News release Coquille Tribe. An eroding riverbank was the beginning of a beautiful friendship for Roberta Hall and the Coquille Indian Tribe. It was 1976, and Hall, an anthropology professor at Oregon State University, received a distress call. Artifacts and bones had begun emerging from the ground near Bandon. Could she help preserve the site? Hall’s hastily assembled team joined tribal members beside the river, and a long weekend of work secured the site. Afterward, Hall would make many return visits, with students in tow, researching the tribe’s history and recording stories from tribal elders. “We became good friends with the tribal members,” she said. Hall, who retired in 2003, will recall her memories of those years in a Sept. 5 lecture at the Coos History Museum. Now 78, Hall was deeply involved with the tribe during the years preceding its 1989 restoration to federal recognition. Having been “terminated” by Congress in 1954, the Coquille people were struggling to retain their cultural heritage and tribal unity when Hall met them. Hall’s research produced an extended family tree, which tribal Chief Don Ivy credits as a crucial step in documenting the tribe’s history. Her influential book, “The Coquille Indians: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” was published in 1984. “That became the foundational piece of literature that explains and also validates this question of Indian ancestry,” Ivy said. The book acquired unexpected political value when tribal members lobbied Congress for restoration. They distributed copies to help lawmakers understand the tribe’s history and culture. Ivy calls the book “instrumental” in passing the 1989 Coquille Restoration Act. Nearly three decades later, Hall marvels at the tribe’s progress. Fueled primarily by The Mill Casino-Hotel & RV Park, the tribe is the Coos Bay area’s second-largest employer and a leading supporter of charitable organizations. It provides extensive health, education and elder services to its members. “We didn’t know how successful this could be,” she said. “To go from a group that used to have potlucks at the community center to having the clinic and everything on the reservation, that’s pretty impressive.” Hall’s Sept. 5 talk, “Portraits of the Coquille People,” will feature decades-old recordings of her conversations with tribal elders. She hopes it also includes conversations with the audience. “Bring your recollections and your comments,” she said.
