A history of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation
Dr Mary du Puis graduated with her Doctor of Indigenous Development and Advancement, and received the Emeritus Professor Roger Green, ONZM Award for Top Thesis in 2019.
Her thesis is entitled "A Long Time Ago, When the Earth Was Young A History of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation".
Thesis abstract
This research examines the history of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation from pre-contact (with non-Indian people) to the present day, recounted through an Indigenous perspective. In drawing from discussions about colonial views of Indigenous history, this thesis examines the histories about the Chehalis Tribe that are told by non-Indigenous historians and compares them with accounts from a Chehalis perspective. Previous accounts of our tribal history, have been told by outside researchers and these accounts have distorted our history. This thesis notes the known historical accounts and in recognizing the politics of history (Smith, 2012) revisits those accounts with a Chehalis voice that values ourselves as the guardians of our tribal history and language, including our ways of knowing. In following traditional ‘ways of knowing and doing’, this research draws on the oral traditions and knowledge of our Ancestors to reposition ourselves within our own history, taking us from the margins to the centers.
Dr Du Puis' thesis is available from Te Kōputu Kōrero a Tā Hirini Moko Mead