(Lewis and Clark 1805 - Hanford Engineer Works 1943)
By J. C. Bard
With the Assistance of R. McClintock
Richland, Washington
This is a historic context statement for the ethnographic/contact period at the U.S. Department of Energys 560 square-mile Hanford Site in southeastern Washington [Fig. 1]. It is a narrative of the themes, trends, and patterns of history for the time period beginning with the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805 and ending with the creation of the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) in 1943.
This context statement deals with the sensitive issue of the impact of Euro-American culture on the indigenous peoples of the Hanford Site region. Not only did the Indians lose most of their original land base, their cultural resources (however broadly defined by the tribes), often reverted to the control of others. In the case of Hanford, the same United States government that took over control of much of their land in the mid to late 19th century, seized control of the land once again in 1943 to create a reservation for the production of plutonium for weapons of mass destruction. Many years after creation of the Hanford Site, the same government created a complex regulatory framework to preserve Americas historic properties.
Although the first direct contact between Euro-Americans and many of the Indian peoples of the Columbia Plateau occurred with Lewis and Clark in 1805/1806, European influences from other parts of the North American continent had resulted in varying amounts of indirect contact many years prior to that expedition. Not only had Indians come into contact with European trade goods but also suffered from introduced diseases. In fact, Indian subsistence and settlement patterns observed by Lewis and Clark and others may have already reflected post-contact conditions. From their first contacts with Euro-Americans until the establishment of the HEW in 1943, the indigenous peoples of the area experienced cataclysmic changes in their life ways. During this time period, Indian use of the Hanford Site continued until interrupted by wartime events in 1943.
This context statement emphasizes the Indian perspective on the events that took place during this time period and their impact on Indian culture and life ways prior to the establishment of the Hanford Site. The main operating premise is that the significance of historic properties that concern Indian people must be evaluated from the perspective of Indians themselves. This context statement should facilitate Indian participation in decision-making regarding the significance and National Register eligibility of historic properties dating from 1805 (or before) to the creation of the HEW in 1943.
This context statement is intended to be a dynamic document that can and will be changed to reflect new knowledge or understandings.
Figure 3.1. Vicinity Map of the Department of Energy's Hanford Site, Washington.
This context statement is first and foremost about the Indian people of the Hanford Site - a people dispossessed of their land and culture by strangers from the East. The Hanford Site and its surrounding areas was home to Cayuse or Sahaptian (Shahaptian) speaking Indians [Figure 3.2]. Their descendants are now called Cayuse, Palouse, Nez Perce, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Yakama, and Wanapum [Figure 3.3]. In 1855, the Cayuse and representatives of other tribes and bands signed a treaty with the U.S. Government establishing their exclusive right to the Yakama, Nez Perce, and Umatilla reservations and maintaining the right to fish, hunt, erect fish-curing structures, gather food, and graze stock on open/unclaimed portions of the lands ceded to the government. The Palouse and Wanapum refused to treaty with the white newcomers and continued to live in and use their lands.
As DOE-RL protects natural and cultural resources, their greatest challenge will be to understand Indian world view. They will need to understand that Indians lost their land because of government policies or economic expediency. From the 1840s to the present, Indians lost tens of thousands of acres of land. They lament this loss, but not because they have been deprived of a piece of real estate or an investment, rather, because they have lost a part of themselves and their people. They have lost a part of their culture, heritage, livelihood, and sense of place. They have lost elements of their religion (Trafzer 1989:5).
The dispossession of the Indian from his land started in Colonial times through genocidal warfare, the infusion of smallpox, and by giving disease-tainted blankets to the Indians (Relander 1962:9). Dispossession has continued through legislation. Soon after their establishment, the Indian reservations were opened by allotting land and granting acreages to specific individuals, thus allowing land patents or titles to be granted. Sale to non-Indians naturally followed and townsites and communities within reservations came into being even though the reservations were set aside by sacred and solemn treaty for exclusive Indian use. More reservation land changed ownership through irrigation development and leasing with subsequent land sales. Legislation and the quasi consent of the Yakama Tribe permitted the Northern Pacific Railway to be built through the reservation, bringing the stimulus of townsite developments and land settlement.
The first whites who came in the early 19th century were not interested in taking Indian lands, removing Indians to reservations, or making them civilized members of white society. Rather, they were traders intent on earning money for themselves and their companies. They significantly changed Indian society by introducing manufactured goods, diseases, and economies that divorced the Indians from the natural world. They offered to the Indians pots, pans, tomahawks, knives, fish hooks, guns, and a host of other metal items. In trade, the Indians provided them with furs and this altered the way in which Indians viewed their environment. Before the whites came, Indians in the Hanford area were dependent on a hunting, fishing and gathering lifestyle and lived in harmony with the land and animals as brothers. But after the whites came, some joined in the killing of fur-bearing animals for profit. Plateau Indians bartered their quality horses for mass-produced trade goods and Indian life changed as a result of the trade as many became dependent on whites for trade goods. Factions within the Indian community emerged as some questioned whether or not to engage in trade with whites.
Indians extended into their worldview a sense of oneness with the environment, where the taking of life from their brothers and sisters - the winged and four legged creatures - was viewed as part of the natural cycle of life. Thus, Indians never took more than they could use. They traded and bartered with other tribes in the area long before the coming of the white mans trading posts. The white traders who established new trade routes and practices also brought their own type of christianity which perked the interest of the indigenous people who held a strong sense of spiritualism.insert figure 2insert figure 3While white fur traders were not interested in making over Indians or creating a civilized race in their image, they were soon followed, however, by whites determined to uplift and enlighten their red brothers. Protestant and Catholic missionaries moved into the region in the 1830s and 1840s to proselytize Indians. Some Indians gravitated toward the new religion while others rejected it and soon pro- and anti-Christian and anti-Catholic factions emerged to divide the Indians. Some Indians maintained the old spiritualism, clinging to ancient ceremonies, songs, and ways. This movement, epitomized by Smohalla of the Wanapums, reached its peak in the late 19th/early 20th centuries and continues today.
In the 1840s, traders, missionaries, and immigrants came into the region along the Oregon Trail, bringing their diseases with them. Epidemics killed more Indians than did open warfare and unlike whites who had for generations faced the effects of smallpox, chicken pox, influenza, measles, mumps, and other infectious diseases, Indians had never been so exposed and had no natural immunity. There were outbreaks of smallpox in 1775 and 1801 resulting in a population decline in the Plateau of about 45% (Campbell 1989). The Yakamas, Palouses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, Wanapums, Cayuses and others suffered severely from the measles epidemic in 1847. Along the Oregon Trail, the loss of land, rights, and Indian life went unpunished for many years. Without seeing a sense of justice or protection of their rights, the Cayuses took revenge on November 29, 1847 when a few warriors could contain their anger no longer and killed the Whitmans who they blamed for the measles epidemic.
Once in control of lands south of the 49th parallel, the U.S. government soon divided the region into the Washington and Oregon territories in 1853 and began to establish political, economic, and military control and transplanted its Indian policy to the new territories. This included liquidation of Indian title, the removal of Indians to reservations, and their governance by the BIA (which became part of the Department of the Interior in 1849). The Indians did not welcome American Indian policy. The various bills and treaties dealing with Indians enacted into law by Congress and signed by the U.S. presidents were not policies established by Washington Indians but policies established for the benefit of American citizens and not the native people. The Ind for treaties, removal, or reservations nor did they ask to be ruled by the BIA. They did not ask for a unique trust relationship with the U.S. that would set them apart constitutionally from all other Americans. They did not ask to be acculturated, assimilated, or civilized. These were all things forced on them by the treaty process. They could stand and fight or try to accommodate the newcomers.
During the treaty negotiations, Governor Stevens asked the Indians to surrender their sovereignty, abstain from using alcohol, and end Indian slavery. In return, Indians secured from themselves the right to fish, hunt, gather, and graze horses on and off their reservations. These rights were not established by Treaty, only recognized by Treaty. One reason Governor Stevens agreed to usual and accustomed subsistence practices on and off the reservations was that the government would not have to feed their new charges. As an added inducement to the Indians, the U.S. promised to educate and provide quality health care. In May 1855, some 10,000 Plateau Indians met with Stevens at the Walla Walla Council. Indian positions stated at the Walla Walla Council represented the views of most Plateau Indians in was is now Washington - the land was sacred and given to the Indian people by the Creator and it could no more be sold than the air or the sky.
None of the Indians were anxious to sign the treaties but decided it would be prudent to do so since they had little choice but to sign. Stevens assured them it would take years before the Senate ratified the treaties and until then, the Indians could live peacefully on their own land. Yet, even before Stevens left the area to continue his treaty tour into Montana, he wrote dispatches to the major newspapers on the West Coast announcing that eastern Washington was open for white settlement.
White miners discovered gold near Colville, as well as on the Nez Perce Reservation, which resulted in a gold-rush stampede across the Indian lands of eastern Washington. When miners were killed for raping and murdering Indians, Yakama Agent Andrew Bolon, a man disliked by whites and Indians alike, interceded and was himself killed by the Indians. His death was the proximate cause of the Yakima War of 1855-1858, a conflict that had been brewing for years. Although the fighting started east of the mountains, it spilled over to the Coast where Indians and whites engaged in combat on the White and Green Rivers.
As the wars continued to go badly for the Indians, active supporters began to drift away from the cause. Some went to search for their families, many of whom had already been forcefully removed to reservations. The government used the wars as an excuse to round up and remove peaceful Indians to reservations, despite the fact the treaties had not been ratified by the Senate or signed by the President. Regardless that the treaties were not the law of the land, the removals took place. Meanwhile the U.S. Army became more deeply involved east of the Cascades and constructed Forts Walla Walla and Simcoe. A victory of sorts over troops led by Colonel Steptoe only brought a renewed campaign by Colonel Wright who ultimately defeated the Indians and sealed their fate as wards of the United States, subject to laws enacted by a distant Congress and executed by the BIA.
As traditional Indian leaders were pushed aside by the new system of government, they had no alternative but to deal with a foreign system of government which had a history of broken promises and unenforceable documents. Some refused to cooperate by withdrawing into their own world and doing things the old way, like Smohalla and his followers. Most Indians tried to live within the constraints of the new political order but maintained as much of the old way as possible. The distant East Coast white government set reservation policies and tried to control the lives of non-reservation Indians as well. In the 1860s and 1870s, the government adopted policies to transform Indians, accustomed to fishing, hunting, and gathering into farmers. BIA programs broke up families and bands and hastened the destruction of the old tribal social system. Indian ways were not permitted to coexist under the new order as the BIA, and not the elders, decided what was best for everyone. This program was particularly harsh on children who were literally stolen from their homes and sent away for months at a time to government established Indian schools, where they endured forced acculturation.
The Indians were not permitted to determine for themselves whether or not they would leave the reservation and go to school. Parents were forced to send children away to institutions far from their homes. Children five years and older were placed in first grade where teachers sought to destroy the part of them that was Indian: tribal ties, language, religion, food, dress, and philosophy. In modern terms, the teachers were mainstreaming the children by teaching them English, math, geography, and history - as written by whites in the East. As important was the fact that the boys and girls were given vocational rather than professional training so that they could be prepared to work for the dominant society. American Indians were not recognized as U.S. Citizens until an Act of Congress establishing citizenship in 1924. Thus, prior to 1924, they had no constitutional right of redress.
Government policies also aimed to destroy age-old customs, traditions and practices. Agents placed people from numerous groups onto a single reservation, thus pitting Indians of differing, often conflicting cultural backgrounds against one another and creating competition for services, food, blankets, supplies and land use. This was U.S. policy and Indians had no say in the matter. The government sought also to end the influence of traditional elders which in turn affected the family. The basic family structure was altered as the BIA became the de facto parent of all Indians. This impact cannot be underestimated since Indian communities have long placed greater importance on the basic family structure, as well as on the old extended family made up of friends and relatives. In recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis on the family in Northwest Indian communities. Revitalization of the old spiritualism and heightened concerns for the family are encouraging signs the Indians are weaving a new social fabric that draws on the great strengths of traditional Indian life.
In 1887 Congress passed the Severalty (Dawes) Act which called for breaking up of reservations into parcels to be eventually owned outright by individual Indians. The individual ownership concept was foreign to the many tribes and bands as was the concept of land title. Decisions affecting land use still remained under the jurisdiction of the BIA and was only transferred as competency hearings were conducted pending the sale of the land to non-Indians. The reformers believed the Indians would have a stake in society and work hard to develop their individual allotments. But savvy whites soon realized that Indians did not view property ownership like whites and the Act actually facilitated white purchase of Indian lands and did nothing to help Indians join the dominant society. Under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, Indians moved to reverse the process by which their land was alienated but have been able to regain only a small fraction of what was lost as a result of allotment. In the 1930s, Washington State began regulation of Indian fishing, hunting, gathering, and grazing, even though federal law superseded state law in regard to Indians. The state also tried to control or manage water, mineral, and forest product resources belonging to Indians. Tribal and state officials fought several courtroom battles and one notable success for the tribes was the Boldt decision of 1974 which affirmed Indian treaty rights to fish at their usual and accustomed grounds and stations off the reservation and in common with other citizens.
The Indians could not understand why the Euro-American newcomers begrudged them a final small sanctuary of fish, deer, wild game, food roots, huckleberries and a few scattered bands of wild horses. The Creator did not give Indians title to the land like so much property. Rather, the Indians were instructed to be caretakers of the earth. Their land was their religion and their religion was the land (Trafzer 1989:4). No one today can recompense the Indian people for their losses, nor make amends for the holocaust they suffered at the hands of the newcomers who overran their land. The cultural resources of the Indiansthe earth, the waters, the fish, the animals, the plantscan be preserved. This context document, then, is to help the DOE-RL understand the Indians who once called Hanford their home - and to make wise decisions to preserve that which is important to the Indians.
The federal regulatory requirements (e.g., National Historic Preservation Act of 1966) under which the Hanford Site operates requires the Department of Energy to take active stewardship responsibility for cultural resources under its jurisdiction. The federal regulations require that significant resources (resources eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places) be identified and evaluated. Those properties determined eligible for listing in the National Register are then managed to maximize their protection from the adverse effects of federally involved undertakings or actions. One thing has not changed, however. The land at the Hanford Site was originally Indian land and many of the cultural resources (however defined by the tribes) associated with both the prehistoric and ethnographic/contact periods are Indian resources. Recent changes to federal cultural resource regulations now recognize, encourage, and mandate full participation of Native Americans in the cultural resource management arena.
This context statement was compiled by members of CH2M HILLs cultural resource consulting staff (Dr. James C. Bard and Mr. Robin McClintock) using some primary and mostly secondary and tertiary reference materials on file at libraries at Portland State University library, Oregon State University, and the Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory (Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Richland). In addition, several individuals assisted by providing both published and unpublished materials pertinent to the study area (Dr. Cliff Trafzer, Ms. Mona Wright, Dr. Gail Thompson, and Mr. Michael Gallagher). Dr. Paul Nickens and Ms. Mona Wright of the Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory solicited review comments on the draft manuscript from the Wanapums, Nez Perce, Yakama, and Umatilla tribes. Only the Nez Perce provided review comments and this document incorporates their comments and concerns.
The demography and economy of the Columbia Plateau Indians have always been profoundly affected by topography, climate and drainage (cf. Nelson 1973:372). The Plateau culture area, which includes parts of southeastern British Columbia, northern Idaho, western Montana, eastern Washington, and the Columbia River Gorge and northeast Oregon, is an area with seasonally and geographically restricted supplies of surface water. In some areas it is possible to travel from a semiarid biotic community subsisting on less than 10 inches of rainfall to pine/fir forests subsisting on more than 30 inches of rainfall over a distance of 10 miles or less (Nelson 1973:372). In these transitional biotic communities, which commonly range from 10 to 50 miles in breadth, are found the densest populations of game animals such as deer, elk, mountain sheep, and pronghorn antelope.
Low temperatures and snow severely limited the distribution of Indian populations during the winter months from October to March. Although most of the Columbia Plateau lies only between 1000 and 1500 feet above sea level, winters are severe with temperatures dropping below freezing in all but the most sheltered areas. Indian populations thus concentrated in the narrow, sheltered valleys of the major rivers at the fringes of the Plateau. Ungulates were driven into these same areas as snow covers their forage at higher elevations. The distribution of important edible plants is effected by climate and topography since plant maturation is linked with altitude and temperature. The most stable protein source was the salmon whose spawning migrations follow a highly predictable four year cycle. Migratory salmon are typically in the trunk streams and their stable tributaries from late in the spring to the end of autumn.
Early descriptions of Indian life on the Plateau (cf. Bancroft 1886; Coues (ed.) 1893; Curtis 1911a,b; Kane 1856; among others) made the culture sound like an odd mixture of Plains and Northwest Coast lifestyles but by the 1930s, a concept of a distinct Plateau culture area was advanced by Verne Ray. The early investigators observed a wide diversity of culture as well as geographic characteristics and linguistic differences that best suited the people of each area. Kroeber, Spinden and others believed that the Plateau was not a distinct culture area since the Plateau cultures shared traits with the Plains, Great Basin, and Northwest Coast peoples.
Fishing, hunting, gathering, and ceremonies were the basic components of the Plateau economy and each had its own season and location. The Indians thus followed a widely varied round of activities that lead to a semi-sedentary life in which they often engaged and disengaged themselves from cooperative task groups. Miller (1985:23) argued that the Plateau cultural system was threatened by the effects of the Little Ice Age - a 300 year-long period of severe weather conditions beginning around 1550 A.D. Dendro-chronological and palynological analyses from the Columbia River suggests that during this time period, the availability of roots, nuts, and berries were reduced and archaeological evidence provides some substantiation of this hypothesis as bison, pronghorn antelope, and mountain sheep disappeared entirely as food items in some areas during these critical years. With these foods in short supply, salmon would have been an even more important source of nourishment than usual.
When the climate improved at the beginning of the 18th century, warmer and dryer weather increased the length and quality of the growing season and produced bumper crops of berries, roots, and meat. Also, with the spring runoff reduced, heavy salmon runs once again penetrated deeply into the upper Columbia system. Around 1731, the weather turned consistently cold and wet. While Plateau culture survived the first 250 years of the Little Ice Age relatively unscathed, the return of this destructive climatic regime after 1731 coincided with the arrival of a series of other equally destructive forces that imperiled life itself.
While the Indians were adapting to severe weather conditions, Europe was in the midst of an unprecedented period of expansion and eventually the white man would arrive in Mexico and along the eastern seaboard to send wave after wave of dislocation throughout the Indian world. The first wave to hit was the horse frontier around 1700 A.D., just as the brief climatic improvement was at its peak. Indian tradition suggests the horse has been a part of Indian life for a very long time and Indian philosophy emphasizes a spiritual connection with the horse and with the environment.
Other evidence suggests the horse was a bio-invader into the environment. The Indians made numerous cultural adjustments to make good use of the horse. Because horses permitted hunters to penetrate father into the mountains after game and to bring back larger loads of meat, the fall hunt acquired added importance and the buffalo became a regular part of the annual round for many groups. Decreased travel time allowed parties to venture to the Yellowstone and back every fall. The increased volume of buffalo meat and by-products triggered greater trade and economic power and flexibility to the Plateau groups. The horse was a welcome counterweight to the deteriorating climate (Miller 1985:28).
Being on the horse frontier placed the Plateau Indians in the path of raiders. As waves of white population pressure grew and the fur trade was in full swing, several eastern tribes were pushed onto the Plains and soon thereafter, Numic speaking peoples, such as the Shoshone, began to feel the pressure. The eastern tribes formed a defensive coalition (the Eastern Alliance) that was able to repulse the Numic raiders but they were unable to stop the encroaching whites. By the 1750s when the Plateau groups entered into the situation, Plateau Indians had mastered the horse which facilitated passage over Lolo Pass and through the Bitterroot/Salmon River country to get to the Plains to hunt. By the 1770s, the threat of Numic raiders had subsided but continuing white pressure caused further waves of resettlement of Eastern tribes. In the late 1700s the disease frontier also moved west resulting in a major epidemic of smallpox among the Plateau Indians - evidence of which could be seen on the aging faces of the Indian survivors that met Lewis and Clark in 1805 and 1806. Epidemic disease was merely the last of many destructive waves that swept across the Plateau in the 18th century, but it was the most devastating of the lot. The combination of sickness with the coming of horses, guns, climatic deterioration, and near constant war put unbearable strains on the Plateau Indian world (Miller 1985:35).
The Plateau Indian people who called the area of the Hanford Site their home were a deeply spiritual people, as are their descendants today. And with the exception of some of the rougher characters associated with the fur trade, the whites with whom the Indians first came into contact were deeply spiritual people as well. It was during the time period of the fur trade and later missionaries that the worlds of the Indian and white converged for the first time.
Along with the introduction of foreign diseases and foreign ideas and religion, volcanic activity in the Washington Cascades during the first decades of the 19th century may have also been a contributing agent in the break down of Plateau culture. Prior to the falling of the dry snow (ash), some of the Plateau peoples had believed that the world had always existed and would continue to exist forever. Suddenly, in the face of a powerful display of mother nature, the Indian Prophets announced a novel creed in which a newly conceived supernatural being called Chief had, with Coyotes assistance, created the world and predestined its end. The Prophets urged their followers to dance so as to hasten the happy apocalypse and preached that happier days would come quickly if their followers practiced proper moral behavior. Though things looked bleak, the Indian prophets promised that a solution was on its way.
On September 20, 1805, an Indian prophecy came true with the arrival of Lewis and Clark, who explained to the Nez Perce and their allies that the American government wanted the and that guns and other useful items would be provided through peaceful trade. Unfortunately, the Americans were unable to provide the promised factories and military support and the Plateau Indians were left to face increased Blackfoot hostility unarmed. Thus, instead of leading to the happy times promised in prophecy, Lewis and Clarks arrival on the Plateau only raised false hopes and worsened conditions. Lewis and Clark were not the ones carrying a book to the Indians but were, however, advance agents for others like David Thompson of the Hudsons Bay Company, who built posts and brought material goods and brought to fruition all the Plateau Indians diplomatic and trade strategies and also helped pacify the Indians (Miller 1985:50).
It seems the Indians regarded Thompson as a messenger from Chief . As prophet dances were performed from village to village, a great spiritual awakening was taking place as the Indians began to expect Coyotes return. The remaining condition of Chiefs agenda was the arrival of strange messengers from the rising sun bringing a book that would teach the Indians everything (Miller 1985:52). By the early 1830s, morning and evening prayers, grace at meals, and the observance of the Sabbath had become so widely accepted throughout Plateau cultures that hardly an explorer or fur trader failed to notice them (Miller 1985:53). Thus, the Plateau Indians had been led to expect not only the white people, but their religion as well and the rapid spread of the amalgamated faith reflected the anticipation of fulfillment of the prophecies.
Fur trader George Simpson, ever eager to expand the Hudsons Bay operations, encouraged missionaries to work among the Plateau tribes since he saw the promulgation of Christian values amongst the Indians as an antidote to what he perceived as Indian apathy and independence. Driven by such a compelling motivation as improving profits while ingratiating himself with both his (Hudsons Bay) company and the missng the cause of the Gospel with marked enthusiasm (Miller 1985:56). He assigned Alexander Ross to the task and eventually several young Indian lads were taken to Canada to study at the Red River School. Upon their return, Kutenai Pelly and Spokane Garry were hailed as great prophets and their arrival spurred another Plateau-wide revival. But to the Indians, progress toward the millennium seemed hopelessly slow. Pelly and Garry carried back only two Bibles and the Church Missionary Society was unable to fund the establishment of missions.
The exact circumstances and motivations of the famous Flathead-Nez Perce delegation to St. Louis is shrouded in mystery, but the end result was that this particular delegation was instantly mythologized and was the pivotal factor in the coming together of the white and Indian prophets (Miller 1985:60). While it was true that these Indians had come to St. Louis to seek the true mode of worship that only the white people possessed, the clergymen in St. Louis could not have known how different the Indians conception was from their own. Nevertheless, they put out the call that God had prepared the Indians for deliverance from their benighted state (Miller 1985:62). G.P. Disoway, a pious businessman which had heard about the Indian delegation, spread the word that the Church should awake and attend to the salvation of these wandering sons of our native forests.
The whites, for their part, were part of this unfolding drama as well. When missionaries such as Dr. Whitman came west to live among the Plateau Indians, America was a religious nation concerned about seizing control of its frontiers before evil Europeans could grasp it and turn the Indian occupants against America. This meant that American authority, institutions, and culture must expand into the wilderness. Miller (1985:71) wrote that the Protestant awakening coupled with American liberalism prepared Americans well for this task. A belief in their own superiority accompanied by altruistic conviction prompted reborn Americans to become as evangelical about their culture as their religion. American expansionism was seen as fulfillment of Gods eternal plan and their mission found full expression in the movement to annex the Oregon Country.
The Indians wanted to learn the lessons offered by the missionaries and the Protestants wanted to convert the Indians. This apparent convergence of goals kept both groups occupied in trying to live up to the words of their prophets in order to bring about their separately conceived millennia (Miller 1985:89). But the Protestantse of Roman Catholic missionaries working among the Indians and therefore felt compelled to launch a full-scale assault on the social and economic structure of Plateau Indian life. The Protestant missionaries viewed Indian subsistence as pitiable, having to rely upon roots, fish, and game which required constant seasonal movement. The hunting and gathering life-way was seen as an impediment to religious instruction. Miller (1985:92) observed that the Indians permitting Henry Spaulding to treat them with a heavy handed approach demonstrated the power of their revitalization and the intensity of their investment in the prophesied course of events. Like their Protestant counterparts, they were incapable of understanding the true situation; even in the face of humiliating treatment, they remained committed to learning everything from the missionaries. As Catholic missionaries stepped up their activities in the area, the Indians, whose prophecies had not prepared them for competing truths, found themselves in the middle of a propaganda war between two Christian faiths, each of which used the Indians as pawns in a continuing game of sectarian chess (Miller 1985:93).
The Whitman killings in November 1847 were also related to this collision of expectations. As the Indians were decimated by disease brought by white immigrants, some Cayuse Indians came to fear that Whitman was deliberately trying to kill them with poison released into the air. But more importantly, Plateau Indians attributed disease to either malevolence (poisoning) or spiritual transgression. It was the Indian concept of spiritual transgression that inevitably led to the rise of new Indian prophets who urged a return to traditional religion and rejection of Christianity and the white mans ways. The Indian world had fallen to pieces by the 1850s, but no happy millennium followed, only more fragmentation and division as the white take-over accelerated and the Indians were being removed to the reservations.
Smohalla, as the whites called him, began preaching a message of hope for those Indians who could not live in the white mans world. The Great Chief was angry at their apostasy and commanded the Indians, through Smohalla, to return to the old ways, blaming their miserable condition in the presence of the whites to their having abandoned their own religion and violating the laws of nature and the precepts of their ancestors (Miller 1985:119). When a severe earthquake rocked the Pacific Northwest on December 14, 1872, among the reports of quake damage was the death of several Indians near White Bluffs by falling rocks (Ruby and Brown 1989:61). Smohalla, who reportedly had predicted the quake, became host to frightened Indians fleeing to Pna Village to dance the Washat to appease the angry Spirit. The Indians believed that the Earth Mother was shaking the land in anger at whites and those Indians who were desecrating her (Ruby and Brown 1989:61). At this time, Smohalla was preaching that the Chiefs intentions had been misunderstood by the old Indian prophets. Because of this mistake, the world, instead of ending in the blissful return of the Earth Mother as previously predicted, had crumbled, leaving behind only despair. While Smohalla blamed his own people for their problems, he also blamed the whites.
To revive the old spirit power, Smohalla called upon the survivors to abandon the new ways and resume the ways of the old law. He preached that those who cut up the lands would be defrauded of their rights and punished by God and that all the dead will come to life and their spirits will come to their bodies. He urged his followers to wait and dream, and be ready to meet them in the bosom of their mother earth (Miller 1985:120). The new faith spread in direct proportion to the spread of the reservation system and the elimination of self-rule and self-determination. The spirit power remained alive in this new Indian world and the white invaders could not penetrate it. In its isolated realm the dreamers found the peace and safety that had prevailed under the old law (Miller 1985:l21). The Plateau Indians continued to work toward their destiny which involved trying to find a spiritual system that would allow them to pull their shattered world together.
The Indians of the Hanford Site (Figure 3.4) were hunters and gatherers, originally with a band and later a tribal level of social organization. Sahaptian kinship structure and political organization has been reviewed by Anastasio (1972), Hunn (1990), Schuster (1975), Walker (1967), and Chatters (1989:D.31-33) while intertribal relationships during the 19th century have been explored by Garth (1964). Before the introduction of the horse, social organization might have closely resembled a band level of sociopolitical organization (Service 1966). Bands are small mobile hunter/collector groups that choose leaders on the basis of personal characteristics rather than inheritance, practice exogamy or ambilocal residence, and practice bilateral or patrilineal descent reckoning. Exogamy fostered peace among bands through marriage, which opened local resources to the bands into which its youth marry. Flexibility in post-nuptial residence and frequent intermarriage between bands helped form alliances and friendships and sharing of resources from one location to another, thus ensuring survival.
Political organization generally extended beyond the village level. In relation to outside groups, the loose band, composite band, and tribal organization would supersede the power of a local group or village. Food production and consumption occurred on a local level with sharing of local resources with neighboring and distant groups. Indians shared economic resources with members of their own band or tribe, and Sahaptian-speakers received preference over non-Sahaptians (cf. Walker 1967). Intertribal access to usual and accustomed resources and resource areas has probably always been a matter of tribal sovereignty and governed by traditional or customary guest-host agreements (Bearchum, et al. 1988:87). Extensive intergroup, interareal, and interregional trade networks served to even out any disparities among groups in the access to critical resources. Hoarding was abhorrent and generosity was expected and respected. Hunn (1990:219) emphasized that this moral imperative remains strong today. Exchange networks, reciprocity, and mutual assistance were intelligent social and economic means of survival and peace keeping that served the Indians well, both in the past and in the present. Figure 3.4. Distribution of Tribal Groups and Major Linquistic Boundaries in the Mid-Columbia Area (after Schuster 1975: Fig 2; Jackobs 1931: 94 and 1937: 56; Ray 1936: 119; and Meinig 1968) Trade networks tended to bond groups in special ways by establishing certain economic and social ties - ties that were increasing when non-Indians came into the region. The Plateau Indians traded salmon to the Idaho Kalispell and Flathead bands in exchange for meats and plants and to the Great Plains bands in exchange for pipestone, buffalo meat and hides, horses, and certain styles of clothing and ornaments. Obsidian and roots came in from the Shoshone and Bannocks of Utah and northeastern Nevada while slaves, basketry, and wocas came from the Northern Paiutes of Oregon and Nevada. Marine shells came from the Puget Sound bands and chiefdoms (Zucker, Hummel, and Hogfoss 1983:43). Salmon, berries, and roots were stockpiled at the Dalles and Celilo Falls for later transfer to trading partners outside the Sahaptian area in return for the goods mentioned above. An incipient marketplace was forming in the lower Columbia where Indians used shells and beads as a means of monetary exchange. The use of horses, canoes, and rafts increased the speed and efficiency with which trade goods, rituals, dress style, and information was moved and Indians ideas and customs were transformed. Trading fostered information exchange, entertainment, and opportunities for courtship and exogamous marriage as well as creating socio-economic ties that secured certain rights/useages and passage through territories that belonged to one tribe or band.
Political organization was hierarchical and extended beyond the village level into confederations of villages into bands, macro-bands, and confederations of tribes. The leadership of each political level was recognized by all villages in the grouping and each level had its ruling council with formal rules and procedures of government. Some regional political integration occurred as confederacies maintained by intertribal alliances, but these were sometimes weak and short-lived. Authority was based on the special characteristics of leaders in fairness, intelligence, and generosity (Walker 1967; Hunn 1990). Inherited leadership was rare and occurred only in cases when a leaders son proved equal to or surpassed his fathers talent. The Sahaptian governance system was maintained by checks and balances. Leaders in economic, social, and spiritual affairs had to prove their worth and if they failed, villagers withdrew their support (without violence). Clear division of authority, as noted above, usually guaranteed social stability.
Fish
Centuries before the Europeans came, the rivers met the needs of the salmon and the salmon met the needs of the Indian [Figure 3.5]. The tribes and the salmon benefited from this partnership, secure in their adaptation to the environment and to each other. The Indians knew they had to protect the quality of the rivers. Under conditions of abundance, their religious and technological precautions ensured the perpetuation of the fish (Cohen 1986:29) and it has been estimated that 33 to 40 percent of their food came from salmon (cf. Hewes 1973; Hunn 1981:12, 1990; but see also Schalk 1986:23-24 for a cautionary note relative to Kanes (1925:219) observation that the Walla Walla lived almost entirely upon salmon throughout the whole year).
