Klallam
The Klallam (also Clallam or S'Klallam ) are four tribes, three of which live in the USA , in Washington State (more precisely in the north of the Olympic Peninsula ), one in the south of the Canadian Vancouver Island . The Canadian tribe lives on Beecher Bay .
The Klallam call themselves nəxʷsƛ̕ay̕əmúcən, which means something like “strong people” or “mighty tribe”. In the USA, the sub-tribes live around Lower Elwha, Jamestown (now part of Dungeness ), Port Gamble , in Canada the Beecher Bay First Nation lives in the bay of the same name. The four tribes are culturally part of the coastal Salish .
The variant "Clallam" was named after Clallam County in Washington State in 1854 . But in 1855 the tribe was called "S'klallam" in the point-no-point treaty . The S'Klallam tribe adopted "S'Klallam" as their official name.
history
Early history
There have been humans in northern Washington for around 12,000 years, because a mastodon that was found here near Sequim in 1977 was killed by a spear whose tip was still there.
The settlement area of the Klallam was on the coast, only a few villages were inland, but then on lakes and rivers. The ten to thirty villages, some of which were only seasonally inhabited, operated an intensive trade and shared some places with the Makah (up to the Hoh River ) and the Twana (up to the Hamma Hamma River on the Hood Canal ). The Quimper Peninsula was shared with the Chimakum . As everywhere on the west coast, trade was mainly carried out on canoes, and the canoes themselves were also commercial objects. The Klellam mastered both the coastal Salish- type canoes , which were more suitable for calmer waters, and those of the chinook-type, which were seaworthy. But one also traded with the Yakima , who could only be reached via the coastal mountains. They exchanged shell necklaces to decorate their horses. The trade in furs and fat flourished with the coastal Salish.
But the Klallam not only traded, but also led to protracted arguments. Therefore they built villages with double palisades from split tree trunks.
Close ties existed with tribes across the Juan de Fuca Strait , in what is now Canada. Therefore, their dialect was closely related to that of the Songhees on Vancouver Island. This is probably due to a south migration of the Klallam from these areas, whereby a group continued this in the 19th century and lived in the area of the Lummi , near Marietta. They also argued with the Skagit over areas on Whidbey Island .
Contact with Europeans
The first European women in the Klallam area were stranded on the coast in 1775 after a shipwreck. One of them, later named Sally the First , married a Klallam. Their female descendants were given the same name, only with the addition, the second, the third. From this line came Annie Jacobs, who married the 55-year-old Sweden Charlie Lambert († 1887) when she was 15. One of her four daughters was Mary Ann Lambert Vincent (1878-27 October 1966), who was an eighth Klallam, and who could report on it.
Robert Duffin was probably the first European man in the Klallam area on Vancouver Island in July 1788. Manuel Quimper anchored his ship, the Princesa Real , on July 21, 1790 in Freshwater Bay near the Elwha River. Quimper was greeted by two canoes and offered berries and other goods in exchange for pieces of iron that were of great value and rare in the region. On August 2, 1791, the bay was named Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles .
The number of Klallam is estimated at around 2,400 to 3,200 at this time, but their number must have plummeted at the first contact with the Spaniards. In 2005, at Tse-whit-zen in the Lower Elwha Klallam area, at least 335 skeletons were found, apparently due to the severe smallpox epidemic brought in by the Spaniards. Among the skeletons were also found that of a dog and that of a woman who was probably of European descent. Apparently the catastrophe was so devastating that the dead were subjected to special rituals. B. the head was separated. It is unclear whether it was a kind of “punishment” for failure before or even for the introduction of the epidemic. Usually the dead lie with their knees up to their chins. They are in cedar mats or boxes, equipped with medicine, tools and things important to them during their lifetime. Apparently there was no preparation for the smallpox deaths. They were placed on top of each other, sometimes as if hugging, and a pregnant woman was also there.
In many places along the Pacific coast, George Vancouver's expedition members noticed in 1792 that smallpox was rampant. They exchanged game and fish for copper and jewelry with the Klallam.
The first contacts with Europeans brought further epidemics such as measles , flu , and later tuberculosis . The Hudson's Bay Company estimated the number of Klallam in 1845 at 1,760, ten years later at 926. In 1828 there was a violent conflict in which Klallam killed five company trappers , whereupon the British on July 1 led by Alexander Roderick McLeod killed two Klallam families.
