Flora Cushinway Thompson

OREGON VOICES

Flora Thompson assisted her husband Chief Tommy Thompson in his efforts to halt the construction of The Dalles Dam. She recorded his correspondence, met with officials, and worked with Barbara MacKenzie on the relocation of Celilo families whose homes were flooded by the dam's reservoir. After her husband's death in 1959, Flora Thompson continued her efforts to protect traditional Indian practices along the Columbia River. She died in March 1979, when she was probably in her late seventies, the victim of a house fire. Little is officially known about this interview (which is comprised of three tapes, one of which is missing), but it is likely the interview that Joan Arrivee Wagenblast conducted with Thompson in 1966 for her publication, "Flora's Song, A Remembrance of Chief Tommy Kuni Thompson of the WyAms."
In this interview selection, Thompson describes a trip she took to Cooks, Washington, during a time when Indian fishers living there had stepped up their opposition to state and tribal regulation of their fishing rights. The resistance garnered a lot of media and eventually led to the filing of Sohappy v. Smith in 1968.

AFTER CHIEF TOMMY THOMPSON Kuni became the chief, he had strict conservation [rules]. As a chief, [he] went down to the river where other men were waiting for the chief. This is what they had meetings about — conservation — so they waited for him to come down. When he signaled, well, they just rowed across with canoes to the islands ... 12:00 and he'd signal. The women had to pack all that heavy fish to the village right across here.

The women were real strong in them days. That's before my coming. [Chief Thompson] used a watch, a pocket watch in them days. Six o'clock, then he'd signal and they'd all come home and each one had to lock his canoe. No one was [allowed] to fish all night. There was no reservation Indians who used to come down and fish like they did last few years. The Yakama came across to Wishram horse and buggy days. Old Dad used to get so tired rowing canoe and dragging our raft to meet the Yakamas to come across. He'd wait for fresh fish a day or two and Old Dad would row them across and they'd take that fish home fresh. The Umatillas, Nez Perces came down on a train. There was a train stop here called Tumalow. The Warm Springs came down and bought flour and dried corn and they parked up here. They had to park their wagons up there on top of the cliff and walk down and pack their fish. Otherwise there is a trail way down there. They could bring a horse down and load it on horses and take it up on horses. Mama used to come down and park her wagon up here.

Charlie Tuitalkin, Flora Thompson, Marshall Dana, and Tommy Thompson pose on Chiefs Island, Celilo, Oregon, in August 1949.

OHS neg., CN 018928

Every morning they used to go down and swim — cold — and they awoke. They all armed one another and some of them say, "Some day these people is going to take away our fish." Sure enough, look at the engineers. Covered up their Celilo fishing grounds, the biggest fishing industry and not only that, the biggest scenery along the Columbia Gorge. We have so many people, even today they come over and visit me and have sympathy with me. Why did they have to build this dam? They could have built it further up. They had enough dam down here at Bonneville, one up there at McNary. Why did they have to build this one? And then later they built this John Day [Dam].

[Chief Tommy Thompson] never condemned anybody but what he did was make them understand who they were and who he was and they must be treated equal so that came out that way. One year, well this is after I married the chief in the [19]40s, right after he lost his wife. He lost his wife during cherry harvest season and we just got through picking cherries up there. This must have been the latter part of June. So we came down to his wife's funeral and we stayed around. His granddaughter and grandson asked me to stay with him for the summer so I says, "Well I got to haul my fruit home first before I can come back." They had two little kids and they were just darling to the old lady, her grandchildren, two sons. So I went home and I came back and I stayed here all through July, August, September. September I began to get married to a Yakama man I married with a justice of the peace, but I had to divorce him because he accused me of eloping around with another man, which was false to me. He was an elderly man like chief here but he was a witch doctor so I divorced him. After I married him he came down there and he tried to send word to me for me to go back. He signed our divorce papers

Chief Thompson just had his oldest son, Henry Thompson. He was chief last. Chief Henry Thompson was from the first wife. And then he had other children from different ones. He wasn't married one or twice. He was a handsome looking man and he used to have a dozen wives. As a chief he could have as many wives as he wanted. Of course, he was light complected and his hair was just real soft like a Frenchman, just fine. His hair was way down below his waist.

So after Henry's wife divorced him she got jealous of him so she came back to her people in Rock Creek and she took her son with her so chief didn't raise Henry Thompson.

Nevertheless, he's such a handsome looking man that he always had different women every other hour. I might put it that way. And he asked me one day, "How would you stand it if I had two other, three wives like I used to?" I says, "Okay, I wouldn't mind it. I'd be getting rest through them." My first, second husband, he took off with my first cousin — in Indian, with his sister — took off with her. Didn't bother me one bit. I know he's always coming back, which he did, and I lost him through stroke. He got stroke and it just took him so I was alone then. I was over there with my sister. I had a chance to get a chief husband this time. This one was a hunter that I lost. He used to even get them alive.