The importance of salmon varied from group to group with the Columbia River peoples being the most fish dependent, followed upstream by the Nez Perce and finally the largely non-riverine Cayuse. Salmon numbers seasonally fluctuated with few fish available from late October to late April and high water prevented fishing in most years from late May to late June. Further, salmon runs peaked for only a few days to weeks at a time. The fish were taken with dip or gill nets from shoreline platforms, with seines from canoes and shore, and with gaffs, tributary fish weirs, and by hand after spawning. Other important fish were suckers, eels (technically lamprey), sturgeon, trout, whitefish and red-sided shiner. Freshwater mollusks were collected from river bottoms where they grew in large quantities but probably were a minor food resource given the considerable labor necessary to collect sufficient mussels to equal the food value of one deer or a few large salmon. While the actual proportion of fish in the traditional diet is not certain, exploitation of the river fisheries and the successful sharing of fish with other non-riverine groups, required high levels of regional political and economic integration.
Figure 3.5 The Plateau Seasonal Round (after Hunn 1991: 8).
Roots
As measured by caloric values, plants, particularly bitterroot, skolkol and camas, comprised over 50 percent of the annual diet followed by fish and other animals, especially venison (10 to 12 percent)(cf. Benton, et al. 1973, Keely 1982, Norton, et al. 1984, Hunn 1981, Watt and Merrill 1963). The most common plants collected, processed and consumed were bitterroot, cous, Indian celerys (lomatiums), camas, and huckleberries [Figure 3.5]. Some of these plants were available on or near the Hanford Site. The Wanapum and Palouse traded with tribes to the west... who sought skolkol, or Indian carrot (Lomatium canbyi) (Relander 1986:112). Indian carrot is found only at Priest Rapids in sufficient quantities for significant harvests. Also confined to Priest Rapids was Lomatium hambleniae. Calochortus macrocarpus, a winter root found in the deserts, was likely taken at the Hanford Site.
According to research conducted by Lucy Jayne Harbinger of Washington State University in 1964, roots were an essential dietary mainstay and were as important as camas, khouse, wild carrot and bitterroot. The roots were not only important for food, but were used in teaching young girls the proper care and preparation of foods and were used for various trades between tribes for both social and economic exchanges relating to marriage and giveaways. Women were the primary gatherers, preparers and preservers of traditions associated the use of roots and other important food plants. As such, they played an important rol in maintaining Indian lifestyles. The first roots dug and the first berries picked were important events and allowed a feast and celebration in honor of the young girls as well as a time for praise and recognition within the familial and tribal structures. The special root feasts held early each year and with the later salmon and huckleberries feasts provided the important spiritual connectedness of the celebration and continuity of Indian lifestyles.
Roots were essential to the s of root plants used were small, herbaceous, spring-flowering species - the edible parts consisting mainly of tubers, corms, bulbs, tuberous roots, and underground sprouts (Hunn 1990:171-172). The most widely used were cous (Lomatium cous), skolkol (L. Canbyi), Indian carrot (Perideridia gairdneri), Indian potatoes (Claytonia lanceolata), camas (Camassia quamash), the Yellowbell (Fritillaria pudica), and a hyacinth (Brodiaea hyacinthina). A woman could collect about one bushel (ca. 60 pounds) of skolkol or cous in a days work and could harvest about 60 bushels (ca. 3600 pounds) in a season (Hunn 1990:175-176). This underscores the importance of roots, but it is also important to note that the season of abundance lasted only from March to July.
Berries, Fruits and Nuts
Berries, fruits and nuts contributed only about five percent of the total annual average food intake. Black mountain huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceaum) was the most important and was collected in mid-August when a celebration was held. The berry season opened with collection of sweet currants in June, followed by the white dogwood fruits at the end of June. Chokecherries (Prunus virginians) and serviceberries (Amelanchian ainifolia) were collected in the lowlands and foothills between late June and mid-August. Grouseberries (V. scoparium), blue mountain huckleberries (V. parvifolium), and the low mountain blueberry (V. caespitosum) were collected. When huckleberries were collected into October, black tree lichen (Bryoria fremontii) was gathered and baked as a confection to go with the berries.
Trees
Over 30 species of trees were recognized by the Indians but most used for food and other purposes were located outside the Hanford Site. The whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) was a source of pine nuts and the Ponderosa pine (P. ponderosa) provided edible inner bark. The lodgepole pine (P. contorta) was used to construct poles for lodges. The Garry Oak (Quercus garryana) was used as a food source if its acorns were leached of bitter tannins and its wood was used to fabricate digging sticks. Garry Oak is not present on or near the Hanford Site. Maple was used to fashion dip-nets and Ocean spray (Holodiscus discolor) was used as bracing. The main source of firewood was sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) and driftwood. Elderberry (Sambucus caerulea) was used for venting underground ovens and Peachleaf willow (Salix amygdaloides), which occasionally grows to 50 feet without a branch, was used for longhouse frames.
Fibers
The Indians, who were highly mobile in the pursuit of food and fuel, fabricated containers from light weight fibers. Similarly, nets, bindings, and baskets were essential to the hunting and gathering way of life [Figure 3.5]. Mats and clothing were also made of plant fibers such as Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) and tule or bulrush (Scirpus actus/S. validus). Hemp string was fashioned into a time ball by Yakama women who knotted the string to mark special occasions in their lives. Cedar root served as the main structure of berry-collecting baskets, which were imbricated with bleached beargrass leaves (Xerophyllum tenas) and the red bark of the bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata). Tule mats were used to cover summer teepees and winter longhouses. Twig needles of the greasewood plant (Sarcobatus vermiculatus) was also woven into tule mats and the common reed (Phragmites communis) was also used for this purpose. Large, soft containers were made from cattails (Typha latifolia and were used to store dry salmon. Giant wild rye (Elymus cinereus) was used to separate sections of salmon.
Medicines
Over 75 species of plants had medicinal uses and many were also used for body and spirit. Cultural differences between tribes and between Euro-Americans and Indians prevent the complete sharing of information about medicinal plants. It was the tribal medicine man who had knowledge of the medicinal uses of the various herbs and roots. Among those plants known by the non-Indian community are the fern-leafed lomatium (L. dissecturm) was used as a fish poison, spring vegetable, and as a scalp-itch treament; the root pulp was used as a poultice to treat infected wounds and boils and to kill lice and bacteria (Hunn 1990:113). Diluted in a drink, it was used to treat upper respiratory infections and the root was chewed to treat sore throats. The lovage (Ligusticum canbyi) was also used for this purpose. Conifer pitch was applied to sores and wounds. Young Ponderosa pine and larch were used for teas to treat influenza and tuberculosis, respectively. Balsam firs (Abies spp.) were cleansers for spirit and mind. The grand and silver firs are still used in sweat lodges, and the steam is strengthened by the subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) (Hunn 1990:185). Sumac (Rhus alabra) was used to treat venereal disease. Several plants were used to aid the human spirit including spruce tea for spiritual malaise, wild tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata) for emotional crisis, and wild rose (Rosa spp.) or juniper and red cedar branches for spiritual sickness.
Mammals
Mammals may have provided up to 10 or 12 percent of the diet for river dwelling bands but much more for upriver and nonriverine groups such as the upper Yakama, Nez Perce, and Cayuse. Hunting was an important pursuit for men and boys and a source of pride - a first kill inaugurated a boys entry into manhood. Hunting was a year round activity but autumn was the most productive period when elk and deer aggregated for the rut and moved toward their winter ranges. The bow and arrow was the primary weapon until the introduction of the gun and arrows were fletched with hawk feathers bound with hemp and sealed with spruce gum. Prior to the introduction of the bow and arrow, the atlatl and dart were the primary hunting weapons. Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and black-tailed deer (O. hemionus columbianus) were hunted most often but the American elk (Cervus canadensis) was infrequently hunted [see Figure 3.5]. White-tailed deer (O. virginiana), bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis), mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) and the pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) were hunted on occasion. Bison were a major part of the diet for equestrian groups who moved en masse to the plains for year-long hunts.
Sharing game was a common practice but wasting game was punished by sickness or bad luck in hunting. The yellow-bellied marmot was hunted near summer fishing grounds. The hoary marmot, which lived in higher elevations, was not hunted since it was associated with the little people whose whistling might seduce the lone hunter into losing his sense of time, space, and identity (Hunn 1990:142). The Townsends ground squirrel (prairie dog), found in large numbers in sandy soils of the plains and foothills, was another important source of food. Streams were diverted to flood its colonies, after which the hunters clubbed or shot the squirrels. Jackrabbits and cottontails were netted in sagebrush flats in communal hunts using long hemp nets and rabbit fur was used for winter vests and socks. Although beaver, otter, muskrat and other fur-bearers were trapped, there were not a major source of food. Trapping was carried out to obtain furs; otter skins were used for decorative and symbolic hair braiding; and beaver musk glands were used as an aphrodisiac and love charm.
Birds
About 60 to 70 of the 260 bird species found in the Mid-Columbia region were recognized by the Indians. The 21 duck species share a single generic Sahaptian name and many were hunted, such as the Canada goose (Branta canadensis moffitti) on islands in the Columbia River. Eggs of some species of waterfowl were collected, but the ethnographic data suggests that waterfowl hunting and egg-collecting was not commonplace (Hunn 1990:144-145). Mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) and the common merganser (Mergus merganser) were among the most frequently hunted waterfowl. Tundra and trumpeter swans (Otar columbianus, O. buccinator) that wintered along the Columbia River provided additional winter food. The sharp-tailed grouse (Pediocetes phasianellus) and sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) were frequently hunted [Figure 3.5]. The blue and ruffed grouse (Dendraga pus obscurus, Bonasa umbellus) were occupants of the forests and were hunted much less often. The flickers red-orange flight feathers (Colaptes cafer) and the tail feathers of bald and golden eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Aquila chrysaetos) were required to dress the remains of the deceased for a journey to another world. Hawk feathers kept arrows in true flight. Eagle feathers still have power when used in mens dance costumes.
Religion
Indians believe they were placed on the land by the supreme creator to serve as caretakers of the natural world. Each group was created in place and given responsibility for that place in perpetuity. The earth and all that lives on it is thus part of a sacred trust. In the lower Columbia River Basin area, the form of the religion based on this trust is the Washani (see below). The supreme being is the Creator and life-giver and helping spirits are present in all beings (animals, plants, insects, rocks, clouds, and streams). Humans must treat the Creator and helping spirits with respect as a matter of spiritual law. Rudeness and disrespect entail withdrawal of support (animals and fish and other sources of life will abandon one or persistently evade ones efforts in the hunt). Special messages of dread or joy are delivered by Coyote and also by the raven, the great horned owl, and the meadowlark. Each living thing teaches a lesson, and just as these beings must be treated with respect, so must each human being.
Vision quests for guardian spirits were central to provide the strength to survive and endure the hardships of life, moral development, and the cultivation of ones unique talents. The spirit quest involved a lonely vigil, a vision, a sickness following newly acquired power, and a coming out with assistance from a spiritually endowed relative. This sequence often took years (cf. Ray 1939:68-131; Schuster 1975:114-120). Quests were undertaken by boys and girls nine or ten years old, and the coming out (public display of new powers) took place in winter with the shamanic power dances (Ray 1939:69-70). Often, it was years between receipt of a vision and the disclosure of powers and the vision powers were to be kept secret during that interval. The guardian spirit was a mammal, bird, or reptile, bestowing its special gifts to the seeker of the vision. Schuster (1975:118-119) noted that belief in the efficacy of guardian spirit power becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: one needs power for success; if successful, one has power.
Washani Religion
Euro-Americans triggered declines in Indian populations from diseases and cultural catastrophe. Some Indians joined the non-Indian world in trade, religion, and politics while others eschewed the non-Indian beliefs, institutions and devices. The Indians spiritual world was not separate from the physical world and the Plateau Indians practiced their religion based on songs and traditions of their elders for many hundreds of years. With the white invasion, disease, death, and uncertainty that the Euro-Americans introduced, the religion begin to adapt to the changes. For some members of the bands, this led to the beginnings of the Dreamer or Drummer religion, although the old Medicine religion was also practiced by some of the elders. Many of the latter were led by prophets who spoke of the restoration of the Indian ways and rejection of Euro-American customs and powers. The prophet cults might have started with the advent of smallpox in the Plateau. This catastrophe which was accompanied by economic, religious, and technical upheavals brought about by Euro-Americans, seemed to foster conditions ripe for the ascent to power of prophets (Hunn 1990). The prophet initiated sects were widespread on the Plateau and the most powerful of these was found among the Wanapums, whose founder, Smohalla, spent most of his life near what is now the Hanford Site.
Born sometime after 1810, Smohalla is first mentioned in a 1861 military report. The army was scouting the mid-Columbia River and attempting to prevent Indian/white conflict when the Northern Pacific Railroad was being constructed across the plateau. Smohallas greatest influence was in his ability to foretell events and to enter a trance state, journey to the Spirit Land, and return with messages of the worlds renewal and songs of spiritual power (hence the term Dreamer). He rejected Euro-American culture and was appalled at white alterations to the land, the sacred being of Indian religion. Smohala held meetings near Priest Rapids where he taught his religion (which was largely a formalization of the traditional Washani). His vision came to him on the eastern prominence of a large mountain or butte within the border of the Hanford Site (probably Rattlesnake Mountain). A carved image of his spirit bird (the Bullocks Oriole, Icterus bullockii) stood on a pole atop Smohallas tule-mat home and called to the salmon on their spring run. The Dreamer religion was the dominant sect among the Wanapum and Palouse, although it also was a powerful influence on some members of all Sahaptian bands and some Salish groups (Mooney 1896) in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. At about the same time period, Wovoka led the Ghost Dance religion in northern Nevada.
Prior to Smohallas time, around 1725, was born a Wanapum child called Shuwapsa. Oral tradition reveals that food was plentiful, and secure from want, the Wanapums forgot the need to give thanks for the earths bounty. This troubled the old medicine man who tutored Shuwapsa. Seeing that the Wanapums were not showing the proper respect for the Creator and Mother Earth, and fearing that disaster would result, the old man repeated to Shuwapsa the creation story which has been handed down into the 20th century (and recorded by Sharkey 1984:26-27). Shuwapsa acquired the power of yamish on his teenage vision quest and became the Wanapums first major spiritual leader and foretold of the coming of the whites. He predicted that these men would be friendly at first and then become enemies, spreading war and disease. He believed that dancing, praying, and worshipping in a prescribed manner could avert these disasters.
The concept of the Earth as Mother was fundamental to the Washani religion and under Shuwapsas leadership, the Wanapums belief that religion and life were one came to full fruition (Sharkey 1984:29). The Wanapums needed to remember that there was a price to be paid in order to receive the succor of Mother Earth and the continued protection of Nami Piap. Shuwapsa urged his followers to share food and shelter as the earth shared her gifts with the Indians. The smallpox epidemic of 1782 was seen as evidence of Nami Piaps wrath and this probably helped cement Shuwapsas teachings firmly into Wanapum life. By the time of Lewis and Clark, Shuwapsa had developed the Washani faith into a form recognizable to the whites as a religion, with priests leading ceremonies that included dancing, singing, and preaching.
Twenty years after Shuwapsas death, Smohalla was born (ca. 1813-1820). Until their lands were overrun by the whites, the Indians lived a peaceful and plentiful existence apart from periodic skirmishes with neighboring bands and occasional natural disasters (Sharkey 1984:38). During the fishing season, the banks of the Columbia were crowded with several thousand Indians living in camps of up to two hundred. The relative ease of food gathering during this period allowed for religious practices, Washanis rituals of traditional first food feasts, dancing, and drumming to meet the spiritual needs of those who relied upon Mother Earth for sustenance. Smohalla was influenced by this religious complex and the Prophet Dance, which included beliefs in prophecy, resurrection, a Supreme Being, group worship, and confession. Some have speculated that Smohalla might have been influenced by Christian practices (Sharkey 1984:43) and some Christian elements crept into the Washani religion.
Smohalla believed that Nami Piap would provide as long as the Indians game Him thanks and feared the blackness which would follow if they turned to the white ways. As he saw the Indians turn to Christianity and adopt the white culture, even to the point of living near the missions and tilling the soil, he began to worry about Nami Piaps exhortations and feared that if the people ignored the old ways, the end of the world would come (Sharkey 1984:45). Against a backdrop of disease, seismic and volcanic activity throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Smohalla believed the Creator was displeased with His children. As Sharkey (1984:45-46) notes, Shuwapsas teachings did not contain a great deal of ritual designed to protect the Indians from their current difficulties and Smohalla knew that this must change. Around 1850, he undertook a vision quest to the sacred mountain of LaLac; as hunger and thirst overtook him and he slept the sleep of the dead, he awoke with a new spirit song, powers, and knowledge to add to the Washani religion. Smohalla reinforced Shuwapsas kneeling dance and drumming services and added new elements to strengthen Washani and keep the Indians from following the ways of the whites (Sharkey 1984:46).
One reason the Wanapum refused to sign a treaty with Governor Stevens is that the concept of living on a reservation was incompatible with Washani precepts, that is, Nami Piap would not sanction their giving his gift of land away (Sharkey 1984:54). Smohalla knew that food was often scarce on the reservation or at the missions and that the plow and Bible policies of the Indian agents were opposed to Washani and dreaming. Since dreaming was how the spirits and Indians communicated, anything which interfered with this was unacceptable. Tilling the soil to raise food was disturbance of Mother Earth and to be avoided. As treaty promises went unfulfilled or were broken, and as reservation lands were reduced, Smohallas teachings gained credence among his followers and the reservation dwelling Indians. This, coupled with the unpunished acts of white agression against the Indians and the division/fragmentation of the various bands due to religious differences created an environment of mistrust. Furthermore, the religious divisions between those following their ancestral religion and those adopting the Christian faith, caused a great rift among the many Sahaptian bands. One Drummer religious leader at Tygh Valley along the Columbia was arrested by Indian police and drug behind a horse for over thirty miles for practicing his religion. He fled with some of his followers and sought red by a Catholic priest who saw his safe return to his homeland.
Today, many continue to practice the Washani rituals. In 13 longhouses throughout the Northwest, the adherents dance to the seven drums, incorporating ancient rites of gratitude for the fruits of the earth on Sunday and other feast days. Indians gather at Priest Rapids, Toppenish, White Salmon, Lapwai, Tutawill, Nespelem, Simansho and elsewhere for feasts of thanksgiving and Sunday meetings are held at all the longhouses. The Indian Shaker religion, a syncretic religion combining elements of traditional Puget Sound Salish religion with Christianity, is also practiced on some of the reservations. Likewise, generalized shamanism by Indian doctors is commonplace. Despite efforts by federal and church officials to destroy the traditional religion in its various forms, these cherished customs continue. Columbia River bands of the Yakama and Wanapum escaped some of the worst persecution due to their geographical isolation from the missions and government posts. Today, traditional religions are experiencing revitalization.
3.4.4 A Brief Introduction to the Indian Groups
The Hanford Site itself lies within lands ceded to the United States by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation [Figure 3.6]. The Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla Walla peoples are organized within the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Yakama and other groups are organized within the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation. The Nez Perce visited the Hanford Site to fish and trade with local peoples and to partake in ceremonial gatherings and the Palouse lived very close to the Hanford Site and certainly used its lands in the past. Until 1943, the Wanapum lived within what is now the Hanford Site. The following summaries are derived from Ruby and Brown (1992).
Figure 3.6. Inland Northwest Treaty Cessions (after Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986: 208).
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
The origin of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation goes back to the June 9, 1855 Walla Walla Treaty (12 Stat. 945, ratified March 8, 1859) between the Cayuses, Wallawallas, the Umatillas, and the United States. These tribes agreed to remove to the Umatilla Reservation in northeastern Oregon and ceded 2,151,680 acres in Oregon Territory and 1,861,120 in Washington Territory to create the 245,699 acre reservation. Initially, each of the tribes kept a measure of separateness on the reservation although bearing a common name (Umatilla). The Umatilla Tribes became officially confederated on November 4, 1949. The Slater Act of March 3, 1885, reduced the reservation and provided for allotment to the Indians, but limited allotment to 120,000 acres. Of the roughly 157,000 acres reserved for the Indians, only 95,273 remained in 1969 (15,438 were tribally owned and 79,835 allotted).
Early 19th century French-Canadian fur trappers called the Cayuses the cailloux, a French word for stones or rocks. Closely related culturally and geographically to the Nez Perces, they eventually adopted the language of the latter. The Cayuse language survived into historic times and could be heard on the Umatilla Reservation in the 1950s and 1960s but it was not a Sahaptian language (see Rigsby 1969). Like the Nez Perces, they were noted for their horse culture and originally lived in what is now north-central Oregon and moved away from their linguistic neighbors (the Molalas) and reached a new homeland on the upper reaches of the Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Grande Ronde rivers (see Garth 1964:45). Their lands stretched westward from the Blue Mountains to the John Day River.
The Cayuse horse was named for the tribe, who, according to tradition, received their first horses from the Shoshonis. The Cayuse were able to use the horse to dominate sedentary peoples living nearby. The Cayuse considered fishing a demeaning occupation and had no desire to own anything but the hunting and pasture land away from the river (Garth 1964:46). The horse enabled the Cayuse to journey as far east as the Great Plains to trade, hunt, and fight and they thus acquired cultural elements of the Plains tribes. The early 19th century fur traders were unable to get the Cayuse to gather furs.
In 1818, the North West Company built Fort Nez Perces (Fort Walla Walla) in the lands of the neighboring Wallawallas. From there, the they (and through the 1821 merger with the Hudsons Bay Company) sought the good will of the Cayuse to facilitate fur trapping and travel through Cayuse lands and up into the fur rich Snake River country. At the urging of the North West Company, the Cayuse entered into a tenuous peace with enemy tribes on the upper Snake River, whose furs the British sought to collect before competing Americans took them.
The Cayuse are believed to have participated in the November 29, 1847 killings of Reverend (Doctor) Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, at their Waiilatpu Mission on Cayuse lands near present-day Walla Walla, Washington. The underlying causes of the killings stemmed from squabbles between the Cayuse and the missionaries over ownership of mission lands, unhappiness at immigrants traversing their lands, fears that these travelers were carrying measles, the practice of killing doctors who failed to cure patients, and agitation among Walla Walla valley half-bloods. The ensuing Cayuse War of 1848 culminated in the June 3, 1850 Oregon City hanging of five Cayuses deemed guilty by the provisional Oregon territorial government. The Whitman killings ended mission work among the Cayuses by the American Board although Roman Catholic missionaries continued their work in the area.
Losses from war, disease, and white inroads prompted the Cayuse, despite their hostile feelings, to sign a treaty on June 9, 1855 (12 Stat. 945) which was ratified March 8, 1859 and proclaimed April 1, 1859. They submitted to the United States and agreed to live on a reservation to be established in their homelands. Four months later, some Cayuses joined an Indian confederation in fighting the Yakima War of 1855-1856 against American volunteer and regular army forces. Suffering much and broken in spirit after their military defeats, they settled on the Umatilla Reservation. In 1780, the Cayuses might have numbered some 500, but numbered only 370 in 1937. Their original Waiilatpuan language appears to be lost.
The Wallawallas lived along the Columbia at its confluence with the Walla Walla River, and east along the Walla Walla to its junction with the Touchet River. Because of their proximity and repeated exposure to their traditional foes (the Shoshone), the Wallawallas had close ties with the Nez Perce and Umatillas, as well as with the Waiilatpuan-speaking Cayuses. In 1805-1806, the Wallawallas met Lewis and Clark and five years later (and for several years thereafter), they met personnel of the fur-trading companies traveling up and down the Columbia River. In 1818, Fort Nez Perce (Fort Walla Walla) was built near the confluence of the Columbia and Walla Walla. In 1836, they came under the ministrations of the Whitmans. In 1844, when the son of Wallawalla chief PeoPeo MoxMox was killed by a white man at Sutters Mill in California, the Americans feared that a thousand Walla Walla would return to wreak vengeance upon them. A band of Indians did return to California two years later but were weak and few in number. The Wallawallas did not participate in the Whitman killings but some joined the Cayuse in their ensuing war against the Americans in 1848.
The Wallawallas attended the treaty council that bears their name and signed on June 9, 1855. During the Yakima Indian war in the fall of 1855, after the Wallawallas pillaged Fort Walla Walla, PeoPeo MoxMox was shot and killed and his body mutilated by white volunteer troops. There was no rush of Wallawallas to the Umatilla Reservation after that, but they slowly drifted onto that confine as whites occupied their former lands. The Wallawalla might have numbered 500 in 1836, but by 1962, their descendants in Oregon numbered between 100 and 200.
The Umatilla lived on the lower reaches of the Umatilla River and along both banks of the Columbia from present-day Arlington, Oregon, east to the mouth of the Walla Walla River. They may have numbered 1,500 in 1780 but were reduced to 124 by 1937. Before acquiring horses early in the 18th century, they depended mostly on salmon and other fish. The Umatilla had few intertribal political ties, but under threat from their most feared enemy (the Paiute), they formed a war alliance with the Nez Perce. Their stronghold against mounted Paiute raiders, Blalock Island, was covered behind the flood waters of McNary Dam. In 1848, they sent warriors to join their Cayuse neighbors after the Whitman killings. Living along the Oregon Trail, the Umatillas were alarmed at the increasing numbers of immigrants passing over their lands in the 1840s. Aware of Indian restiveness caused by white immigration, Congress passed the Donation Land law on September 29, 1850 which allowed whites to homestead lands in Oregon not yet ceded by the Indians. Indian restiveness also prompted the government to establish the Utilla (Umatilla) Agency on the Lower Crossing of the Umatilla River near present-day Echo, Oregon in 1851. The Roman Catholic mission of Saint Anne (later Saint Joseph and then Saint Andrew) was established in 1847 near Pendleton but abandoned in 1848 after the Whitman killings and the Cayuse War and reestablished in 1851. Like the Cayuses, the Umatillas frequented the Utilla Agency to obtain food and intelligence concerning the activities of the whites. They suffered at the hands of incompetent agents, one of whom encouraged them to steal immigrant cattle which he later purchased from them.
White cattlemen fled the Umatilla valley in October 1855, the year the Tenino Indians burned the agency building. In the same month, the (1855-1856) Yakima War broke out. In May and June, 1855, the Umatillas met the Washington and Oregon superintendents of Indian affairs, Isaac Stevens and Joel Palmer, at the Walla Walla Treaty Council. They signed a treaty on June 9, 1855 (12 Stat. 945) that was ratified on March 8, 1859 and proclaimed on April 11, 1859 ceding their lands to the United States in return for a reservation north and south of the middle Umatilla River. On one occasion at the height of the Yakima War, when they were in council with the Cayuse and the Yakama in the Grande Ronde valley, they were attacked by Paiutes and forced to flee, abandoning their old, young, and crippled.
Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation
The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation has its roots in the Yakima Treaty signed on June 9, 1855. After that treaty some of the signatory bands, primarily Klickitats, joined the Yakamas on the Yakama Reservation of the Simcoe Agency. The Yakama Tribes stress their nationhood because unlike tribes on reservations established by executive orders, they were party to a treaty in the manner of sovereign nations. Today, Yakama tribesmen live on a reservation of over one million acres in south-central Washington and on farms in the Yakima River valley, or in reservation towns such as Toppenish, Wapato, Parker, and White Swan. Others live off-reservation in nearby towns and cities. Tribal membership in 1984 was about 6,853, more than double the estimate of 3,000 attributed to Yakamas proper in 1780. Under the Yakima Treaty of 1855, the Klicitats became the most numerous people on the Yakama Reservation next to the Yakamas proper. The Klickitats were removed there in 1867 due to white pressure in the Willamette valley of Oregon, where for many years they had gone to trade, hunt, and farm.
During the early reservation period, the Yakama came under the strong hand of Reverend James (Father) Wilbur, a Methodist minister who became agent in 1864. Except for a brief hiatus, Wilbur remained in that office throughout the period of President Grants Peace Policy era of the 1870s and early 1880s. He ruled under the standard of The Plow and the Bible and his administration was regarded by the white Protestant community as a model of Indian agency management. The Indians, however, were unenthusiastic about farming, and the teaching of the Bible led to friction between Protestants and Roman Catholics over management of the Simcoe Agency.
In the late 19th century, whites began encroaching on the Yakama Reservation with such projects as irrigation dams that were built across the Yakima River in 1891. In 1894, agent L.T. Erwin attempted to bring the Yakama people closer to the white world by constructing the Erwin Ditch with the proceeds from the sale of the Wenatchapam Fishery that had been reserved for them under the treaty. Controversies among Yakamas and whites regarding fishing, water, and land-use rights continued into the 20th century. Allotment of the reservation began in the early 1890s and was mostly completed by 1914 when some 440,000 acres of the reservation had been allotted. As the 20th century advanced, Yakama peoples were brought more closely into the white world, but not always on friendly terms. During World War I, Yakama traditionalists believed their youth were sent to fight so that Americans could destroy them. Given a long heritage of dissatisfaction with the United States, the Yakama did not organize under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (48 Stat. 984) until 1935.
The Yakama numbered some 3000 in 1780. Union Gap, south of present-day Yakima, was the site of their main village, Pakiut (hills together) and they lived in the watershed of the Yakima River. The Lower Yakamas, or Yakamas proper, occupied the lower Yakima watershed from the ancient Selah Village (just north of present-day Yakima) south to present-day Prosser. The Upper Yakamas (Kittitas) occupied the upper Yakima valley north of Selah and the Kittitas Valley. Among the Yakama are traditions of a Flood, prophets dying for three days and returning to earth, and predictions of the coming of black-robed (Roman Catholic) priests. Their first direct contact with whites was with Lewis and Clark and soon after other white travelers and traders passed through their lands. By the late 1830s, they came under the ministrations of Catholic priests.
The Yakama headmen who signed the Yakima Treaty on June 9, 1855 represented various lower-middle Columbia River bands. Despite opposition to the treaty, 14 tribes under the Yakama standard ceded to the United States about 10 million acres of present-day central Washington for their main reservation, which was less than 1,250,000 acres. Designated under the treaty as the head Yakama chief, Kamiakin led a coalition of interior tribes against the Americans in what became known as the Yakima War of 1855-1856. Despite some initial victories, the Yakamas and their allies were defeated in November 1855 at Union Gap. During the war, Yakama unity was disrupted by friction between Kamiakins Lower Yakama faction and that of the Upper Yakamas who regarded this son of a Palouse father as an outsider. After treaty ratification on March 8, 1859, the 14 confederated tribes formed the Yakama Indian Nation.
Nez Perce
The Nez Perce, who call themselves Nimipu, first came into contact with Anglo-Americans in 1805 with members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition as they descended onto the Weippe meadow above the Clearwater River. The Tribes reputation for friendliness began with this visit. Traditionally, the Nez Perces lived in scattered villages and maintained few political institutions. The aboriginal homeland, the western slopes of the Rockies was marked by high plateaus and deep river valleys. Tribal life evolved around small, semipermanent villages that lay along the shores of the major streams and creeks. The village site varied upon bands ranging from 10 to 75 members with over 300 known Nez Perce village sites in Oregon, Idaho and Washington encompassing over 13.5 million acres.
On the antiquity of his tribe, Nez Perce warrior Howlis Wonpoon, War Singer (known as Camille Williams - a naive linguist and interpretor in the 1930s) stated:
On the North Fork of the Clearwater River a few miles below Bungalow Ranger Station, Idaho, the footprints of a human being are plainly seen, sunken into the basaltic rock formation. The tracks are those of a man running upstream as if in pursuit of something, probably game. On the Snake River there are stony tracks of a woman and child. Also [there are] tracks at a bathing place near Fir Bluff, today a solid rock formation.
Further, Wottolen, Hair Combed Over Eyes, a blind old warrior and noted native historian said:
There are two places up on the Salmon River where the people lived, on these places and none on the Clearwater or Lapwai or Snake Rivers. The first generations of Nez Perce grew up at those two places. I do not know how many snows back of that time. The buffalo was hunted on the head of the Salmon. Next few snows they would go a little farther east. (L.V. McWhorter files)
In summer, as stated by present day historian Allen Slickpoo, Sr., the Nez Perce have occupied this land from time immemorial.
Because their survival required that the bands move in this annual gathering cycle, there were no permanent sites and very little extended politcal organization beyond the band headmen and peace leaders who ensured the women, elderly and children were provided for. The tribal identity was derived from the commonality of language, land, family and religion. Euro-American contact is what brought about the smallpox epidemic, the horse in the 1730s and the new trade and warfare items that were acquired with other tribes.
The horse reached the Nez Perce in the 1730s and dramatically changed the lifestyle of the Nez Perce. With greater mobility they travelled more often to the buffalo country as well as on trade missions to the Columbia. The longhouses were still utilized in the winter months, but families adapted the portable teepee style dwellings. Further, the Nez Perce along with the Cayuse tribe, were the only known tribes to selectively breed horses to improve their stock; culling those horses of inferior traits. This added to the wealth and reputation of the Nez Perce in terms of trade goods and territory. The trade practice was increased not only within bands of the Nez Perce, but with outside tribes, including the Yakama, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Palouse, Blackfeet, Crow and Sioux.
