Chimakum
The Chimakum or Chemakum are a non-existent Indian tribe who lived in what is now Washington State until the 1860s , and whose members referred to themselves as Aqokulo . According to the lore of their neighbors, they fled a flood and therefore separated from the rest of the Quileutes . They lived on Puget Sound , near the present-day city of Port Townsend , on Discovery Bay, near Port Ludlow, Port Hadlock - there was the locally important meeting place near the village of Tesetsibus - and Chimacum.
The small language family to which this tribe belonged are the Chimakum languages . Today only the Hoh and the Quileute belong to her .
Around 1790 the tribe, considered to be warlike, fought against Snohomish , Snoqualmie , Klallam , Makah and Ditidaht . Their village was accordingly fortified with palisades. In 1842 or 1843 they were defeated by Skagit and Snohomish, only 200 of them (probably warriors) survived. The leader of the Snohomish, Patkanim , was able to hold a pow wow with 8,000 warriors on Whidbey Island in 1848 .
By 1850 the Chemakum were enemies with the Suquamish , against whom they were defeated in 1857. Although they brought together 40 canoes, the men succumbed and were either killed or enslaved. They were buried at the mouth of the Chimacum. The victors celebrated for three days and nights, the dead were beheaded and their heads impaled.
The number of Chemakum had slumped from around 400 to 100, which, according to legend, was mainly due to an attack by northern tribes in 1823, probably on Haida . In 1855 George Gibbs estimated their number at 90, a diary entry from 1860 speaks of 73 relatives, an indication that, if you trust this entry, the chief “Gen. Gaines ”goes down. The contradictions in this information have not yet been cleared up.
Their chief was Kulkakhan or General Pierce, who used to be known as Klallam in technical literature. He was a signatory to the Point-no-Point Treaty of 1855, which forced them to move to the Skokomish Reserve at the southern end of the Hood Canal . But they refused and were probably mostly absorbed by the Klallam. In 1890, Franz Boas found three Chimakum in Port Gamble and Port Townsend who had some command of their language. He collected 1,250 words and notes on grammar. In Port Gamble he met Louise , a laundress. She did not speak her mother tongue to anyone except her brother. With other Indians she spoke Klallam, with White Chinooks.
literature
- Edward S. Curtis : The North American Indian , Volume 9: "The Chimakum and the Quiliute"
- S'Klallam and Chemakum Indian tribes on Olympic Peninsula when Jarman settled there in 1848–52 , in: Skagit River Journal, August 30, 2007
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ This and the following from: S. Robert H. Ruby / John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest , University of Oklahoma Press 1986, p. 32f.
- ^ Franz Boas : Notes on the Chemakum Language , in: American Anthropologist 5 (1892), pp. 37-44 .