74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session
 
NOTE:  Matter within  { +  braces and plus signs + } in an
amended section is new. Matter within  { -  braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within
 { +  braces and plus signs + } .
 
 LC 3082
 
                 Senate Concurrent Resolution 6
 
Sponsored by Senator GORDLY
 
 
                             SUMMARY
 
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the
measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's
brief statement of the essential features of the measure as
introduced.
 
  Recognizes importance of  { - Kiksht - }, the Wasco language.
 
                      CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
  Whereas the  { - Kiksht - } language arises from the lands of
the middle Columbia River, which were given to the Wasco, Wishram
and Watlala peoples of Oregon and Washington, whose descendants
are members of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs
Reservation of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of
the Yakama Nation, and its related Chinookan languages are spoken
by the peoples downstream who are members of the Chinook Nation,
the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon
and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz; and
  Whereas  { - Kiksht - } was the language of this place for over
10,000 years and was spoken by many thousands of Native people
along the Columbia River who named all of the places in this
area, who sculpted the greatest rock art in the Americas, as well
as other works designed with marvelous, intricate and bold
figures of humans, deer, sturgeon and condors, and who built the
great canoes, both river and seafaring, and the large cedar plank
houses suited to the region with a perfection unmatched even by
today's standards; and
  Whereas the villages of the  { - Kiksht - } speakers were among
the longest inhabited in the region and their residents were the
exclusive dwellers on the Columbia River in the Warm Springs
ceded area at the time of formation of the Oregon Territory, and
these residents greeted Lewis and Clark and the pioneer ancestors
in  { -  Kiksht - }; and
  Whereas in Oregon today only three living elders are fluent in
 { - Kiksht, - } Margo Boise, Nelson Moses and Gladys Thompson,
who range in age from 73 to 93 years, making  { - Kiksht - } the
most endangered language of Oregon; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the State of
  Oregon:
  That we, the members of the Seventy-fourth Legislative
Assembly, recognize the importance of  { - Kiksht - } to the
history of the Columbia Basin and the necessary connection it
forms between the Wasco people and the Columbia River, and desire
that the language should survive in perpetuity; and be it further
  Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be presented to the
Tribal Council of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs
Reservation of Oregon.
                         ----------