Shortly after the introduction of the horses, the first known Euro-Americans introduced epidemics that coupled with the increased mobility brought devastation and death to all tribes of the Plateau. The first documented smallpox outbreak among the Plateau Indians was in the 1770s and another outbreak occurred in 1801 resulting in a population reduction of around 45% (Boyd 1985, cited by Campbell 1989:22). Although no reliable early census data is available, the Nez Perce were reportedly numbering around 6,000 at the time of Lewis and Clark.
In 1836, the Nez Perces began a new relationship with Euro-American influence that produced a permanent change that still affects the tribe today. During this time a group of Presbyterian ministers arrived in Idaho and settled in the heart of Nez Perce country. The bands in the Kamiah area took them in establishing a mission there and one at Lapwai. Thus began the fragmentation of the Nez Perces based on spiritual and material survival needs. Those Nez Perces who adopted the Christian religion found advances could be made in terms of material wealth and land acquisition. Those Nez Perces who clung to the Dreamer religion soon realized that this division would tear the Tribe apart for many generations (E. Jane Gay 1919).
At mid-century, the Indian Office began moving Indians in the Northwest onto reservations to separate them from the growing number of white settlers as well as for religious differences. The Treaty of 1855 resulted in 7.5 million acres set aside for the Nez Perce. It also required recognition of the American government and the imposition of a Office of Principal Chief which was not acceptable to many bands of the Nez Perce. The official recognition of Head Chief was assumed by Chief Lawyer of Kamiah, who was friendly with the whites and also a Christian convert. Notably, when gold was discovered on the Nez Perce reservation in 1860, his band was helpful in bringing suppliess to the miners. In 1863 another treaty was signed which greatly divided the Tribe. It reduced the acreage to 750,000 abandoning claims to lands in Oregon and Washington and parts of Idaho. The land occupied by Chief Lawyer and his band was not ceded to the United States, however the lands where the dreamer bands still resided were then ceded. In 1887 the Dawes Allotment Act was passed resulting in 500,000 of those acres to be opened for white settlement. Today, only 13% of the Nez Perce reservation is still owned by the Tribe.
In 1877, General O.O. Howard issued an ultimatum for the remaining non-treaty Nez Perce to be on the Idaho reservation within 30 days. In complying with this order, the Chief Joseph Band of Oregon crossed the Salmon River to the WhiteBird territory. During this time, three young warriors avenging the murder a few years prior of one of their fathers, shot and killed a white trader. Thus began the Nez Perce War at the Battle of Whitebird. The Nez Perce involved in the war numbered 750 of which 250 were warriors and the remaining are women, children and the elderly travelling with 2,000 head of livestock that outran the army a distance of 1,800 miles. The bands involved formed an alliance recognizing the skills of the band chiefs of which Ollokut, Josephs brother, White Bird and Lookkingglass would plan war strategies while Josephy would be responsible for the safety of the women and children (L.V. McWhorter files).
In October, during a snow storm at the last battle of the war at BearPaw, Montana; only 30 miles from the Canadian border, Joseph surrendered. It is estimated by tribal participants in the war that 233 escaped into Canada with Chief WhiteBird; of these, 140 were men and boys and 93 were women and girls. Of the remaining Nez Perce; 431 went with Joseph into exile as prisoners of war. Of these, 87 were men, 187 were women and 160 were children (L.V. McWhorter files). While in exile from 1877 to 1885, only 268 Nez Perce survived the malaria and hunger in Oklahoma. Of these, 118 were allowed to return to the Idaho Nez Perce reservation, the remaining 150 were declared as too subversive and were then sent to the Colville Reservation in Washington, never allowed to return to their homelands in Wallowa valley of Oregon as promised at BearPaw. In 1891, the BIA agency census for the Nez Perce reservation was 1.700 and the 1892 census was 1,828 which is quite a significant decline since the advent of Lewis and Clark. Today there are currently 3,200 enrolled Nez Perce of which 2,450 reside on or near the Nez Perce reservation.
Palouse
The Palouse called themselves the Nahaum (or Palous after the standing rock at the mouth of the Palouse River near their main village, which was also called Palus). The Palouse consisted of three autonomous bands along the lower Snake River to the Columbia-Snake confluence. The ethnologist James H. Teit believed the Palouse were a Yakama, or closely related people, that once occupied the lower middle-Columbia River, from which some of them moved to the lower Snake and Palouse rivers. In 1780, the Palouse numbered about 1,800. In 1805-1806, they might have numbered 1,600 but by 1854, they numbered only about 500. When visited by Lewis and Clark, the Palouse lived in wooden houses, in contrast to the mat tipis of their neighbors.
The Palouse were primarily fishermen, but migrated from their permanent fishing villages to gather roots and berries and to hunt. Early 19th century fur traders often purchased horses from the Palouse, who managed their herds with a skill equal to the Nez Perce. The Palouse were one of the tribes whom the white treaty makers designated as members of the Yakama Nation in the Walla Walla Treaty of 1855. During the 1855-1858 war that followed the treaty signing, they fought against the Americans. The leader of the Indian coalition in the Yakima phase of the war (1855-1856) was Kamiakin, a man of Palouse-Yakama ancestry. In September 1858, Army Colonel George Wright invaded the Spokane-Coeur dAlene country to retaliate against the Palouse and other tribes who defeated the army command of Col. Edward Steptoe in May 1857. Col. Wright ordered the killing of 800 horses owned by the Palouse.
In the immediate postwar period, the Palouse had dwindled to a small remnant. Living at the center of a triangle between the Nez Perce, Yakama and Umatilla reservations, the government urged the Palouse to remove to one of them. The Palouse avoided removal and refused government aid claiming the government failed to abide by its treaty obligations to compensate them for their lands. Agent James Wilbur was particularly zealous in seeking their removal to the Yakama Reservation. In 1872, at the start of the Peace Policy era, the Palouse numbered 150. While some Palouse agreed to remove to the proposed Spokane or Coeur dAlene reservation, they continued until the end of the 19th century subsisting on small farm patches in their homelands. Some Palouse Dreamers fought alongside Chief Joseph against American forces in 1877 and went with him into exile in the Oklahoma Indian Territory from which they returned to settle on the Colville Reservation in 1886. Traps and fish wheels on the Columbia and ever encroaching ranchers and farmers denied the Palouse their native sources of food. In 1919, they numbered only 82 and today are virtually extinct but for their blood which flows through the veins of Indians on several reservations.
Wanapum
The Wanapums were composed of groups, one of which was called Sokulks by Lewis and Clark, that lived along the Columbia in the Priest Rapids area (today obliterated by the backwaters of the Priest Rapids Dam). Priest Rapids was named by fur traders who on August 18, 1811, encountered a native priest there. Smohalla preached the sacredness of the earth and its final restoration to aboriginal purity. Through his ceremonials he was able to attract to his rush-mat lodge in Pna (fish weir) village those traditionalists avoiding reservations (renegades according to the whites). Under his influence and leadership, the Wanapums maintained their independence despite the efforts of Indian agents to confine them to reservations. The Wanapums were successful partly due to conflicts between Indian agents and army officials, who disagreed on the proper distribution of the tribe, and partly due to the barrenness of their Priest Rapids homelands, which did not invite white settlement. After his death in March 1895, Smohalla was succeeded by his son, Little Smohalla, who froze to death in 1917. A direct descendant, Puck Hyah Toot (Johnny Buck), was a Wanapum leader until his death on September 11, 1956. In contrast to the other tribes, the Wanapums did not enter into any treaties with the United States.
A 1939 Washington state law allowed the Indians to take fish for personal and ceremonial use, but not for commercial purposes. Recodification of the laws in 1949 removed this provision, but in 1981, the state enacted another law requiring the Wanapum to obtain permits to fish for ceremonial and subsistence purposes. During World War II, the Wanapums, who were living in mat dwellings, were removed to the foot of the Priest Rapids from the area set aside for the Atomic Energy Reservation at Hanford. The Wanapums maintain that the only treaty they have signed with whites is an agreement dated January 15, 1957 which four of their men signed with the Grant County Public Utility District. In addition to providing cash, lifelong housing in individual homes, electricity and water, a longhouse, and employment at the dam, the utility promised the Wanapums their right to hunt and fish and agreed to move some petroglyphs from Whale Island in the Columbia River to the Wanapum burial grounds and a recreation area. In 1770, the Wanapums might have numbered 1,800 but by 1870 their population dropped to about 300. Only four Wanapum families rem
3.4.5 Indian Use of the Hanford Site
Walla Walla and Umatilla
The Walla Walla and Umatilla fished in common with neighboring groups in their own territory and at Horn Rapids on the Yakima. Suphan (1974:54) stated that the lower Yakima River and the White Bluffs-to-Priest Rapids region was of relatively little interest to the Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Cayuse, but Walker (1988:20) asserts that these groups recorded usual and accustomed fishing sites in the same areas and a reservation of a home site and trading post site for PeoPeo MoxMox on the Lower Yakima River in the Treaty of 1855. PeoPeo Mox Mox was a principal Walla Walla chief who reserved a fishing and trading site for himself on the lower Yakima River and insisted on including the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River within ceded lands of the Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Cayuse confederation. This suggests that these fisheries, which were under the resource sovereignty of the Wanapum and lower Yakama, were also used and valued by the Walla Walla and their confederates. Walker (1988:20) thus concludes that this general area is of substantial significance to all three groups, but especially to the Walla Walla.
Suphan (1974) served as a consultant to the Government during Indian land claims cases in the 1950s and drew conclusions congruent with Trafzer and Scheuerman (1985) and Relander (1956), who were strongly supported by the tribes they wrote about. Suphans conclusions are also consistent with nuance of the treaty language signed by the Walla Walla and their allies in 1855. Interestingly, Deward Walker (1988:18) in his review of Chatters (1989) asserts that Chalfants (1974) and Suphans (1974) position was highly adversarial in that they both worked as expert witnesses for the Department of Justice. Suphans assignment was to minimize tribal land claims and he was opposed, and his research largely discredited by, Verne Ray who worked as an expert witness for the tribes. Chalfant, in perhaps a legally-inspired tactic, attempted to dismember the Palouse as a political entity in his role as the governments expert witness (Walker 1988:18). Suphan (1974:54) stated that the Umatilla and Walla Walla visited and exploited certain places along the lower portion of the Yakima and Columbia rivers above their junction, but it was primarily the Yakama and the Wanapum that exploited this land. Suphan (1974:53-54) also noted that the Umatilla, Walla Walla, Cayuse, and Nez Perce visited this area to trade but that their exploitation of the natural resources was decidedly secondary to that of the Yakama and Wanapum as well as secondary to their own utilization of the land east of the Columbia and south of the Snake. Walker (1988:20) rejected Suphans conclusion and asserted that all of these tribes retained an interest in this region because it was of vital importance to them as evidenced especially in their treaties and usual and accustomed usage.
Palouse
In western Palouse settlements, Palouse dialects were more closely related in language to the Wanapum who resided along the mid-Columbia and this linguistic connection suggests frequent Palouse-Wanapum contacts. The Palouse consisted of three groups with separate resource territories (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1985). The lower Palouse (Nahanam) occupied the area around, and a few miles above, the mouth of the Snake and their main village was Quosispah which is located near present-day Sacajawea State Park at the mouth of the Snake. They cohabited Columbia River villages with the Chamnapum and Wanapum, at least during the early fall fishing season. They visited the White Bluffs area for fishing and often fished at Horn Rapids and were familiar with lower portions of the Hanford Reach of the Columbia.
Cayuse and Nez Perce
Both groups lived east and south of the Hanford region, separated from it by the Blue Mountains and the territories of at least one other group. Neither the Cayuse nor Nez Perce is known to have utilized the Hanford area as a resource base but relied more on areas to the south and east. According to Suphan (1974), they visited the area to trade and participate in rendezvous, and may have engaged in some minor resource-gathering activities at the same time. Given the limited resource potential of the Hanford area, fishing for spring Chinooks at Prosser or Horn Rapids, or for fall Chinooks at White bluffs are the most likely resource gathering activities for these peoples.
Wanapum and Yakima
According to most authors (Smith 1982), the Hanford Site area was primarily inhabited by the Wanapum and Chamnapum. The Chamnapum were believed to be a band of lower Yakama, although Black (in Rich 1947) described them as part of the Walla Walla on the basis of language. Like the Walla Walla, Palouse, Yakama, and Umatilla, the Chamnapum and Wanapum were Sahaptian speakers.
Historical and ethnographic accounts (cf. Ross 1922; Ray 1936b, 1938; Relander 1956; Suphan 1974; Mooney 1896), indicate the Wanapums customarily occupied the right bank of the Columbia from the confluence of Crab Creek in the north to some point between White Bluffs and the confluence of the Snake, and on the left bank from just below Priest Rapids to the same southern area. Immediately downriver were the Chamnapum on the right bank and the Palouse on the left bank and intermarriage between these groups was common. They routinely traveled westward and northward to mingle with the Yakamas, and northeastward to mingle with the lower Palouse and Sincayuse (Relander 1986). The lower section of the Yakima River and the Columbia above the junction of the two rivers was used primarily by the Chamnapum band of Yakama and the White Bluffs and Priest Rapids Wanapum (cf. Suphan 1974:141; but see Umatilla and Walla Walla above for Walkers 1988:18 alternative perspective).
A trail from Priest Rapids and White Bluffs to the Yakima River was used by the Yakama and Wanapum when visiting each other to feast and dance. At Celilo Falls on the Columbia, the Wanapums fished, mingled, and intermarried with their cultural and linguistic kindred (Relander 1956:34). The Wanapums were the primary seasonal occupants of two fishing places (Wy-yow-now near the village at White Bluffs and Wan-a-wish at the Horn Rapids irrigation dam site on the lower Yakima River). Although other Indians came to visit, the Wanapums (and Chamnapums) had sovereignty over the fishery there (Swindell 1942:248-288). Wanapum villages and other use sites have been documented by Relander (1956:296-318). Wanapum and Yakama use of the Hanford Site is documented in their legends (Beavert 1974:10-24, 182).
Lewis and Clarks 1805-1806 Corps of Discovery expedition has long symbolized the westering impulse in American life and no other exploring party has so fully captured the imagination of ordinary citizens or scholars. Much has been written about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in primary sources (Coues 1893, DeVoto 1953, Gass 1958, Jackson 1978; Moulton 1983, Thwaites 1904-1905) and a number of secondary sources. One work in particular, James P. Rondas (1984) Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, was authored from a perspective sensitive to the Indian people. Over the generations, the significance and achievements of the Lewis and Clark expedition have undergone constant reappraisal. Their journey has been viewed as an epic of physical endurance and courage and they have been viewed as pioneer western naturalists, cartographers, and diplomats. Jefferson knew that his explorers would pass through the sometimes invisible universe of Indian politics and European rivalries and understood that the lands from St. Louis to the great western sea were neither empty nor unclaimed. The political and economic face of the land had already been transformed by a generation of intense competition between tribal peoples and agents of Spain, France, and Great Britain. Although formal direct contact between Euro-Americans and the Plateau Indians first occurred with Lewis and Clark, European influences from other parts of the North American continent had resulted in varying amounts of indirect contact many years prior to the expedition. Not only had the Indians come into contact with trade goods but also suffered from introduced diseases. The native subsistence and settlement patterns observed by Lewis and Clark may have already reflected post-contact conditions (see Campbell 1989).
Jefferson understood that if the expedition was to be successful, whether for science, commerce, or statecraft, it would need to navigate through troubled Indian waters (Ronda 1984:1). Jefferson cautioned Lewis that the expedition must treat the Indians in the most friendly and conciliatory manner and to gather information about the Indians while living at peace with them. Attorney General Levi Lincoln urged Jefferson to have Lewis take some cowpox matter along to administer to the Indians since if they were to have extensive contact with whites, they needed to be protected against smallpox. Dead Indians could not participate in trade and dying natives could only blame the explorers for spreading disease (Ronda 1984:2). Although Jefferson did not fully understand the complexity of Indian exchange systems operating on the northern plains and Pacific Northwest, he was intent on expanding American commercial influence and knew that fur traders and other eager entrepreneurs needed information about future markets and sources of supply. Jefferson saw western America as a vast trade empire to rival a similar system already being forged by agents of the Hudsons Bay Company and the North West Company. Jeffersons belief that accurate information about Indians was essential in order to shape a peaceful environment for both peoples was rooted in his passionate boyhood interest in things Indian.
Representing the United States, Lewis and Clark were expected to pursue the Indian policy goals of the republic - acquire native lands at low cost while urging tribal people to shuck off hunting and breechcloths for plows and trousers (Ronda 1984:4). Couched in the language of Christian philanthropy, Jeffersonian Indian policy pursued national expansion with zeal, but west of the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson was less sure of both policy and strategy. Those new lands might be more appropriate for traders than settlers and might even provide a refuge for native people dispossessed by the farming frontier. When dealing with tribes east of the Mississippi, Jeffersons program was for civilization with land acquisition. West of the Mississippi, trade was the prime focus of his program. While tactfully ignoring questions of power and sovereignty, Lewis and Clark were ordered to acquaint Indians with the position, extent, character, peaceable and commercial disposition of the United States, and of our dispositions to a commercial intercourse with them.
Perhaps more naive were Jeffersons instructions to Lewis to organize delegations of chiefs and elders to be sent to Washington. Jefferson assumed that Indians would be properly impressed with the wealth and power of the new nation. Jefferson hoped the expedition might find some young Indians willing to be brought up with us, and taught such arts as may be useful to them. It was a dream that had haunted missionary and bureaucrat alike - native children gladly leaving their parents to embrace new fathers. While some Indian delegations did travel east and some Indian youth also headed east with missionary Marcus Whitman, Jeffersons dream, if fully realized, would have hastened the demise of Indian culture (Ronda 1984:6).
Colonial experience demonstrated that fruitful diplomacy and peaceful relations with Indian peoples required the exchange of gifts at each meeting. Some Europeans perceived gifts as bribes, but blankets, pots, and guns meant something else to the Indians (Ronda 1984:8). The act of reciprocal gift giving symbolized the concern of different people for each other and was a recognized part of the protocol of Indian diplomacy. Lewis learned from sources in the Pacific Northwest fur trade that blue glass beads were highly valued as were brass buttons. Unfortunately, Lewis did not pack sufficient numbers of these items, an oversight that cost the expedition dearly among the Nez Perce and Chinookan Indians (Ronda 1984:9).
After Lewis and Clark left the Nez Perce villages located along the Clearwater in early October 1805, at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia, Lewis and Clark entered an Indian world increasingly distant from the plains traditions that had been so much a part of expedition-Indian relations [Figure 3.7]. On the Columbia, salmon was king and fishing was the enterprise that gave shape to Indian life. Large houses with wooden frames, clothing a strange mixture of native and European fashions, graceful canoes with curious images at their bows, and practices like head-flattening, all pointed to a native environment dominated by Pacific ways (Ronda 1984:163). Lewis and Clark encountered Indians long accustomed to dealing with English, American, and native traders. In those transactions, it was the Indian middleman - whether Wishram or Chinook, who expected to set the price, while outsiders were to pay or go without.
Lewis and Clark duly recorded ethnographic information about the mid-Columbia tribes. When they met with Yelleppit, two other Walula chiefs, and a chief from either a Cayuse or a Umatilla band, the explorer-diplomats did the best they could to convey their friendly intentions towards our red children perticelar [sic] those who opened their ears to our Councils (Ronda 1984:167). Anxious to receive more goods, Yelleppit urged Lewis and Clark to tarry with them longer. As the expedition continued down the Columbia and neared the mouth of the Umatilla River, Indian reaction began to change dramatically. The welcomes offered by Yelleppit vanished and were replaced first by fear and then by ill-concealed hostility. That fear became evident on October 19 as the explorers left Walula territory and entered that occupied by Umatillas. Throughout the afternoon, they saw hastily abandoned villages and frightened Indians. Although the expeditions records offer no explanation for this sudden shift in native attitudes, an event later that afternoon does suggest how Indians with little or no contact with whites responded to the expedition believing that Lewis and Clark were gods (cf. Ronda 1984:168).
As the expedition moved closer to Celilo Falls and The Dalles, the Indians continued to show signs of fear and distrust [Figure 3.7]. Perhaps Lewis and Clark were identified with Paiute warriors who frequently raided the region. Something more than Indian edginess captured their attention. On October 20, Clark saw the first piece of European clothing on a river Indian. Even more trade goods were in evidence when the explorers visited the Upper Memaloose Islands. Known as the place of the departed, the islands contained many large burial vaults filled not only with human and equestrian remains, but with all sorts of trade goods of European manufacture (Ronda 1984:168). By the time Lewis and Clark were around the John Day River, non-Indian clothing and implements were everywhere.
Although trading and fishing took place from Celilo Falls down to The Dalles, the most intense bargaining was done at the main Wishram village of Nixluidix (trading place) located at the head of the Long Narrows. Towering stacks of dried salmon, estimated by Clark at about 10,000 pounds, illustrated the vast quantities of goods exchanged in the Pacific-Plateau network. Trading took place from spring through fall during the three major salmon runs, with most activity reserved for the fall season. During September and October, dried fish and roots were freshly prepared and in abundant supply. To The Dalles trade fair came the nearby Yakamas and Teninos as well as the more distant Umatillas, Walulas, and Nez Perce. Local groups brought food products including meat, roots, and berries which were exchanged for dried salmon and European cloth and ironware. Distant groups, especially the Nez Perce who had access to the plains, brought skin clothing, horses, and buffalo meat. Less interested in fish than their Columbia cousins, the Plateau groups were drawn to The Dalles in search of metal and beads (Ronda 1984:170).
By the time the Lewis and Clark prepared to return home in 1806, they had spent the winter with the Clatsop [see Figure 3.7 - Lewis and Clark Winter Camp 1805-1806] and had grown increasingly weary from their long journey. Their attitudes towards the Indians had hardened as a result of their mounting frustration and worry over their homeward schedules. When returning through The Dalles in late April, 1806, incidents of petty theft and harassment increased and their last two days in The Narrows (April 21 and 22) held more unpleasantness with Indians than any comparable time in the history of the expedition. Determined to deny the Indians even castoff items, Lewis ordered canoes, poles, and paddles burned. When Lewis spotted an Indian taking one of the iron sockets from a canoe pole, he struck him several times and kicked the Indian out of camp.
Four days after slipping free from The Dalles, Lewis and Clark finally met up again with Yelleppit of the Walulas. The chief was eager to show his pleasure and provided food and fire wood to welcome the expedition. On the westbound journey, Lewis and Clark had not been able to spend much time with Yelleppits folk but had promised to be more neighborly on their return. The chief, interested in gaining a prominent place in the American trade system, was not about to let that promise go unfulfilled. On April 28, he presented Clark with a very eligant white horse. The chief had his eye on acquiring some kettles, but the expedition was dangerously short on cooking pots and he was instead offered Clarks sword, 100 rounds of ammunition, and some trade goods (Ronda 1984:220). These items did not satisfy this Walula chief who was not ready to let Lewis and Clark slip away so easily from his grasp. He was willing to provide horses, food, canoes, and information but his price called for the Americans to stay in camp for at least an extra day and he artfully recalled the promise made the year before. Just how much the presence of Lewis and Clark meant to Walula prestige became plain when Yelleppit revealed that he had invited a large party of Yakamas for a grand feast and dance. Sensing that it wmpolite to disappoint the chief, Lewis and Clark agreed to spend a day before attempting a river crossing (Ronda 1984:221). In the last days of April, 1806, the explorers crossed the Columbia blessed with 23 excellent young horses, most of them from the Walulas. Lewis and Clark looked forward with pleasure to once again be amongst the Nez Perce on the Clearwater (Ronda 1984:221).
The expedition bound together the Indians and explorers in a common struggle to survive. Formal conferences, personal friendships, and chance meetings all bridged the cultural divide. Indians were so much a part of the life of the expedition that when no Indians were present as actors and audience, Lewis and Clark felt strangely alone. Exploration was a cooperative endeavor that required substantial information and support from the Indians. The anticipated behavior of the Indians was a decisive factor in the choice of equipment, personnel, routes, camp rules, and even ultimate destination. Whatever the official expedition objectives, the explorers carefully considered their presence. Indians were active participants in exploration, as the first comers to the land and later, as guides. They lent their intelligence, skill, and nerve and certainly Lewis and Clark benefited greatly from Indian knowledge and support. Maps, route information, food, horses, and open-handed friendship all gave the expedition the edge that spelled the difference between success and failure. As guides, packers, interpreters, and cartographers, the Indians were essential to Lewis and Clarks achievement (Ronda 1984:252-255).
The assertion that the Corps of Discovery acted like a conquering army of hungry imperialists does not square with either the Lewis and Clark record or the larger history of North American exploration. Lewis and Clark neither enslaved Indians as did DeSoto, nor pillaged pueblos as did Coronado.
The pattern of friendship and sharing that generally characterized Indian-expedition relations was not the result of any special nobility of character on either side of the cultural divide. Native hospitality was both genuine and useful as the Indians sought trade or attempted to manipulate the expedition for personal ends. For their part, Lewis and Clark recognized the necessity of Indian cooperation inspite of occasional moments of swagger, bluster, and arrogance. For most of the journey, there was mutual respect born of expediency but that respect and friendship was genuine nonetheless. Lewis and Clark left behind a legacy of nonviolent contact and those who came later enjoyed that legacy and too often betrayed it (Ronda 1984:253).
Lewis and Clark believed that official diplomacy was a simple matter of rearranging Indian patterns to suit the needs of the new nation. Proclaiming American sovereignty, establishing trade connections, and constituting delegations to visit Jefferson all seemed goals within easy reach. When they tried to implement those policies, they often met unyielding realities of village and band politics. In a world where peace meant truce and where warriors fought one day and traded the next, Lewis and Clark were simply unable and sometimes unwilling to face the facts of Indian life. What seemed failure to Lewis and Clark was often success for the chiefs. When Lewis and Clark came into the Pacific Northwest, native political sovereignty and autonomy were still potent realities. Despite Lewis and Clarks rhetoric, western Indians were not our red children but mature adults with a substantial measure of freedom to choose those parts of the American program that best suited their own needs. Diplomacy during the journey was ceremony and talk among equals, even if Lewis and Clark did not always so recognize. If the captains failed to persuade the Indians to become children of a distant father, it was because the Indians still had the power to accept American guns while rejecting less useful gifts (Ronda 1984:254).
Prior to the coming of the whites, the arrival of the horse had a profound impact on the Indian people of the Hanford Site. Smohalla believed that horses did not come from the white man but had been known to Indians long before white settlers arrived. Haines (1938:434-436) examined early diaries of explorers and fur traders to trace the spread of horses from their presumed source in the Spanish colonies in what is now New Mexico. The Spaniards settled the area prior to 1600 and jealously guarded their prized stock. It was forbidden under severe penalty throughout Mexico for an Indian to ride a horse, yet the 17th century colonial empire had fallen on hard times and the Indian Pueblos revolted in 1680, driving the Spaniards out for a time (Hunn 1990:23). Thousands of liberated Spanish horses spread up both sides of the Rockies and reached the Nez Perce and Cayuse sometime after 1730. Lewis and Clark encountered horses all along the Snake and Columbia rivers to the edge of the timber below The Dalles (Thwaites 1904).
The horse was adopted as if the Indians had long awaited its coming since they were always a mobile people and their lives depended on an extensive seasonal round (Hunn 1990:24). The horse facilitated movement from the winter village to the river fisheries, root digging grounds, high mountain berry fields, and hunting grounds. It did not radically change Plateau life so much as it accelerated existing patterns by enhancing this mobility. A group without horses could not long withstand the pressure of mounted neighbors who began to use their horses to attack the weaker groups nearby. Where Ray (1939) saw Plateau peoples as pacifists, Kent (1980) suggests that pacifism was a matter of cultural values. Plateau peoples maintained largely peaceful intervillage relations because intermarriage and trade was advantageous. The horse seems to have tipped the scales in favor of violence in many cases (Hunn 1990:24).
Lewis and Clark observed that Columbia River villages were mostly located on the north shore or on islands in the stream which afforded protection against Snake Indian raiders. These Snake Indians were Numic speakers from the Great Basin, who at one time were peacefully preoccupied with gathering their annual supplgenerous than the Plateau. Bannocks (Northern Paiutes) adopted horses and a wide-ranging predatory life style, hunting bison herds up the headwaters of the Snake, Missouri, and Yellowstone rivers. A similar, mobile, predatory life-style became the norm among the Northern Paiutes of northern Nevada and southern Oregon, but with white migrant trains as the targets. Soon, the Nez Perce and Cayuse and then Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and Yakamas adapted to and adopted elements of this new horse-oriented life-style (Hunn 1990:25).
Not long after horses enlarged the scope of intergroup raiding, fur traders began extending their frontier outposts toward the eastern base of the Rockies. In exchange for furs, guns and ammunition were provided to the Indians. Just as the Indians quickly perceived the value of horses, they could appreciate guns as vastly superior to their own hunting and fishing equipment. As each new group acquired the gun from fur traders, they pressed their newfound advantage over their unarmed western neighbors. The latter, in turn, were forced to obtain guns for themselves, for defense on their eastern flank and for offense on their western borders. Horses and guns, once available, spread quickly (Hunn 1990:25).
This new pattern of warfare, however, probably had little effect on the basic ecological relations of people and resources along the mid-Columbia, but bison hunting may have greatly increased game in the diet of groups on the eastern border of the Plateau (cf. Farnham 1843) since these groups had more limited access to mid-Columbia salmon. Given the trade value of bison robes and the importance of bison meat, the horse and gun greatly facilitated the work of these bison-hunting task groups (cf. Anastasio 1972). Indeed, the horse itself became a standard of wealth, and wealth gave rise to ambitions which strained inter band harmony.
The new life promised by the coming of the whites and widely prophesied brought a heavy price. Boyd (1985:81-90) believed that the first smallpox epidemic came from the west around 1775 from Pacific exploring ships. Smallpox raged again in 1801, attacking a new generation of susceptibles grown up since the first visitation. Boyd (1985:99-100) estimated that perhaps half of the original Indian population had died off by the time of Lewis and Clarks expedition. Old men with pockmarked faces and Indian accounts of a disease that struck their people a generation before was recorded by Lewis and Clark (cf. Thwaites 1904; Boyd 1985:78-80, 91-92, 102-103). Disease among the Nez Perce at about this same time had been documented by Asa Bowen Smith (Drury 1958:136) and two more waves of smallpox may have afflicted the Indians in 1824-1825 (Boyd 1985:338-341) and in 1853, as documented by the McClellan railroad survey party (McClellan 1854).
Dobyns (1983) believes that demographic and consequent cultural changes were initiated throughout the New World in the early 16th century as a result of a panhemispheric smallpox epidemic with mortality rates around 75%. Based on archaeological data, Campbell (1990:186) concluded that introduction of infectious diseases caused population decline in the Plateau prior to the late 18th century and that Old World diseases spread into the Plateau early in the 16th century which contradicts traditionally accepted notions of regional disease history that held that Old World disease was first introduced in the late 18th century.
Smallpox was devastating, but the 1830 outbreak of fever and ague at the Hudons Bay Companys Fort Vancouver proved to be the worst killer of Indians (Hunn 1990:27; cf. Cook 1955; Boyd 1985:112-145). It raged unchecked for four years, was clearly seasonal, and it emptied the Chinookan villages of the lower Columbia and decimated Indian populations throughout the Willamette Valley and the Central Valley of California. Sober estimates of the mortality directly or indirectly attributable to this scourge is 90% between 1830 and 1833 (Hunn 1990:31). Historical epidemiologists agree that the disease was malaria which was frequently aggravated by influenza and other exotic diseases. Fever and ague did not spread much above The Dalles, sparing Plateau peoples the near total extinction suffered downriver. It did not spread north to Puget Sound or Canada. Hunn (1990:31) notes that Oregons major cities bear the names such as Portland, Astoria, Eugene, and Salem, while Washingtons have Indian names such as Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, and Yakima reflecting the distribution of malaria.
While spared from malaria, Plateau Indians found themselves in the path of thousands of immigrants crossing on the Oregon Trail. Seasonal respiratory diseases had become common among the Indians who congregated at fur trading posts each winter (Boyd 1985:341-348), a pattern repeated at the missions. With the immigrants came a potpourri of diseases against which the Indians had no resistance (Hunn 1990:31). In 1844, there was scarlet fever and whooping cough and in 1846, more scarlet fever (Boyd 1985:349-350). Many white settlers saw this mortality of the Indians as an act of God, clearing the rich bottomlands of the Willamette for Christian settlement (Scott 1928). Scotts (1928:144-145) reflected on the bitter reality of how disease among the Indians advanced the white take-over of Indian land. Without the ravages of disease, settlement by the white pioneers would have been delayed one or two decades and then would have encountered protracted warfare with the tribes (Scott 1928:144). Delay of settlement would have deferred the Oregon boundary adjustment with Britain, which was made in 1846, and might have enabled Britain to annex to Canada that part of the present state of Washington which lies north of the Columbia River. Britain was impelled to accept the treaty of 1846 and the present boundary by the rapid settlement of Oregon by Americans (Scott 1928:144). Missionary Samuel Parker (1839:191) noted that the Indians made matters worse by plunging into lakes and rivers to alleviate fever - the rarely survived the cold stage which followed and whole villages were depopulated and/or disappeared. Scott (1928:146) noted that throughout the West, the Indians were victims, but perhaps nowhere else so badly as in the Pacific Northwest; and nowhere else were the results so good for the whites.