United States
Furthermore, the Klallam suffered from the raids of the Tsimshian , who did not respect the border with the USA. The US paid the Tsimshian a gold price to deter further raids. As recently as 1868, 26 Klallam warriors were sentenced to forced labor for attacking Tsimshians. However, relations with the United States were peaceful, as Chief Chitsamakkan (Chetzmokha) was well disposed towards them. He was known as the Duke of York and was married to two women, one known as Queen Victoria and the other as Jenny Lind .
Already in 1853 there were probably only 800 people in the Klallam - the ethnologist George Gibbs , who listed eight villages, estimated them to be 400. In 1881 there were only 485 people in total, in Beecher Bay in Canada only 75 people . One of the chiefs had told Gibbs that they used to own 140 canoes that could carry 2,240 men. Their chief was Lach-ka-nam, also called Lord Nelson. At that time, however, he had already resigned in favor of his son sS'Hai-ak or King George. There was apparently a great preference for British names, but American names also appeared. One of them was named James K. Polk after the American president.
The Port Gamble clash was pushed out of their village as early as 1853 when Captain Josiah P. Keller arrived in Port Gamble to set up his Puget Sound Mill Company . The company wanted to make a profit from the Douglas fir stocks. After negotiations, the tribe moved to Point Julia, a village that soon received sidewalks, a school, and a church while the men worked in the sawmill. The place was soon called "Little Boston". Their dialect is still called Little Boston Klallam today .
With the Treaty of Point no Point of January 26, 1855, the Klallam were supposed to move to the Skokomish reservation against payment of 60,000 dollars , but they resisted ceding exactly 438,430 acres of land. In addition, the land was worse than theirs and belonged to their enemies. The co-signers, the Chimakum and Kokomis, had a similar experience, the former now representing such a small tribe that they were considered the sub-tribe of the Klallam. But as recently as 1856 the Lower Elwha Klallam fought against the capture of a 320-acre property by Captain Alesander Sampson because his property was on a burial ground. Apparently they were successful, because in 1865 the cemetery still existed. They also took the area of the almost extinct Chimakum between 1855 and 1857 in possession.
The Indian agent Michael Simmons recommended in 1859 that the "Clallams, living on the straits of Fuca be allowed a reserve at Clallam Bay". But Clallam Bay, like the entire coast, was hit again by a severe smallpox epidemic in 1862 , which killed hundreds here alone.
Meanwhile, the pressure from the white settlers increased, especially from 1870 onwards. This was especially true after the massacre at Dungeness Spit on the Tsimshian . The trigger was the kidnapping of a wife and a son of Lame Jack. The vengeance cost 17 Tsimshians the lives and resulted in numerous klallam imprisonment and forced labor. In addition, a public debate began on the question of the lack of proselytizing among the Klallam.
The Jamestown Klallam split off from the rest of the Klallam in 1874 when they bought 210 acres of land to avoid being ousted by the white settlers. The place was named after Lord James Balch, who took over the otherwise Indians forbidden land purchase. His father had signed the contract from 1855. They collected 500 gold dollars for the purchase. In 1914 about 240 Klallam lived here and another 90 in Port Gamble.
One of the rivers with the most and the largest salmon was the Elwha River . But in 1910–13 a dam was built, which was supplemented by a second in the 1920s. They were used to store water and generate electricity for the wood industry. The city of Port Angeles and the logging companies have recently agreed to use other water and energy reservoirs, so there is a prospect that the two dams will disappear and the salmon return. But in 1910 the Klallam still had to acquire a fishing permit. However, since they lacked US citizenship, they could not get a license. Although they received citizenship in 1924, like all American Indians, Washington State continued to refuse to sell them their fishing rights.
When the Washington Pulp and Paper Corporation set out to establish its factory in 1920 , hundreds of bones were safely removed.
1935–1939, during the time of the Indian Reorganization Act , the Klallam of Jamestown faced the choice of moving to a reservation with the rest of the Klallam and being recognized as a tribe, or to stay. They decided to stay. They had to accept that due to a lack of recognition as a tribe, their hunting and fishing areas could also be used by others. Therefore, from 1974 they tried again for recognition. However, they were not recognized as a tribe until 1981. Their reserve covers only 14.5 hectares around Sequim Bay (pron. Skwim) on the eastern edge of Clallam County. In 2007 the tribe comprised 574 members. He runs the Seven Cedars Casino .
The US government bought their land from the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in 1936. The present reservation was not established until 1968. The Port Angeles High School has existed since 1999 , where the language (now also the newly developed script) of the Klallam is taught again. With the help of the linguist Timothy Montler and meanwhile also state funds, the tribe has been trying to save its language for ten years. This support is based on the Native American Languages Act of 1990, which encourages the use and development of "native languages". Still, there are maybe four people who speak Klallam fluently.
