Plants, Tribal Traditions, and the Mountain: Practices and Effects of Nisqually Tribal Plant Gathering at Mount Rainier National Park

Burtchard, Greg; Hooper, David; Peterson, Arnie; Simmons, John; Jarvis, Jonathan

This document details the history, development, and effects of the Nisqually Indian Tribe's traditional resource gathering at Mount Rainier/Takhóma. The introductory chapter emphasizes the long-standing relationship between Indigenous people and the landscapes and habitats that are now a part of Mount Rainier National Park, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. It addresses expansion of Indigenous populations, and associated subsistence and settlement systems throughout the Western Hemisphere; the effects of severe population loss on Indigenous societies due to epidemic diseases; the impacts of Indian Treaties and continuing Euro-American expansion into the Pacific Northwest; and the loss of traditional hunting and gathering options that resulted from these events. It also introduces Mount Rainier’s culturally associated Indigenous tribes and the recently renewed interest in traditional plant gathering practices in Mount Rainier National Park. Chapter 2 establishes the long-standing relationship between Indigenous people and Mount Rainier; emphasizing the importance of seasonally available plant and animal resources it provides. It begins with a consideration of Mount Rainier’s archaeological record which indicates that people traveled regularly to the mountain for thousands of years continuing even beyond the periods of population loss and Euro-American incursion noted above. The chapter then presents summaries of early exploration, ethnographic, and historical climbing accounts from 1792 through 1899 to demonstrate how the mountain fit into traditional land-use patterns, and how these patterns changed as the region filled with non-Indigenous settlers. Chapter 3 considers changing Indigenous presence and land-use practices following the 1899 founding of Mount Rainier National Park. Prominent among these are loss of hunting and gathering privileges in the early to mid-1900s, followed by an extended period of minimal overt involvement with park landscapes, to renewed interest in establishing a working relationship with the park and reestablishing traditional gathering practices regarding plant resources found there. Chapter 4 discusses more thoroughly Mount Rainier National Park’s plant gathering MOU and research conducted cooperatively with the Nisqually Indian Tribe –one of six tribes presently recognized as traditionally associated with park lands. In it, we address the issue of why traditional plant gathering practices tend to be conservative in nature; origins of the original Nisqually-Mount Rainier plant gathering memorandum of understanding (MOU); formal objections to the MOU; initiation of ethnographic and joint Nisqually-Mount Rainier field research to better understand the effects of traditional plant gathering practices; and initiation of National Park Service changes to the Federal Code of Regulations that authorized resumption of limited traditional plant gathering activities. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 focus on multiple years of traditional plant gathering research on three plant species harvested in the traditional manner by Nisqually tribal members in Mount Rainier National Park. All three chapters address plant natural history and ethnobotany; traditional harvesting practices; plant and plant collection monitoring procedures and results; and long-term sustainability of observed harvesting practices. Chapter 5 focuses exclusively on beargrass used principally for basketry and clothing. Chapter 6 discusses pipsissewa, or prince’s pine, used primarily as a rejuvenating tonic. Chapter 7 presents research observations and recommendations regarding western red cedar, the inner bark of which is used for cordage, basketry, mats, and water repellent clothing. Regarding these field studies, it will become clear that the authors have concerns about the effects of such issues as small sample sizes, natural variability across observation units, difficulty in maintaining consistent layout of those units, year to year variation in monitoring effectiveness, and statistical sensitivity due to the interplay of these factors. Nonetheless, we pursued the studies to the best of our ability, and describe them in detail, because we believe they provide insight into possible harvest effects, best potential harvest and management strategies, and a pathway forward to reinstating traditional plant gathering activities in a manner that recognizes the NPS obligation to maintain plant and animal communities in perpetuity. In all cases, we have striven to analyze results fairly and, in light of observation difficulties, offer conservative recommendations that we believe will sustain plant populations while recognizing the rights of affiliated tribal people to gather traditionally used plants in their traditional manner. In Chapter 8, we isolate the common theme that unites traditional gathering practices in regard to the three plant species observed during the present study. We then employ that insight to develop recommendations for sustainable harvest of a wider range of plant species found in the park –plants for which there may, or may not, be surviving ethnographic links to the precontact past. While the list does not exhaust the range of plants traditionally gathered on the mountain, it provides insight into tailoring traditional gathering techniques to fit the biological requirements of a wider array of plants than we consider here and do so in a manner that will sustain plant and habitat vitality over the long-term. Chapter 9 concludes the report with a consideration of foundations of the original 1998 Nisqually-Mount Rainier plant gathering MOU; components of the 2016 addition to the Federal Code of Regulations intended to provide clear legal authority by which to permit environmentally conservative plant gathering activities on National Park Service administered lands; and a brief review of the document as a whole. In the end, we hope our efforts will encourage tribes and parks to work together to strike a balance that provides for continuation of traditional Indigenous plant gathering practices while remaining consistent with NPS mandates to administer park lands and resources in a manner that maintains them unimpaired for generations to come.

Plants, Tribal Traditions, and the Mountain: Practices and Effects of Nisqually Tribal Plant Gathering at Mount Rainier National Park

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