Hunn (1990:32) observed that the coincidence of Whitmans hosting the hordes of settlers arriving each fall from their arduous overland journey and the outbreak of new epidemics was not lost on the Indians. When measles erupted about the time of the immigrants arrival in 1847, the Indians concluded that Whitmans murderous influence must be stopped. It is possible that the measles was introduced earlier that summer by an expedition of Walla Walla Indians returning from California (Heizer 1942). On November, 29, a group of Cayuses attacked the mission, killing the Whitmans and 11 other whites, and taking some 50 captives (later ransomed by Peter Ogden of the Hudsons Bay Company). The killings inspired revenge and fear among the settlers and precipitated a series of confrontations; the Cayuse, Yakama, and Palouse wars between the whites and the remnant Plateau people. The history of Indian-white relations, therefore, has been first and foremost a history of the ravages of disease (Hunn 1990:32). Transmitted by Old World immigrants to defenseless New World populations, disease dramatically reduced Indian populations and disrupted their social and spiritual fabric. Only after confinement on reservations did the significance of disease fade in relation to political events that affected Indian life.
In the late 18th century, fur clothing was in great demand in Europe and China and staggering profits could be made with access to the untapped potential of the North American forests (Hunn 1990:32). Hudsons Bay Company first claimed rights to the furs of the boreal forests and had a secure foothold on the Northwest Coast but the North West Company, also British-owned, controlled the St. Laurence-Great Lakes area and was expanding west across the continent at the southern edge of the great northern forests.
David Thompson, during his travels of 1807-1811, laid the foundation for the North West Companys dominant trading position in the northern Plateau where he accurately mapped the Columbia and its headwaters [Figure 3.7]. He established good working relations with the Indians and founded a series of trading posts in Kootenai, Flathead, Spokane, and Pend Oreille territory before pushing down the Columbia to Astoria in 1811 [Figure 3.8]. The British fur trading companies were busily setting up long overland supply routes and communication lines. Meanwhile, the Americans were pursuing a daring alternative bankrolled by John Jacob Astor. Astorian ships of the Pacific Fur Company left New York, rounded Cape Horn, visited the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and recruited native seamen (some of whom married Northwest Indian women and were absorbed into local Indian society). Astors ships docked at their new outpost, Astoria, which was established in 1811 just prior to Thompsons arrival from upriver (Hunn 1990:34).insert figure 8The Astorians partly defined what subsequently became the Oregon Emigrant Trail when attempting to establish an overland link for rapid communication. The budding rivalry between Britons and Americans was cut short by the War of 1812. Astor, fearful of a British blockade, chose to sell his entire Columbia operation to his North West Company rivals. Many of Astors employees stayed on to work for the North West Company (Alexander Ross, David Stuart, and Donald Mackenzie)(cf. Meinig 1968:48-95). The Columbia Department (of the North West Company) was a fairly disappointing operation since much of the territory supported relatively few fur bearers and the Indians were simply not interested in trapping furs for trade (Hunn 1990:36).
The Plateau, however, was strategically located in that furs from the more productive Fraser, Yukon, and Peace rivers and upper Snake River territories could be economically shipped down the Columbia to the sea and to market by ship. Following the 1818 agreement between Britain and the United States to share the Oregon country, the North West company embarked on a strategy to deny the furs from the Snake River to the Americans. Trappers were provisioned each summer at Astoria (renamed Fort George after the British takeover in 1813 and moved to Fort Vancouver in 1825 under Hudsons Bay Company control) and then traveled up the Columbia to the Walla Walla by canoe, then horsebacked their provisions for overland travel to the upper Snake where they trapped all winter long. The next June, they returned with their furs to Astoria (or Fort Vancouver). The Plateau Indians were essential providers of horses for overland brigades and were major providers of venison for the fur trappers who disdained fish and native roots (Hunn 1990:37). The Columbia River was the main commercial link and Fort Nez Perce was established in July 1818 at the mouth of the Walla Walla.
Indian-fur trader relations were relatively benign since the goal of the trade was to profit from furs. The Indians tolerated the traders presence and were willing to assist by providing the trading posts with horses and venison (Hunn 1990:37). The Indians were otherwise free to pursue their seasonal rounds and traditional social relations. The fur traders discouraged intergroup warfare since such would impede free movement of the trapping parties. Lewis Saum (1965) skillfully debunked the image of the trader as an unconscionable degenerate or mountain man and also put to rest the stereotype of the Indians as either savage beasts or noble savages. Unfortunately, the trading posts themselves had become a magnet for large crowds of poorly nourished Indians who caught influenzas and died in large numbers as they wintered next to the posts (Hunn 1990:37).
The first fur-trading post near the Hanford Site was Spokane House which was built by Finan McDonald and Jacques Finlay in the summer of 1810. Spokane House became a magnet for the local Indians and also more distant peoples who brought horses to trade there along with beaver, otter, and other skins. Very likely, the appearance of Sahaptians at this post prompted Thompson to extend his operations farther to the southwest (Ruby and Brown 1988:29) and Thompsons journal record provides a first glimpse of the peoples between Kettle Falls and the Columbia-Snake confluence - an area believed to have been untrammeled by white men before his arrival (Ruby and Brown 1988:31).
When Thompson reached the Columbia-Snake confluence, where Lewis and Clark had visited some years earlier, he found the Indians strongly interested in white mens goods. The women were especially interested in kettles, axes, awls and needles and the men were more concerned with securing firearms to defend themselves from the Paiutes who were denying them access to buffalo grounds in the lower Snake River country (Ruby and Brown 1988:32). But with greater exposure to white traders, the Indians below the confluence increased their wariness of whites and were especially wary of Astorians whom they thought were responsible for introducing small pox. At the confluence, the Astorians were met by Wallawalla, Nez Perce, and Cayuse chief who cleverly worked the Astorians against their rival Thompson by telling them that Thompson had given them presents and that, if Stuart did likewise, he could travel wherever he wished. Ross believed that goods would never satisfy their desire nor bring them happiness (Ruby and Brown 1988:33). In return for horses, Thompson gave the Palouse a piece of paper worth ten beaver skins at any North West Company post. Unable to understand how a piece of paper could purchase goods, the Indians were filled with awe. The Indians were anxious to trade with anyone who provided them with guns - a good gun at that time went for no less than 20 beaver skins.
Indians at Astorian posts in late 1813 must have been confused when American flags were lowered and Union Jacks were hoisted in their place although the flag change meant less to the Indians than it did to the new owners. The economics and policies of trade had not changed, nor the attitudes of Indian traders (Ruby and Brown 1988:37). One particularly unfortunate incident occurred when Astor partner John Clarke came near the confluence of the Snake and Palouse rivers in late May, 1813 with 32 horses loaded with furs from the Spokane district. Some Indians stole the partys goods including Clarkes prized silver goblet. Normally unmoved by thefts of company property, he became enraged at the loss of his goblet. An Indian, thought to be Nez Perce, was soon caught and Clarkes men pinioned him and hung him on a makeshift gallows. To the Indians, this was a most frightful and despicable way to die. Stunned by Clarkes actions, they spread the word of the foul deed in all directions and gathered the tribes together for vengeance (Ruby and Brown 1988:40). A few days later at an Indian camp at the Columbia-Snake confluence, a Wallawalla chief, rode up to Clarke crying: What have you done, my friends? You have spilt blood on our lands. Eventually, tempers settled down but the Indians did not soon forget the hanging. In the spring of 1814, at a populous root digging area in the upper Yakima or Kittitas valley, the Cayuse, Nez Perce, and others found Alexander Ross, now with the North West Company, trying to buy horses. The Indians told him that traders like him were the men who kill our relations, the people who have caused us to mourn (Ross 1855:7-8). Ross gave the Indians trade goods to cover the dead. The Indians were angry at both the hanging but also the general failure of the North West Company traders to abide by the protocol requiring payment for passage through Indian country.
Word reached Fort George [Astoria] in March, 1814, that the Nez Perce and the Cayuse had destroyed a native village at The Dalles. Donald McTavish tracked down the perpetrators and had them executed - a move that did little to improve relationships between the Indians and the company. Petty wars along the lower Columbia continued to hamper the fur trade (Ruby and Brown 1988:41). Aware of difficulties experienced by Astorians in the beaver-rich Snake River country, the North West Company dispatched Donald McKenzie in 1817 to develop operations in this area. Laid out in 1818, Fort Nez Perce stood on the left bank of the Columbia, a half-mile upstream from the Columbia-Walla Walla confluence, which was below the confluence of the Columbia and Snake. This established a second, and much closer trading post in relation to the present-day Hanford Site (cf. Ruby and Brown 1988:42-43).
Conflict with the Indians had made the fur quest hazardous and resulted in the loss of human life and economic loss. In one year, such economic loss, according to Ross, amounted to 4000 beaver, worth 6000 Pounds Sterling. The greatest threat to the continued operation of the North West Company was competition from Hudsons Bay Company. Unless some peace was effected between the rival firms, the Indians stood to become casualties as well as customers (Ruby and Brown 1988:45). Once merged together in 1821 and operating under the Hudsons Bay name, the Indians found themselves dealing with a monopoly and relations between the Indians and people of the Bay proved friendlier than previous contacts between Indians and fur seekers.
George Simpson was the all-powerful administrator of the Hudsons Bay Company commercial empire (Drury 1986(I):30). Beginning in 1820 when he was only 33 years old, and continuing for nearly 40 years, Simpson wrought an economic overhaul of the Columbia Department starting in 1824 when he came west. He reached Fort Spokane to find that while the Indians came to trade, they also came to gamble and race horses. Within two years, the Spokane post fell victim to Simpsons economy axe and its operation was removed to near Kettle Falls and named Fort Colvile [Colville] (Ruby and Brown 1988:49). Simpsons economy moves consolidated trading at the newly built (1824-1825) Fort Vancouver with one result being that the Indians had less convenient access to trade goods. The Indians were probably unaware that Simpsons London superiors were being influenced by evangelical-humanitarian movements in Great Britain and wished to extend Christian probity and sobriety to the Indians (Ruby and Brown 1988:49). Simpson induced two Spokane chiefs to let their sons go with him to the Red River Mission. Kootaney Pelly and Spokane Garry were baptized at the Red River Mission on June 24, 1827 and were the first Indians from the entire Pacific Coast to receive baptism by a Protestant minister. After their return several years later, in early 1830, Spokane Garry and Kootenai Pelly went again to the Red River Mission school with the companys eastbound express, this time with five more Indian youth from four different tribes: the Nez Perce, Cayuse, San Poils, and Spokane (Drury 1986(I):35).
Simpson somewhat naively believed that his arrival had dried up the flow of liquor. He believed that liquor deprived the Indians of the will and wherewithal to sell their furs and garnish themselves with goods of British manufacture. Unfortunately, the Indians could easily obtain alcoholic beverages from British and American mariner-traders and in some areas along the Columbia, they received a bottle of rum for every ten skins brought in. Inspite of incidents where misunderstandings might have led to violence, the Indians of the Columbia were more dependent on white traders than ever before (Ruby and Brown 1988:51).
Company trading and posts disrupted native trading patterns. Its greatest impact was to bring fabricated goods to the Indians, goods the Indians wanted but were less inclined to gather furs to pay for them. The Indians had to reckon with Hudsons Bay Company until the coming of the Americans and the completion of international negotiations that curtailed the companys efforts in the area (Ruby and Brown 1988:57). As time went on, the Indians became more discriminating in their tastes for the goods the company supplied to them and soon discovered the difference between American and British goods. Guns were always a lively item in trade with the Indians. One gun went for as many skins as a fully loaded pack of other goods. Guns were almost a necessity since with their introduction they frightened animals, making it difficult for Indians to position themselves closely enough to kill with native weapons (Ruby and Brown 1988:59).
It is not known where or when the Indians were introduced to Christianity. It might date back to when Spanish friars set up the colony at Neah Bay in 1792 or might have been introduced, at least symbolically, from crucifixes recovered from ship wrecked white men (Ruby and Brown 1988:67). In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Indians of the Pacific Northwest received little more than an inkling of the faith from maritime traders, whose efforts were mercantilist, not missionary. Fur traders such as David Thompson, Alexander Ross, and Peter Skene Ogden saw the lands of their fur quests as a field, though a difficult one, for Christian missionary endeavor (Ruby and Brown 1988:67).
Ruby and Brown (1988:67) note that Yakama folklore has stories of the coming of white men who were to wrest the land from the Indians. After one of their prophets had died for three days, he returned to earth and predicted the coming not only of a black robe but also of other white peoples. The black robe of the prophecy and the three-day death possibly indicate a knowledge of Christian forms and traditions, perhaps acquired through direct or indirect association with Spaniards. The prophets believed that the coming of the whites boded ill for their people. One source of exposure to the Christian faith may have come from Iroquois in the employ of the North West Company who exerted considerable secular as well as religious influence on the Indians (Ruby and Brown 1988:68).
Although the Indians were aware of the competition among the fur traders in their lands, they were less aware of the competition that was developing among religious denominations for the salvation of their souls. Spokane Garry returned home armed with an Anglican Book of Common Prayer and a King James Bible and Coeur dAlenes, Flatheads, middle and upper Columbia River peoples, and the Nez Perce heard his words (Ruby and Brown 1988:68). The fact that five more Indian youths accompanied Spokane Garry and Kootenay Pelly back to the Red River mission school in 1830 reflects the extent of their influence on their own and neighboring tribes since all of the boys were sons of chiefs (Drury 1986(I):47).
Plateau Indian religious beliefs and their manner of worship was markedly different from those of white men (cf. Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:23). The Palouses, for example, believed that God had created all things - the earth, stars, animals, and plants and often thanked God for the roots, fish, game, and berries, and because the earth provided them with so much food, they did not cultivate the earth. The Indians held religious ceremonies in thanksgiving of their Creator and they revered the earth and its bounty. Before the arrival of whites, they shared common spiritual beliefs and ceremonies with their neighbors. However, their faith was not formalized or organized until the late 1850s, when the pressures of white expansion stimulated a renaissance of native religion and the creation of formal worship.
While Christian influence was growing, the Indians were still practicing their native religion which included sending out the young on lonely vigils to seek spiritual power. During such spirit quests, the novitiates received in dreams or trances special powers from birds and other beings. The powers gained were revealed later in winter dances. Growing contact with Christians is believed to be part of the reason that Northwest tribes experienced a resurgence of the Prophet Dance. The prophets increased exposure to Christianity and increasing white encroachment gave impetus to their teachings which included the belief that the earth had to be wrested from the interlopers and returned to its aboriginal purity to its native inhabitants, living and dead (Ruby and Brown 1988:70). Although not viewed in this context by white Christian leaders, the Nez Perce delegation to St. Louis in 1831 was such a power or spirit quest.
The Indians appeared to be seeking the white mans Book of Heaven, but as Ruby and Brown (1988:70) noted, the Indians spoke languages that were strange to the white men and their mission was not very clear. They did make the Roman Catholic sign of the cross and other signs relating to baptism. The Nez Perce delegation not only stimulated the Christian community to convert Indians but also stimulated other Indians to travel to St. Louis for missionary help. Protestanlls of the Nez Perces and Flatheads by sending missionaries to the Pacific Northwest. Before they arrived, however, the Indians continued Christian worship without benefit of clergy (Ruby and Brown 1988:70). As the fur-trade and missionary eras overlapped, it was common for Indians to gather around the company posts to conduct their devotionals and were often found speaking and singing prayers at Fort Walla Walla, at Flathead Post, and at Fort Colvile. At Fort Hall, Nez Perce and Cayuse Indians attended services with a Hudsons Bay Company brigade on Sunday, July 27, 1834, conducted by Methodist Jason Lee. The Indians welcomed Jason and Daniel Lee to remain in their land, possibly because they remembered Indian prophets telling that white men would come with powers even greater than those they had sought on vigils in their youths (Ruby and Brown 1988:71).
Of the Methodist Missions, Ruby and Brown (1988:72) noted that the mission near The Dalles attracted almost 1000 Indians in 1838 [Figure 3.9]. But it did not take long for the missionaries to find that their work was going to be difficult at best. The Indians had abandoned the flesh cutting of earlier times but shocked the missionaries by rattling doors and windows for entry into the mission house. Especially shocking was the fate of the native healers: when they failed to cure the victims of disease, they became victims themselves of vengeance-minded relatives. The Methodists persisted in preaching and teaching about 2000 Wascos and other Chinooks, Wallawallas, Klickitats, and others. With abundant fish in the Columbia, the Indians could not be induced to become farmers, but they were content to consume produce from the missionaries gardens. When the fish runs were over, they moved into the mountains to gather berries. While absent, marauding Indians entered their deserted villages and stole salmon that they had carefully cached, leaving them to starve by spring. After several complaints from church officials about Lees spiritual and secular conduct, he returned east in 1843, never to return and the mission closed the next year.
By 1810 and 1811, plans had been formed in New England by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches) for a mission to the west coast, and by 1817 plans were made for such a mission near the falls of the Columbia. On September 28, 1835, the Nez Perce on the Clearwater River welcomed a westward bound American Board missionary, Rev. Samuel Parker who was looking for mission sites. Dr. Marcus Whitman was a volunteer and accompanied Parker on this trip. Whitman returned in the fall of 1835 bringing with him two Nez Perce youths and some thrilling news - he and Parker had met a large party of Nez Perce at the Rendezvous in the Rockies and had found them eager for missionaries and that Jason Lee and his associates had by-passed that tribe and had settled in the Willamette Valley. Whitman had observed that it was possible to take women over the Rockies, hence he could return, be married to Narcissa Prentiss to whom he was engaged, and take her with him to Oregon (Drury 1986(I):59).
Meanwhile, Parker stayed over the winter months preaching to the Indians clustered at Fort Vancouver, The Dalles and up the Willamette above The Falls. In the spring of 1836, Parker finally returned to Fort Walla Walla and then to the mouth of the Snake. He did not stop at Waiilatpu which was 25 miles east of Fort Walla Walla, but later that year the American Board dispatched Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa to establish a mission there [Figure 3.9]. Later in 1836, another American Board mission was established at Lapwai Creek near the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers by the Rev. Henry H. Spalding and his wife Mary [Figure 3.9]. Parkers lasting influence was probably his writings which provided an excellent description of the Northwest country. While his primary objective was to assess its native populations with a view toward establishment of missions, like Lewis and Clark, Parker exaggerated their numbers, especially those off the route of this travels. He also exaggerated mission possibilities in general (Ruby and Brown 1988:75).insert figure 9The location of the new missions caused some debate among the Nez Perce when they met the Whitmans and the Spaldings at Fort Hall [Figure 3.8]. The Nez Perce urged that whites had fewer problems with them than with their Cayuse neighbors, which was perhaps a veiled intimation that misfortune might befall the missionaries who settled among the Cayuse. The Cayuse, like other Indians astride the more commonly traveled routes of the westward moving white men, had more opportunity for conflict with the whites than did the more peripheral Nez Perce, who were jealous of the Cayuse because their location gave them more opportunity to trade with whites (Ruby and Brown 1988:75). The Nuse settled for two missions, one at Waiilatpu among the Cayuse and the other at Lapwai among the Nez Perce.
One Nez Perce chief promised the Spaldings his people would give up their roving ways and receive all the help the missionaries could give in making the transition to farming but other chiefs made no similar commitment and came to Lapwai only for ministrations and medicine (Ruby and Brown 1988:75). Spaulding struggled with a difficult language but mastered their tongue sufficiently to print a translation of the Book of Saint Matthew on the first press in the Pacific Northwest, which he acquired in 1839. Spalding sought to prepare his charges not only for heaven but also for the white men, who were soon to become as numerous as leaves on the trees. He believed the Indians should prepare for the whites coming by accepting their God, obeying their laws, and practicing the whites system of land. In contrast to Spaldings goal of saving Indians for white men, Roman Catholic missionaries tried to save them from white men (Ruby and Brown 1988:76). Unfortunately, a rift grew between the Christian Indians and those led by their traditional doctors, such as Looking Glass. As the century progressed, the rift between these two groups of Nez Perce widened (Ruby and Brown 1988:76).
At Waiilatpu, the Whitmans established the mission near Mill Creek (Pasha or Paska) which joined the Walla Walla. In their mutual exuberance, neither the missionaries or their parishioners paid any attention to the legalities of mission occupancy of the land. The Cayuse and other Indians had questioned the right of fur traders to build Fort Nez Perce but had learned to live and trade with it. Conditioned to think of white men primarily as traders, the Cayuse did not understand why the Whitmans did not trade their goods for pelts and at a better rate than they were getting at the nearby fort. The initial harmony at the mission began to break down. Like Spalding, Whitman hoped that theake it unnecessary for them to migrate. More than Spaldings Nez Perce, the Cayuse disdained agriculture as a hindrance to their traditional means of subsistence. They wanted goods and power - medicine. Thinking the missionaries words could help them acquire medicine, they asked for religious instruction. Whitman responded by teaching lessons and songs in church and school in the flexible Nez Perce language which the Cayuse adopted. Ruby and Brown (1988:77) noted that there were several instances of unpleasantness at the Waiilatpu mission.
The Indians wondered why Whitman went east in 1842-43. Was it to get soldiers to fight them? Their suspicions of Whitmans motives grew and also spread to some of the Nez Perce. Some Nez Perce dispatched one of their chiefs in the winter of 1842-43 to the Indians east of Fort Hall in order to encite them to cut off the party that Whitman was expected to bring with him. When Whitman returned to the mission in 1843 at the head of a large immigrant party, the Nez Perce and Cayuse questioned Whitmans motives all the more (Ruby and Brown 1988:77).
In the early years, the missions were very much dependent upon the Hudsons Bay Companys farms and facilities. In fact, prior to establishing Waiilatpu, Whitman journeyed to Fort Vancouver for supplies. The dependency on the Bay had to be lessened quickly, but that was only part of the reason why the missionaries hastened to cultivate the ground. If the mind and body were inseparable for the missionaries, so they were for the Indians if they were to embrace Christianity and live a settled civilized way of life. The Indians were to be brought to the teachers and anchored to the soil within the unbroken daily influence of school and church (i.e., they must be settled before they could be much enlightened )(Meinig 1968:133-134). But is was Spalding who was first able to grasp what was happening to the Indian subsistence regime as a result of the changes produced by the white influx. He reported that game had once been plentiful and furnished the Indians with a great amount of food and predicted that salmon would also become so scarce that the Indians would starve. Whitman believed it was equally important to save the famishing bodies of the Indians from an untimely grave at it was to save their souls (Meinig 1968:134). The actual results varied from mission to mission.
At The Dalles, wheat and potatoes thrived under irrigation and along with salmon and vegetables, provided an adequate subsistence for the white missionary families. The Indian program, however, was hopeless since the abundant salmon, sturgeon, and other game and gathered plant resources provided sufficient food (Meinig 1968:135). By 1840, a hundred families were cultivating the soil at Lapwai and by 1843, Lapwai was essentially self-supporting with sufficient crops and livestock, its own grist mill, and a sawmill (Meinig 1968:137). Whitmans operation at Waiilatpu was also successful. Under irrigation or on subirrigated land bordering the streams, the luxuriance of the crops at Waiilatpu never failed to impress immigrants and travelers who came through in increasing numbers in the 1840s. In 1843, a visitor found about 60 Cayuse cultivating small plots of a quarter to three acres each. But the Cayuse blended their agricultural tasks into their old migratory routine to a greater extent than did the Nez Perce at Lapwai.
The major difference between Waiilatpu and Lapwai was the increasing volume of emigrants passing through to the Willamette Valley. Many of the emigrants needed food, fresh cattle or horses, and wagon repairs and Waiilatpu became more oriented towards their needs. Whitman was warned by the Board headquarters that he might take special pains to ensure that his station did not assume the appearance of a farming and trading establishment. Whitman pleaded that it was his Christian duty to help and comfort any traveler in need. But Whitman himself was a key figure in the encouragement of the emigrants. There seemed to be a direct relationship between the steadily increasing number of Oregon immigrants and the growing restlessness of the Indians. The first Oregon immigrant family arrived in 1840; a few more came in 1841; still more in 1842; and then in 1843 the first wagon train crawled over the Blue Mountains bringing about 1000 people - a wagon train led by Whitman! Each year after that the number increased, and the Indians became fearful that the white man was engulfing their land, even though none of the immigrants up to 1847 had settled in the upper Columbia River Valley (Drury 1986(I):395).
Though Whitman was an energetic man, any greater attention to his countrymen meant less toward the Indians. Interestingly, some Indians shifted their attentions to the emigrants. Where Whitman saw the Christian necessity of succor, the Cayuse saw the civilized opportunity for trade (Meinig 1968:139). By 1845, the shortcut along the Umatilla River became popular and several Indians had a scattering of fields all along the valley and were prepared for business. Whitman was aware of these doings and in 1844 lamented that the Indians wanted settlers among them in hopes of trading with them - a desire that largely prompted their welcoming the missionaries several years earlier (Meinig 1968:139). Partly because of the strategic location of the mission, the Whitmans became the object of growing hostility on the part of a small band within the Cayuse nation (Drury 1986(I):395). As the growing volume of emigrants began to warp the program at Waiilatpu, Whitman sought to anticipate and adapt to the changes. As Meinig (1968:140) wrote, even in spiritual matters there were divergent pressures and the material needs of the emigrants soon caused Whitman to reason that if Waiilatpu could not serve them adequately, enterprising squatters would soon set up businesses to do just that.
But Whitman also had no delusions about the inevitable result. He came to see himself in the path of one of the onward movements of the world and redirected his energies toward channeling the flow and softening the impact of change. He pleaded with the American Board to send some good Christian settlers to secure a good location, hold a good influence over the Indians, and sustain religious institutions as a nucleus for society. He was hoping to shape the colonization process by the orderly selection of sites and colonists to insure Christian social cohesion on the frontier (Meinig 1968:140).
Between 1836 and 1847, Whitman and Spalding worked very hard at their missions and Spalding was more successful than Whitman in dealing with the Indians, although he treated some Nez Perce most harshly (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:25). The Cayuses did not tolerate the Whitmans, who were never able to establish a working relationship with the Indians of the Walla Walla Valley. When Whitman failed to attract Indians to his cause, he turned his attentions to promoting white emigration and the economic development of the Northwest. The Palouses and their neighbors were concerned about Whitmans activities and were also alarmed that the Indians of the Willamette Valley had been ravaged by horrible illnesses. As the yea grew to such a state that conflict was unavoidable. By the winter of 1846-1847, hostility toward whites became widespread (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:25). The Nez Perce ordered the Spaldings to leave Lapwai and destroyed his fences, the mill dam, and meeting hall windows. Whitmans situation was no better as several Cayuses and Walla Wallas had grown to hate them and blamed them for their troubles, particularly problems resulting from the migration of thousands of whites through their country. The Indians believed the whites depleted the game and destroyed their grazing lands. Small Cayuse, Walla Walla and Palouse war parties attacked a few wagon trains in the summer of 1847. The conflict intensified when Indians attacked the emigrants with increasing frequency hoping to scare them into turning away.
The Indians had good reason to fear the whites since the whites brought deadly illnesses. Smallpox struck the region in 1846 and in 1847 whites brought measles to the Northwest. Although the whites contracted measles, they rarely died of it but the Indians perished in large numbers since they lacked natural immunity. Mixed-blood Indians, embittered by poor treatment from whites, may have been active in circulating rumors that whites were poisoning the Indians. Whitman tried to help the Indians by giving them medicine but his efforts failed and Indians died in alarming numbers. The Cayuse, who lived close to the Whitmans, were especially hard hit (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:26). Interestingly, many Palouses believed that Whitman had maliciously murdered the Cayuses with his poison.
By 1846, the situation at Lapwai had changed from one of material prosperity to near ruin. Spalding reported that there was no longer a school and not the least probability that there will ever be one here again (Meinig 1968:141). The Indians had abandoned their fields, vandalized mission property, and made personal threats against their teachers. The reasons for failure were many and in retrospect, the simultaneous conversion of the Indians to Christianity and an agricultural life in such a short period of time would have required a highly improbable set of skills in the missionaries and an almost impossible adaptability on the part of the Indians. Meinig (1968:142) concluded that the above challenges, complicated as they were by internal dissensions among the missionaries and within the tribes, the sinister counterinfluences of a few individuals (white, half-breed, or Indian) and the general disruptions and apprehensions of the Indians stemming from their contacts with the emigrants, makes the overall failure of the missions readily understandable.
The end of the fur trade and the missions came suddenly (Meinig 1968:150-151). The 1847 disaster at Waiilatpu was partly the result of the outbreak of scarlet fever among the Cayuse the previous winter and the summer/autumn outbreak of measles; as many as half the tribe died from these diseases which were introduced by emigrant parties. These sufferings and festering grievances culminated in the explosion of November 29, 1847 against the foreign doctor in their midst. Whitman and his wife were killed along with seven others, followed by four more killings that week. Forty-six women and children were held captive at the mission for a month until Peter Skene Ogden ransomed them at Fort Nez Perce for $500 worth of trade goods. While some missionary work continued for a while, most notably with the Yakama until the outbreak of the Yakima War in 1855, missionary work never recovered from the events at Waiilatpu in late 1847. In addition to helping draw the missionary period to a close, the Indian wrath expressed at Waiilatpu, while initially confined to the Cayuse tribe, was sufficiently ominous to cause an immediate shift in the Hudsons Bay Companys operations. As American squatters began to swarm in upon the companys lands on the lower Columbia, hope for a gradual, orderly withdrawal waned by 1850. The fur business had ended and the company was anxious to evacuate.
Armed conflicts between the Indians and whites, up until the Whitman killings, had been relatively rare. From about 1847 onward, the number and intensity of conflicts between the Indians and whites rose dramatically. One important conflict arose out of the Whitman killings. After the killings, some Cayuses, particularly the younger men, remained hostile and tried to draw other tribes into a confederacy. The Palouses refused to join the war against the whites but remained neutral just as Kamiakin chose to do among his Yakama band. The Nez Perce were split on the issue and could not decide on a unified path of action while the Spokanes also refused to join the confederacy. Although most Cayuses did not seem to have supported the attackers, the white population perceived a great danger in the Whitman attack and would not allow the killings to go unanswered (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:27).
Unfortunately, the volunteer army from the Willamette Valley which was organized to avenge the Whitman deaths was led by Colonel Cornelius Gilliam, a veteran of two prior Indian wars. An avowed Indian hater bent on their extermination, Gilliam was a bigoted Baptist minister who had helped chase the Mormons from Missouri and blamed the Catholics for inciting the Cayuses. He had no interest in cooling the situation and deliberately hampered the peace commission authorized by the provisional Oregon government. The commissioners were prepared to assure the Indians that Gilliams troops would leave as soon as the Cayuses surrendered the guilty parties. The whites drew the Palouses into the controversy after the peace commission failed in its intended mission. Gilliams refusal to escort the commissioners to the Walla Walla River, where they hoped to negotiate a settlement, was an unfortunate turn of events for whites and Indians alike. Most of the Indian tribes had turned their backs on the hostile Cayuses and most would have preferred peace. Some of the racial tension that developed in the years th been avoided, but Gilliams callous approach increased racial hatred and brought conflict to the Palouse Indians (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:27-28).
Skirmishes occurred as the troops moved up the Columbia on their way to Waiilatpu. Indian efforts to repulse the troops failed and the Americans reached Waiilatpu on March 2, 1848. Gilliam reburied the exposed corpses and was more determined than ever to punish the Indians and tried to prevent the peaceful settlement with the Nez Perce who had traveled to Waiilatpu to parley. Gilliam pressed his position to such a degree that after dealing with the Nez Perces, the peace commission withdrew and Gilliam and his troops marched north to pursue the Cayuses, who had escaped into the Palouse country. While trying to drive off Palouse horses and cattle, Gilliam and his men were surprised by 400 Palouse Indians. The whites were soundly defeated but would not soon forget the embarrassing defeat. Justifiably or not, the whites would remember the Palouses as the only tribe that had fought as an ally of the Cayuses and were thus branded as renegades, outlaws, and enemies of all Americans (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:28-29).
Interestingly, Gilliam accidentally shot and killed himself in a wagon accident when returning to The Dalles to resupply his troops back at Waiilatpu. Colonel James Waters took up the command and prepared for another campaign against the Cayuses. Waters believed that Gilliam had stirred up a full-scale war with all interior tribes by his reckless, unprovoked attack on the Palouses and Walla Wallas. It was the Cayuses themselves, encouraged by the Nez Perce, that secured the five men and turned them over the Americans. They were hanged on June 3, 1850 in Oregon City (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:30).
