| In Memory of Janet McCloud - Treeza Black, 11/28/2003 |
I write to tell you of the news of Janet McCloud. She has moved on to be with the Creator. Services will be held 10:00 A.M. Saturday, November 29, 2003 Perhaps you may offer a prayer. For those of you who walked through Washington State, you may remember our time with Janet. She was ill, yet came special to greet us at Leschi School. She honored the Earth, Traditions and Life. Thank you Janet. She welcomed Kyoto-ku shonin when he came here twenty years past to begin the Bainbridge Island Dojo and embark on the building of the Peace Pagoda. She was dear friend to Jun-san and also traveled to Japan for Fuji-Guruji's 100th Birthday celebration. They were two traits that would push McCloud, a member of the Tulalip Tribes who lived in Yelm for 40 years, to the forefront of the American Indian movement in the United States, they said. "She really believed in her people," said Ramona Bennett, former chairwoman of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and a longtime friend. "Everything was for her native people and family." McCloud died Tuesday from complications brought on by diabetes. She was 69. McCloud was born on the Tulalip reservation north of Everett in 1934, but it was on the banks of the Nisqually River in the South Sound that she helped to launch the American Indian movement of the 1960s and 1970s, according to the Encyclopedia of North American Indians. It was there that members of the Quillayute, Nisqually and Muckleshoot tribes, among others, defied state laws by dipping their nets into the river to harvest salmon. When McCloud's husband, Don, was hauled off to jail, Janet picked up his net and continued fishing, only to be arrested herself, according to media accounts. McCloud went on to agitate for Indian treaty rights, asserting their right to hunt and fish as guaranteed by the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek, said her daughter, Nancy Shippentower-Games. As part of that treaty, native tribes gave up much of their land to the U.S. government but were guaranteed hunting and fishing rights. "She was instrumental in opening doors for Native Americans in this country," Shippentower-Games said. "She told people, 'Hey, Indians do exist.'" It was a message she carried across the globe, friends and relatives said. McCloud traveled to Europe several times to speak about American Indian culture and treaty rights and was receiving invitations to speak right up until her death, her daughter said. According to the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, "An extended series of physical confrontations with state and federal authorities - dubbed 'fish-ins' - and attendant courtroom actions resulted not only in the eventual reaffirmation of Indian treaty rights in the region, but also national attention for several key local activists, among them Janet McCloud." Bennett, who is also mentioned in the encyclopedia, agreed. "Janet is the most famous Tulalip Indian," she recalled. "If you went to Europe and said, 'Name me a Tulalip Indian,' a lot of people there would know Janet." McCloud also was a respected leader among the Tulalip Tribes, said state Rep. John McCoy (D-Tulalip), himself a member. "She laid the groundwork for some of the things the Tulalip have been able to accomplish, especially in the exercising of our sovereignty." McCloud used her influence to found several organizations designed to promote the rights of American Indians, Shippentower-Games said. Among them: the Indigenous Women's Network, the Survival of American Indians Association and the Northwest Indian Women's Circle. She also was a leader in the American Indian Movement, her daughter said. In 1993, she received the human rights award at the Tacoma-Pierce County YWCA's Women of the Year luncheon. But one of her proudest accomplishments was the opening of the Sapa Dawn Center near Yelm, where she taught American Indian youths about their culture and history, Shippentower-Games said. "She didn't want to be called a spiritual leader, but she was," her daughter said. Blessed Be Treeza |
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