Washoe should be welcomed back home

Tahoe Daily Tribune

Aug. 1, 1997

Our View (Editorial)

Since the days when Europeans colonized America and displaced Native Americans from their land, this nation's first residents have had little recourse claiming the land of their ancestors.

But when Vice President Al Gore met in closed session with elders of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California last week, he disclosed that Tahoe's first inhabitants would finally regain access to the lake through a land-use agreement. In doing so the federal government took an important step in righting the wrongs of our predecessors who booted the Washoe from their homeland many moons ago.

You see, Lake Tahoe is where the Washoe came to hunt and live during warm, summer months. They brought with them an unbridled and solemn respect for this lake - their spiritual epicenter. The Washoe never clear-cut the forests, polluted the basin with automobile exhaust or tossed cigarette butts on Tahoe's sandy beaches.

And now, after more than 120 years of being exiled year-round to the Carson Valley, the Washoe can come home. Plans are in the works for a 30-year special-use permit of 350 acres in the Meeks Bay meadows - a place where some 1,600 remaining members of the tribe can now grow and gather native plants, fostering their heritage.

They also will oversee 45 acres near Taylor Creek and plan to build a cultural center to share Washoe traditions and artwork.

The Clinton administration and tribe chairman Brian Wallace should be given a tremendous amount of credit for working together to address a historic injustice. Few thought it would happen.

And now word comes that there may be a movement to give the Washoe a voting seat on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's governing board. This change of policy drives along the road of prudent thought.

It's about time.

"The tribe definitely needs representation," said Peter Chase Neumann, a Reno attorney who is Clinton's appointee to the board. "Historically, they've had a role as stewards of the basin for a long time. They have a historic birthright and I feel they should have representation based on that reason."

We welcome the return of the Washoe to their spiritual home.