On March 2, 1853, President Millard Fillmore split Oregon into the Oregon and Washington Territories. Following the March inauguration of Franklin Pierce, the new president appointed Isaac Stevens the first governor of Washington Territory. By the mid 19th century, the United States was experienced in dealing with new territories and Indians and the policies followed in the Northwest were based on more than 50 years experience in the East, including liquidation of Indian land title, drafting Indian treaties, and removal and concentration of Indians onto reservations. American Indian policy was designed to benefit whites, not Indians, and was implemented by agents far more concerned with their professional duty and national destiny than they were with Indians.
The Indians witnessed many changes in their homelands and were aware of the California Gold Rush, the wave of white immigration to the Pacific Coast, and the influx of whites into the Far West. The movement of whites into new areas was facilitated by the Donation Land Act of 1850 which granted 320 acres to every white male (or half-blood) over 18 years of age. While the Indians may have been unfamiliar with the law, they felt its effects as increasing numbers of whites moved out of the Willamette Valley into the wooded regions north of the Columbia River. In 1849, some 300 whites lived north of the Columbia, but by 1853 when Washington became a territory, some 4000 whites lived between the Columbia and Puget Sound (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:32). The symbolism of a horde of white men marching through the territory was not lost on the Indians when Governor Stevens, Captain George McClellan and a party of 65 men surveyed routes for a railroad. Rumors spread quickly among the Indians that they would be banished or hemmed in by an enclosure and the Indians were suspicious of McClellans large force, heavily armed but professing peace. The Indians remembered only too well the large body of Americans that arrived during the Cayuse War. Lieutenant Saxton led part of the survey party to Fort Walla Walla [Figure 3.8] where they were generally well received by the Indians. Saxton failed, however, to inform the Indians that he was surveying for a railroad that would ultimately carry hundreds of whites to the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, when camped with the Palouse, Saxton urged the Indians to be ready to help Governor Stevens when he arrived and told them that the great chief in Washington was their friend and would protect them (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:36). Anxiety ran high among the various tribes and councils held between Saxton, McClellan, and the Indians did little to reassure the tribes that they had nothing to fear. Rather, the talks increased their fears. Stevens traveled about reassuring the Indians that he would protect them and their property while he was trying to implement his Indian policy - policies already adopted in other parts of the country. He urged the Indians to be peaceful, live like white people, and become civilized.
The Indians responded to these threats by trying to form an alliance. Kamiakin met with prominent chiefs and urged them to join him in a huge inter-tribal council. This council was supposedly held in a remote area along the Grande Ronde River in northeastern Oregon and the Indians agreed to meet Stevens, but refused to cede any of their land. The plan was for the Indians to mark the boundaries of the different tribes so that each chief could rise and claim his boundaries and ask that the land be made a reservation for his people. The Indians hoped that the council would fail since there would be no lands for sale (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:41). Kamiakin knew about the treaties Stevens concluded with the Puget Sound groups that forced them to accept the terms dictated by the U.S. government. Inexperienced in treaty making, Steven and his assistant George Gibbs, drafted documents based on previous treaties made with eastern tribes. The treaties drafted for Puget Sound and the tribes east of the Cascades were nearly identical; each calling for the end of tribal warfare, surrender of Indian lands, and establishment of reservations. The treaties recognized Indian rights to fish at common and accustomed places as well as their right to hunt and promised establishment of agencies, schools to learn farming and trades, and guaranteed medical care. While Stevens and his agents said the treaties would benefit Indians, the Indians were not fooled (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:43).
Kamiakin and many of the Palouse were not pleased with the Yakima Treaty and resented being spoken to as children by Stevens and his demands that they move off their homelands to reservations (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:60). Under the terms of the treaty, the Palouses were to move, but since most had not agreed to the treaty, they were unwilling to move and many preferred to fight to preserve their country, sovereignty, and freedom. Interestingly, even Stevens assistant, George Gibbs, felt that he had blundered by bringing together at one time the Nez Perce, Walla Wallas and Yakamas and cramming a treaty down their throats. Kamiakin reacted to the council by os for a possible war.
During the summer of 1855, the Palouses became alarmed about gold seekers who were rushing to the diggings near Fort Colvile. The Indians were already aware of how gold seekers in California disregarded Indian rights and property. While Stevens promised to keep whites out of the region and that the Indians did not have to remove to reservations for two or three years, he betrayed his promise even before leaving the Walla Walla Council by sending dispatches to the coastal newspapers announcing the opening of the interior. When white miners invaded the Yakama Country, some stole horses and raped Indian women. There were attacks by miners to which the Indians retaliated. Called to investigate reports of killings, Andrew Jackson Bolon, Indian agent to the Yakamas, attempted to investigate. Bolon, an individual despised by Kamiakin and others, ran into a party of Yakamas, who later killed him. Like the Whitman killings, the death of Bolon may well have been the precipitating event that launched the northwestern Indian war that was fought intermittently between 1855 and 1858 (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:62). While not responsible for Bolons death, the whites blamed Kamiakin.
The army dispatched a force of 50 men and the first confrontation was on October 5, 1855 near Toppenish Creek. While few died, the soldiers beat a hasty retreat to The Dalles. While the Indians were pleased with the outcome, the army, territorial officials, and white citizenry prepared for further retribution, and Kamiakin became a focal point for their anger. At the same time, conflicts with Indians around Puget Sound and the Rogue River in Oregon were erupting. Governor Curry of Oregon and Acting Governor Mason of Washington called for volunteers and large contingents of men were mobilized to fight the Indians. When troops arrived at St. Joseph Mission near Ahtanum Creek, some soldiers discovered buried gunpowder and erroneously concluded that the Catholic priests were secretly arming the m exterminate whites. When the gunpowder was discovered, the volunteers made a mad dash to the mission, set the buildings ablaze, and plundered at will. Before the mission was burnt to the ground, a letter written by Father Pandosy as dictated by Kamiakin, revealed some of the causes of the ongoing conflict between the Indians and whites (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:65):
Write to the soldiers and tell them that we are quiet, friends to Americans, but the way in which the governor spoke to us among the Cayuses has provoked us and made us determined upon a general war which will end with the complete destruction of all the Indians or all the Americans.
Kamiakin maintained that had the war not started, the Indians would have willingly given the whites some of their land and would have lived with all others [whites] as brothers. Kamiakin and the Indians were prevented from pursuing such a peaceful course since the governor had:
... taken us in numbers and thrown us out of our native country into a foreign land among a people who is our enemy, for, between us we are enemies...now we know perfectly the heart of the Americans, for a long time they hanged us without knowing if we are right or wrong . . . [we] never killed or hanged one single American, though there is no place where an American has not killed Indians. If the soldiers and the Americans after having read this letter and taken notice of the motives which induce us to fight, want to retire and treat us in a friendly manner, we will consent to put down our arms and to grant them a piece of land in every tribe.
Kamiakin was so against the removal and reservation policies that he vowed to fight to the end but realized that war was futile and hoped to end the conflict. The whites refused to accept the olive branch and rumors continued to circulate that the Indians planned to unite and kill all whites. These rumors were far from the truth as the Indians were not united in a confederation. Many tribes openly blamed Kamiakin for their 1857, Yakamas, Palouses and their allies considered Kamiakin to be a Palouse chief (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:67). The Oregon volunteers established a small post (Fort Henrietta) near the banks of the Umatilla River which was augmented by troops under the command of Colonel James K. Kelly. The Walla Wallas, Cayuses, Umatillas, and Palouses - all Indians otherwise uncommitted to the ongoing hostilities - were drawn into the war by Kellys expedition. The Oregon volunteers had failed to find Kamiakin and decided to turn against Peopeo Moxmox and punish the Walla Wallas. Upon finding Peopeo Moxmox and about 60 warriors, Kelly demanded his surrender. Peopeo Moxmox surrendered to allow his people to escape and join the Palouses to the north. Eventually, Kelly caught up with the Indians and engaged in over four days of inconclusive fighting. The Indians eventually broke off the engagement.
Kelly ordered his men to hold Peopeo Moxmox and the others, but reportedly the prisoners attempted to escape. A soldier struck Peopeo Moxmox in the head and as he lay unconscious, the volunteers gathered around him and fired their weapons point blank into his body. General Wool was outraged by the conduct of the volunteers who murdered Peopeo Moxmox who had surrendered under a flag of truce. Conflict continued on. While it almost appeared that the war was over by July 1856, Wright ordered construction of two additional facilities, Fort Simcoe in the Yakima Valley and Fort Walla Walla in the Walla Walla Valley [Figure 3.8]. The Walla Walla facility was to be headed up by Colonel Edward J. Steptoe with Washington volunteers under the command of Benjamin Franklin Shaw.
A Palouse camp consisting mostly of old men, women, and children was attacked, without provocation, by Shaw on July 18, 1856 and at least 40 Indians were slaughtered. Recorded by the Indians as the Massacre of the Grande Rond, Shaw proclaimed his work to be a great victory. On August 28, over 100 Palouses, Cayuses, and Walla Wallas ambushed a large pack train. This event was humiliating to the soldiers because the fight occurred within sight of the volunteer headquarters. The loss of the pack train was also a setback for Governor Stevens who was then in the region to negotiate more treaties and reaffirm his peaceful intentions among the friendly Indians (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:74). An uneasy peace settled upon the arIn the spring of 1857, Stevens won election to the Congress as Washingtons territorial delegate and that summer, General John Wool, an ardent supporter of Indian rights, was relieved of his command of the Pacific Department and replaced by General Newman S. Clarke. General Clarke did not share Stevens views on how to resolve the Indian problem. A new conflict started on April 12, 1858 when Palouse warriors swept down into the Walla Walla Valley and conducted a successful night raid on the government herd. The raid was led by Chief Tilcoax of the lower Snake, not Kamiakin, who was blamed for the raid. Shortly after, two miners were killed near present-day Colfax, Washington and Kamiakin and Tilcoax were blamed. Steptoe left Fort Walla Walla with over 150 miserably armed soldiers to pursue the Indians. Steptoe, who did not expect a fight, had his men leave their sabers at the fort. Unfortunately for Steptoe, he ran into the largest force ever assembled by hostile Plateau Indians (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:77-78). The Indians, about 1000 strong, taunted the soldiers but Steptoe ordered his troops not to engage them. Eventually, after some unsuccessful parleys, the Coeur d Alenes attacked followed by the Palouses. Within a short time, Steptoes inexperienced men ran short of munitions and started to suffer from thirst and fatigue. At night, Steptoe and his troops escaped from the battlefield. Trafzer and Scheuerman (1986:82) explained that the Palouses never intended to annihilate Steptoes soldiers as such was not the way of Plateau Indian warfare - they allowed Steptoe to escape.
In June 1858, Steptoe, Wright, and Clarke met at Fort Vancouver where the officers gave Wright a free hand to deal severely with the Palouses and their allies. The Indians refused Clarkes proposal of an unconditional surrender since they were confident in their abilities to defeat the whites. Wright led a much larger army than Steptoe, numbering almost 700 troops and support personnel. The various battles were fought near Spokane and the Indians suffered significant losses. What most infuriated the Indians was the mass killing of their horses by the soldiers. Wrights campaign had a tremendous impact on the Palouses. They had been defeated militarily and driven from their homes. Known as the Battles of Four Lakes and Spokane Plains, the Wright campaign put an end to Indian rule and spawned a new era of white control in the Palouse Hills. A few years passed before whites moved north of the Snake River to farm and during this period, most of the Palouse bands returned to their homelands to begin life anew, digging roots, fishing salmon, and hunting game (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:93). It was only after the American Civil War that a new wave of settlers began claiming the rich lands of the Palouse.
With the coming of the railroads and increased white settlement, small scale conflict continued. Trafzer and Scheuerman (1986:100-102) reviewed a number of instances during the 1870s where conflicts arose between whites and Palouses as stockmen and farmers filled up the country between the Snake and Spokane Rivers. In 1877, Kamiakin died and his death marked the end of an era for the Palouse Indians of his band who went their separate directions and despite their best efforts, they all finally settled on one of the reservations. Some Palouses refused to move onto the reservations without a fight and their fate became intermingled with the non-treaty Nez Perce.
The last major armed conflict between the Indians and the whites was the Nez Perce war. In February 1858, Ellias Pierce found gold on the Clearwater River. Although Nez Perce agent A.J. Cain tried, he was unable to hold back the gold rush that followed. In August 1860, without the consent of the Nez Perce, or their agent, Pierce and ten miners made a rich gold discovery on a tributary of the Clearwater. The Nez Perce Treaty of 1855, one of several negotiated by Stevens, prohibited white intrusion onto the reservation without tribal permission. But lacking military support, Cain was powerless to stop the encroaching miners. George Wright recommended that the Indian Bureau renegotiate the Nez Perce Treaty to permit miners to dig for gold on the reservation. Communities of miners sprang up on the Nez Perce Reservation including Lewiston, Elk City, and Florence.
The Lapwai Council of 1863, where the Superintendent of Indian Affairs Calvin H. Hale tried to get the Nez Perce to agree to a smaller reservation, ended in failure. Hale assured the Indians that the government wished to reduce the Nez Perce Reservation for the good of the Indians reasoning that a smaller reservation would be easier for the army to defend. Only Chief Lawyer of the Nez Perce and 51 of his followers were willing to renegotiate the 1855 treaty. On June 9, 1863, Lawyer ceded 6,932,270 acres of land for less than eight cents an acre. None of the Palouses signed the new 1863 treaty, but the Office of Indian Affairs and the army ordered them to abide by its provisions, treating the Palouses as if they were bands of Nez Perces.
Removal of non-treaty Indians was sped up after the government decided to force Chief Joseph out of the Wallowa Valley. The Secretary of the Interior appointed a board of commissioners to settle the Palouse and Nez Perce question. Several Upper Palouses attended the first Lapwai council (which convened on November 13, 1876) where Chief Joseph was asked to give up the Wallowa Valley and move onto the Nez Perce Reservation. Chief Joseph told the commissioners that when the Creator made the earth, he made no marks or lines to divide it or separate it and that the Indians were of the earth and the earth was too sacred to be valued by or sold for silver or gold. Josephs response angered General Howard (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:105). The commissioners requested the military occupation of the Wallowa Valley by Howards troops and the forced resettlement of non-treaty Palouses and Nez Perces onto the reservation within a reasonable period of time. If they refused to move, the commissioners wanted sufficient force to bring them into subjection and to place them upon the Nez Perce reservation.
At the second Lapwai council which convened on May 3, 1877, some of the Nez Perce complained that they had not signed away their lands and would not abide by a treaty which they had not signed. Ultimately, the Palouses and Nez Perces agreed to move to the reservation but some defied the government altogether. Another council was held in May 1877 by General Howard near the ruins of old Fort Walla Walla. Lower Palouses, Cayuses, Walla Wallas and others attended, including Young Chief of the Cayuses, Homli of the Walla Wallas, and Smohalla of the Wanapums. Howard and Umatilla Agent W.A. Cornoyer explained the benefits of reservation life to the over 300 Indians assembled there (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:109-110). Thomash, a Washani holy man among the Lower Palouses, stormed out of the council and he and his people returned up the Snake River. Howard convened another council at Fort Simcoe on June 8, 1877. This council was widely attended by the local tribes, Moses, Smohalla, the Yakama, and even Thomash.
A depressed young man, Wahlitits, rode about the Upper Palouse camp enraged over his and the fate of future generations who would have to live on the reservation. Some of the Indians challenged him to avenge the death of Eagle Robe, a Palouse who was killed by a white settler named Larry Ott. Wahlitits along with two friends raided a white settlement along the Salmon River and killed three white men. As word of their deed spread, other Indians joined Wahlitits and the small force swept down on white settlements again, triggering the Nez Perce War. News of the Salmon River raids reached the Palouses as they resettled at Elposen and many were sympathetic to the Nez Perce cause. Unsubstantiated rumors about hostile Indians spread from Lewiston, Idaho to Dayton, Washington as white settlers sounded the alarm that the interior Indians had launched a general uprising. In fact, the whites reacted in full scale panic and rumors flew about for several weeks (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:111).
Many responsible whites, such as Father Cataldo of the Coeur dAlene Mission worked to prevent peaceful Palouses, Spokanes, and Coeur dAlenes from being drawn into a needless and bloody conflict. When news of the Salmon River raids reached the Nez Perce camp on the Camas Prairie, the Indians feared that war would result. Full scale war started on June 17, 1877 when troops under Captain David Perry engaged the Indians in the Battle of White Bird Canyon where the army suffered heavy losses and were driven from the field. Shortly thereafter, General Howard assumed field command and the war commenced in earnest (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:115). The Palouse who joined forces with the Nez Perces arrived -July 1877 when the various bands met on Weippe Prairie. Looking Glass and others favored crossing the Bitterroot Mountains to live among the Crows in Montana. Joseph and Ollicot were reluctant to leave the Wallowa Mountains for Montana but decided to do so after the other chiefs favored the move. The tribes continued their journey until they reached the Big Hole River where they camped and celebrated. On June 9, 1877, soldiers under the command of Colonel John Gibbon attacked and killed 54 women and children and 33 warriors.
What happened next is a story retold many times. Lean Elk led his people on a trying journey through western Montana, eastern Idaho, and the Yellowstone National Park area to escape. They eluded Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis who was assigned to surprise the Indians along the Clark Fork River. The Crows rebuffed Looking Glass and would not assist or become involved in the war, so the Palouse and Nez Perce decided to escape to Canada. Sturgis sought the assistance of Nelson A. Miles to cut off the Indians from the east. Miles, with about 400 men including 30 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, crossed the Missouri River racing toward the Canadian border to intercept the fleeing Nez Perces and Palouses. Thinking they were only being pursued by General Howard, the Indians rested short of the Canadian border. Meanwhile Miles and his soldiers were closing fast. Miles found their camp, attacked but was repulsed. On October 1, Miles raised a white flag in his camp and called out to Joseph for a parley. Looking Glass and White Bird, the surviving chiefs, were fearful that if they surrendered, Howard would hang them, just as Colonel Wright had done in 1858. Over 400 Indians surrendered to Miles thinking they would be allowed to return to their reservation in Idaho. Instead, General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered the Palouses and Nez Perces sent first to Fort Levenwoth, Kansas and then to the Quapaw Agency in the Indian Territory.
Twice Joseph and Yellow Bull traveled to Washiead their case to congressmen, senators, and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. They were warmly received and their story was published in the newspapers. Unfortunately, resentment of the Nez Perce and Palouse in the Northwest was still strong and their pleas to be returned home were ignored. Finally after years of appeals and growing public pressure on American Indian policymakers, on April 29, 1885, Commissioner of Indian Affairs John D. Atkins ordered return of the Nez Perces and Palouses to the Pacific Northwest. The government split the returnees into two groups, one of which was sent to the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho while Joseph and Yellow Bull took the remaining group to the Colville Reservation in Washington Territory. The Indians returned to the Northwest but were no longer free to live along the rivers, to hunt, or to gather camas root from prairies of their native lands.
Like an immense monster of desolation to these Indians the waves of civilization are fast approaching ... (Lieutenant John Mullan)
If it can be said that the period of the fur traders overlapped with the missionary period, the missionary period spawned the white influx. Drury (1986:18) wrote that Dr. Whitman made three notable contributions to the opening of the Oregon country for American settlement:
He saw the feasibility of taking white American women over the Continental Divide while on an exploring tour to the Rockies in the summer of 1835. The successful crossing of the Rockies through South Pass by Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding on July 4, 1836, unlocked the mountain gateway for men who wanted to take their families with them to Oregon. Where women could go riding horseback on side-saddles, other women and children could follow in covered wagons;
Whitmans stubborn persistence made it possible in 1836 to take the first wheeled vehicle across a long section of the Oregon Trail extending from the Green River Rendezvous in the Rockies to Fort Boise. Where one wagon had gone, others could follow;
He was responsible in leading the first great Oregon emigration of about 1000 people in 1843 from Fort Hall into the Columbia River Valley. These three history-making achievements combined to encourage thousands of Americans to make the overland trek to Oregon after 1843. The decisive factor in the establishment of the boundary with Great Britain in 1846 at the 49o was the numerical superiority of American settlers in Old Oregon over those of British citizenship.
The Hudsons Bay Company diversified its activities and erected a sawmill at the Willamette Falls in 1831 and began shipping lumber. Farming at Vancouver continued to expand and in good years produced beyond company needs. Retired company servants and free trappers already had established a nucleus of British farms in the lower Willamette. But the British were not beating the Americans at their own game because all these British actions were company controlled and existed as mere adjuncts of the fur trade. Although for the moment, their agricultural development surpassed that of the Americans, it was neither initiated by farmer colonists nor could it draw upon a vast reservoir of land-seeking immigrants. Thus, the Columbia country was a company frontier for the British, but a national frontier for the Americans (Meinig 1968:115).
Ever since Jason Lees visit to Waiilatpu and Lapwai in the early spring of 1838, at which time Whitman and Spalding sent in their amazing request for 220 additional missionaries, there is evidence of Whitmans growing interest in the political future of Old Oregon. His political interests centered on promoting Protestant Americans to emigrate to Oregon and to extend the jurisdiction of the United States over whatever part of the Oregon territory would be granted it by treaty with the British. Although the emigrants of 1841 and 1842 abandoned their wagons at Fort Hall, Whitman believed that the emigration of 1843 would take its wagons over the mountains into the Columbia River Valley (Drury 1986:467-468).
During the spring of 1843, an awakened interest in Old Oregon stirred throughout the United States (Drury 1986(II):61). The editor of the Boston Daily Evening Transcript declared on April 4, 1843, that hundreds are already prepared to start thither with the Spring, while hundreds are anxiously awaiting the action of Congress in reference to that country as the signal for their departure. Since Whitman was in Boston at that time, the editorial might have been written at his instigation (Drury 1986(II):61). Whitman must have been delighted with The Oregon Fever that was literally sweeping the nation. With Whitmans help, a new era in Oregons history began with the arrival of the large 1843 emigration and the wagon road from Fort Hall to the Columbia River was the key that unlocked Oregons doors to the restless thousands on Americas western frontiers. The successful 1843 emigration ensured that more emigration would follow and with larger numbers of Americans in Oregon, there would be greater pressure on the government to extend its jurisdiction over the territory. The 1843 emigration and those that followed precipitated cultural conflict with the Indians. Although none of the immigrants between 1843-1847 settled on land in the vicinity of Waiilatpu, social and economic changes were introduced among the Indians that threatened their way of life. Mission activities at Waiilatpu were no longer the same as they had been before Whitman left for Boston. The increasing attention the Whitmans gave to the immigrants aroused the suspicion and resentment of the Cayuse. It was only after the Whitman killings that whites began to settle the area, and even then, their numbers were few.
One of the principal threats of the white influx to Indian lifeways was competition for fish and game. After the introduction of the horse and a temporary population rebound from the epidemics of the previous century, there were probably as many Indians as the land could support given the technology employed by the Indians to wrest a living from the land. For those Indians who enjoyed an abundant subsistence base, the initial white impact on their subsistence was probably minimal, but for those who maintained a slimmer margin of subsistence, the presence of even a few whites probably reduced some of their food supply. During the severe winter of 1846-1847, when the salmon run was late and many Indian herds were destroyed, the impact of thousands of white immigrants hunting game and fishing the streams along the Oregon Trail was certainly felt by the Indians (cf. Martin 1969:7, 23).
In the wake of the Whitman killings, American settlers in the Willamette Valley called for immediate revenge upon the Cayuse and for reestablishing security along the Oregon Trail. It took a few weeks to form a volunteer militia, which arrived at The Dalles in January 1848. They erected a stockade, installed a small cannon, and proclaimed it Fort Lee (Meinig 1968:152). After several months, the militia failed to track down the Cayuse tribesmen who committed the killings. The volunteers were anxious to return home but to withdraw might leave the late-summer emigrant trains at the mercy of marauders. As an inducement for them to stay, the Territorial Superintendent of Indian Affairs gave authority to colonize the Walla Walla Valley - a move that contradicted assurances made to nonbelligerent Indians. The excuse given to the Indians was that the Cayuse refused to surrender the Whitman killers so it was proper that their lands be taken. About 60 men agreed to stay on and made arrangements to move their families that autumn. Whitmans grist mill was repaired, seed was made available, and confiscated Cayuse cattle and horses provided the beginnings of herds. While these citizen-soldiers did provide protection to the emigrant trains, the prospects of wintering in the interior caused many to reconsider their decision and only a dozen or so remained in the Walla Walla area. The next five years were free of conflict between the emigrants and the Indians. The wagon trains passed through Cayuse territory only to find tribal members selling potatoes from their scattered garden plots along the river, or ready to trade cattle and horses (Meinig 1968:154).
As the news of the Fort Colvile gold discovery spread, white traffic increased sharply. As the volume and variety of white/Indian contact increased, virtually every Indian group was directly touched and by the summer of 1855, the threshold of conflict was again reached. Most Indian chiefs saw that it would be impossible to seal off the whole Columbia basin and they were willing to allow emigrants and other transients to pass through their lands since there were good economic reasons for favoring such traffic. But fear of white settlement was intense (cf. Meinig 1968:156 and Suphan 1974:191).
Meanwhile, many in the Army blamed the whites for the mounting troubles. Meinig (1968:156-157) noted that the Columbia Plain was but one far corner of a vast area pockmarked with troubles and policed by limited forces of doubtful effectiveness. Maintenance costs were enormous and campaign logistics were often circumscribed by the enormous distances, inadequate equipment, and scarcity of supplies. Economy of action was a necessary principal but more importantly, most officers had little sympathy for the means or objectives of their fellow citizens. Experience had taught them that Americans often attacked and plundered the Indians for no proper reason and furthermore, with the Willamette open for settlement there was no reason to seize the whole barren interior country. The army viewed its role as peace keepers that stabilized relationships, patrolled the trafficways and protected the legitimate interests of Indian and white alike. Naturally, such army policies were anathema to American settlers who wanted freedom as well as security to settle, travel, and do as they pleased.
After the conclusion of the Yakima War and other Plateau conflicts between 1855 and 1858, white settlement was gradual. In the Palouse country, it only started in 1862 when George Pangburn squatted on unsurveyed land on lower Union Flat Creek (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:97). The Palouse Indians and the whites lived in peace with one another, in large measure because the whites wanted to live in peace with the Indians and their experiences had taught them the wisdom of being friendly. Initially, the white population treated the Palouses with respect, but relations later deteriorated when larger numbers of whites, some of whom disliked or feared Indians, moved into the region.
White settlement of the region was greatly stimulated by the growth of transportation systems in the inland Northwest. Prior to 1858, whites followed Indian trails, but after the Yakima War, Lieutenant John Mullan surveyed a road for the U.S. Army, linking Fort Walla Walla with Fort Benton, Montana. Shortly after the Mullan Road old was discovered in Idaho and Montana. Whites established several ferries on the Snake River to accommodate the miners. The Homestead Act of 1862 offered adult citizens 160 acres of free land to those who settled on the public domain but prohibited any claims on land improved by Indians. Under the terms of the treaty, the Indians did not have to go to the reservations until the government paid them for their improvements. Many of the Palouse remained on their lands, refusing to go to the reservations until the 1870s and 1880s. In the latter part of the 19th century, white settlement of the Palouse Country accelerated as families and individuals from America, Asia, and Europe moved into the region (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:98).
3.5.8 Treaties Made/Treaties Broken
Beckham (1991:39) writes that the story of the United States relationship with the Indians is a tragic chapter in American history. Fear, greed, cultural differences, exploitation, and racism shaped the relationships between the Indians and whites. The original federal intent was noble as laid out in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a philosophy of dealing with Indians that was later extended across the Trans-Mississippi West:
The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights, and liberty, they never shall be invaded or disturbed unless in just and lawful wars.
Unfortunately, later lawmakers, government officials, and citizens did not live up to these assurances as the hunger for Indian land and resources proved too alluring. Thus, the pattern of exploitation and dislocation of the colonial period continued across the continent in the wake of pioneer settlement. The framework under which the government induced the Plateau Indians to cede their lands through treaties is best understood as an outgrowth of early federal laws. The source of Federal authority in Indian affairs stemmed from the Commerce Clause of the 1789 Constitution. Congress presumed to have complete authority to deal with American Indians, and it did so. The words and with the Indian tribes embedded in the Constitution was considered to give Congress plenary authority to ratify and abrogate treaties, create and disband reservations, recognize and terminate tribes, and take other actions. The Constitution did not lay out this authority, but over time, Indian affairs worked in this manner. Obviously, none of the Indians had any say in these matters.
In 1823, the Supreme Court affirmed the doctrine of the right of discovery in part by accepting the false notion that Indians were nomads and therefore had only mere occupancy right to the soil. Accordingly, the Indians right was less than that of the Euro-Americans, who had discovered the lands in question (Beckham 1991:39). In 1831, the Court softened its attitude by ruling that tribes were domestic dependent nations and possessed some sovereignty or power subordinate to the United States. The Court also found the federal government had a trust responsibility for Indians and that the tribes stood as a ward to his guardian. As guardian, the government had certain obligations in dealing with the Indians. As Beckham (1991:39) notes, the Court decided that in Indian Country, tribal, not state, law prevailed; something the Indians had always assumed but a fact that distressed trespassing pioneers and other whites. The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834 defined all Indian lands not covered by a ratified treaty as Indian Country.
The beginning of Federal dealings with the Indians took place in an atmosphere of quickly changing lifeways, population dislocation, fear, and confusion as thousands of whites poured into the Northwest on the Oregon Trail between 1843 and 1845, setting the stage for competition for resources and a scramble for Indian land (cf. Beckham 1991:40). Equipped only with stone-age technology, weakened by new diseases brought by the settlers, and forced to cope with a swift flood of cultural changes, the Indians needed special care and consideration. Only after the Whitman killings did the government act by passing the Organic Act on August 14, 1848 to create the Oregon Territory and to lay out new Federal policies for dealing with the Indians who lived there. The Organic Act recognized Indian land title and set forth a four-part strategy for dealing with the Indians in the Pacific Northwest:
The federal government recognized Indian title to all of Oregon Territory.
Indian affairs were to be administered in the field by a superintendent and such staff as he might need.
I. Indians were to be treated with the utmost good faith; protected in their lands, rights, and privileges; and not invaded unless in just and lawful wars.
Congress from time to time would appropriate money to assist the Indians and to further peace and friendship.
As the white influx mounted, many whites in Oregon favored moving all Indians to the more arid lands on the Columbia Plateau or northern Great Basin. On June 5, 1850, Congress responded by appropriating funds for a treaty commission to negotiate with the Indians west of the Cascades and by passing a law that:
I. called for the Indians to cede their lands and move east of the mountains,
II. created the post of Superintendent of Indian Affairs separate from the office of governor,
III. provided for three agents, and
IV. extended to Oregon the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834 - a measure that defined Indian Country as that region not ceded to the United States and under tribal law and custom.
Hence, Federal law in 1850 declared all of the Pacific Northwest to be Indian Country and stipulated that the Indians must sign treaties agreeing to abandon their homelands before the settlers could have title to their provisional land claims. But the Congress acted again on September 27, 1850 by passing the Oregon Donation Land Act that authorized the government to give away hundreds of thousands of acres of Indian land to settlers. The Act provided that white men and women, American half-breed Indians included, and immigrants who had filed for naturalization were entitled to free lands. Before expiration in 1855, 7,437 settlers had filed on over 2.8 million acres in Oregon before any of the treaties had been ratified (Beckham 1991:41).
After passage of the Donation Land Act, the Oregon Treaty Commission left for Oregon, but before it even began its work, Congress revoked the commissions powers. Interestingly, Palmer opposed reserving rights for Indians and only the treaties negotiated with the Umatilla and the Warm Springs (with Governor Stevens) confirmed Indian fishing and gathering rights and only the Columbia Plateau treaties contained provisions of reserved rights. The treaty era drove left many Oregon Indians almost landless but the tribes in the Columbia Plateau fared somewhat better.
Before the Walla Walla Treaty Council Indians were acutely aware their land was to be taken. The Oregon Legislature addressed a memorandum to Congress in which the main concern was to extinguish Indian title (Relander 1962:38). On September 3, 1852, L. Lea, Commissioner of Indian Affairs instructed Anson Dart, Superintendent in Oregon Territory, to only enter into treaties, as may be required, to suppress hosilities or to preserve peace. On November 28, 1852, Captain Benjamin Alvord of the 4th Infantry wrote from The Dalles to Dart asking for laws, rules and regulations relating to the Indian tribes, especially as pertains to the frontier. Alvord regretted to see the Senate reject Indian treaties since he believed it wise to make such treaties before the whites crowded into the area.
