Linfield University renames street in honor of Native American first food
Story by Danielle Harrison, Smoke
Signals staff
writer, 7/8/2021
Photo
by Timothy Sofranko, Linfield photographer
(Smoke Signals is the independent Tribal newspaper of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. It publishes twice a month, as well as on the Internet.)
McMINNVILLE -- After learning that a private
two-block street on its campus was named after a former science professor who
had stolen Native American burial artifacts, Linfield University chose to right
a wrong.
In November 2020, the Board of Trustees
recommended removing the name of A.M. Brumback from the campus street and
creating a commission to discuss replacement names.
The committee, which included students,
faculty and staff, invited Cultural Resources Department Manager David
Harrelson to join the group in proposing a new name centered on the Indigenous
people who had been there since time immemorial. Specifically, Linfield
University is located on what is the traditional territory of the “Yam Hill”
band of the Kalapuya people.
The committee considered six possible names
and unanimously voted to support Lakamas Lane as the new street name.
“It has been a privilege to support members of
the renaming committee … with this effort,” Harrelson wrote in a letter to
Linfield University President Miles K. Davis. “Their commitment to learning and
inclusion was always at the forefront of our conversations. After much
thoughtful deliberation, the committee has selected Lakamas Lane. I am writing
to enthusiastically support the recommendation of the committee to rename
Brumback Street to Lakamas Lane.
“Lakamas is the Chinuk Wawa name for the
blue-flowered camas plant that was and continues to be an important food of our
people. At the time of early Euro-American settlement of the Willamette Valley,
camas was so thick in areas that the patches of blooming flowers were confused
as lakes from a distance. This name honors the people and lifeways of the
Kalapuya people who are the Indigenous people of the Willamette Valley.”
While the word “lacamas” exists in other parts
of the Pacific Northwest, such as Lacamas Lake in Clark County, Wash.,
“lakamas” is unique to Chinuk Wawa and makes Linfield University the only place
in the world where one can find Lakamas Lane.
The Board of Trustees unanimously approved the
name change at its May 1 meeting. Since then, signage has been updated and all
students living on campus will have their mail delivered to the new address.
“David was instrumental in providing
leadership, guidance and knowledge, and was generous with his time,” a
committee statement said. “His willingness to engage with the university in
this renaming effort has led us to envision a fruitful and collaborative future
between Linfield and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.”
Linfield’s McMinnville campus also is home to
large remnant patches of camas that, under intentional management, thrive
around Cozine Creek.
Photo: (Linfield) University Facilities Department employee Darrell
Driver recently erected a new street sign after the school decided to rename a
street that was named after a former science professor who stole Native
American burial artifacts. The new name, Lakamas, means “camas,” which is a
traditional Native American first food.
Story includes
information from Linfield News.
::::::::::::::::::::
LINFIELD
UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING
EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEE
NOVEMBER
13, 2020
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, A.M. Brumback, a science professor and later president (1903-1905) at then McMinnville College, engaged around the year 1900 in desecration and theft of burial artifacts and human remains from Native American burial mounds in the region.
WHEREAS, Linfield University is currently engaged in the
inventory of these and other artifacts to help facilitate communication with
and repatriation to the relevant tribes impacted.
WHEREAS, Brumback Street, named for A.M. Brumback, is a
private road connecting Renshaw Avenue and Lever Street near the Observatory on
Linfield University’s McMinnville campus.
Be it therefore resolved that the Linfield University Board
of Trustees recommends the removal of A.M. Brumback’s name from the campus
street. A small commission shall be convened to discuss potential replacement
names before the Board convenes in February 2021.
::::::::
Lakamas
Lane on the McMinnville campus
The
Board of Trustees approved the resolution to change the name on May 1, 2021.
A
committee of students, faculty and staff has been working through the spring
semester to consider a new name for the road. After months of meetings and
research, the group proposed the new name.
The committee sought
guidance and support from the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde to consider a name of historic significance to the
geography and indigenous peoples of the McMinnville area. A representative from
Grand Ronde worked closely with the committee to help determine six possible
names, and ultimately the committee voted unanimously on Lakamas Lane.
