Whiskah
The Whiskah or Whishkah were an Indian tribe in the southwest of what is now the US state of Washington . Culturally they belonged to the coastal Salish .
Possibly they were linguistically related to the Lower Chehalis and were closely related to the Wynoochee .
history
The Whiskahs were not involved in the treaties the Washington Territory made with numerous tribes since 1854. In 1874, according to the report of the agent responsible HD Gibson to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of September 28, they belonged to one of the two Indian agencies called "Chehalis" and "Shoal Water Bay". Those agencies that came under the agent's remit included the Chehalis , Shoal Water Bay , Hokeum , "Humptalups", Chinook , Cowlitz, and " Klickatat " tribes without a contract . According to an earlier census, 1,434 people were reported, but he thought this was an exaggeration. Since there was no legal provision for land allocation for non-contractual reserves, the agent made do with the provisional allocation of parcels, which allegedly also allowed inheritance.
The Shoalwater Bay Reservation was established on September 22, 1866 and comprised 340 acres . Gibson advocated their dissolution and the relocation of the groups there to the Puyallup Reservation . In this region he was responsible for the reserves of the Puyallup , Nisqually , Chehalis and Squaxin , for those of the Tulalip , Port Madison , Swinomish , and Lummi his colleague Chirouse was responsible.
Often these groups were referred to as "Grays Harbor Indians". One of them named Chinoise traveled to Oakville in the 1980s to make it clear that the Indians who refused to move still wanted a reservation.
It is apparently no longer possible to determine when the Whiskah tribe finally dissolved.
literature
- Robert H. Ruby / John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest , University of Oklahoma Press 1992, p. 268.