The Donation Land Act provided for the donation of land to actual settlers and for the survey and confirmation of their claim west of the Cascade Mountains. The 4th section of the act actually encouraged such settlement in the whole territory, but Congress made in this act no provision for surveying and conferring the claims except on the west side of the mountains. The pressures were so s-seeking settlers that Alvords concerns were ignored and individuals within the military that called attention to the illegal land-grab were relegated to oblivion and the Indians were aware that the whites were after their homeland (Relander 1962:38). When Captain George McClellan led a survey party into the Yakima Valley looking for a suitable railroad route through the Cascades, several chiefs met with McClellan and Kamiakin was among these. Kamiakin expressed his concern about negotiating with white men pretending to be chiefs and how they would give a few presents and then pretend they had purchased Indian land (Relander 1962:39).
In a letter of August 12, 1853, Commissioner George Manypenny wrote to Joel Palmer (Superintendent of Indian Affairs, stationed at Dayton, Oregon) instructing him to immediately negotiate with those tribes in the vicinity of white settlements with the principal aim extinguishing Indian claims to the land. Shortly after a treaty commission had been formed in December 1854, Palmer wrote from Dayton, Oregon informing Manypenny that the Indians would oppose any treaty that would remove them to a reservation where they could not fish (Relander 1962:40). When the Walla Walla Treaty Council convened on May 29, 1855, Kamiakin was quiet for several days and finally spoke:
I have something different to say. It is young men who have spoken. I have been afraid of the white men. Your chiefs are good; perhaps you have spoken straight that your children will do what is right. Let them do as they have promised. That is all I have to say.
Kamiakin was addressing, in the same man, the territorial governor of Washington and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Isaac Stevens. For his part, Stevens was speaking and making promises not only for the United States but for the Territory of Washington. Legally and morally, his promises and actions were binding upon both the government and the territory (Relander 1962:41). On June 9, Kamiakin visited Governor Stevens and announced his determination to return home. The treaty was signed and on June 11, the goods and presents were portioned out but Kamiakin would not take any goods for himself. He wanted them only after the President had pronounced the Treaty was good. The Treaty was not made good until signed by President James Buchanan on April 18, 1859.
Stevens was appointed governor of Washington Territory by the newly elected President Franklin Pierce as a reward for his eager support. An officer in the Army Corps of Engineers and graduate of West Point, Stevens was asked to survey the northernmost possible transcontinental railway route and to serve as Superintendent of Indian Affairs (Cohen 1986:36). Josephy (1965:293) says of Stevens:
As a governor who would build up the population and prosperity of this territory, he was intent on winning Congressional approval for a railroad that would terminate at Puget Sound . . . He bore no ill will against Indians, and even fancied that he admired and respected them. But as an instrument of advancing American civilization, he had a job to carry out, and with a flair for publicity he expected to win notice in the East for what he would achieve. As Superintendent of Indian Affairs, he would try to treat the Indians justly and peaceably, but he was determined to bend them to his wishes.
Scheuerman (1986:7) describes Stevens as being short-tempered, impatient, and demanding - qualities not ideally suited for diplomacy with the proud Plateau Indians. Stevens, an engineer and officer, demonstrated little interest in understanding the Indian way of life. While his expedition ethnologist, George Gibbs, did compile considerable information on the Indians, Stevens did not seem to profit from it since his reservation plans ignored basic linguistic and cultural differences between the various tribal groups and ignored their extensive seasonal rounds (Scheuerman 1986:9-11). As Stevens began his negotiations with the tribes, their leaders were probably unaware of the contest being waged between civilian authorities under Stevens and the military under General Wool over the ultimate resolution of the Indian question. Stevens represented himself as a spokesman for the military at the Walla Walla Council although he had resigned his commission and never hinted that other government officials were in favor of other solutions to the Indian question (Scheuerman 1986:14). For his part, Wool believed that any treaties drafted by Stevens would touch off an unnecessary war. He refused Stevens request to have the treaty council grounds occupied by a cavalry unit from The Dalles. Nonetheless, the Indians were never able to capitalize on this rift between the white policy-makers.
Present at the treaty council was Army Lt. Lawrence Kip whose journal provides interesting eye-witness accounts of Stevens Treaty Council. Kip (1897:10-11) was most impressed by the arrival of the Nez Perce and the Cayuse and the council itself must have been a remarkable scene. With the fate of the tribes hanging in the balance as the onslaught of white immigration was about to sweep over the Indian land, the Indians and whites set down to business on May 30. Kip (1897:15) describes the scene:
Directly in front of Governor Stevens tent, a small arbor had been erected, in which, at a table, sat several of his party taking notes of everything said. In front of the arbor on a bench sat Governor Stevens and General Palmer, and before them, in the open air, in concentric semi-circles, were ranged the Indians, the chiefs in the front ranks, in order of their dignity, while the background was filled with women and children. The Indians sat on the ground, (in their own words,) reposing on the bosom of their Great Mother.
Even with good interpreters, language problems resulted since Stevens and Palmer could not speak with the Indians directly. Early on, Stevens revealed a paternalistic attitude, often referring to men much older than he as children. As Trafzer and Scheuerman (1986:50) note, Stevens believed himself to be superior and assumed that whites had a right to direct Indian policy, regardless of what the Indians thought. All of the Plateau tribes had known Eastern Indians, many of whom had worked for Hudsons Bay and had married Plateau women. Thus, the Plateau tribes may not have been familiar with treaty making, but they understood the effects of American Indian policy, were not foolish children, and did not believe that the white man had been for many years caring for his red children across the mountains. The Indians knew that many treaties had been made and broken and that Eastern Indians were unhappy about their relocation to the Indian Territories west of the Mississippi. Stevens, being impatient, did not understand Indians and prematurely revealed his objective:
We want you and ourselves to agree upon tracts of land where you will live; in those tracts of land we want each man who will work to have his own land, his own horses, his own cattle, and his own home for himself and his children...to learn to make ploughs, to learn to make wagons, and everything which you need in your house...to spin, and to weave and to make clothes ... Someday [you will] be farmers and mechanics, or you will be doctors and lawyers like white men (Trafzer and Schuereman 1986:50-51).
Stevens promised to pay the Indians for the land which they were to give to the Great Father. Schuster (1975:214) observed that Stevens was pursuing a containment policy whereby, in return for ceded lands, Indians were to be removed to reservations. In return, Indians were to be compensated in cash, goods, instruction in farming, white education, and religious instruction. Setting aside reservations for Indians had the outward appearance of securing exclusive rights to a bounded territory, but actually, reservations segregated Indians, severed their traditional land ties, disrupted access to adequate subsistence resources, and confined them so they were less likely to interfere with white settlement.
Palmer promised to prevent white encroachment and hostilities and proposed boundary lines so that both the Indians and whites would know where their lands were. Palmer told the Indians that if there were no other whites coming into the country we might get along in peace but that nothing could stop the Columbia from flowing, the rain from falling, or the whites from coming (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:51).
On the third day, the Indians began to speak up when pent-up anger surfaced. On June 9th, Stevens explained again, this time for the benefit of Chief Looking Glass of the Nez Perce, the main points of the treaty and how there would be three reservations - one for the Cayuses, the Walla Wallas, the Umatillas, the Yakama, and the Nez Perce. He explained that the Indians were not to be removed to these reservations for two or three years. On June 9, the treaty between the government and the Yakamas was signed, first by Stevens, then by Kamiakin and the other Yakama chiefs. Thus, chiefs of the people who ranged over 10,828,800 acres or 16,920 square miles ceded their homeland. Eventually the Treaty deprived them of the things which made living possible and they would not be able to find substitutes since they could not yet compete in the white culture (Relander 1962:43). They retained a part of their homeland and were promised it for their exclusive use - the 1,875 square mile Yakama Reservation. They were promised $140,000 in annuities or goods for a 20 year period to be spent on improvements and they were promised their fisheries. Kamiakin spoke wisely, Let them do as they have promised.
On June 11, Nez Perce Chief Lawyer met with Stevens and signed the Treaty. As Stevens reached out to the Cayuse to sign the Treaty, Young Chief spoke in opposition:
I wonder if the ground has anything to say? I wonder if the ground is listening to what is said? The ground says It is the Great Spirit that placed me here. The Great Spirit tells me to take care of the Indians, to feed them aright. The Great Spirit appointed the roots to feed the Indians on. The weather says the same thing. The Great Spirit directs me. Feed the Indians well. The grass says the same thing. Feed the horses and cattle. The ground, water and grass say, the Great Spirit has given us our names. We have these names and hold these names. Neither the Indians or whites have a right to change these names. The ground says, The Great Spirit has placed me here to produce all that grows on me, trees and fruit. the same way the ground says, It was from me man was made. The Great Spirit, in placing men on the earth desired them to take good care of the ground and to do each other no harm. The Great Spirit said, You Indians who take care of certain portions of the country should not trade it off except you get a fair price.
Walla Walla Chief Five Crows agreed with Young Chief. General Palmer then said that he knew of no chief among the Walla Walla except Po-pe-mox-mox [Peopeo Moxmox]. Peopeo Moxmox got up and replied:
I do not know what is straight. I do not see the offer you have made to the Indians. I never saw these things which are offered by my Great Father. My heart cried when you first spoke to me. I felt as if I was blown away like a feather ... . Stop the whites from coming up here until we have this talk. Let them not bring their axes with them. The whites may travel in all directions through out country, we will have nothing to say to them, provided they do not build houses on our lands.
Umatilla Chief Owhi rose to speak for his people:
We are together and the Great Spirit hears all that we say today. The Great Spirit gave us the land and measured the land to us, this is the reason I am afraid to say anything about the land. I am afraid of the laws of the Great Spirit. This is the reason of my heart being sad. This is the reason I cannot give you an answer. Shall I steal this land and sell it? or, what shall I do? This is the reason why my heart is sad. The Great Spirit made our friends, but the Great Spirit made our bodies from the earth, as if they were different from the whites. Shall I give the land which is a part of my body and leave myself poor and destitute? The reason why I do not give my land away is I am afraid I will be sent to hell.
These speeches provide some understanding of the anguish felt at having to give up their sacred lands. While history records that the tribes accepted Stevens offers and signed the Treaties, did the Tribes have any choice? Already weakened by disease, much reduced in numbers, and fully aware that they could not prevail against an onslaught of whites, it is safe to say the Tribes were effectively coerced to the negotiating table and bargained from a position of weakness. Neither Stevens nor Palmer fully understood the words spoken about God and the earth since whites often viewed the land not as a spiritual partner, but as a wilderness to be tamed and manipulated (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:55). Stevens and Palmer were unsympathetic to the Indian world view and were angered by the chiefs speeches. Their frustration can be heard in Palmers final plea to the tribes - a plea that is both prophetic of the drastic changes about to be unleashed upon the Indians but also ironic for the promises made (and later not kept):
Can we bring these saw mills and these grist mills on our backs to show these people? Can we bring these blacksmith shops, these wagons and tents on our backs to show them at this time? Can we cause fields of wheat and corn to spring up in a day that we may see them? Can we build these school houses and these dwellings in a day? Can we bring all the money that these things will cost, that they may see it? It would be more than all the horses of any one of these tribes could carry. It takes time to do these things. We come first to see you and make a bargain. We brought but few goods with us. But whatever we promise to give you, you will get ... We do not come to steal your land. We pay you more than it is worth. Why do we offer so much? Because our Great Father told us to take care of his red people.
Late in the treaty negotiations, Looking Glass made a dramatic entrance into the American camp while the council was in session. From his horse he made a violent speech, looking defiantly down at Stevens and Palmer before turning to the Indians and addressing them with gravity:
My people, what have you done? While I was gone, you have sold my country. I have come home, and there is not left [for] me a place on which to pitch my lodge. Go home to your lodges. I will talk to you. (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:56)
Kamiakin, who was opposed to the treaties, made a complete turn-around and signed the agreement. He assumed power over tribes he did not control, including the Palouses. Historians believe that his relatives (Skloom, Owhi, and Teias) prevailed upon him to sign. Also influential was Peopeo Moxmox who urged him to sign the treaty as an act of peace and friendship. Trafzer and Scheuerman (1986:58-59) noted that historians are unsure why Kamiakin changed his mind about the treaty, but the fact he did was of utmost importance to the Palouses. Under the terms of the treaty, the Palouses were to move from their homelands onto the Yakama Reservation. What really happened is that Stevens employed an old trick of American Indian policy, one that had been used many times before. They simply assigned one leader to be head chief and placed several tribes under his control. Kamiakin was a victim of dishonest policy and the Palouses suffered as a result. They did not accept the treaty terms but most remained quiet until attacked.
The trouble with the treaties was that they required the Indians to give up their homes, to which they were attached not only by the associated memories of generations past, but by a deep seated religious view that the soil was their sacred mother. The treaties also stipulated that the Indians concentrat, irrespective of their wishes, within an area too small for their subsistence, except by agriculture (and tearing up the soil was abhorrent to them) (cf. Relander 1962:44).
Article II of the Yakima Treaty, after describing the physical territory to be encompassed by the reservation, reads:
All which tract shall be ... for the exclusive use and benefit of said confederated tribes and bands of Indians, as an Indian reservation; nor shall any white man, excepting those in the employment of the Indian Department, be permitted to reside upon the said reservation without permission of the tribe and the Superintendent and agent. [Article III reads, in part]: The exclusive right of taking fish in all the streams, where running through or bordering said reservation, is further secured to said confederated tribes and bands of Indians, as also the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary buildings for curing them; together with the privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses and cattle upon open and unclaimed land.
A similar provision was made in the Treaty with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The Indians most wanted, and believed they were getting, guaranteed fishing rights and the treaty negotiators knew how much Indians needed fish (cf. Gibbs 1854:326). In only a few years, Stevens negotiated treaties with more than 17,000 Indians and in so doing extinguished Indian title to more than 100,000 square miles (64 million acres) of the what is now Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The Indians gave up vast quantities of land, but they retained their key holding - their right to make a living by fishing. The treaties secured their rights not only on the rivers running through the reservations, but also to all other places at which they were accustomed to fish. Their only concession was that they would share these off-reservation fishing grounds with the white settlers (Cohen 1986:38).
One year prior to the ratification of the treaties, Gov. Stevens published a pamphlet encouraging and advising emigrants how to locate in Washington Territory. Washington Territorys Organic Act established important provisions:
... Nothing in this Title shall be construed to impair the rights of person or property pertaining to the Indians in any territory, so long as such rights remain unextinguished by Treaty between the United States and such Indians, or to include any territory which by Treaty with any Indian Tribe, is not without the consent of such tribes, embraced within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any state or territory; but all such territory shall be excepted out of the boundaries, and constitute part of any territory now or hereafter organized until such tribe signifies its assent to the Present to be embraced within a particular territory.
The main cause of the Yakima War of 1855-1856 was the failure of the U.S. Senate to make good the Yakima Treaty. The whites were overeager to possess land to which title had not been extinguished as a result of Stevens, prior to treaty ratification, advertising the land east of the Cascades as being open for settlement. Notices were placed in the Puget Sound Courier on July 12, 1855, in the Umpqua, Oregon Gazette on July 26, 1855 and in the Table Rock, Oregon Sentinel (Relander 1962:45). The Treaty was not validated by the U.S. Senate until March 8, 1859 and was not proclaimed by President Buchanan until April 18, 1859. Stevens promised that the tribes would not be removed to the reservations until the Treaty was ratified. Unfortunately, land improved by the Indians was taken by settlers, livestock belonging to the whites were grazing Indian lands, and settlers were cultivating land to which they held no title. Col. George Wright of the 9th Infantry wrote to James Nesmith (Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Salem, Oregon):
The Treaty made by Gov. Stevens and Gen. Palmer is null and void and our relations with the Indians are in status quo. The great misfortune was that the country was opened to settlement before the treaties were ratified.
Col. Wright sent a copy of Brig. Gen. Newman Clarkes General Orders No. 87 to Nesmith:
... Until orders to the contrary are received from the War Department no white person will be permitted to settle in the Indian country east of the White Salmon River or north of the Columbia in Washington Territory or East of the river Des Chutes in Oregon...Commanders ... will notify the Indians...and be at pains to explain to the Indians that they have the same rights to their country now as they had before ...
General Clarke notified Nesmith of a policy change on November 3, 1858:
... having made known on a former occasion my opposition to the treaties of Gov. Stevens with the Indians east of the Cascades I feel it incumbent on me to inform you that my views have changed. [he was honest enough to add] ... the increasing inducement for emigrants to enter that region have led me to this change ...
Even after the treaties were ratified, funds to fulfill their terms were not appropriated. Acting territorial governor C.H. Mason realized that failure to ratify the treaties and hordes of miners overrunning Indian land was causing disturbances. Reflecting the growing desire of territorial residents for more land, Gov. William A. Newell told the Legislative Assembly on October 5, 1881 that:
The Indian question which so vexes the public mind and strains the entire public purse, is easy of solution in this Territory. Abolish the reservations ...
Relander (1962:47) noted that in the treaty making days, the Indian population was dominant in the Northwest but territorial governors did not seem to care about the future needs of the Indians. Their attitude was typical, dont look at them, theyll go away. The 1850 non-Indian population in that part of Oregon Territory from which Washington Territory was created was 1,201 inhabitants. When Stevens met with the Indians in 1855, the non-Indian population in Washington Territory was 3,965 while the Indians numbered 15,000. In 1860, when Washington Territory included what is now Washington, Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming, the non-Indian population was 11,594. Since Indians were not represented in Congress, they were excluded from the 1860 census (e.g., Indians not taxed.). By 1870, the non-Indian population had swelled to 23,955 in Washington Territory and reached 75,116 in 1880. In 1890, the first census after statehood, non-Indians numbered 357,232 while the Indians numbered 11,181. Their numbers dropped to 9,061 in 1920 and rose again to 11,253 in 1930. At the time of the Treaty, Stevens had estimated the Yakama population to be about 3,900.
Broken treaties were still an issue well into the 20 th century as the conflict between non-Indian culture and the needs of both the salmon and the Indians came before the courts. So important did the Indians consider the salmon that in signing the treaties they knowingly ceded vast quantities of land but were determined not to give up their right to continue fishing (Cohen 1986:4). The white negotiators did not offer to exchange fishing rights for land since the whites were powerless to grant any such rights. The tribes possessed these rights already, just as they possessed the land they were handing over. What the negotiators signed was a guarantee to protect fishing rights and the treaties reserved and secured those rights for the tribes (Cohen 1986:5). As the newcomers demanded a share of the salmon harvest, more and more developers found competing and destructive uses for the salmons freshwater nursery. Early explorers and immigrants characterized the salmon runs as astonishing, but overfishing and environmental damage worked together to decimate the fish runs (Cohen 1986:5). State agencies, pressed to divide the fish, pushed the tribes aside and Indians saw their fishing rights increasingly eroded. After much litigation, the Indians came before Judge Boldt for a definitive ruling on the substance and force of their treaty rights (Cohen 1986:5).
When Europeans invented the canning process in the early 19th century, the trade in Northwest salmon and Steelhead boomed. In 1866, salmon canning was introduced at Eagle Cliff on the Columbia by Hapgood, Hume and Company and by 1883 there were 55 canneries on the Columbia and its tributaries. Cannery production became increasingly efficient with the invention of a mechanical cutting machine and the sanitary tin can. After 30 years of canning on the Columbia, a salmon bound for its native stream was much more likely to end up packed in a can before it could reach its birthplace or Indian nets (Cohen 1986:40; see also Smith 1979). In some areas, the Indians fished for the canneries; in others, non-Indians caught the salmon with gill nets, purse seines, and fishwheels and traps (Cohen 1986:40-41). Competing fishing techniques soon became associated with ethnic and political competition for the fish. The losers were the Indians who were pushed aside by the traps, wheels, and immigrant white fishermen, and the fish, which were dangerously overharvested (Cohen 1986:41).
The depletion of salmon runs served to break up fishing villages on the reservation. The movement of families to their individually owned allotments fostered a new settlement pattern of isolated homesteads, occupied by extended families. Economic hardship brought about by deterioration of on-reservation fishing was somewhat mitigated as Yakama Indians continued to exercise their rights to fish at their aboriginal fishing stations at The Dalles and Celilo Falls (Schuster 1975:260-261). Even these measures were temporary as white homesteaders claiming lands adjoining the fisheries tried to block Indian access.
Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing ever since, dam-building, logging, farming, and industrial development have increased pressure on the salmon. By 1948, some 300 dams had been built in the Columbia Basin (Cohen 1986:45). Cohen (1986:45) citing anthropologist Courtland Smith, stated that between 1880 and 1930, before impact from the major dams, some 34 million pounds of fish were caught each year. As the effects of the dams were being felt between 1931 and 1948, only 24 million pounds were caught. Even counting genetically inferior hatchery fish, Northwest salmon today are about 13% of their numbers in the 1800s and wild stocks continue to decline rapidly (Winninghoff 1994:108). As the government was about to inundate Celilo Falls behind The Dalles Dam in 1956, the Indians held the last of their First Salmon ceremonies there. Although compensated for the loss of Celilo Falls and their 2 million pound/year catch there, Courtland Smith lamented that the Indians could never be properly compensated for the loss of a renewable resource so important to their culture (Cohen 1986:46).
The scramble to develop the Northwest severely affected both salmon and Indians. Difficult times for salmon were equally difficult for the Indians who depended upon them. State law forbade Indian fishing at almost all of their usual and accustomed areas and where they could fish, they were forbidden to use traditional gear. With respect to fishing rights, the treaties were broken as early as the 1880s when non-Indians claimed that Indian fishing interfered with the fishing of citizens with whom Indians held rights in common (Cohen 1986:52). In 1887, two years before the commissioner wrote to agent Simcoe, homesteader Frank Taylor fenced off his land near Tumwater, Washington and blocked access for Yakama fishermen who had always fished at that location. A court ruled for Taylor but the Yakama appealed to the territorial Supreme Court. The judges ruled in favor of the Indians and ordered Taylor to remove his fence since the treaty expressly protected the Yakamas right to fish at all usual and accustomed places (Cohen 1986:55).
In 1905, the Yakamas faced another challenge. Mr. Winans, a white citizen, owned land along the Columbia and operated a state-licensed fish wheel at one of the Yakamas usual and accustomed fishing places. Winans attorney argued that the sophisticated fish wheel was superior to Indian techniques and that somehow conferred upon him superior rights. The Supreme Court Justices ruled that Winans had no such superior rights, the treaty was still binding and it had to be interpreted as Indians would have understood it, and clarified the treaty by putting forth the reserved rights doctrine. This doctrine provides that the treaty was not a grant of rights to the Indians, but a grant of rights from them (Cohen 1986:56). While the Indians fared relatively well with the Supreme Court, they didnt fare so well with the state courts. In 1916, before the Washington State Supreme Court, the Indians were struck a blow. A Yakama Indian named Towessnute was arrested for fishing without a license, for snagging salmon with a gaff hook, and for catching fish without hook or line within a mile of a dam - all contrary to state regulation. That court ruled that the only treaty right held by the Indians was an easement over private land to reach a traditional fishing place. Washington State Supreme Court Justice Bausman wrote:
The premise of Indian sovereignty we reject. The treaty is not to be interpreted in that light. At no time did our ancestors in getting title to this continent ever regard the aborigines as other than mere occupants, and incompetent occupants, of the soil. Any title that could be had from them was always disdained ... Only that title was esteemed which came from white men ... The Indian was a child, and a dangerous child of nature, to be both protected and restrained. In his nomadic life, he was to be left, as long as civilization did not demand his region. When it did demand that region, he was to be allotted a more confined area with permanent subsistence ... These arrangements were but the announcement of our benevolence which, notwithstanding our frequent frailties, had been continuously displayed. Neither Rome nor sagacious Britain ever dealt more liberally with their subject races than we with these savage tribes, whom it was generally tempting and always easy to destroy and whom we have so often permitted to squander vast areas of fertile land before our eyes. (Cohen 1986:57)
If the states were busy breaking the spirit, intent, and word of the treaties, the federal government was taking no action to uphold Indian treaty rights either. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs wrote to the Secretary of the Interior seeking appeal of the Towessnute case but his request was not granted since the Interior Department believed such appeal held little promise (Cohen 1986:58). The U.S. Supreme Court had recently decided that New York state could regulate Seneca fishing and the predominant government policy was to promote assimilation through agriculture. To Indian agents closer to the scene, the effect of the Towessnute and other cases was that the state stepped up itainst Indians who were fishing off-reservation in their usual and accustomed places contrary to state-set seasons or gear restrictions. Many Indians still recall how difficult it was to fish in the 1920s and 1930s. Lacking support from the BIA and threatened with arrest by state fisheries wardens, Indians could sell fish openly only when Washingtons regular fishing seasons were open. Even during these difficult years, Indians refused to give up fishing altogether and would not sever their relationship with the salmon. Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, new national policies were evolving that would encourage Indians to challenge the states once again (Cohen 1986:60).
After the first World War, the public become increasingly concerned about the conditions faced by Indians, who had neither vanished nor been assimilated. The Citizenship Act of 1924 conferred citizenship on all Indians who had not otherwise attained it by accepting an allotment of tribal land or serving in the Army. The act did not modify treaty rights nor tribal status and thus Indians became citizens of the United States and of a tribe at the same time (Cohen 1986:60). The 1928 Meriam Report found the Indians in a dismal state of affairs -- the overwhelming majority were extremely poor and had not adjusted to the economics and social system of the dominant white society. The report described rampant disease, inadequate living conditions, suffering and discontent. Clearly the assimilation policies had not accomplished their goals and individual ownership through allotment had not made farmers out of Indians accustomed to fishing or hunting. The report blasted the Indian Service for its practice of removing Indian children from their homes since it fostered disintegration of Indian families through its insensitivity to the fundamental importance of family life and community activities in the social and economic development of a people. Interestingly, the report did not call for an abandonment of the assimilation policy, rather, it suggested improvements to help those Indians willing to assimilate and assistance to those who preferred to retain the old ways (Cohen 1986:61).
The Great Depression and the sweeping social changes ushered in by the New Deal made the time ripe for changes to Indian policy. In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act (Wheeler-Howard Act) - the first major federal legislation in Indian affairs since the passage of the Dawes Allotment Act almost 50 years earlier. This act ended the allotting of Indian lands and set out procedures for regaining previously-held land and recognized tribal rights to formulate their own governments and set up tribal business organizations. Some tribes, such as the Yakama, had established fishing regulations well before passage of the reorganization act (Cohen 1986:62). Indian challenges to state regulations continued and in 1939, Sampson Tulee, who had been fishing under the same Yakima Treaty of 1855, enlisted federal support when he risked arrest for catching salmon with a dip net and selling it commercially without a state license. When his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1942, the results were mixed.
Judge Boldts ruling on February 12, 1974 in United States v. Washington affirmed the right of treaty tribes to fish at their usual and accustomed grounds and stations off the reservation and in common with the other citizens. He interpreted in common with to mean sharing equally: 50-50 (Cohen 1986:83). He authorized the tribes to manage the fisheries in their traditional fishing sites and required the state to observe strict limitations on the extent to which it restricted treaty Indians off-reservation harvests. He envisioned a system in which tribes, managing their own fishery, would work in close consultation with the state (Cohen 1986:83).
Much has been written on the subject of Indian-White relations and one of the most useful compendiums is Volume 4 of the Handbook of North American Indians (Washburn 1988). A history of the various policies of the United States with respect to the American Indians is presented by Horseman (1988:29-39) for the period 1776-1815, Purcha (1988:40-50) for the period 1815-1860, Hagan (1988:51-65) for 1860-1900, and Kelly (1988:66-80) for 1900-1980. A review of military conflict between the Indians and the United States is presented by Utley (1988:163-184) while Kvasnicka (1988:195-201) reviews treaties and agreements between the Indians and the United States. The legal status of the American Indian has been reviewed by Baca (1988:230-237). Three useful studies of the fur trade include Ray (1988:335-350), Swagerty (1988:351-374) and Gibson (1988:375-390). The role of the missionaries has been explored by (Beaver 1988:430-458) and Burns (1988:494-500).
3.5.9 The Alienation of Indian Land
Tribes had retained their powers of self-government in internal affairs under the treaties, but they had difficulty exercising such power in the face of unremitting federal pressure to give up Indian ways and become assimilated into white culture. Nowhere was this policy used to assault tribal self-government more harshly than in the development of allotment programs, culminating in the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, which eliminated the traditional practice of communal or tribal ownership (Cohen 1986:53).
The Allotment Act (or Dawes Severalty Act) passed on February 8, 1887 and was signed by President Chester Arthur and later amended in April 2, 1892. The act was conceived by pressures upon Congress to break up Indian land tenure, destroy tribal life built on the old foundations, and to assimilate Indians individually. The act was in effect 47 years during which time two-thirds of Indian land was alienated. The act provided granting of 80 acres of agricultural land or a double quantity of grazing land to each individual. By 1902, the Secretary of the Interior decided that children born of a white father and Indian mother follow the fathers citizenship status and are not entitled to allotments on the public domain (Relander 1962:61). This legislation divided reservations into plots of limited size for distribution to individual Indians who would receive title and those holding allotments would become citizens. Act proponents argued that Indians would benefit from owning private property and the civilizing effects of the farming life. Once allotments had been assigned, all unallotted land parcels were to be declared surplus and could then be sold to whites. The act resulted in large tracts of land becoming available for white settlement and the loss of about 90 million acres of Indian land to whites and the creation of checkerboard ownership patterns within reservations.
When the rolls were closed in 1914, 440,000 acres of the Yakama Reservation had been allotted to 4,506 individuals leaving 700,000 acres of tribal property. Only with great difficulty did the Yakama Tribe resist pressures to open up the reservation. After the period of allotment, when scattered homesteads became the dominant residential pattern on the reservation, the tendency persisted for extended families to live together in a home territory (their allotment) and move as a residential unit to root digging or berry gathering grounds (Schuster 1975:49).
The North Yakima Land Office embraced Yakima, Kittitas and Benton counties and parts of Franklin and Douglas counties - an area consisting of 5,157,546 acres. In 1906, it was busy processing public domain land and homestead filings amounting to 89,891 acres (Relander 1962:65). Homestead fever ran high throughout the nation at this time and filings were being made at the rate of 4,000 a month. Meanwhile, pressures on the reservations continued. Senator Jones announced that the way was being cleared for settlement of the Yakama Reservation through the Wapato Irrigation Project. The project bill provided Indians could sell 60 acres of their 80 acre allotments to pay construction costs. This project produced an important protest writing by Lucullus V. McWhorter (1913) published as The Crime Against the Yakimas. That year, with 120,000 acres of irrigable land under the project, 10,000 acres had already passed from original Indian ownership. The conflict was growing more unequal with more than 500 non-Indian land owners on the Reservation (Relander 1962:66). William E. Johnson, a former Chief Special Officer of the United States Indian Service, writes in his introduction to McWhorters book:
As an island is defined as a tract of land entirely surrounded by water, so may an Indian Reservation be described as a tract of land entirely surrounded by thieves. Too often the Indian Superintendent, or agent, becomes the agent and co-partner of those who would plunder the Indians rather than attend to his duties as administrator of the affairs of the Indians themselves. The blundering, wobbling, oftentimes treacherous, administration of Indian affairs, conducted from a seat of power three thousand miles away, is the most sickening, discouraging, disgusting failure in the history of American government. While the superb, natural sense of honor of the Indian has led him to scrupulously observe every treaty and obligation ever entered into, the Government has left a trail of broken treaties, broken promises, repudiated pledges - an hundred years record that would disgrace a king of the Cannibal Islands.
Those were the days when the reservation people were compelled to constantly fight for their earthly inheritance against the land-hungry settlers. Most of the country suitable for farming had been claimed and the whites were turning toward the reservations, which they had earlier regarded as worthless. Newspapers all over the Northwest joined in the din, open the reservations. There is more land than the Indians need (Relander 1956:107). The Indians had to fight back in the way of the white man. Major Lee Moorhouse (Indian agent on the Umatilla Reservation between 1889-1893) was a friend who helped them withstand the concerted land raids on the Umatilla Reservation. McWhorter (known as Old Wolf among the Yakama) helped stem the tide on the Yakama Reservation. Some settlers, and cattlemen in particular, wanted more land for their herds and attempted to foment outbreaks of hostility since hostilities would destroy the Treaty and open the reservations.
As early as July 1867, the agent for the Umatilla Reservation reported that the Indians were fearful of losing their reservation which was completely surrounded by white settlements and so anxious are the white people in the vicinity to possess this land, that threats to remove the Indians by violence are not infrequently heard (Oliphant 1950:44). In 1872, the Umatilla agent reported that he was compelled to order the white men to remove their stock from the reservation and that in one or two instances he had to resort to court action to achieve eviction. Oliphant (1950:45) noted that only by very hard work could the agent, as late as the summer of 1890, keep outside stock off the Umatilla Reservation. The cattlemen in particular, were particularly problematic (Oliphant 1950:53).
