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Willamette is the name, not of a river, but of the Indigenous village in contemporary southeast, on which Portland was built. Multnomah was the name of the river.
According to the Portland Parks Foundation - Land Acknowledgement: The Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. Indigenous people have created communities and summer encampments to harvest and enjoy the plentiful natural resources of the area for the last 11,000 years. We want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.“
“We also acknowledge admit and regret the systemic policies of genocide, relocation, and assimilation that still impact many Indigenous/Native American families today. As settlers and guests on these lands, we respect the work of Indigenous leaders and families, and pledge to make ongoing efforts recognize their knowledge, creativity, and resilience”
The RCIF asks the City of Portland and Multnomah county to make the following admission: We admit that neither Massachusetts Bay nor Oregon country is the “Promised land”, that neither State's capitol city Salem is the “City on a Hill” of which Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount, and that neither WASPs nor Roman catholics are the “Light of the world” or the “Chosen people” or the “Spiritual Israel” that they claim to be. We admit that our white ancestors and current political leaders have used and are still using these cultural and textual misappropriations from the Jews in support of Christian dominionism, western expansionism, manifest destiny, and now progressive liberalism. and to dismantle the ideological superstructure of Roman imperial christianity - the great apostasy, the teaching of lawlessness - even in its English protestant varieties.
The RCIF calls on christian churches, faith leaders, and para-church institutions to make these preliminary good-faith efforts and repentance and restitution.
- translate the bible into the indigenous languages
- repent of and renounce missionary efforts aimed at eradicating indigenous languages and standardizing the English bible and language (much as Rome had earlier done with its Latin vulgate, both with their anti-Jewish mistranslations and suppression of the original texts in Hebrew and Greek.
- undertake Calendar reform and return to the natural lunisolar timekeeping, as practiced by indigenous persons around the world and as described in the “original testament” and now practiced by Jews through the Hebrew calendar.
- De-standardization of Roman imperial and now ISO Egyptian solar calendar.
We respect
The State of Oregon’s Overview of the 9 tribes
- Provided by Portland’s Native American Community Advisory Council
- Other resources from the Oregon Historical Society