Cowlitz people

Absolutely.

I'm here on the original territory of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Siletz, Cathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Malala, Grand Ronde, and many others, also known as Portland, Oregon.

Wow.

So many groups in one space.

if The Onion or The Daily Show wrote a book about Indian country.

And I'm an enrolled member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Washington State.

Grew up on the Tulalip Preservation about 45 minutes north of Seattle.

And I've kind of found myself in a position when I'm not thinking or talking about cats, where I've dedicated a lot of my life to like using comedy as kind of a tool to teach about Native issues.

Look at them as a source of pride.

And like, also by going to these casinos, it's like, They directly support the tribal communities.

My Tribe's Casino gave My Tribe the resources to build a smartphone app that allows us to learn our Cowlitz language on the go.

And that's the sort of thing where it's like, oh, if we didn't have people patronizing our casino, I'm not sure if we would be able to afford that.

I think Carl Morningdew is going to be the one that maybe stands the test of time, though.

As a member of the Cowlitz Nation, how do you feel about Carl Morningdew, Joey?

So this is where I'm going to maybe do a big reveal.

I'm friends with Cody.

It's probably fine.

Like he when this book was about to come out, he just sent me, you know, Twitter DM back when Twitter was a thing.

With just a picture of Carl Morningdew saying, I am the Sentinel of the Cowlitz Nation.

And basically saying like, hey, man, I gave you a shout out in this book.

But something that I kind of realized as I, you know, as I was maybe six or seven years in is it's like, oh, I'm writing what I think other people like, not what I like.

And that's one of the reasons that I kind of shifted into writing more about kind of native issues and being more kind of like I never I never like have hid that I'm Cowlitz.

I'm very proud of it, but it just doesn't come up in conversation when you're, you know, doing a comedy show at 2 a.m. dressed like Frodo from Lord of the Rings, but he's not wearing pants or whatever, you know.

What do you know about indigenous history? How about the current state of Native America? For many people, it might be summed up as Standing Rock, casinos, and TV shows like Yellowstone.

But I am eager to learn more.

That is one of the reasons I wanted to have an old friend on the show.

Joey Clift is an enrolled member of the Cowlitz tribe in Washington State.

He's a comedian and a writer, perhaps best known for his TV and film credits.

Yeah.

So my tribe, we got our federal, I'm enrolled Cowlitz.

We got our federal recognition in 2000 and we were supposed to get our federal recognition in the 1920s, but Grover Cleveland personally blocked it.

Oh, what? Yeah.

Yeah, there's literally like a letter that you can find on like archive.org. It's like I think in the Grover Cleveland Presidential Library where he's just like, I don't like the Cowlitz people.

Why? Did he say why? I don't know.

Because of your beautiful casino resort that makes prominent in your book.

Yeah.

The only means of communication from Canada to Oregon being in the hands of the Hudson Bay Company by sending every year a number of canoes laden with goods and conducted by a number of Canadian voyageurs, the Bishop of Juliopolis made an application for the passage of two priests in one of the canoes to Oregon with the design of forming an establishment in the Willamette Valley.

To this last point, the governor and committee in London objected, but would grant a passage on the condition that the priests would form their establishment on the Cowlitz River.

The Bishop of Juliopolis, having complied with the suggestion, Sir George Simpson wrote to the Archbishop of Quebec that if the two priests would be ready at Lachine to embark for the interior about the 25th of April, a passage would be afforded them.

The following is the correspondence on the subject.

When the Bishop first mentioned this subject, his view was to form the mission on the banks of the Willamette, a river falling into the Columbia from the south.

To the establishing of a mission there, the Governor and Committee in London and the Councils in Hudson's Bay had a decided objection, as the sovereignty of that country is still undecided.

But I last summer intimated to the Bishop that if he would establish the mission on the banks of the Cowlitz River or on the Cowlitz Portage, falling into the Columbia from the northward, and give his assurance that the missionaries would not locate themselves on the south side of the Columbia River, but would form their establishment where the Company's representatives might point out as the most eligible situation on the north side, I should recommend the Governor and Committee to afford a passage to the priests and such facilities towards the successful accomplishment of the object in view as would not involve any great inconvenience or expense to the Company's service.

By the letter received yesterday, already alluded to, the Bishop enters fully into my views and expresses his willingness to fall in with my suggestions.

And this is Past Due.

Past Due Joy Cliff is a Peabody and Emmy-nominated comedian, TV writer, and enrolled member of the Cowlitz Indian tribe, whose debut book, We've Been Here the Whole Time, A Not-So-Sacred Guide to All Things Native American, is out on October 6th.

Joey, welcome back.

Welcome back.

You know, I there's a chapter called 26 Reasons My Tribe's Casino Rules all about how capitalism within tribal communities works and how like.

you know, if you, if you, um, spend money or patron of a tribal casino, like that money in a very real way helps the community and like the native folk, like for my tribe, like our casino opened in 2017.

And because of that, we're able to afford a, um, developing like a smartphone app where you can like learn the Cowlitz language via a smartphone app.

And that's something that's like preserving our language for, you know, years to come.