The whites had their eyes on the Umatilla Reservation for other reasons than wanting to graze stock. Parts of the Reservation were fertile and by the late 1870s, most of the Umatilla Agency Indians were making impressive strides with farming (Martin 1969:150-151). Drought, on occasion, destroyed their crops and because they received no rations, were forced to return to their traditional ways of obtaining food. In 1878, raiding Snakes, Paiutes, and Bannocks destroyed many of their improvements, ran off stock, and burned crops. In 1880, unusually severe weather and hordes of grasshoppers and crickets reduced their crops yield by half. The fertility of the Reservation was obvious to whites who could not help but observe that by the 1880s, farming and stock grazing accounted for most of the Umatillas subsistence and only a small part came from traditional means. Many whites just moved in and took Indian land. When attempts to provoke hostilities failed - the Indians were enduring and patient - the whites resorted to letters and petitions, thereby gaining the receptive ears of officials who ignored the promises so solemnly made on the nations honor at the Treaty Council at Walla Walla (Relander 1956:109).
The Yakama Reservation covers over one million acres of diverse country including a vast body of fine desert lands susceptible to irrigation, which has been allotted in severalty to 3,046 Indians. McWhorter reported that about 42,000 acres was under irrigation. Crops were being produced on 10,000 additional acres by sub-irrigation, while perhaps 20,000 acres of the allotted lands had been purchased by whites. This irrigable region, fertile beyond conception when watered, had long been coveted by the whites. The first attempt at irrigation on the Reservation was in 1859 (when the Treaty was ratified).
McWhorter (1913:6) reported that in 1895, the Commercial Club of North Yakima (an early chamber of commerce) petitioned Congress to sell the surplus lands of the Yakamas, and to open the reservation for settlement. Two years later, Commissioners were sent to negotiate with the tribe. They estimated that 200,000 acres of land would suffice for all allotments. For the residue, the Government offered unusually liberal terms - $1,400,000, deferred payments to bear 4% interest. The Yakamas spurned this offer. For years the Indian Office sold the lands of deceased Indians to speculators rather than home-seekerers (undivided allotments were offered to the highest sealed cash bidder, thus only those well equipped could compete). This resulted in vast and valuable holdings by a few at extremely low valuations. In 1909, McWhorter brought these conditions to the attention of the Indian Department and was promised that changes would be made. McWhorter pointed out that lands sold at higher values in small tracts and that all-cash sales were not helpful since in nearly every case the money was doled out to the beneficiary in meager monthly installments. The Indians lost thousands of dollars through the criminal stupidity of the Indian Department.
Several pieces of legislation were aimed at separating the Yakama from their land. The first Jones bill, signed on December 21, 1904, provided for the opening of the Yakama Reservation and the sale and settlement of unallotted tribal lands. Another, more notorious, Jones bill was signed on March 6, 1906. It provided that the irrigable lands of the Yakama Reservation be cared for by the United States Reclamation Service, and with the consent of the Indian, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to sell 60 acres of each 80 acre allotment (20 acres to be retained by the Indian who would be furnished with a water right) and the balance, if any, would be deposited in the U.S. Treasury to the credit of the individual Indian. This balance could be paid to any of them, if, in the opinion of the Secretary of the Interior such payments would tend to improve the condition and advance the progress of said Indian, but not otherwise. Under this act the Wapato Project, designed to irrigate about 120,000 acres, was launched (McWhorter 1913:6).
The true incentive of the Jones bill was that the Reclamation Service wanted a foothold in the Yakama Reservation, but the unsettled condition of the water rights of the Indians was a stumbling block. McWhorter (1913:9) blasts the Reclamation Service since the Treaty of 1855 secured the exclusive right of taking fish in all the streams running through or bordering said Reservation and the Service refused to recognize the priority right of the Yakamas to the streams referring to the Indians contention for irrigation water as vague claims. At this time, the Northern Pacific, Kittitas and Yakima Irrigation Company was constructing a dam across the Yakima River some three miles below Union Gap for the purpose of diverting wate tract of land northeast of the stream.
McWhorter (1913:10-11) told of similar larceny with the Waneto Slough and Gilberts Canal where the reorganized Washington Irrigation Company (formerly the Northern Pacific, Kittitas and Yakima Irrigation Company) illegally diverted water. On the Ahtanum, a boundary stream tributary to the Yakima, the Indians were permitted to retain only a fourth of the low water flow, leaving the old Indian ditches constructed some thirty years earlier, entirely dry. Complaint to the Indian Department availed nothing and no justice was served in this dividing of the waters of the Yakima. Thus, the theft of Reservation waters, worth millions of dollars, was confirmed and this adjustment was regarded as final. The Interior Department could not, however, consider this purchase until a clear slate for the Reclamation Service on the Yakama Reservation was apparent. To this end the Jones bill of March 6, 1906 was formulated and passed.
After the Sunnyside canal was sold, the Reclamation Service entered the Reservation and mapped out the Wapato Project. In the latter part of July, 1909, opposition of the allottees to the undertaking became so manifest that the chief clerk of the Indian Office visited the Yakama Reservation to ascertain the hindering cause. He soon came to believe that there was some outside influence at work among the Indians. The promoters of the Wapato canal were now in despair. Their pet scheme of civilizing the half-hunter, half-pastoral Yakama by confining him to a 20 acre garden among a dense population of energetic and industrious white farmers was failing. Something should be done for the poor Indian; so in July 1909, Mr. Gilbert, the Reservation real estate broker, under the auspices of the Commercial Club of Toppenish, advocated in the press and petitioned the Secretary of the Interior:
That is would be better to follow the advice of former Commissioner Leupp and give such Indians as do not want to take advantage of the Jones bill, patents in fee simple and treat the allotted Indians as they really are, American citizens.
McWhorter (1913:16) added that the above should read: Then the white man with much booze and very little money will speedily eliminate the Indian factor from the Yakima Valley forever. After several months of deliberation, a council meeting was held in September, 1909, at Fort Simcoe where Indian opposition was strongly manifested. Yakama chief Klah-toosh arose to speak:
Yes, my friend; I understand your talk. Do not bring any lies that you can manufacture. This country is ours. The water is ours. The law knows this. Who gave you the right to take from us our water which is life, and then offer it back to us in exchange for our land? Why should we pay for that which always belonged to us? You white people want to eat us up like hogs. Do not talk to us like fools.
Lumni, a Yakama elder spoke out as well:
When Governor Stevens made treaty with our fathers in 1855, he said, So long as the sun shines, so long as Mt. Adams stands and so long as the water flows down to the ocean, will this reservation be yours.
Wild rumors were current that the Reservation was to be thrown open, their lands sold or taken from them, and the streams confiscated by the Reclamation Service. Cattle thieves operated with impunity, and bootleggers plied their nefarious trade. One morning in 1908, Chief Yoom-tee-bee shared his feelings on the wrongs suffered by his people through the greed of the white man. He spoke of their treaty rights of 1855 and said:
Long time ago this government and Gov. Stevens made treaty and took all our land but this reservation. This, Gov. Stevens said, should be ours as long as the sun shines and the water flows; and no white man would be allowed to live on our reservation. [Ascending a slight rise where the vision was unobstructed, he pointed tragically to the east, where in the distance could be seen the fringe of settlements marking the irrigated district, and exclaimed] You see there the houses of the white man. They are built on the land of my people. The government has lied; the white man is fast owning our lands. If the Government must have my reservation, I will sell all under the ditch and keep all on this side. No white man must come here. The good Indians will move up here, and we will keep out all saloons. By and by the drunk Indians will all die, and there will be no more trouble.
The project was further discussed at a tribal council meeting on July 1, 1910. The discussions shed further light on the condition of the Yakama at this time. Louis Shuster, a Yakama elder, spoke:
This is the work of Me-yah-wah (God). Of course this God is above us and has great power. He hears us talk and knows if we are speaking the truth or telling lies. We rely on you to send a full report to the Department for us. We feel glad over this. When the whites were few our fathers gave them land. Today I see those few white people prosperous. For them I am glad. I feel well towards all, but I grieve to see my people broken and scattered by those whom we befriended. I, a red man, am in poverty and not prosperous. The government gave us breeches and blankets, but they are faded and gone. We do not ask that these be replaced. We want only our own and the right to live.
In the following years, Senator Jones introduced other bills to build roads through the reservation and to construct storage reservoirs to impound flood waters of the Yakima River. It was only in 1934, with the passage of the Reorganization Act, that Indian tribes were able to revive their basic laws (Relander 1962:80). One purpose of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 was to establish self government by tribalism, thus restoring Indian leadership destroyed after the Treaty. On the Yakama Reservation a council call went out for the members of the confederated tribes to meet at White Swan. One of the results of the tribal reorganization was that development of the natural resources of the Reservation was made possible and with the gradual withdrawal of government services, the tribes became more self sufficient (Relander 1962:85).
In a letter from Yakama Agent James Wilbur to Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, E.J. Brooks, Wilbur noted that the Palouses had made improvements of considerable value as a result of their cultivating small tracts of land (e.g. the Indian homesteads). He recommended that the Indians be paid for their improvements and then removed to the reservation where they belong (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:127). Wilbur was referring to the Indian Homestead Act which permitted non-reservation Indians to file claim on the public domain, lands which had long belonged to the Indians but which had been ceded to the United States by various treaties. In order to file a claim, Indians had to relinquish their tribal status, although they retained their right to a share of tribal funds. Reform-mined whites looked at the act as a vehicle for civilizing the Indians and encouraging them to become prosperous, like the whites, by working a homestead. Wilbur lamented these developments because Indians were abandoning their tribal relations, leaving the reservation, and staking claims. He was also concerned that the non-reservation Palouses were too far removed from the protective oversight and supervision of the agent and the Indians were becoming victims of whites looking to take advantage of their ignorance of the law. At one point, Wilbur asserted to Special Indian Agent H. Clay Wood that over 1000 Indians belonging to the Yakama Reservation were widely scattered from the Palouse River to White Salmon and the Lewis [Snake] River (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:128). Wilbur urged Wood to force the Palouse Indians onto the reservation. Wilbur was joined in this crusade by Nez Perce Agent John B. Monteith who was also eager to move the Palouses to a reservation. R.H. Milroy, Wilburs replacement as Yakama Agent was also against the Indian Homestead Act (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:129).
General Howard supported the Indian Homestead Act and a number of whites helped the Palouse file claims on the public domain. Howard, during his 1878 tour of the inland Northwest, became more convinced that non-reservation Indians like the Palouses, should file claim on their lands and live like white homesteaders. He believed the Indians could learn to farm and get social and economic benefit from private ownership. General Nelson Miles, who recently defeated the band of Nez Perce and Palouse who attempted to flee to Canada, dispatched Major J.W. MacMurray to assist the Indians to file claims. MacMurray spent months explaining the homestead law to various Indians, but his checkerboard land division concept was foreign to the Indians and if the Palouses were to remain off the reservation, they had to accept the white mans concept of private ownership in violation of Gods law. Despite their religious beliefs, many Palouse filed homestead claims. Interestingly, MacMurray soon learned of Smohalla and his continued opposition to private ownership. While making no headway with the Wanapums, MacMurray did find an interested audience among the reservation Yakama, much to the chagrin of Yakama Agent Milroy! MacMurray and other whites were successful in registering several land claims for many Indians. Some of the land claims conflicted with titles granted by congress in 1870 to the Northern Pacific Railroad and in 1886, railroad officials appealed to the Secretary of the Interior but to no avail. The Secretary honored Indian land claims through the lower Palouse River Canyon (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:131-132).
But the land claims of the Indians on the public domain did not result in any permanent settlement and the process of alienation from the land continued. By the last decade of the 19th century, the Palouses still remaining in their homelands began moving onto the reservations, surrounded as they were by a sea of white settlers, most of whom favored Indian removal (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:134-135). The final blow came soon after 1897 when Yakama Agent Lewis T. Irwin reported that the Palouse were cultivating a small bit of land but lived primarily from their fishing. He observed that their root grounds had been destroyed by the plow and that they had difficulty eking out a living fishing due to intense salmon harvests at the mouth of the Columbia. He recommended that the Palouses be forcibly removed to either the Nez Perce, Umatilla, or Yakama Reservations. Eight years later, the Indian bureau acted on this recommendation. In the spring of 1905, a steamboat arrived at Palus loaded with American soldiers who ordered the Indians to gather their belongings and get aboard.
While the Palouse were removed from their ancestral homes, many Lower Yakama bands that agreed to move and resettle onto the reservation were not displaced from their ancestral homes. Families which had homesteaded and had been able to acquire allotments on lands which their ancestors customarily lived, tended to remain conservative and formed a cadre around which support for the perpetuation of traditional Indian customs, mores, and religion was mobilized. This continuity of residence is seen by Schuster (1975:224) as an important factor contributing to the persistence of traditional life ways and present-day Yakama conservatism. Schuster (1975:227) writes that an unconscionable price was paid by the Indians for the dubious privilege of receiving inadequate compensation and being assigned to a reservation. Not only were treaty provisions violated considerably prior to ratification, but the exclusive rights and privileges guaranteed to the reservation were also abrogated after ratification of the treaty provisions, as whites began to settle on reservation lands after the period of allotment.
3.5.10 The Alienation of Indian Culture
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) operated on several reservations and planned to transform Northwest Indians into sedentary, agricultural, English-speaking Christians. At first the BIA designated reservations as isolated places where cultural and linguistic change could be fostered, working on the assumption that farming was the highest calling and that Indians would benefit best if they mastered the techniques of crop production and livestock management (Beckham 1991:45). The Umatilla and Cayuse, which had great herds of horses and had acquired gardening skills from their contact with the Whitmans, received glowing marks in agent reports for their march toward a civilized state. In Oregon especially, the Indians suffered from this brutal system of enforced civilization. Thousands died needlessly because of concentration of people, while others died of malnutrition because of crop failures. Many tribes received no annuities since the Senate failed to ratify their treaties while others suffered from agent malfeasance or corruption (Beckham 1991:48).
Coercion to abandon Indian ways and culture was further exacerbated by President Grants Peace Policy which operated from 1870 to 1882. It was predicated on the principle that in the complex American society rapidly developing after the Civil War, Indians could be saved from extinction only through an enlightened church-oriented policy in the management of their affairs (Ruby and Brown 1988:228). The Indians were incapable of adjusting to American culture as rapidly as whites expected they would and the Indians themselves were aware, long before the whites, that it would be difficult to fuse the two cultures. Ruby and Brown (1988:229) noted that on the Siletz Reservation in coastal Oregon, the Indians had a saying, It is your peace that is killing us.
As the pace of westward movement sped up after the Civil War, the reservation system, which had already begun before the war, was seen as the basis of the solution of the Indian Problem (Whitner 1959:135). Grants Peace Policy was intended to be an improvement on the reservation system, calling generally for the use of peaceful means rather than force to locate all the tribes on reservations with eventual individual allotments, expanded educational programs and facilities, provision of food and clothing until the Indians could become self-sufficient, and improving the quality of the agents (Whitner 1959:135).
President Grant, from a Civil War surplus, appointed military officers as Indian agents and by 1869, all Indian agents in the Pacific Northwest were military men. The Quakers had sufficient political clout to cause the posts once again to be filled by nonmilitary men. Although administration shifts highlighted the pitfalls inherent in trying to assimilate Indians into mainstream American life, churchmen clung to hopes of such assimilation. As the Episcopal Church joined the Quakers in their concern for Indian welfare, Grants Peace Policy can be seen as the culmination of these forces. Only two years into the new policy, the Military Division of the Pacific and its Department of the Columbia became instrumental in driving Plateau tribes to the reservations. As Ruby and Brown (1988:229) noted, the peace politicians were supported by the military and knew that the rifle had joined the Bible as adjuncts to the plow. Once on the reservation, the Indians found some of the missionary/agents were selfless but many others proved to be corrupt and bigoted (Beckham 1991:48).
The assigning of Indian agencies to various religious denominations was not only the policys most unique characteristic but its most controversial. It angered churchmen even more than it bewildered Indians that the agencies were shuffled among the churches (Ruby and Brown 1988:230). This policy, in effect, parceled out the reservations among the Christian denominations which, through various sects, were to secure a monopoly for staffing and running them. If they had not known it before, the Indians soon learned that the Peace Policy contained as much rancor as it did religion. When asked if his people wanted churches in the Wallowa country, Young Chief Joseph replied that they did not since churches would only teach them to quarrel about God like Catholics and Protestants. Under the rule of churchmen, the traditional Plateau practice of poged. To the Indians, it appeared that the Christian missionaries running the agencies were trying to destroy family life by stripping them of wives.
Under the Peace Policy, agents sought to mold their Indians into loyal subjects of God and country. Where they had once assembled at different places for their socioeconomic activities, the government sought to make them agrarians and discouraged or prohibited their traditional roamings and gatherings. Not only was forced agrarianism counter to their traditional subsistence and settlement pattern, it also interrupted their traditional gatherings with other bands and tribes. The Indians found in the raucous Fourth of July celebrations a reasonable substitute for government-banned traditional festivities (Ruby and Brown 1988:234).
On many reservations the civilization programs were driven by a desire to transform the children. While most reservations had day schools, boarding schools were particularly effective in isolating children from their parents and grandparents. With the isolation from family and enforcement of a strict English Only policy, Indian culture was being systematically suppressed. Unlike the informal instruction of earlier times, Indian children that were isolated from their elders were subjected to unfamiliar formalized education in coeducational classrooms. The curriculum was heavily oriented toward manual labor: carpentry, blacksmithing, shoemaking, and farming for boys; needlework or sewing, beadwork, house cleaning, washing, ironing, and cooking for girls. At best, the BIA saw the Indians becoming cheerful, thrifty, hardworking common laborers and did little to prepare them for leadership roles or for higher education (Beckham 1991:48). The BIA worked on the mistaken assumption that this system would produce a new generation of tribal leaders. Instead it often so transformed the students that many left tribal life and moved into the non-Indian community, never returning to the reservations where they no longer knew the language or recognized family members (Beckham 1991:48). The civilization programs largely succeeded in destroying many elements of Indian identity through the reservation system and the schools and boarding schools.
Especially opposed to sending children to government schools were officials of the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic agents looked unfavorably on the growing secularization of education, which threatened their long-standing religious educational policies. Indeed, secularization was one of the many reasons that the Peace Policy failed for both the Catholics and Protestants (Ruby and Brown 1988:237). Other forces playing a part in the policys demise were sectarianism, Americanism, and agrarianism. But even before it had a chance to succeed or fail, dissident Indians seeking to retain their traditional ways of life continued in the 1870s to fight against the government, which sought to regain its primacy in controlling Indians even if it meant killing them.
The allotment programs, which not only alienated Indian lands, helped also to alienate Indian culture. The Dawes Act sought to destroy tribes by dividing their communal land base. Individual Indians would receive acreage held in trust and when they had proven their competency or had waited for 25 years, the BIA would issue a deed for fee-patent for the land. Many reformers saw the Dawes Act as the culmination of a long struggle to place the Indian in a situation where he could successfully participate in the dominant white society (Martin 1969:179). To speed up this process, Congress passed the Burke Act in 1906 that eliminated the 25-year waiting period and permitted local agents to determine competency. The disruptive effects on Indian social fabric is discussed by Beckham (1991:49). While allotment may have conferred citizenship, it also facilitated the destruction of tribalism and horribly complicated reservation administration. Decisions on rights-of-way, reforestation, and land-use planning became almost impossible as non-Indians acquired key properties (Beckham 1991:49). Some Indians favored the allotment program since they gained land, citizenship, and were able to leave behind tribal life and move closer to the majority culture that surrounded them.
During this time, interest in reform swelled. In 1880, former Commissioner of Indian Affairs, George W. Manypenny, published Our Indian Wards which was followed the next year by Helen Hunt Jacksons A Century of Dishonor. Other similar publications followed (Martin 1969:180). Such reform was certainly needed as the government, in 1884, was spending less than two cents a day for the care of each reservation Indian and the BIA was being embarrassed by the lateness of appropriations and the consequent late delivery of goods to the Indians (Martin 1969:182). An important side effect of the passage of the Dawes Act was that membership in the national Indian organizations declined. Martin (1969:185) explains that as with other American reform movements, once the law they sought was enacted, reformers complacently felt that their work was complete. Apparently the average American believed it was now time for the Indian to help himself.
What anthropologists refer to as the process of acculturation can be also viewed as the process of deculturation. By the 20th century, the Indian world had been all but replaced by that of the white men, whose civilization, also changing rapidly, raced on at a quickening pace sweeping Indian traditionalists aside (Ruby and Brown 1988:271). In evocative terms, Ruby and Brown (1988:271) pictured the Indians, in huts or on street corners, sitting in sullen silence dreaming of the past as the white men rushing by them planned for the future. The once-proud horsemen of the interior, dreaming of their free-riding past, saw their horses rounded up and shipped off to canneries and the Indians saw road and town builders destroy the graves of their ancestors. An excellent example of the intentional destruction of Indian culture is the attitude of the Indian Office toward Smohalla. Martin (1969:182) writes:
A follower of this cult, whose most prominent visible characteristic was his long hair, believed that by doing a dance to honor the dead they would bring about the disappearance of the whites and the rebirth of the Indian dead. General O.O. Howard and other white officials had blamed the members of this cult for the 1877 Nez Perce War. The agent at the Nez Perce reservation in the early eighties made a practice of having each Nez Perce renegade who came to the reservation shorn of his long hair and issued citizen dress by the reservation police in an attempt to destroy his pride in being an Indian.
The Indian reservation police and the Indian Courts of Offense were convenient weapons for the agent in his attack on traditional Indian ways. Stamping out Indian culture was not carried out by sadistic men, rather, the officials of the Indian Bureau were simply convinced that if the Indian were to survive, he had to adopt to the white ways as quickly as possible. Thus, the reservation was and had been regarded as a cultural decompression chamber. The idea was for the Indian to become completely adapted to his new way of life so he could leave the reservation as a white citizen. The toll of reservation life was heavy from both physical and psychological factors and few Indians made a smooth transition to white ways (Martin 1969:182). The Indian police, for their part, helped the agent break down the authority of powerful conservative chiefs who frequently fought the attempts of the agent to destroy their culture.
It is difficult to say if the Plateau Indians willingly embraced white culture or were simply overwhelmed by it. But by 1892, fifteen Nez Perces enlisted in the cavalry and in 1897, severnteered in the Spanish- American War. During World War I, Plateau Indians fought on the battlefields of France, where some Indian traditionalists believed they were being sacrificed by the same government that had fought their fathers. In 1924, the government responded to the Indians war service by extending citizenship to the Indian community. In a period when antidemocratic forces were soon to launch the world into another war, the government tried to live up to its own democratic principles and enacted the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Some Indian traditionalists were suspicious of this act which permitted Indian socioeconomic development programs that only meant further assimilation of white culture. By the outbreak of World War II, opposition of the Indian community to their young serving in the American armed forces had all but disappeared (Ruby and Brown 1988:271).
The greatest of all the Indian struggles was to adapt to a world not of their choosing. On some reservations the adaptation has only recently taken place, but in other cases, it has been so effective that Indians who were formerly encouraged to adopt the ways of the white man now fear that such acceptance will destroy the last vestiges of their culture. Around the turn of the century, physical survival of the Indians was assured with improved health programs. The turnaround vindicated some Indians whose prophets had predicted that Indians would one day reinherit the earth, but the struggle for Indian identity continues. And after 200 years of association, both Indian and white have misgivings about the liberties taken with science and technology - an untracked technology is mans greatest danger (Ruby and Brown 1988:272). At Hanford, the untracked technology of the white man contaminated vast portions of ceded Indian land and waters. While Indians have suffered from deculturation, there is much evidence that Indian culture survives. One thing we can be sure of is that the Indians still love the land and will not rest until the government restores the contaminated land for both Indians and whites.
3.5.11 Indian Response to White Pressure
As a result of greater and more sustained contact with Plains tribes and with whites, tribes in the eastern Plateau evidenced greater political unification (cf. Schuster 1975:202-203). While structural changes had not yet altered the political organization of the Yakama, bands were once again moving toward amalgamation in response to increasing encroachment by whites on Indian lands and pressures for land cessions. Extensive economic as well as political changes were also taking place. The Indians were acquiring cattle and beef was becoming a regular food staple. Several decades before the first white settlers arrived in the Yakima Valley in 1860, herds of livestock were well established. The Indians had also begun to cultivate gardens, acquiring seeds and plants from Hudsons Bay Company. By the middle of the 19th century, the Yakama were raising potatoes, melons, squashes, barley, and Indian corn. Gardens were fenced to protect them from livestock. Adaptation to this new subsistence economy suffered a setback in the winter of 1846-1847 when large numbers of livestock perished. To these economic challenges were added more personal losses sustained from outbreaks of disease.
Although whites had not yet settled on Yakama lands, Gibbs (1854:405) reported that the Indians were entirely familiar with technological conveniences introduced by whites such as utensils and firearms, but that they continued to make baskets, fishing equipment, and saddles. Gibbs also noted that the Yakama were beginning to enter the market economy. As the Oregon Trail bypassed Yakama country, the impact of white settlement was fairly late in reaching the Yakama as compared with the Nez Perce, Walla Walla, and Umatilla. It was not until 1853 that the first large wagon train passed through the Yakima Valley. Relatively speaking, prior to the 1850s, the Yakama enjoyed favorable relations with whites: they received help from Catholic priests and Hudsons Bay Company employees at Fort Vancouver when confronted with epidemics and their marginal location left them relatively isolated from the mainstream of white traffic moving westward on the Oregon Trail. This soon changed as contact with military and government agents accelerated during the first half of the 1850s and pressures mounted to negotiate treaties with the whites (Schuster 1975:209).
Towards the end of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, the essentials of Indian tribal and individual economy was virtually wiped out by the whites. Slowly, the Indian population was beginning to recover from the white mans diseases and armed conflicts with soldiers and settlers. As their numbers began to expand, they were being forced to make their living in unaccustomed ways. In the case of the Yakamas, before the inroads of the white settlements ate away at their economy, as late as 1875 they had about 15,000 horses and 3,000 cattle. Agent Wilburs report for 1881 revealed the Yakama economy was breaking down. He noted that 647 Yakama made their living by farming or following cie farming but also went fishing during the fishing season; 472 Paiutes brought in from Oregon to the Yakama Reservation were noted as being destitute; 598 Indians were living off the reservation subsisting more or less in traditional ways (fishing, root gathering, and game hunting) but live on the reservation in the winter; 276 Indians classified as disaffected and 50 Palouse who were settled and farming. The great livestock loss in the winter of 1880-1881 forced many who were farming to resume traditional ways of survival (Relander 1962:53).
Things promised in the Treaty were not delivered and the economy began to slip away, entirely or partially through white land settlemen, irrigation, commercial fishing, dam construction, sports fishing, hunting and livestock grazing. One by one the things promised, inherited, and God-given dwindled as one legislative bill after another drove wedges into the reservations. Promises were forgotten as one culture overran the other (Relander 1962:53). Indian religion forbade land ownership - a concept of the new culture the Indians became acquainted with only after white settlement began. It was brought more sharply into focus by the earliest agents and later by legislation, which ate deeply into the reservations through the Enrollment Act of 1887.
Rev. Wilbur was one of the pioneering agents. A Methodist missionary who came to Oregon in 1846-1847 by sailing ship, he was 12 years later appointed presiding elder of the newborn Walla Walla circuit in Eastern and Central Washington. He devoted the remainder of his life to the Yakamas after being appointed as their superintendent of teaching. Relander (1962:56) describes Wilbur as a terrible fighter of the demon rum, gambling, tobacco, plural marriages, Indian religion and Catholicism. He was not able, however, to successfully suppress the Dreamers, whose ancient rituals were being revived and practiced throughout the later half of the 20th century. Wilburs report for 1865 provides insights as to how the Indians on the Yakama Reservation were responding to their changing world:
... They must have raised 10,000 bushels of wheat and corn, about 2,000 bushels of oats and 1,500 bushels of peas. Potatoes they raised all they could use ... Their fisheries bordering upon and not far removed from the line of the reservation affords them an abundant supply of salmon ... The stock upon the reservation is mostly horses; these are mostly small and not suitable for teams. I purchased last year four American stallions which will do something in changing the size and general character of their horses ... They have about twelve hundred head of meat cattle. These are in small herds all over the reservation and owned by about two hundred different persons. Their stock is their wealth ...
By 1874, the Yakama had become the fourth richest tribal group in North American in terms of horse ownership. At that date, 3,500 Yakamas owned 13,000 horses - a number superseded only by horses held at the Umatilla Agency by Cayuse, Walla Walla, and Umatilla and at the Nez Perce Agency and Osage Agency (Schuster 1975:83-84).
All Yakama Indians are enrolled, but only those born before 1914 were assigned land. The unallotted portion of the Yakama Indian Reservation became tribal property and is held in trust for the Yakamas. The protection of this land for the benefit of living tribesmen, through development of its resources, and for Indians unborn, is an aim of tribal leaders. However, wherever there is Indian land, there are those working to obtain it or access to its riches (Relander 1962:29). The 440,000 acres allotted by 1914 had dwindled to 323,714 acres by 1962 through alienation or sale. Had the land been retained the owners would have received many times the price they received. Relander (1962:66-67) observed that the wise old chiefs at the beginning of the 20th century realized the value of the Yakama homeland and fought white pressure as best they could. As late as 1961, timberland owned by the Yakama Indian Nation was valued at $224,000,000 - a far cry from the $1,400,000 they were offered for it some years earlier.
Joe Leather, a Yakama who shared his life story with Click Relander, personified how the Indians struggled to hold onto their land in the face of harsh economic reality (Relander 1962:29-30). Joes own words best convey the pressures and frustrations of trying to survive in the white world:
The only checks we ever get are sent out by the agency, our money, too from rents paid on our lands ... that little $60 of mine I receive once a year, if my land is rented, is such a check ... I wish we got checks like so many people ... checks for not growing crops, imagine it ... for not plowing, or not planting sugar beets or potatoes or wheat...you can eat potatoes and bread ... They even send money to other countries, our money ... if we could get a little bit of all the money the lawmakers are spending in the countries their grandfathers and other relatives came from we could make it work for us on the Reservation...my wife and I could make a living on our place and be happy ... My people were happy ... first the explorers came down the Chiawana [Columbia] ... we welcomed and fed them ... others came in big ships ... they were welcomed and also given food, but they were all hungry for women...When the soldiers and miners came they were the worst of all ... my people didnt know about liquor ... the soldiers would bring whisky into the lodges where the women and daughters were hiding, fearful ... like women are always fearful ... If a soldier saw a girl he wanted he would take her away ... if anyone objected the soldier shot him. (Relander 1962:33)
Because of dam building, the Yakama had drifted away. Before they were herded onto the Reservation so the rest of their land could be settled or sold, their horses that were roaming free on the rangeland were rounded up by cattlemen to save the bunchgrass for the cows. After the cattle had grazed off the tall grass, the sheep came carrying cheat grass seeds in their thick wool. Once the bunchgrass was gone and cheat grass covered the hills, the land became dry and useless and the hills were unfit for grazing except for a short time in the spring when they were green. It was the same with the wild mustard that followed the Great Northern Railway spreading a seedbed of another stranger on Indian country. Since the Yakama could no longer catch fish to sell, nor enough for their worship on the seventh day, they went into the hopyards, orchards, and sugar beet fields, competing for jobs with migratory workers and Mexican Nationals who worked for low wages and sent their money home (Relander 1962:19).
Tribal elders warned that money would cause trouble, but the elders also realized that living Indians and future generations are entitled to economic benefits from development of the earths resources (Relander 1962:91). The Indians are also entitled to protection of these resources from drifting away into other hands. Relander (1962:91) observed that the Yakamas adopted changes that were good for all and improved economic or living conditions, such as the horse. In pre-horse times the people walked to and from the fisheries, root digging grounds and berry patches. Horses became valuable possessions for transportation and later, as they increased in numbers, they represented wealth and were used extensively in trade. Hence, the Yakamas accepted elements of other cultures and did not isolate themselves from the world but sought to reject changes that were not good for the people (e.g., the chiefs forbid whites from bringing whisky into the country). Development of tribal resources can be viewed as a natural evolution and necessary to provide a living to replace the old three-way economy of fishing, horses, and trading which had been taken away (Relander 1962:91).
3.5.12 Smohalla and the Wanapums
The rising influence of Smohalla and other religious leaders in the late 19th century was in part precipitated by the cultural disruptions caused by white pressure. Smohalla was what the Wanapum called a yantcha (leader/spiritual advisor) and frequently preached about the destruction of his people and culture by white pressure. It was not until Relander published Drummers and Dreamers that the story of the Wanapum people, and their great prophet Smohalla was fully told. It is a story about a deeply spiritual people and their intimate connection with their Mother Earth and is also a story that epitomizes the struggle of the Indians of the Hanford Site as they were crushed down with the weight of white encroachment. The earliest accounts of Smohalla can be found in Mooneys (1896) study of the Ghost Dance - an account that relied upon Smohallas meeting with Major MacMurray in 1884.