Another important law was passed in 1974. It stipulated that half of all fish had to go to the tribes of the northwest coast (Boldt decision). In 1970 the Klallam had received compensation of $ 385,820 for their land.
In addition to the three Klallam tribes recognized in the USA, the Jamestown, Lower Elwah and Port Gamble, there is a fourth group that is organized in the Clallam General Council, but this group is not recognized as a tribe.
W. Ron Allen Chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe sits on the board of the National Congress of American Indians and opened the Indian Embassy in the capital Washington. Representatives from more than 70 tribal groups attended the inauguration.
Canada
The 1881 census of the Canadian group, the Beecher Bay First Nation, gave the following picture: Their chief was Kla-a-hum, who was 50 years old at the time. Quit-ka mum was her medicine man. 12 men reported to be fishermen, 7 farm workers. The 23 families were rather small for the conditions of the time and had a maximum of six members. In 1877 the reservation was assigned to them.
The McKenna-McBride Commission decided that one of the three reservations should be closed. Reservation # 1 , 502 acres , and # 2 , 235 acres, were to remain, and # 3 , located at Creyke Point, was to be withdrawn. Specifically, these were Lamb Island (0.50 acre ), Fraser Island (14), Village Island (3) and other, unspecified islands of 2, 4 and 1 acre area. These proposals became legally binding in 1923.
Their fishing rights are still unresolved. In 2000 they supported the Mi'kmaq on the east coast in their struggle for equal contractual rights through ostentatious fishing and sales .
Water protection project
The Port-Gamble-S'Kallam island reserve is increasingly threatened by pollution. David R. Fuller, a geologist to whom the tribe turned for help, presented the approaches and projects at two congresses in London and Edinburgh in 2001 , in which geological knowledge and Indian closeness to nature were to be combined. Fuller was appointed water resource manager for the Klallam and Suquamish . A large landfill near the reserve should be investigated by Port-Gamble-S'Kallam and Washington State, which owns the land. The same was true of the wetlands and the salmon migrations. Suquamish and Port-Gamble-S'Klallam have taken leadership roles in water resource studies, planning and technical advice.
See also
- History of the Coastal Salish
- History of Washington
- History of British Columbia
- United States Indian Policy
literature
- Robert H. Ruby, John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest. University of Oklahoma Press 1992, pp. 26-29 (Clallam), 84 f. (Jamestown Clallam Indian Tribe), 106 f. (Lower Elwah Tribal Community and Lower Elwha Reservation), 164 f. (Port Gamble Indian Community and Port Gamble Reservation, Washington).
- Wayne Suttles: Affinal Ties, Subsistence, and Prestige among the Coast Salish, in: American Anthropologist, New Series (62/2) 1960) 296-305
- Joseph H. Stauss: The Jamestown S'Klallam Story: Rebuilding a Northwest Coast Indian Tribe, Jamestown S'Klallam 2002, ISBN 0-9723753-0-9 .
- Brian Thom: Coast Salish Transformation Stories: Kinship, Place and Aboriginal Rights and Title in Canada, Department of Anthropology, McGill University 1998
Web links
- Site of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe
- The villages of the Northwest Klallam
- Site of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
- Site of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe
- Olympic Peninsula Community Museum
- Washington Post: "Northwest Tribe Struggles to Revive Its Language"
- Klallam language page
Remarks
- ↑ "Ns'Klallam" also appears occasionally.
- ^ Thomas W. Camfield: Port Townsend, the City that Whiskey Built. 2002.
- ↑ Donna Sand: The 7 Brothers of the House of Ste-tee-thlum. 1960, after: Skagit River Journal
- ↑ S'Klallam Indian Tribe
- ^ After Ruby / Brown p. 27 on July 4, 1790.
- ↑ Unearthing Tse-whit-zen, Seattle Times 22-25. May 2005: "How could so many die?" Graves may tell story of terrible epidemic .
- ↑ Alexander Roderick McLeod . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
- ↑ The 1881 census can be found here .
- ↑ The sawmill operated from 1853 to 1995. See David Wilma: Captain William Talbot establishes a steam sawmill at Port Gamble in July 1853 , HistoryLink.org July 21, 2003 .
- ^ Tribal embassy opens to great fanfare. In: Indian Country Today, Nov. 17, 2009
- ^ BC Archives, Joint Reserve Commission records, Box 1, Number 2, 1352/77, Minutes of decision, June 11, 1877.
- ↑ See US Indians want to protect their water sources for at least seven generations . In: Image of Science. June 28, 2001, Retrieved September 8, 2019 . .