Welcome to Girl Scouts of Santiam Council!  

Indians of Western Oregon

Suggested level: All

Activities:

All levels

1. Take a field trip to a museum for a program on local Native Americans.

2. Attend a Pow Wow or other Native American celebration.

Brownie Girl Scouts

1. Complete all four activities listed below.

2. List Indian tribes that lived in your area.  What places have Indian names? Can you find out their meaning?

3. Prepare a Native American food (fry bread, baked salmon, pemmican).  Talk about how the Indians prepared and preserved their food.

4. Take an imaginary journey into the life of a Native American girl in the Willamette Valley or on the coast 150 years ago.  Use skits, posters, or other media to portray a day in her life.

5. Make a Native American craft made by the tribe in Western Oregon.  Your leader may have some suggestions and instructions or decide on one of your own.

Junior Girl Scouts

Complete all Brownie Girl Scout activities above plus one from those listed below.

1. Take a nature hike.  Identify plants and animals that were used by local Indians. How were they used?

2. Discuss what life is like for Native Americans today.  How is it different from your own? How is it similar?

3. Legends and storytelling were important part of Native American life. The stories taught a way of life through oral tradition.  Read some Native American legends from Western Oregon. Portray one in skits, pictures, or other media.

4.  Choose one activity from the Cadette and Senior Girl Scout section below.

Cadette and Senior Girl Scouts

Complete all listed activities below.

1. Find out what events would have been taking place in a teenage Native American girl's life 150 years ago in Western Oregon.  How does that differ from yours? What would you like or dislike?

2. Research Tribal restoration.  What is it? Why do tribes have to be restored? What tribes have been restored in Oregon?  Discuss what this can do for communities.

3. Learn about the economic system of the tribes in Western Oregon 150 years ago.  What did they trade?  What currency and language did they use.

4. Make a piece of Native American clothing or regalia for yourself.  This could be shawl, wing dress, mask or other item.  How has the regalia evolved over the year's?

5. Find out about the three periods of Native American history in Oregon.  What happened to Native American communities after contact with other cultures?  How did other cultures’ diseases and a forced move to reservations affect Native American culture?

(c) 2003
Girl Scouts of Santiam Council a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization