on the cover / By Tessa Jeffers

Mission to Omaha

Tribes take Klamath dams woes to Buffett HQ

(May 10, 2007)  Dressed in traditional regalia, with woven baskets on their heads and earthy symbols of renewal in hand, about 20 Native Americans chanted, danced and prayed in a circle. They surrounded Karuk tribe member Kathy McCovey, a medicine woman, sitting next to a fire burning angelica root, her eyes closed, meditating. Their shell-encased skirts made the sound of water.

The Klamath River Basin coalition - a group of Native Americans, commercial fisherman and conservationists - had arrived in Omaha Thursday, May 3, for a salmon cookoff at Heartland of America Park. The next day at the same spot under the Interstate 480 bridge, the natives demonstrated the aforementioned “brush ceremony,” an ancient, healing ritual.

Ron Reed, Cultural Biologist for the Karuk Tribe. See end of story for details.

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Omaha tribe elder Richard Barea, 59, attended the ceremony after hearing about it through word of mouth, or “the moccasin telegraph.” A Karuk Tribe member approached him with an offering, a dried salmon stick, similar to jerky. “This is what we’re trying to save,” he told Barea.

The coalition joined the nearly 30,000 in town for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting on May 5. Representatives of the three largest Klamath Indian tribes from the northern California/southern Oregon border - Karuk, Hoopa and Yurok - aimed to educate Berkshire Hathaway shareholders about the destructive impact that the Berkshire/MidAmerican Energy-owned utility PacifiCorp’s hydro-powered dams have had on the ecosystem of the Klamath River Basin. The dams have slowed salmon migration to an alarming rate; commercial salmon fishing was banned along 700 miles of California-Oregon coast last year.

Salmon is the lifeline for these people. Two handmade redwood canoes symbolically followed the tribe on the journey from Klamath; in the past nine days they had traveled and demonstrated in San Francisco, Sacramento and Salt Lake City (PacifiCorp’s headquarters). Bob McConnell, a Yurok tribal member, fisherman and boat builder explained to a small group the history of the boat’s significance. “A boat is considered a person,” he said, pointing to its “body parts” - nose, heart, lungs, kidneys.

“The real thing we’re here for is to educate the powers that be in Berkshire Hathaway about PacifiCorp,” he said. “They are strangling our cultures.” The 57-year-old was 13 in 1962 when the last dam was built. Back then, 10,000 salmon might have swam by in a single day, he said. His people used to be able to catch enough fish in one day to feed their families for a year; now they’re lucky if they catch three.

As the “brush” ceremony concluded, shareholder passes to the convention were being accounted for in preparation for the big day ahead (some were acquired through shareholder friends, some for $15 on eBay) - asking Warren Buffett, in front of thousands of people, if he’s going to do anything about his company that’s ruining their culture. After all, his sons, Howard and Peter, are known as Native American advocates. Peter composed music for Dances With Wolves and 500 Nations, an eight-hour CBS documentary about Indian heritage. In fact, Karuk member Leaf Hillman was a finalist two years ago for an American Indian leadership award from the Buffett brothers for his role in this very campaign. Hillman was in Omaha leading the Klamath allies as part of the dam-removal campaign, and is a plaintiff in a pending lawsuit against PacifiCorp. So where were the Buffett brothers this week? Repeated attempts to contact them failed, and a Berkshire spokeswoman said no one was available for interviews. “Personally, I find that [lack of response] offensive,” said Karuk coordinator Craig Tucker. “They should be here.”

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