Indigenous Confluences

Heritage and Cultural Revitalization on the Lower Columbia River

Jon D. Daehnke

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780295742274
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Native American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Chinook Indian Nation—whose ancestors lived along both shores of the lower Columbia River, as well as north and south along the Pacific coast at the river's mouth—continue to reside near traditional lands. Because of its nonrecognized status, the Chinook Indian Nation often faces challenges in its efforts to claim and control cultural heritage and its own history and to assert a right to place on the Columbia River. Chinook Resilience is a collaborative ethnography of how the Chinook Indian Nation, whose land and heritage are under assault, continues to move forward and remain culturally strong and resilient. Jon Daehnke focuses on Chinook participation in archaeological projects and sites of public history as well as the tribe's role in the revitalization of canoe culture in the Pacific Northwest. This lived and embodied enactment of heritage, one steeped in reciprocity and protocol rather than documentation and preservation of material objects, offers a tribally relevant, forward-looking, and decolonized approach for the cultural resilience and survival of the Chinook Indian Nation, even in the face of federal nonrecognition. A Capell Family Book

CHAPTER 1

“Still, today, we listen to our elders”

Long Histories, Colonial Invasion, and Cultural Resilience

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO CHINOOKAN VILLAGES LINED

—now called the Columbia River—from the present-day location of The Dalles west to the Pacific Coast. A voyage along the river at night would be lit by hundreds of fires burning brightly along the banks, and the dark outlines of massive cedar plankhouses would be visible on the shores. The voices of people talking, laughing, and singing would float on the air. Voyagers would be well aware that they were not alone on the landscape, as thousands of people lived along this stretch of the river, making it one of the most densely populated areas in North America at the time. And the people who lived in these villages were not newcomers to the landscape: they had lived there for hundreds of generations and thousands of years. For generations they had followed the protocols that their elders had passed down.

The people who lived along the river were hunters, fishers, artists, and traders. Most spoke one of the dialects of the Chinookan language. High levels of intermarriage with other populations throughout the region, however, meant that the mother tongue of many village residents was something other than Chinookan, and so conversations throughout the village and inside households happened in a multiplicity of languages, and multilingualism was the norm. Furthermore, the people of the river were part of an established large-scale trade network that ran well into the interior of North America and north and south along the Pacific coast. This brought in goods from distant places and fostered contact and connections with an incredibly diverse range of peoples and cultures. Theirs was a cosmopolitan existence.

Just over two centuries ago a new set of visitors arrived from Europe. At first their arrival simply provided a new set of business opportunities, and trade with the newcomers quickly flourished. But the newcomers also brought diseases like smallpox, measles, malaria, and influenza that had devastating effects on the people who had lived on the land for generations. The epidemics didn’t stop, nor did the invasion of waves of new settlers who brought with them colonial attitudes and government policies that further served to separate the original inhabitants from their own land. The combined effects of disease, invasive settlement, and colonial policies left the people of the river on the brink of extinction.

But they did not go extinct. The descendants of these people still live on the river and coast today, and their lives continue to be shaped by the legacies of this long history. A central argument of this book is that present-day conflicts over Indigenous heritage spaces can only be understood through a historical lens that includes the reality and consequences of colonial entanglements. The goal of this chapter is to provide that necessary long-term view. It is neither my intent nor is it within the scope of this chapter to provide an exhaustive account of the history of the Pacific Northwest, the Columbia River, or the Chinook Indian Nation.¹ Instead the goal is to provide sufficient historical background to address the questions that serve as the foundation for the rest of the book. As such, the chapter is written with some of the following questions in mind: How did Indigenous populations of the region and the river organize their societies? What were the immediate effects of contact with Euro-American populations? How did colonial attitudes and policies shape the actions of government agents and scholars? What is the long-term effect of these attitudes and policies, and how does the Chinook Indian Nation address these effects in the present?

I approach the history of the region through a series of nested geographies. The first and most expansive of these geographies is that of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. The Pacific Northwest is an area that is iconic in terms of the Indigenous cultures that made and still make the area their home and for the central role that the region played in the development of American anthropology. The second geography is that of the lower Columbia River, the portion of the river that stretches from its mouth at the Pacific Ocean to roughly the present-day location of The Dalles, Oregon. Prior to the invasion of Euro-Americans this portion of the river was heavily populated by Chinookan-speaking people who inhabited both shores. The lower Columbia was also a major trade highway and the setting for cultural contact and politics both before and after colonial invasion. The final geography focuses on the landscape of the Chinook Indian Nation, the modern-day political entity that unites the descendants of the five westernmost groups of Chinookan-speaking populations. Each of these nested geographies is important for the purposes of this book at its own specific level. But the levels are all interconnected. It is difficult, therefore, to understand the challenges that the Chinook Indian Nation face today without also understanding the broader history of both the Pacific Northwest and the lower Columbia River, and for that reason all of these geographies will be touched on in the following pages.