In the
Chinuk Wawa language, “Lakamas” is the word for camas. Camas is a primary
historic food staple of the Kalapuya, the indigenous people of the Willamette
Valley. While the word Lacamas exists in other parts of the Northwest, Lakamas
(with a “k”) is unique to Chinuk Wawa, a language spoken by the Kalapuya
people, and would therefore be unique to Linfield and the only place in the
world where one would find a Lakamas Lane.
Camas
is an edible tuber with a blue or purple flower that blooms annually.
While camas is an important traditional food to the Kalapuya, it is also
broadly significant across the Pacific Northwest, California and inter-mountain
west. This is a traditional food that is broadly recognizable to many native
peoples who are or may become students at Linfield. Additionally,
Linfield’s McMinnville campus is home to large remnant patches of camas that,
under intentional management, continue to thrive around Cozine Creek.
Find out more information
and background on the renaming of Lakamas Lane.
https://inside.linfield.edu/lakamas-lane/index.html
The New Lakamas
Lane On the McMinnville Campus
The
Linfield University Board of Trustees passed a resolution in November 2020
requesting a committee of students, faculty and staff to consider a new name
for a two-block private road on the McMinnville campus. The committee assembled
and began meeting early the following year, eventually voting unanimously that
the road should be known as Lakamas Lane. The Board of Trustees approved that
recommendation in a second resolution on May 1, 2021.
The
committee reached out to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde early in its
deliberations, asking for guidance about whether Linfield might consider a name
of historic significance to the geography and indigenous peoples of the
McMinnville area. A representative from Grand Ronde then worked with the
committee through the spring to consider six alternatives, before the group
eventually settled upon Lakamas Lane.
In
the Chinuk Wawa language, “Lakamas” is the word for camas. Camas is a primary
historic food staple of the Kalapuya, the indigenous people of the Willamette
Valley. It’s an edible tuber with a blue or purple flower that blooms
annually, and there are remanent patches that bloom to this day on the
McMinnville campus.
The
new name will take effect as soon as is reasonably possible, before July 1,
2021. The campus post office is on Lakamas Lane, so all student correspondence
will go to that address beginning with the 2021-22 academic year.
The committee would like to extend its heartfelt
appreciation to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. In particular David
Harrelson, Cultural Resources Department Manager and Tribal Historic
Preservation Officer. David was instrumental in providing leadership, guidance
and knowledge, and generous with his time. His willingness to engage with the
university in this renaming effort has led us to envision a fruitful and
collaborative future between Linfield and the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde.
Lakamas Lane
Renaming Committee Members
Kathy Cook,
Administrative Assistant
Isis Hatcher ’21,
student
Scott Nelson ’94,
Associate Vice President
Gerardo Ochoa,
Special Assistant to the President
Rich Schmidt,
Director of Archives
Michayla Sponsel ’21,
Student Trustee
Leslie Walker,
Instructional Associate SOAN
Natalie Welch,
Assistant Professor of Business
Sam Williams, Chief
Information Officer
Keaton Wood ’21,
student
::::::::::::::::::::
Guest
writer Sal Peralta: Event an invitation to lean in and learn
McMinnville N-R/News-Register 4/22/2022
With so much recent controversy over how and
whether critical issues related to U.S. history should be taught, I’m glad to
live in a community where institutions are open to revisiting their historical
mistakes and taking steps to correct them.
On May 6, Linfield University, the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Greater Yamhill Watershed Council are hosting
McMinnville’s first ever Camas Festival from 1 to 2 p.m. in Linfield’s Oak
Grove.
Camas lilies were one of the main food sources
and chief agricultural commodities for native tribes, ranging from the Pacific
Northwest to Montana. At one time, they were so plentiful settlers coming west
on the Oregon trail wrote in their journals that they would mistake the blue
camas meadows for lakes in the distance.
The event will honor the work of Linfield
faculty and students, Watershed Council staff and community volunteers in
restoring legacy camas patches on the college campus and neighboring
properties. During the past several years, thousands of hours have gone into
restoring areas along the Cozine creek, leading to discovery of some sites that
were likely significant to people who lived here prior to Oregon’s colonial
settlement.
The festival will also take another step toward
making amends for former university president and science professor A.M.
Brumback, who, according to the university’s executive board, “engaged in
desecration and theft of burial artifacts and human remains from Native
American burial mounds in the region.”
