First, the disclaimers.  I speak only for myself..not for the Makah, nor
 Puyallup nor anyone other than myself.  I speak from my own knowledge
 and my own opinions.  It is certainly not the whole truth or even the
 correct truth, only the truth as I know it.  I am no expert on anything,
 just a simple Puyallup woman.
 
 Secondly the conditions.  I will present this as something that just
 "is."  Neither right or wrong or good or bad or debatable.  Just like
 the rain falling..whether I like the rain or not or the rain feels like
 a good or bad thing, the rain just is.  I do not expect you to
 understand or agree with what is said.  The purpose of these words is
 simply an information-sharing.
 
 There are a number of you I am sending this too.  Feel free to simply
 delete if not interested.  [David..I know you don't have a clue why you
 are getting this or the background of the question, but thought you
 might be interested anyway.  Won't hurt my feelings a bit if you're
 not.]
 
 There are two aspects to this question.  The first being the Native
 peoples relation to and with the Great Mystery (as it is sometimes
 called).  The second is the peoples relation to and with themselves.
 
 Before the invasion, this land was filled with literally hundreds of
 flourishing civilizations.  Civiliations evolved from the beginning of
 time (or so our Creation stories tell us).  Each with its own language,
 art, law, trade, value system and spiritual belief system.  The
 commonality of the civilizations were in its belief systems, which of
 course impacted the value systems.  Although they did not practice a
 common spirituality, what was common was the peoples relation with the
 Great Mystery, the Creator.  I hate using the word "we" but for this
 purpose I will.  It is a foundation of all the nations that in the hoop
 of life, we are equal partners with all other living things.  That all
 things have spirit and life.  Sometimes the two-leggeds (people) held a
 very insignificant role and at other times a very significant role.  But
 we were no greater and no less than any other relation.  We were not
 appointed "caretakers" as such, but more a role of maintaining our
 responsibilities in the hoop of life, and that role was in maintaining
 the balance.  Each relation holds the same responsibilities.  The
 particular "gift" of the two-leggeds was choice.  It was what sets us
 apart..again not better or less.  We do not have the keen eyesight of
 some, the deep spiritual nature of others, the great speed or cleverness
 of some.  But with choice, comes an even greater responsibility and that
 is to use that gift wisely and responsibly for all relations.
 
 Unlike Christians, we do not believe in direct intervention from our
 Creator except in the most extreme of circumstances.  However, we are
 given the tools and teachers so that we should not need direct
 intervention except under the most extreme of circumstances.  It is our
 responsibility to learn from the teachers and use the tools.  And, the
 teachers are not simply people.  We learn from the spirit guides sent to
 us, we learn from the other relations, we learn from ourselves and each
 other.  The tools are the value and belief system...the rules and guides
 to living well individually and to living as a people and to living with
 our neighbors, the relations.
 
 Now, imagine if you will a system that has worked well for centuries
 meeting a system whose value system is based on entirely different
 principals.  A tribal society works collectively, knowing it is only as
 strong as its weakest member.  Knowing that if one goes hungry, all do.
 Yes, the collective whole is made up of individuals..but all bound
 together with common goals and common purpose.  Imagine that unit
 meeting up with a civilization which has nothing in common with it and
 purposes that are muddy at best...a civilization based on the premise of
 the worth of the individual, not the worth of the whole.  Now to further
 compound the confusion, imagine that each nation is its own separate
 entity...each with very specific values and beliefs, shaped primarily by
 its geographic location.  Each location has its own spiritual  Grandfathers, those things that sustained the people.  In the case of  the Puyallup people, the Grandfathers were salmon and cedar.  For the  plains peoples, it was buffalo.  But in all nations, they were  different.  The Grandfathers were the direct link between ourselves and  the Creator.  It wasn't simply the physical being of the relation, but  the spiritual being of the relation and the peoples continual relation  to it.  For the Makah, the Grandfather is the whale.
 
 So, the invasion begins...hundreds of cultures meet the invaders, who
 have no single culture among them except perhaps Christianity..which
 itself came in several forms...and chaos ensues.  As a child, I remember
 an very very old man telling me that he still didn't understand what the
 invaders really wanted, and he wasn't sure that they themselves knew.
 The nations are shattered, the old and young die in horrific numbers,
 disease runs rampant, and the peoples are removed from their
 homelands..and from their grandfathers.  All that had taken centuries to
 develop was gone in a relative blink of an eye.  The children are taken
 to be reeducated, the people are put in strange homelands they have no
 relation with and the value and belief systems that sustained them are
 slowly eroded.
 
 Jump now to today...here in the PNW[Pacific NorthWest], just 140 years (2 or 3 generations  from the invasion).  We are less than 2% of the general population, yet  our life expendicy is the lowest in the US, our infant mortality rate  the highest, the dropout rate and teen pregnancy rate the highest, our
 youth suicide rate the highest in the world and we are a dying people.
 Diabetes runs rampant through a people that did not have sugar...70% of
 the Pima Indians now have diabetes.  The alcohol introduced into our
 society as a weapon led to 2 generations of children with Alcohol Fetal
 Syndrome, to which there is no cure or even effective treatment.  4% of
 the prison populations are Native men (85% in Canada), the vast majority
 for drug and alcohol related crimes.  The civilzations, nations have
 been fractured and the people left without a foundation to hold them, a
 value system to guide them.  As a 3rd generation survivor, I still don't
 understand the society around me.  My son, as a 4th, has a good grasp of
 it, but its value system is still in conflict with that which he knows
 to work...on a very practical basis.
 
 Native peoples are quite literally in worse jeopardy today than at the
 time of the invasion.  We are told to assimiliate and try desperately to
 play catch up...we are becoming educated, we are beginning to take
 charge of our lands and our own peoples.  But it isn't come fast and it
 isn't coming easy, and we may not survive the effort.  The one thing we
 have found however, is that the old value/belief system retains its worth.  Simply, it worked and it worked well for us.
 
 The compelling need is quite seriously that of survival.  We are
 betwixted and between...neither part of the old nor part of the new.  We
 can't simply start over again...we must be able to have something to
 grab on to and pull ourselves out.  The compelling need of us all, not
 just the Makah, is a return to a value system...a return to the tried
 and true...a return to our foundation....because it works for us.  We
 are still a tribal people....trying to live in a very individualistic
 society.  We still feel the rhythms of our land and the call of our
 ancestors and the call of our Grandfathers.  I can't explain some of
 this in words.
 
 For the Makah, the only way to meet the compelling need of survival is
 to re-establish their relationship with the whale, with their  Grandfather.   They begin a long journey of preparation in order to  begin the process.  The hunt was not the culmination of anything, it was  simply one vital step along the way.  It is was beginning not an  ending.  They have called the Grandfather back to them...the test for  them will be..where do they go from now.  We all watch closely not  because of treaty rights or laws or politics, but to see if it can be  done.  Can they make that reconnection?  Our very survival as a people,  individual nations, depends on it.  I believe this with all my being.

 But you see, I am the one who makes the prayers and buries those that
 don't make it.
 
 This is a very simple begining point for this discussion.  By  your
 questions, you will lead us.  What I have shared only scratches the
 surface of the problem and the solution...if it is one.
 
 Hoi, Storm