Post by blackcrowheart on Mar 11, 2007 19:32:07 GMT -5
Advocate of traditional whaling dies
George Cecil Bowerchop, a former Makah Indian Chairman who helped guide the
tribe during it's controversial move to revive traditional whaling in the late
1990's, has died at age 85.
Bowerchop died last Sunday - Christmas Eve - of heart failure at the Olympic
Medical Center in Port Angeles.
The Makah are the only U.S. Tribe whose treaty guarantees the right to
whale.
Bowerchop was Director of the Makah Whaling Commission when the Tribe got
clearance form the National Marine Fisheries Service & killed it's first Gray
whale in decades on May 17, 1999. Challenges from animal rights groups have
since kept whaling on hold.
The whaling panel met pretty regularly over the past month, & Bowerchop
expressed frustration with the lack of progress, Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson
said.
"It's a treaty right we have; he wondered why we didn't just go whaling. I
support that. I felt the same way," Johnson said.
A lifelong Neah Bay resident, Bowerchop was born April 26, 1921, to Augustus
& Annabelle (Butler) Bowerchop.
He worked as a log-truck driver for Crown Zellerbach & as a certified public
accountant. He was founding member & executive director of the Inter-Tribal
Timber Commission, & an Elder & ordained pastor of Neah Bay Assembly of God
Church.
George Cecil Bowerchop, a former Makah Indian Chairman who helped guide the
tribe during it's controversial move to revive traditional whaling in the late
1990's, has died at age 85.
Bowerchop died last Sunday - Christmas Eve - of heart failure at the Olympic
Medical Center in Port Angeles.
The Makah are the only U.S. Tribe whose treaty guarantees the right to
whale.
Bowerchop was Director of the Makah Whaling Commission when the Tribe got
clearance form the National Marine Fisheries Service & killed it's first Gray
whale in decades on May 17, 1999. Challenges from animal rights groups have
since kept whaling on hold.
The whaling panel met pretty regularly over the past month, & Bowerchop
expressed frustration with the lack of progress, Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson
said.
"It's a treaty right we have; he wondered why we didn't just go whaling. I
support that. I felt the same way," Johnson said.
A lifelong Neah Bay resident, Bowerchop was born April 26, 1921, to Augustus
& Annabelle (Butler) Bowerchop.
He worked as a log-truck driver for Crown Zellerbach & as a certified public
accountant. He was founding member & executive director of the Inter-Tribal
Timber Commission, & an Elder & ordained pastor of Neah Bay Assembly of God
Church.