Tillamook (people)
The Tillamook are Indians of the Salish language family and they live in Oregon . Culturally they belong to the coastal Salish . Tillamook is a Chinook word that stands for land of many waters . Franz Boas translated, however, with people from Nehalem or Nekelim . They were formerly also called calamoxes . Recent research reveals four groups, the actual Tillamook, then the Nehalem, the Nestuccas and the Nechesnes.
None of the four groups is officially recognized as a tribe, as the treaties concluded with them in 1851 and 1855 have never been ratified. Its members are dispersed in Oregon and beyond. In 1805 the population of the Tillamook was estimated at 2,200. In 1950 there were fewer than 250 people, and in 1990 it was estimated that there were 50 descendants living in Oregon .
Settlement area
When the Europeans arrived in North America, the Tillamook lived along a coastal strip in what is now northern Oregon. The area extended from the Siletz River to the Nehalem River .
language
Tillamook is a Salish language whose dialect includes Nehalem, Nestucca, Salmon River (Nechesnan) and Siletz, (the actual Tillamook).
history
The Tillamook lived between Nehalem and the Salmon River. They were markedly different from other Salish tribes, possibly due to the fact that they were separated from their northern Salish neighbors by the Chinook. The four groups of Tillamook were often hardly differentiated. Government sources spoke in the middle of the 19th century of the "Northern Tillamook", by which they meant Nehalem and Tillamook, and of "Southern Tillamook", under which they subsumed Nechesnes, but also Alesea, Yaquimas and other tribes.
They lived in plank and mat houses, and lived from hunting and fishing.
The Tillamook canoeed down the Columbia and reached the Willamette Valley to trade. Dentalia mussels from Vancouver Island reached it the other way around. They were part of a flourishing regional trade. They generally traded in tanned beaver hides, canoes, and baskets in exchange for abalone clams, buffalo hides, and buffalo horn harness. They bought wapato roots and other groceries from the tribes east of the coastal mountains. They were also involved through family relationships, such as marriages with the Kalapuya .
First contacts with Europeans, epidemics
The first contact between the Tillamook and non-locals occurred perhaps in 1788, although iron knives and pockmarks indicated an even earlier encounter, perhaps in 1775, when a severe pox epidemic broke out on the Pacific coast . Some Nestucca traded with the American explorer Robert Gray in 1792 . On August 15, they offered him otter pelts and clams in exchange for axes, hatchets and knives. But there were disputes in which three of the Nestucca and a crew member of the ship were killed. Gray, whose ship the Indians then attacked, left the bay he called Murderers Harbor .
When William Clard visited the tribe in January 1806, they were cutting up a thirty-meter-long whale that had been washed ashore. They also traded with Fort Astoria - first the Americans, then the British - with Duncan McDougall of the North West Company describing them as "the most mischievous" of the tribes of the Northwest.
Regular contact with traders began after 1811. Epidemics such as malaria , syphilis , smallpox and other diseases, but also weapons and alcohol, reduced the Tillamook population by about 90 percent in the 1830s and thus also reduced the number of their villages, of which finally only one was left. In 1806 Lewis and Clark had estimated their number at 2,200, in 1841 there were around 400 of them.
Treaties not ratified, diversion
In 1850 the Donation Land Act provided free land to the white settlers in Oregon , including that of the Tillamook. Chief Kilchis , the leader of the actual Tillamook, was able to prevent major conflicts. But he was a bitter enemy of the neighboring Clatsop under Chief Kotata.
The Indians ceded land in a treaty signed August 7, 1851, but never ratified, with the Superintendent of Indian Affairs Anson Dart, and the few Tillamooks were left without land as a result. They had to relocate to the Siletz or Grande Ronde reservation . The same thing happened to the Nehalem, who just one day earlier had concluded a contract that was ultimately invalid because it was also never ratified. Under the leadership of the peaceful Tillamook chief Kilchis, the Tillamook refused to take part in the wars of the 1850s despite urging the Klickitat to do so.
The groups wrongly referred to as "Southern Tillamook" signed a contract on August 11, 1855 with the Superintendent Joel Palmer.
Low population, severance payments
In 1870 there were still 28 Nehalem, 55 Nestucca and 83 Tillamook. In 1897 the Nehalem received a severance payment of 10,500 dollars , the same amount the actual Tillamook received on August 24, 1912.
In 1950, 200 to 300 people could prove their descent from the Tillamook (in the broader sense). Congress officially ended its relationship with the Tillamook in 1956. The Indian Land Claims Commission made little effort in 1958 and 1962 to bring together a dispersed and disorganized tribe. The two tribes that received compensation for their never ratified treaties received exactly $ 169,178.50 in 1962 to waive their claims. The Nechesnes also received a severance payment, but they were no longer counted among the Tillamooks.
religion
The Tillamook tried to gain strength from ghosts in winter because they believed that during this time of year they would be more active and closer to humans. The shamans renewed their strength in January or February by sponsoring a ceremony that included singing a song and distributing food and gifts to guests. During the course of this 5 to 15 day ceremony, all of the other "knowers" (those with spiritual powers) sang their songs as well. Winter was also the time of storytelling. The mythological characters were particularly important to the shamans. They underpinned his status and testified to his ability to relate to a mythological personality, an object of the environment or a guardian spirit. Rituals also accompanied the first seasonal consumption of various foods.
Traditional culture
The Tillamook lived mainly on salmon and other fish, sea lions, seals and shellfish. The women gathered blueberries , strawberries , camas onions and other plant foods. Men hunted elk, beaver, muskrat and waterfowl. The food was cooked with hot stones in leather or bark containers ( stone cooker culture ) or steamed in earth ovens and dried on racks. Canoes, bone needles, awls, and baskets were important material utensils. Fish were harpooned or caught in weirs, traps and nets.
War and weapons
Weapons included hunting equipment as well as elk skin armor. During armed conflicts, they painted themselves with red and black stripes. Their enemies were the neighboring chinooks . One of the purposes of these wars was the capture of slaves who they sold to the north.
Current situation
The Tillamook are listed as an unrecognized Indian tribe by the American federal government. Their language has been considered extinct since 1970. Some are members of the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians of Oregon or the Grande Ronde Community .
literature
- Robert H. Ruby, John A. Brown: A guide to the Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest (= The Civilization of the American Indian Series . Vol. 173). Revised edition. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK et al. 1992, ISBN 0-8061-2479-2 , pp. 240-243.
- Barry M. Pritzker: A Native American Encyclopedia. History, Culture and Peoples. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2000, ISBN 0-19-513877-5 .
See also
Remarks
This article is based on the article Tillamook ( memento of July 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) from the free encyclopedia Indianer Wiki ( memento of March 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) and is under Creative Commons by-sa 3.0 . A list of the authors was available in the Indian Wiki ( Memento from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).