EUGENE–The Coquille Indian Tribe has donated $10,000 to support research and access to a new collection at the University of Oregon Library that documents the history of Northwest Indian tribes. The collection contains 110,000 pages of historical documents discovered by the Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP).

"Hopefully the tribe’s gift will inspire others to contribute and add to the SWORP collection," says Jason Younker, a Coquille tribal member and UO anthropology graduate student.

Through the SWORP project, scholars from the Coquille Indian Tribe and the University of Oregon discovered thousands of ethnographic and military documents, maps and microfilm in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Anthropological Archives as well as in the National Archives at Washington, D.C. Copies of the documents are now housed in the UO Knight Library’s Division of Special Collections.

Tribal Chairman Ed Metcalf and the Coquille Tribal Council presented the gift to the university during a potlatch–a historic Native American gift-giving ceremony held this spring at the UO to celebrate the memory and resiliency of Native American people.

The Coquille Indian Tribe and the UO invited 44 Northwest tribes to the UO campus for the potlatch. It was only the second time in the past 150 years that these tribes had gathered to celebrate their collective past and future.

As part of the gift-giving ceremony, portions of the SWORP collection were given to the invited tribes for their tribal libraries. An international audience of more than 400 guests attended the event, with 41 tribes from across the nation represented. Seventeen of these tribes have ties to Oregon, though several now are living in neighboring states.

"We’re honored that this growing collection is housed at the University of Oregon," says Dave Hubin, UO executive assistant president.

The archive is available to students, researchers, the community and the region. With the Coquille’s gift to the library, these important materials will become more readily accessible to researchers.

For more information, contact Lisa Manotti, library development director, (541) 346-3056.

—30—

#G-6091/Local, OrDailies,PDX,Native American Media