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST COAST

The Pacific Northwest is a region known for its high mountain ranges, dense coniferous forests, ocean shorelines, and wet climate. It is also the home to some of the most iconic Native American cultures on the continent, whose totem poles, wood carvings, large cedar plankhouses, and potlatches captured the attention of anthropologists, art collectors, explorers, and photographers for decades. While there is no consensus regarding the exact geographic extent of the Pacific Northwest Coast, a widely accepted definition—at least within the circles of anthropology—places the northern boundary near Yakutat Bay in the Alaskan panhandle and the southern boundary near Cape Mendocino in California. This represents a straight-line distance of roughly twelve hundred miles.² Given this vast distance, it should be unsurprising that the region holds considerable environmental diversity and numerous microclimates. Despite this diversity, however, the environment and landscape of the Pacific Northwest can be divided into two primary patterns: (1) the classic Northwest Coast of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia, which contains numerous islands, bays, fjords, sheltered coves, and deep hidden passages, and (2) the straight coasts of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, which are only occasionally broken by bays and estuaries.³

Although there are differences between the northern and southern shorelines, some broad-scale environmental commonalities exist across the region. First, the climate is typically moderate with cool and dry summers and mild and wet winters, especially when compared to winters in the adjacent inland areas. Annual precipitation along the entire stretch of the shoreline is high, exceeding one thousand millimeters—a meter—in most areas of the region, including even the typically drier southern end. The region is also dominated by vegetation—most notably conifers—that is adapted to abundant rain and moderate temperatures.⁴ The coastal coniferous forests consist primarily of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Western red cedar (Thuja plicata), while less abundant than spruce, fir, and hemlock, plays a prominent role in the Indigenous material culture and ideology of the region. Numerous berries, acorns, hazelnuts, ferns, and bulbs are also available in abundance throughout the region, although the importance of these plants tends to diminish as one moves northward.⁵

Perhaps the most important environmental constant in the region is the wide-scale availability of marine and riverine resources, especially anadromous fish like salmon. At least six species of salmon (Onchorynchus sp.), each with its own geographic range, as well as smelt such as eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus), spawn in the streams and rivers of the Northwest. Shellfish and numerous other neritic resources are also widely available. While marine and riverine resources are abundant regionally, there can be dramatic variations in resource availability locally. Resource variation also occurs from season to season or year to year, as the number of fish in a run can be staggering one year and nearly zero the next. Historically, this type of variation has resulted in periods of scarcity and even occasional starvation for Indigenous populations.⁶ Of these marine and riverine resources, salmon is typically considered the most abundant and important. Early anthropologists like Alfred Kroeber and F. Clark Wissler placed so much emphasis on the role of salmon in the economy of Northwest Coast Indigenous cultures that they viewed salmon as almost defining the region itself.⁷ Gregory Monks, however, has coined the word “salmonopia” to suggest that researchers like Wissler and Kroeber overlooked the other abundant resources in the area.⁸ For instance, a wide variety of freshwater and saltwater fish were caught and processed by a large number of methods. Marine mammals such as seal were a prominent resource, while many coastal groups opportunistically scavenged whales and some, like the Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah, actively hunted them. Shellfish were also a valuable resource, and their importance has often been overlooked in ethnographic accounts.⁹ Northwest Coast peoples also took advantage of terrestrial fauna like deer (Ocdocoelious sp.) and elk (Cervus elephas), as well as a wide variety of plants. Still, maritime resources were the staple of Northwest subsistence, and, of these, salmon were the most important.

As is the case across all of North America, there is considerable diversity of Indigenous cultures throughout the Pacific Northwest Coast: there is no single “Pacific Northwest Coast Culture.” At least in part, this cultural diversity can be connected to differences in local environments, both the differences between the northern and southern portions of the coast, for instance, as well as differences between the coast itself and the more riverine environments as one moves inland. But despite these local variations (and at the risk of homogenizing culture) it is still possible to generalize a “Northwest Coast Pattern” that encompasses most of the Indigenous cultures in the region and distinguishes them from the rest of Indigenous North America. Anthropologists have noted the uniqueness of this Northwest Coast Pattern for some time, and a number of versions of this pattern—each with its own slight variations—have been attempted over the years.¹⁰ Leland Donald, however, provides perhaps the best summary of the Northwest Coast culture pattern. Donald provides nine characteristics that define the Northwest Coast: (1) a marine and/or riverine orientation that directly shapes subsistence practices, ideology, and cultural outlook; (2) a highly evolved and sophisticated technology adapted for exploiting marine and riverine resources; (3) a highly developed woodworking technology for the creation of plankhouses, canoes, artworks, watertight storage boxes, and basketry; (4) some of the densest human populations in Indigenous North America, in many areas even higher than densities found in agricultural societies; (5) an emphasis on wealth and property, both tangible and intangible (such as the ownership of songs and dances), with control of wealth a central component of social success; (6) a tripartite system of social stratification, including a nobility, free commoners, and slaves; (7) true slavery, including in some cases owners’ having control over whether or not a slave lives or dies; (8) no form of intercommunity political organization, with the village typically being the largest political unit; and (9) no formal political offices.¹¹ Kenneth Ames adds a tenth characteristic to this list: (10) large, coresidential households as the basic unit for economic production, food processing and storage, and social and ceremonial life.¹²