CHIEF TOMMY THOMPSON did not cooperate for The Dalles Dam so there is a credit there. He was only the one man who did not negotiate with the engineers. Different engineers came. Last one that came, "I want the chief to sign this. I brought the judge along, Judge Wilson in The Dalles." Chief was lying on the bed over there. He says, "May I ask you how old you are?" Colonel Parker, he says, "forty years." "Oh, you just a little boy. Now you want to buy my fishing? I'm not going to sign." He used to talk good English. After I married him, why, he just picked up English right there and I was standing right there and I says, "Well, Colonel Parker, there's your answer. You're not going to make him negotiate with you and I'm not going to persuade him either. Whatever he wants done is on his own will. I'm not going to order him around like some women are. They'll boss their husband around — 'let's do this and let's do that' — I'm not that kind of an old lady. I just leave it up to him. He's the chief and he's supposed to decide on his own so you've got your correct answer now. You tell your engineers, colonels, to never come to interfere with him no more. That's the last big word he gave you — no, I'm not going to negotiate. So you remember that." Well, each Indian got $7,054, but that was only for the fish. That was fishing stations from highest level on the shore and, as the water went down, there was a fishing station here, the water went low. Each fishing station had a regional name. There is a credit there. I've got several sheets like that — all the names of the fishing stations both sides of the river and on the islands and Yakamas came after me for that. They wanted to take it over. I says, "I'm not giving that to nobody. You took away his money what rightfully belonged to him alone and his tribe, Wyams. Cause he stay here year round protecting the fishing industry." So the Yakamas, other reservations, gave up pestering me, begging me for the names, the regional names of the fishing stations. As if any time I want to sue the government for this I'm going to do it on my own and I'm not going to have no reservation Indians come with me. Well, I didn't do that. I just let it vanish away.

Chief Henry Thompson became chief just as soon as his father Chief Tommy Thompson died. His Indian name [is] Chief Lowit, nationally known by his Indian name. As Chief Henry Thompson became the chief well, he didn't do much in business. He was really a sickly man, an old man. He was the first son of Chief Tommy Thompson. One year became trouble down along the Columbia River, so-called Cooks, Washington, in 1966 and they came after Henry to go down and help him with problems. Chief Henry says, "I can not do anything about business affairs." But he did do a lot of work in feathers; making outfits for war dances for the boys and the girls was about all he could do. But he was very poor in business so they came over to me and asked me to go down so I went down and we camped at The Dalles and I forgot my treaty papers of Middle Oregon treaty proclaimed and ratified.

And so when I went to Cooks, Washington, well, there was a big crowd there. The state fish commissioner had taken away their fish nets and their fish and they went through court and they lost. The Indians lost two cases at Cooks, Washington, so this time they come after us in Oregon. So I was able to go down and help them a lot. When I come to Cooks, Washington, there were people from Washington, D.C., the fish commissioner, the state wardens and all that so grandmother's never afraid to face any case especially in fishing. So when I came down there to take pictures of these boys at this particular point where there has been pictures coming out on the front page [of] the Oregonian, the [Oregon] Journal, where the boys were standing armed with their guns guarding their fish nets, the fish. Well, they went up to that particular point and I took my girl down, Linda George — that's the queen of the Wyams. She took her costumes and she dressed as a girl and they went up at a particular point and take pictures and they want me to come up and I says, "No, I can't crawl up. It's so steep. I might roll into the river." So just the girls went up there and they come down and we come around the shore to where the nets were and the salmon, and he had replaced a little log sit halfway on the cliff and I had to sit there. They hooked on tape recorders and photographers and everybody else and here I sat in the midst. By the time I got through my eyes were just blurry. Oh, it was just a disgrace and they asked me questions every direction and I just answered right along. I says, "Well, I'm going to be asked some important questions which is going to come out for national news. So these questions and answers are going to come out true and nothing but the truth. I am not here to tell no false stories." And I also brought my treaty papers along to prove where we are and so they asked me questions right and left. Mid-Oregon treaty, on Oregon side, and on the Washington side and I brought those treaty papers out and I had my husband's picture — this one he was along — and I brought that out. And so I says my husband had a lot of interest in fish because that's all he lived on ever since he was born. There wasn't any other food that he lived but salmon three times a day and I had to get up midnight and cook salmon snack so I know and understand what fish, salmon, means to my people and not only that [but also] to citizen Americans as well after they begin to learn what commercial fishing was. Everybody wanted to make a little money and everybody needed some salmon for their food and so everybody begin to learn to eat salmon, which is of great value to us especially.

This was pronounced in the treaties — fishing in common. Well, this doesn't mean that you are here to make trouble with others on the other side. We come in common and therefore we are supposed to live peacefully and not be greedy. We shared our rivers and lakes to all you people ever since all you folks came to be with us and we're supposed to cooperate in a good [way] and be nationally known. And so we are here to come together as one blood and flesh and learn to live in peace that we may all have something to eat. And not just fight one another. Although my people fight one another amongst themselves, here comes the state stepping in. That's what we are doing today because the Yakamas are fighting amongst themselves and then come in stepping in and according to my husband, nationally known Chief Tommy Thompson, I have to come here to assist my blood and flesh. But not only that, I want the citizen Americans to know and understand that we must live together in peace, justice, peace, and freedom — in God we trust, amen. Well, the Indians won the case at that time. The next day I saw in the papers the white father sides in with the Indians, but for how long?

Chief Tommy Thompson, his wife Flora, and her granddaughter Linda Marie George stand by Celilo in 1955.

OHS neg., OrHi 68314

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