The university is in the process of cataloging
these artifacts with the intent of repatriating them to the tribes from which
they were stolen.
Last fall, the school took a first step toward
acknowledging these harms when it worked with the city of McMinnville to rename
Brumback Street to Lakamas Lane, Lakamas being the Chinuk Wawa word for camas.
This renaming honors both the heritage of this place and community efforts to
restore camas along the Cozine and Yamhill watersheds.
The event also gives us an opportunity to think
more deeply about America’s history in relation to the tribes, which is not
something most of us reflect on very often.
I first learned about the nation’s western
expansion in first or second grade, watching a Saturday morning Schoolhouse
Rock cartoon called “Elbow Room.”
It covered the Louisiana Purchase, bravery of
westward settlers, expanding rail system, Sacagawea and even “fights for
property rights.” But it did not explain how the French came to “own” the land
in question when it was already inhabited, or what happened to those who were
summarily displaced.
I never learned in public schools about the
court cases brought by Native tribes from 1823 to 1831, in which the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that members of native tribes could not own land. The
ruling was based on the “doctrine of discovery,” a 15th century idea that
European monarchies used to justify claiming “heathen” lands in the name of
Christ. Living in Yamhill County, the shunting aside of Native American tribes
is also hard to ignore. The evidence is all around us.
Fort Yamhill, just a stone’s throw from Spirit
Mountain Casino, enabled local militias to keep watch on the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde after Gen. Phil Sheridan left with his garrison to
fight in the Civil War.
Prior to moving here in 2002, I had never heard
the term “Confederated Tribes.” That term was coined in the period between 1855
and 1857, when the US government forced an array of tribes in Western Oregon
and Northern California — more than 30 tribes speaking more than a dozen
different languages — to relocate to Grand Ronde.
On the longest of these marches, the Rogue River
Trail of Tears, the Shasta and Rogue River tribes were forced to march 263
miles in 33 days from Klamath Falls to Grand Ronde.
The mistreatment of Oregon tribes continued well
into the 1980s.
In 1954, the federal government passed Public
Laws 587 and 588, which terminated federal recognition of all tribes west of
the Cascades and seized their land. It incorporated some of the land into
national forests and sold the rest to timber companies and land speculators for
$1 an acre.
Reservations like the Klamath, originally more
than 1 million acres, were reduced to a few hundred acres of remnants.
The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde did not
have tribal recognition restored by the federal government until 1983, at which
time 9,811 acres were returned. The last element of the restoration was
completed in 1986.
None of us today is responsible for things our
ancestors have done. But we are responsible for finding ways to live up to our
ideals, recognize where we have fallen short, and work to remedy the injustice
where we can.
By those measures, all of us can be proud of the
inaugural Camas Festival. We improve as a society, and develop more resilient
communities, when we lean into the truth of our history and learn from it.
Sal Peralta maintains an enduring interest in public policy, reflected
in a long record of civic involvement. He helped found the Independent Party of
Oregon and has long served as party secretary. He ran unsuccessfully for state
representative and county commissioner before winning appointment, and later
election, to the McMinnville City Council. He shares his home in McMinnville’s
Ward 1 with his wife, Tanya, daughter, Bella, and two dogs. In his leisure
time, he enjoys playing the violin.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Plans
to create the first Camas Fest on the Linfield campus (May 6, 2022) began
in November 2020 “when the university began investigating a new name for a
two-block street on the McMinnville campus. The search led the university to
the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, and together, the groups chose
Lakamas Lane, located a block north of Keck Drive. Lakamas is the word for
camas in the Chinuk Wawa language. Plans soon developed to celebrate camas,
which grows in large numbers on campus.” – 4/29/2022 McMinnville
N-R/News-Register
For
more information visit information (URL link below) posted at Wildcatville on
Sept. 6, 2021:
Linfield's
Lakamas Lane succeeded Brumback Street on Mc Minnville campus
https://wildcatville.blogspot.com/2021/09/signage-at-corner-of-brumback-street.html
#
Photo of Arthur M. Brumback, A. M., President of McMinnville
College, July 1, 1903 to July 1, 1905, from Baptist Annals of Oregon Volume II,
1913, by Rev. Charles Hiram Mattoon