Another component of Pacific Northwest culture is the centrality of and reliance on trade. Subsistence resources were gathered not just for consumption but also as trade items that were moved along extensive trade networks. As much as the cultures of the Northwest can be called fishers and hunters, they can also be called traders. For instance, the Makah on the northwestern corner of Washington traded surplus halibut, whale blubber, and whale oil for quality cedar (which was not readily available in their immediate location), from which they made house planks and canoes.¹³ Dentalium shells, which come from a deep-water mollusk and were highly prized as objects of decoration and a central medium of exchange, were traded from the coast to well into the North American interior as early as 4400 BC.¹⁴ Eulachon grease, the oil rendered from eulachon and used extensively in cooking, was widely traded along interior trails that were guarded at spots and required tariffs for passage.¹⁵ Copper from Alaska has been found all along the coast, and there is even evidence of pre-contact iron. Most often, the presence of iron is explained as a result of scavenging from Japanese ships that helplessly drifted across the North Pacific.¹⁶ A few researchers, however, have suggested that iron could have arrived via a Siberia–Alaska trade network.¹⁷ Slaves were also a very important trade item along the coast and were important not only for their labor value but for their exchange value as well.¹⁸ The primary point is that trade was an extremely important activity throughout the region, both pre-contact and post-contact. In fact, a common trade language—Chinook Jargon or Chinuk Wawa—was developed by Chinooks living near the mouth of the Columbia and spoken throughout the region in order to facilitate trading activities.¹⁹ The centrality of trade was also tied to and reflected in the omnipresence of canoes in Northwest cultures, which allowed traders to carry large loads over long distances in relatively short periods of time.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST COAST

Few Indigenous people have been more heavily “anthropologized” than the Native American cultures of the Pacific Northwest Coast. For more than 125 years anthropologists have made the Pacific Northwest a center of scholarly attention, so much so that the practice of American anthropology itself owes much of its development to the region.²⁰ No one is more central to the connections between anthropology and the Pacific Northwest than Franz Boas, typically considered the foundational figure in the development of professional anthropology in America. Boas made twelve trips to the region to conduct ethnographic fieldwork with Indigenous people between 1886 and 1930, including trips to Chinookan territory in the summers of 1890 and 1891 and the winter of 1894.²¹ In total Boas spent nearly two and a half years in the field at various places in the Pacific Northwest, and many of the ethnographic accounts we have of the region are directly attributable to his work. Boas also helped to organize and fund numerous other ethnographic expeditions, and many of his students, such as Edward Sapir (who served as the first director of the Anthropological Division of the Geological Survey of Canada), made the Northwest Coast an important component of their research.²² The professionalization of anthropology in the United States and Canada during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century cannot be separated from its connections to the Pacific Northwest and the field’s fascination with Pacific Northwest Indigenous culture.

Paige Raibmon notes that American anthropology as practiced during these early days was focused on the preservation and collection of what anthropologists viewed as the remnants of dying Indigenous cultures. High levels of disease, encroachment by white settlers, and policies of assimilation led anthropologists to conclude that Indigenous people—along with their material culture—would soon disappear. In the midst of these demographic and cultural upheavals,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Places of Protocol, Places of Heritage
• Chapter 1. “Still, today, we listen to our elders”: Long Histories, Colonial Invasion, and Cultural Resilience
• Chapter 2. “We feel the responsibility”: A Multiplicity of Voices at Cathlapotle
• Chapter 3. “Where is your history?”: Explorers, Anthropologists, and Mapping Native Identity
• Chapter 4. “We honor the house”: Memory and Ambiguity at the Cathlapotle Plankhouse
• Chapter 5. “There’s no way to overstate how important Tribal Journeys is”: The Return of the Canoes and the Decolonization of Heritage
• Conclusion. Places of Heritage, Places of Protocol
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index