddle to Lummi,” or P2L potlatch in Lummi country, concluded a month-long canoe journey beginning much farther north in Bella Coola, British Columbia, with members of intervening indigenous nations and their families joining in along the thousand-mile route. Thousands strong, the P2L feast celebrated the revival of the potlatch tradition and the historical linking of indigenous homelands, trade, and fisheries across shared historical and cultural waters.6 Only the very oldest among the elders remember the traditional potlatches, not seen on such a scale in coastal Salish country for over seventy years. Plural community sovereignties exist in abundance, and these include intratribal and band, intertribal and band, and perhaps to a lesser extent, ex-tribal and band. Each particular indigenous sovereignty has its own local emphasis and targeted objectives. When this is recognized, it becomes possible to see a future where sovereign nations co-exist in reasonable harmony with persisting structures of colonialism. Recognizing the plurality of community sovereignty is also particularly valuable to the extent that it may illustrate to neighboring non-indigenous communities that they, too, have an important and meaningful stake in the success of joint ventures. In the “Paddle to Lummi,” volunteers were invited to throw their support behind an indigenous initiative and those that stepped forward included local settler-colonial government entities, private sector enterprises, and local individuals. It can thus be argued that as indigenous nations thrive, so may adjoining outlier communities, as demonstrated in this fairly recent example of successful warrior/poacher trade. However, on the Flathead reservation farther east in Salish country, vigilance is still necessary when dealing with poachers. As Frank H. Tyro has written, the lowpower, public television station operated by staff at the on-reservation Salish- Kootenai College, SKC-TV, was being forced to compete with mainstream public broadcasting stations (PBS) for access to public airwaves. This was unfair, given the relatively scant resources available to low-power (LPTV) and rural (RTV) stations. Formerly, access to PBS content and bandwidth had simply “passed through” to

Anthropological Studies and Insights · Asian American and Pacific Histories · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights

• Bibliography of Books and Articles Published in English on Colonialism and Imperialism in 2011

  Marcella Fultz•Journal of Colonialism and…•2012

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• Between Indian and white worlds

  Margaret Connell Szasz•Between Indian and white worlds•1994

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• Nez Perce Summer

  Richmond L Clow, Jerome A Greene•The Journal of Military History•2001

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• American Indian Sovereignty and the U. S. Supreme Court

  Larry Burt, David E Wilkins•Western Historical Quarterly•1999

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• Scottish Highlanders, Indian Peoples

  William R Swagerty, James Davison Hunter et al.•Journal of American History•1998

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• Indians of the Pacific Northwest

  Robert C Carriker, Robert H Ruby et al.•Western Historical Quarterly•1983

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• We're Not There Yet, Kemo Sabe

  Daniel Heath Justice•The American Indian Quarterly•2001

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• Scots in the North American West, 1790-1917

  Judith Austin, Ferenc Morton Szasz•Western Historical Quarterly•2002

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