Smohalla and the Wanapums were much more isolated from white pressure than the Yakama and Umatilla. The head of Priest Rapids, an 11-mile stretch of the worst water on the Columbia, is the most desolate region along the entire course of the river. In such isolation, the Wanapums were left alone with nature and their religion (Relander 1956:31). The Wanapum fisheries were along the lower rapids, where, in places, rocks extended almost across the river. It was here that the Sacred Island, where much of the religion of the Wanapums had its genesis, was located. The Wanapums and the Palouse refused to recognize any treaty but family ties eventually drew them to reservations where most of them assimilated. South of the Wanapums (River-People) were the Chamnapums (Yakima River-People) and along the Walla Walla River to the south and on the east bank of the Columbia River were the Walla Wallas. It was over this territory and among many bands within it that Smohalla spread his Dreamer (Washani) faith, which was in later years contemporaneous with the Waptasi (Feather Cult). It penetrated southward into the Walpapai Snake Country and the territory of the Bannocks and northward to the Kawachkins, Spokanes, and beyond (Relander 1956:35).
The Dreamer faith was born in the era of white exploration, well before the whites poured westward. The faith will never die, Smohalla told the Wanapums, so long as there are men who refuse to cut their long braids, continue to eat the old Indian foods, and seek great truths in lonely places (Relander 1956:35). The Indians were well aware of the whites before they actually encountered them. At first, the news of the coming of whites was welcomed by many tribes since the Indian life, before it was overrun by white civilization, was not always easy. Although the whites (suyapos) brought evil, they also brought a manner of living that tempted the Indian with food, new weapons, and other luxuries he had never known.. Smohalla sensed the first fingers of civilization penetrating the wilderness. He foresaw the extinction of pure Indian blood and the conquest of Mother Earth. He fought to stem the onrush, not with warriors since he was a man of peace, but with his religion.
Smohalla and his people refused to recognize the Yakama war chief Kamiakin or the Walla Walla chief, Homli; or any who met in council with Stevens and signed away their vast lands for patches of land for shallow promises that had not been kept (Relander 1956:37). Inspite of Smohallas feelings towards Homli, on the Umatilla Reservation near Thorn Hollow was a school of Dreamer religion where Homli of the Wallawalla and Talles of the Umatilla preached, and where the Nez Perces often came to hear their teachings (Ruby and Brown 1988:228-229).
Lewis and Clark crossed the lower stretches of the Wanapum country and David Thompson visited Priest Rapids in 1811 and wrote the first account of the village of Pna, which he found to have a population of 400. Later in his journeys, he planted a British flag in the midst of a Wanapum camp, attached a paper to the flag proclaiming the country north of the forks of the river as British territory. The flags of the British rivermen may have influenced Smohalla who introduced a flag into the Dreamer religion a quarter century later. Alexander Ross, traveling up the Columbia, reached Wallula and met the Walla Walla, Nez Perce, and Cayuse Indians. He found the flag planted by Thompson and the next night camped near a friendly village close to what is now White Bluffs. Upstream at the Pna village, the explorers met a tall, slightly built medicine man called Haquilaugh, after having watched him dancing on the river shore, they named the place Priests Rapid.
Sometime between 1813 and 1820, Smohalla, the Prophet of Priest Rapids, was born in the desolate country along the Columbia River, to preach the old Indian way and to found a new religion. It was the last pure faith to spring up in the Northwest and to be adopted by the Indians. Smohalla told the Wanapums that he arose from the dust of his Mother Earth. The powerful influence of Smohalla and the Washani religion among the Wanapums and others has been interpreted by Sharkey (1984:79-82) as a revitalization movement. Prior to white contact, the Wanapums enjoyed a well-established pattern of seasonal food-gathering and during this time, moderate change could be absorbed (smallpox epidemic of 1782, introduction of the horse, etc.). Euro-American material culture and views of land-holding seriously jeopardized the Indian lifeway wherever the two came into contact. Eventually the entire Indian culture became threatened from epidemics, warfare, removal from their homelands, diminishing natural food supplies, and fear of volcanism. At this point, successful prophets could rise to a position of importance and revitalization could begin. After revitalization came the cultural transformation stage for those who followed the Washani religion. During this stage, the Indians worked for a return to the former steady state which would include the reappearance of ancestors and an abundance of food. With time, the Washat dancing became routine and adaptation to the changing world began. Smohalla brought hope to his people at a time when it was desperately needed. With roots in traditional beliefs, Smohallas Washani ceremonies provided a spiritual, sensual, and visual display of the life cycle.
During the weekly Washani ceremonies in the 1860s through 1880s, Smohalla and his followers preached about the sanctity of the earth and the right way to live. Indians throughout the Northwest learned of his visions and prophecies and many visited Priest Rapids to hear him speak. As the pressures of white encroachment, coupled with disease, closed in on the Indians of the Plateau, they needed something to give them hope for a better future as well as a focus on their heritage in a time of radical change (Sharkey 1984:83). Smohalla gave them both; with an emphasis on their ties to the land as a sacred trust bestowed on them by Nami Piap, Smohalla gave the Indians back their pride. Smohalla taught his people to expect the dawn of a new day, a resurrection leading to the overthrow of the Greedy Ones. Hope is better than despair, and that is some comfort Smohalla told his people.
But hope waned and the Catholic, Protestant, Shaker faiths fastened their holds on some of the Indians (Relander 1956:51). Smohallas son, Yoyouni (Little Smohalla), took over the sacred flags and other symbols. When Yoyouni died, Smohallas nephew, Puck Hyah Toot alone was left to carry on. Of the 2000-3000 Wanapums found by Lewis and Clark, a band of only five was left when Relander (1956) wrote his book, Drummers and Dreamers. As of 1956, they lived in the ancestral way, dancing the Washat in the tule-mat long house on the banks of the Columbia River at Priest Rapids. The rest of the people were long ago assimilated by the reservation. Of the last Wanapums, only one, Puck Hyah Toot, knew all the rituals of the old days having been trained by Smohalla for 12 years.
Relander (1956:62-65) explained the background from which Smohalla and his Dreamer faith took root. Smohallas home village at Wallula was near the site of Fort Nez Perce which was built by the Northwest Company in 1818 ( and became a Hudsons Bay Company fort in 1821). Later still, it became the old Fort Walla Walla trading post and then a steamboat landing and railroad center where it functioned as the transshipping point for freight transported by stern-wheelers from Portland and The Dalles. These boats were filled with gold-crazed passengers eager to get to the Idaho ore diggings. The Northwest Stage Company and other stage lines were part of life at Wallula. Teamsters, wood-cutters, cattlemen and others roamed the streets and saloons. The main settlement of the Dreamers people was just across the Columbia from this bustling town. In desperation, Smohalla and his people left Wallula to head upstream to their fisheries at Priest Rapids. Back at Priest Rapids, Smohalla told his followers:
... we will find fish and firewood in abundance. In time to come the white men will build dams which will close the Chiawana to the salmon. In time the suyapo [whites] will ride in big canoes and the boats will make fire. In the seasons ahead the Upsuch [Greedy Ones] will ride over our land as wide as the sky, on strips of something harder than wood or rock. At Priest Rapids there is nothing the suyapo wants in our little life, and there we may live unmolested.
Smohallas predictions came true, except for his last. Priest Rapids was ultimately flooded by a dam in the later half of the 20th century. Smohalla lived to see the promises made by Stevens broken and looked upon each successive broken promise as fulfillment of his visions and every broken promise strengthened his followers faith in his dreams (Relander 1956:68). After Smohalla had retreated to the seclusion of Priest Rapids, he died, dreamed another dream, and, returning to life, brought the Washat dance to his people.
Many Palouses followed Smohallas teaching because they believed that he had undergone two afterlife experiences (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:24). When the Lower Palouses learned of Smohallas experience and his apparent return from the land in the sky, they gravitated to him and his conservative message. Smohallas following among the Palouses grew dramatically after his second afterlife experience. On his journey to the land in the sky, he visited the Creator, learned a special washat dance and over 120 religious songs to add to the old Washani repertoire. The Palouses danced, sang, and conducted the washat ceremony in the manner prescribed by God (Trafzer and Scheuerman 1986:24).
Relander (1956:74-77) describes in detail the nature of the Dreamer religion and how the Indians prepared for the ritual feasting. Part of this ritual included Smohalla retelling the Wanapum creation story of creation on the life-giving island, the prophecy of the Earth Keeper, and then give thanks to the Power for the food. The thanksgiving song was chanted seven times and then Smohalla led his followers in ritual feasting of salmon, water, camas, skolkol, venison or elk, and huckleberries. Smohalla reminded his people of his prophecy, warning them that once again they were forgetting the ancient ways; that their blood was becoming impure, their medicine was growing weak, and that the Upsuch - the Greedy Ones - were coming. The penitent people resumed the old songs and dances, becoming followers of the Dreamer religion in their efforts to recoup the good graces of Nami Piap. Smohallas priests, going into their villages to drum, chant, and teach them the Washat, found willing followers. But the people had resumed the old customs too late. When the Palouse nation was extinguished, Smohalla told his people that the prophecy had been fulfilled (Relander 1956:96).
The Palouse were regarded as renegades by the soldiers and had the misfortune to live along one of the earliest north-south overland routes leading from Fort Walla Walla to Fort Colville and the Kootenai. This southern fringe of the Palouse country was the stampede path to the Idaho gold mines. Its rolling hills were ideal for cattle grazing and wheat growing and their land was much coveted by whites. When settlements overspread their country, the Palouse nation became extinct - the last Palouse died and was buried on a lonely sand slope along the Snake River. Kamiakin, the Yakama chief whose father was a Palouse, was a believer of the Dreamer religion. He died in 1878 with no satisfaction except that time had validated his wisdom in opposing the Walla Walla Treaty, because even before his death, the sacred promises embodied in the treaty were being broken, one after another.
Smohalla and his followers epitomize the plight of the Indians caught in the onrush of white civilization. He was a scapegoat when soldiers came to clear the the Indians off the land by force of arms. Indian agents blamed him if things went awry. When the Indians persisted in their ancient customs, he was bitterly accused (Relander 1956:121). When the cattlemen and homesteaders roamed all over the West, they turned first toward the reservations. Lastly, the white intruders occupied the scurfy land along the Columbia where the nontreaty Wanapum lived. Smohallas band at Priest Rapids, White Bluffs and other stretches of the Columbia, grew to 2000 Indians. Some had left the reservation to avoid starvation while other were small family groups that had been evicted from land on which they had settled, but without compliance with white title and homestead laws. Meanwhile the Army was intent upon preventing Smohalla from combining forces with Chief Moses or Chief Joseph, but their intentions were misplaced. Smohalla was a man of peace, not a warrior and he resisted all government efforts to confine his people on reservations. As the Civil War raged, the militarys attentions were diverted and Smohalla and his people were left to die the slow death of oblivion at Priest Rapids. His faith, however, spread throughout the region and reservation peoples adopted the Washat, mixing it with their old beliefs and later-day Christian faiths (Relander 1956:122).
A. B. Meacham, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon, who was sympathetic to the Indians, visited Smowhalla and tried to get him to remove to a reservation. Similarly, in 1877, General O. O. Howard and Colonel E.C. Watkins (Inspector of Indian Affairs) summoned Smohalla and Chief Moses to a council at Fort Simcoe to persuade or compel them to bring their people to reservations. Smohalla clung even closer to the only home he had ever known, the Chiawana. He also knew that agent Wilburs policies opposed traditional Indian religion and the Yakama reservation would not be a good home for his people. As Meacham labored sincerely for the Indians, he came to better understand the evils Smohalla was trying to shield his people from. John Smith, the Indian agent at Warm Springs wrote:
A more degraded set of beings I am sure did not exist on the earth. Gods holy Sabbath was set apart as a day of licentiousness and debauchery. Drinking and gambling had become common. Their women were taught to believe that lewdness was commendable. The men had to tolerate it at the point of a bayonet. Some of the soldiers had built houses and were living with the Indian women. The consequence was the Indian has lost all confidence in the honesty and integrity of white men. (Relander 1956:128)
Relander (1956:129) writes ...small wonder Smohalla kept his band isolated at Priest Rapids, secluded from reservations where troops were garrisoned and where morals were washed up by the roots with whisky. Although Smohalla, in 1875, made his position clear that reservations were an evil influence on the Indians, the Department of Indian Affairs had other ideas. They were concerned not only with the 2000 followers of Smohalla at Priest Rapids but also his influence among the Colville. Indian agent N.A. Cornoyer at the Umatilla Reservation wrote in a government report:
The great difficulties under which we labor is in consequence of the large number of renegade Indians gathered on the Columbia River. They belong to different bands and are controlled by an Indian named Smohaller or Big Talk. He has emissaries constantly traveling from one reservation to another trying to induce the Indians to abandon their homes and join his bands.
This same agent wrote of stockmen who were trespassing by ranging cattle and horses on Indian land and wrote that things were so bad that Lalses band of Umatillas left to join the Indians on the Columbia, and Homli, the chief of the Walla Wallas, almost bolted to return to the Columbia. Cornoyer didnt place all the blame on Smohalla:
Many of the Indians, seeing that nothing is done by the government, constantly evince a desire to roam about and cannot be induced to settle down to their farms and adopt the habits of civilization.
The soldiers eventually moved in and the people at Priest Rapids were moved to the Yakama Reservation in 1879. The Wanapums were friendly to agent W.M. Turner, but they demanded the right to choose their own locations as the whites were doing. Turner recommended their removal to the reservation by force.
Major J.W. MacMurray was sent into the Columbia River Valley by General Nelson A. Miles to understand Indian grievances and to assist Indians to acquire permanent homes, under the Indian Homestead law, before settlers had taken over all the land (Relander 1956:135). At the same time, Indian agents, under instructions from the Department of the Interior, interfered and sent the Indian police - an armed body of Indian warriors - to arrest and confine those most active in Dreamer and polygamous practices, or who left the reservation to take up lands under the Indian Homestead law. MacMurray, however, represented the views of General Miles which later became the recognized policy of President Grover Cleveland covering allotment of land in severalty to the Indians. MacMurry spent about a year visiting various villages along the middle Columbia and on the Yakama Reservation, trying to understand their position and the nature of their dissatisfaction.
Schuster (1975:247) noted that many Yakama would not disavow their traditional life style but showed a continuing interest in ranching and farming. This continued in spite of Smohallas growing popularity among the Wanapums, his injunctions against farming and land ownership, and his urgings to return solely to traditional customs. Smohalla asked MacMurray to explain the Indian Homestead law and tell how land was divided. MacMurray did this with a checkerboard showing railroad lands and lands open for homesteads by any color or man (Relander 1956:138). Smohalla responded as follows:
I do not like the new law. It is against nature ... The lands were never to be marked off or divided. After a while, when God is ready, he will drive away all the people except those who have obeyed the laws. Those who cut up lands or sign papers for lands will be defrauded of their rights and will be punished by Gods anger.
You ask me to plough the ground? Shall I take a knife and tear my mothers bosom? Then when I die, she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white man, but how dare I cut off my Mothers hair? It is a bad law and my people cannot obey it. I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead men will come to life again; their spirits will come to their bodies again. We must wait here in the home of our fathers and be ready to meet them in the bosom of our mother.
Captain E.L. Huggins was encamped with the Yakama when Smohalla rode into camp. After introductions, Smohalla said to Huggins:
I and my people live on a little piece of bottom land at Priest Rapids and some white men want to take it from me. The white man has plenty of land ... Yet white men come from these very countries and say the Indian must not keep his land because he hunts over it instead of plowing it. I will not plow my land; but if I did, it would not protect me. Josephs people had good fields and gardens, but they were driven away. I have no pity for them. They had no business to plant fields like white men. Many Indians are trying to live like white men but it will do them no good. They cut off their hair and wear white mens clothes and some of them learn to sing out of book. No one has any respect for those book Indians. (Relander 1956:139-145)
Captain Huggins implored Smohalla that the country is filling up with white people and their herds and that the game is almost gone. Would it not be better for your young Indians to learn the white mans work asked Huggins?
My men shall never work ... Men who work cannot dream and wisdom comes to us in dreams.
Huggins replied that white men work and know many things of which the Indian is ignorant. Smohalla replied:
His wisdom is that of his own mind and thoughts. Such wisdom is poor and weak. Each one must learn for himself the highest wisdom. It cannot be taught in words.... Much also may be learned by singing and dancing with the Dreamer at night. You have the wisdom of your race. Be content.
Huggins asked if Smohalla hated all white men. Smohalla replied:
It is not true. But the whites have caused us great suffering. Doctor Whitman, many years ago, made a long journey to the east to get a bottle of poison for us. Strong and terrible disease broke out among us. The Indians killed Doctor Whitman, but it was too late. He had uncorked his bottle and all the air was poisoned. Before that there was little sickness among us but since then many of us have died - even my child. I labored hard to save her but my medicine would not work as it used to ... We are now so few and weak we can offer no resistance and the preachers have persuaded them to let a few of us live so as to claim credit with the Great Spirit for being generous. Yet they begrudge us what little grass our ponies eat.
Smohalla had a great influence on another spiritual leader, Wovoka, who is known for the rise of the Ghost Dance cult among Paiutes and other groups (Miller 1959:25-26). Other religions sprang up, partially in response to white pressure or influence. One of these was the Shaker faith. From the first, Smohalla detested the new Shaker religion, even before it worked its way out of its Puget Sound birthplace. Smohalla and his followers could barely show any tolerance for whites and the Shaker religion was a combination of their old medicine/doctor rituals and the religions of the despised whites (cf. Fitzpatrick 1968). Interestingly, the Shakers were at first strongly opposed by the reservation agents, who imprisoned their leaders, but this new faith was later approved by the Presbyterian Church. After a slow beginning, Slocum and his followers gained strength. The Shakers entered the Yakama country about 1886 and were called Blowers by the Wanapums. The first Shaker church east of the Cascades was not organized until August 1899 (Relander 1956:168). The three Shaker churches in the Yakama country were shunned by the River People and the followers of the Washani. The inimical beliefs have split families wide apart and made rivals of friends. Fitzpatrick (1968:86) noted that aside from the fact that the Shaker religion is Christian, it also supports ethnic notions about the cause and the cure of native diseases.
During this time, Chief Moses was trying to garner a reservation for himself and his people while Smohalla was asking only for his land along the Columbia (Relander 1956:182). Young Josephs [Nez Perce] War, constant pressure by the government to corral nontreaty tribes (such as the Wanapum), and the murders of Lorenzo and Blanche Perkins, nearly brought on armed conflict. The Perkins were killed on or about July 10 th, 1878 while camped between White Bluffs and Yakima City at or near Rattlesnake Spring and their bodies were found a short distance from Rattlesnake Spring, covered with stones in a ravine. The party of Indians believed responsible were said to be camped on the opposite side of the Columbia River above Priest Rapidsas camp. Chief Moses, who met General Howard at Priest Rapids, told the general that he and his people remained friends of the whites during the Nez Perce War and would remain at peace during the conflict between the whites and the Snake Indians (Relander 1956:191). Ultimately, Moses was granted a reservation, but Smohalla and his followers did not join him.. Smohallas refusal to give up their lands and start living like the whites annoyed General Howard (Ruby and Brown 1989:78). The Bureau of Indian Affairs, then as in later years, refused to recognize the Wanapums and offered no help to ease their plight (Relander 1956:194). When gold was discovered on his reservation, Moses was called to Fort Spokane in 1881 to induce him to relinquish the upper ten-mile strip where gold was found. His reservation was opened to homesteaders and miners in 1886 and he died in 1899 on the Colville Reservation. During this time, the Yakama Agent Wilbur opposed Smohallas religion and helped arrest its spread (Relander 1956:199).
Fort Simcoe, an old army post that was built in 1856-1859 on a former Indian camp site, was Wilburs stronghold. The Wanapums visited Simcoe Valley to meet their Yakama neighbors and relatives, who repaid the calls when they went to the fishery at Priest Rapids. Fort Simcoe, built at a place called Mool Mool by the Yakamas and Wanapums, was a crossroads of Indian trails leading to the Celilo fishery and The Dalles, Ahtanum and the old St. Josephs Catholic Mission, the Naches River and the Wenas Valley, the Kittitas Valley, and the Okanogan. Another trail went to the Yakima River where it joined a network of paths that connected the Yakama and Wanapum fisheries at Priest Rapids, White Bluffs, Pasco, and Wallula along the Columbia (Relander 1956:206-207). Wilbur used the Fort Simcoe guardhouse to imprison Indians that would not forsake the Dreamer faith and cut their braids.
Forts notwithstanding, after the outbreak of the Civil War, Northwestern military posts were so thinly manned that they could scarcely attend to their own affairs much less keep watch on Secession movements that were rampant in the back country where gold had been discovered (Relander 1956:219). Cattlemen and land seekers took advantage of the governments inability to provide ample military protection and overran the Indian lands in violation of treaties and other rights. Smohalla and his Wanapums were victims of the intrigues which prevailed throughout the new territory. When Wilbur took over as Indian agent, he went to work to gain the confidence of a people disillusioned by previous weak administrations. He found that the Indians had been issued annuity goods at exorbitant prices and had been paid in devalued work vouchers. Some of the goods were sold to whites who lived outside the reservation. According to Relander (1956:220), Wilbur struck first at undesirable whites and made it a matter of record:
When the Indians became intoxicated they [the whites] rob them of their property, ravish their women and contract a debt that the innocent whites must pay in fear, flight and blood. I verily believe ninety-nine hundredths of all the trouble and blood is traceable to the wrongs alluded to.
Wilbur, over six feet two inches tall and weighing 300 pounds, smashed at gambling and drinking with effect and banned the stick and bone games - the traditional form of gambling. It was years before the game was revived on the reservation although it persisted at Priest Rapids (Relander 1956:221). Wilbur was his own law officer, arresting those who stole from the whites and requiring them to restore the goods twofold and to spend time with a ball and chain. Even after Wilbur was replaced in 1882, Smohalla found no sympathy for his Dreamer belief. He and his people were still shunned and victimized (Relander 1956:221). Wilburs overall philosophy on how to civilize the Indians lead to significant changes in Indian life. By 1867, he was impressing the Indian Department that the plow and the Bible - and their companion influences - were more helpful toward securing a permanent peace than a thousand soldiers and their glistening sabers and their prancing steeds. He practiced his belief by putting three large ox teams to work plowing new land. The Indians drove the oxen and held the plow and used the money they earned to develop their allotments (Relander 1956:223).
In 1869-1870, the military briefly took control over the reservations and upset Wilburs program of plowing and preaching. Lieutenant James H. Smith, then placed in charge of the Yakama Reservation, tolerated the Wanapum stragglers and removed religious restrictions. By 1871, military control ended and Wilbur returned as agent. Wilburs strong hand worked for some of the Indians, but many continued to rely upon the government - not because they wanted to but because they needed protection against land-hungry whites. The Wanapums had no other choice but to become self-supporting (Relander 1956:226). Wilburs boarding school was well attended and his policy of Indian education was held up as an example for all the reservations. Eventually, the boarding school was closed and by the 1920s, Indian children were transferred to public schools.
Smohallas death brought the people closer together for a time and there were larger gatherings attending the dances. But cattlemen and sheep raisers moved into the country; homesteaders closed in taking the few remaining patches of unclaimed land. At Priest Rapids, hungry cattle even tugged at the lodge mats, eating them when the Wanapums were absent on a root-digging trip. A cattle stampede through the village ended up scattering most of the band again, leaving less than 40 to keep the old customs, rebuild the houses and dance the Washat while they remembered Smohalla.
Even before Smohallas death, some of the Wanapums slipped from his strict teachings and plowed and planted small fields, just like the settlers. They had to do this because game had become scarce and the root-digging grounds had been destroyed. The elders reported that the last runs of the big red-fleshed salmon ended around 1905, when the fish wheels were dragging salmon out of the water by the hundreds of thousands and the commercial slaughter was at its height (Relander 1956:243). The fish, like the Wanapums, are a pitiful remnant of the days of Indian glory. Of the demise of the Wanapums, Relander (1956:250-251) wrote:
Finally, all the sagebrush plains and scabland, the sand flats, folded hills and basalt escarpments, and the few patches of good soil were occupied by the suyapo home stakers. Even the water rights to the Chiawana were claimed by the Greedy Ones. And the time came when the last Wanapums lived at Priest Rapids by sufferance only. The railroad, with its tightening bands of steel tracks, bringing more people into the Northwest, cut through the country. Fences, thrown up to shut in cattle, shut out the Wanapums. Plows ripped away the coarse mantle of the Mother Earth, exposing the rich soil in the small valleys. Irrigation water was turned onto the land that pumps or small diversion ditches could reach, and the Wanapums cried with anguish for the pain of their Mother Earth.
Meanwhile, the Dreamer religion was being kept alive at Priest Rapids by Puck Hyah Toot. Young reservation people, growing older, began to look with respect on the traditions of the ancient ways being maintained at Priest Rapids (Relander 1956:251). Into the 20th century, the Wanapums looked to the hop yards for work but found increasing job competition from Mexican nationals. With imported farm labor, jobs became scarce for the Wanapums and other Indians and their pay checks were fewer and farther apart (Relander 1956:256). All other Indians had abandoned their tule mat lodges, even in the most remote hideaways on the reservations since all the very old people were too crippled to made them. But at Priest Rapids the last Wanapums continued to live in a mat houses during the long winters. Sometimes, when they had some money, they would buy food for a Washat, take out the rolled mats and hold the feasts of the pure Dreamer faith (Relander 1956:256). Although they struck back with their songs for weapons, the Wanapum could not survive the dawn of the atomic age. In 1942, the U.S. government, searching for a desolate and expansive area, selected the White-Bluffs-Hanford area and Wahluke Slope - the vast homeland once possessed by the Wanapums. Relander (1956:257) explained:
Colonel Franklin T. Matthias, of the Manhattan Engineering District, Corps of Engineers, reasoned with the white settlers, urging them to evacuate. He negotiated for the homesteaded land, and finally the government cleared the entire area by order of condemnation. [see also Gerber 1992:23] All the time the colonel worried that he would have difficulty with the Priest Rapids people. But he, like the soldiers who talked to Smohalla long ago, did not know their hearts. Never in their history had the Wanapums failed the government that first subdued and then ignored them. Puck Hyah Toot met with the colonel and heard his story that the government needed the land and that the people could roam at will over it no longer. He understood but fragments of the colonels talk, realizing only that it meant another move and that all but the last old village site was lost like the tremulous flame of their religion. The last Wanapums, their hearts wavering, quietly surrendered their ancestral fishing ground and rifted canyon walls at White Bluffs, because the government said the land was needed. Later they tried to understand when the government was compelled to revoke, because of security reasons, the passes that permitted the men to visit the old fishery where occasionally they were able to catch a bewildered salmon. The last piece of ground left for them was the ancient village of Pna at Priest Rapids, and even then the suyapos were drawing blueprints of a dam to be built at that place.
After the turn of the century, there were plans to construct a dam at Priest Rapids. It was to be constructed by the General Electric Co. which later had a wartime contract for operating the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) downstream. The project would have resulted in an industrial city in the wilderness along the Columbia to process aluminum (Relander 1956:267). Henry J. Pierce started preparations in 1907 and after $6,000,000 had been spent on engineering, the Wall Street crash of 1929 intervened. The Wanapums said it was the will of the Creator and a warning (Relander 1956:267). The army engineer surveyors worried Puck Hyah Toot, who remembered Smohallas prophecy that the water of the Chiawana would someday flow over the Sacred Island, Chalwash Chilni. When that day comes, Smohalla said a century ago, the Mother Earth will turn over and other disasters would ensue. Puck Hyah Toot tried to explain this to the army engineers but they could not fully understand him. He asked the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for help, but he, too, did not understand and replied that the government did not recognize the Wanapums (Relander 1956:268).
Smohalla taught me how to live, said Puck Hyah Toot. When I die the things he taught will be buried with me because there is no one among my people to carry on. The ghosts along the river will still speak, but there will be no one to hear them. The Wanapum visionaries taught and believed that the earth is their Mother and they cannot sell her; fight over her body, the soil; destroy her hair, the grass and trees; or obliterate the life that nature has placed upon her (Relander 1956:280).
3.5.13 The Dawn of the Atomic Age
The 1928 Meriam Survey pointed out policy shortcomings of the allotment era and subsequent federal administration of Indian affairs and recommended new guidelines to correct some of the erosive damage of the General Allotment Act. Meriam study recommendations were followed as a result of passage of the Indian Reorganization (Wheeler-Howard) Act in 1934. This act was the most important development for the Indians to occur before World War II and the establishment of the Hanford Site in the heart of their ceded lands. Schuster (1975:267) noted that the act was specifically legislated to restore a bilateral partnership between the Federal government and Indian tribes, to provide a basis for Federal assistance to Indians, to check further alienation of tribal lands, and to revitalize tribal organization and government. Tribal self-government was to provide a means to transfer many responsibilities from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Indians. The act prohibited further allotments, restored to tribal ownership Indian lands previously declared surplus, and funded tribal purchase of additional lands. Also passed in 1934 was the Johnson-OMalley Act which authorized the BIA to contract with state, local, or private agencies in order to improve the quality of educational, heath, and welfare services to the Indians.
While the impact of the Indian Reorganization and Johnson-OMalley Acts were beginning to be felt on the reservations, larger events were looming on the international scene that would eventually result in further alienation of the Indians from their ceded lands. When the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) was created by the Manhattan Engineering District in 1943, white farmers and small-town residents, as well as the Wanapum, were evacuated from the area. Access by the public or local Indians to the lands or waters within the Hanford Site was eliminated overnight. Even during the rush to manufacture plutonium, the Indians whose home was once the Hanford Site were not completely forgotten. In the April 28, 1944 edition of The Sage Sentinel, a group of WACs, along with Colonel Matthias and Major Newcomb visited Priest Rapids to participate in the annual spring Camus Festival held at The Long Hut. Though by this time much reduced in numbers, the few surviving Wanapums were still clinging to their culture at Priest Rapids.
Between 1939 and 1943, Lucullus McWhorter, the North Yakama cattleman, amateur historian, and humanitarian, gave much of his time to helping the Wanapums (Sharkey 1984:99). In 1937, the Wanapums were barred from their accustomed fishing grounds along the Columbia River between Priest Rapids and White Bluffs and at Wanawish on the Yakima River. With salmon being a large part of their diet and a major element in their religious observances, this posed a serious threat to their survival. McWhorter succeeded in pushing an act through the Washington State legislature reopening these fishing areas to the Indians for their personal use. Until 1942, the Wanapums were thus fishing as their ancestors had done, but once again had to give up their ancestral fishing grounds at White Bluffs to make way for the Hanford Atomic Works. In 1943, only Priest Rapids and Wanawish remained of their once vast holdings, but the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams had cut down the supply of migrating fish, and after the construction of Hanford, only Wanawish located ten miles upstream from the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia rivers remained open to them as a productive fishing site. Even there, the fish were already decreasing as a result of the building of the Horn Rapids Irrigation Dam on the Yakima River in the early 1900s. At Priest Rapids, they caught only 28 salmon in 1939, a single fish in 1940, and 62 in 1942. Like the declining fish, the Wanapums decreased from 60 to 36 during the 1930s (Sharkey 1984:99).
While the Wanapums are depicted on picture postcards as a vanishing people, scattering and integrating would be more descriptive (Harris 1971). Puck Hyah Toot had 10 children, so there are lots of Wanapums said Rex Buck in an interview with Bill Harris in 1971. Traditional use of the Hanford Site was well documented by Harris as Rex Buck shared information about how the Wanapums were maintaining their traditional ways. When Rex Buck Jr. was married in 1976, traditional foods were eaten nies conducted at the longhouse at Satus (Jacobson 1976). Interviewed in 1984, elder Delores Buck told of how the Wanapums moved to the mountains or to the prairie to dig roots or gather huckleberries (Lewis 1984).
The Yakamas too are still engaged in traditional use of the land. Schuster (1975:81) noted how difficult it is to estimate the importance of wild plants as a food staple but that some fifteen different roots are still being dug, some of them in quantities sufficient for daily use as well as for feasts and to give away as gifts or for trades. Chokecherries and huckleberries are also canned or frozen in large quantities. In addition to these, black pine moss is still dried into cakes and eaten and acorns are cooked as a mush when available. Hazel nuts, however, which used to be found in great numbers in the mountains, are no longer available.
Schuster (1975:87) also observed that the annual food cycle of the Yakama and others determined temporal patterns of life, binding a people and a resource base, their land, with intimate ties of dependency and responsibility, expressed periodically in celebration of first foods rites. The Yakama Tribal Council characterizes this traditional life way as being in tune with nature and of deep significance because of the interweaving of spiritual with material values. While the Yakama try to hold on to their traditional use of the land, some are also trying to maintain traditional spiritual moorings. Schuster (1975:117-118) reported that several Yakama have lamented that fewer obtain spiritual power today. The reasons are varied but contact with the dominant white society and subsequent acculturation are principally blamed. Yakamas told Schuster (1975:118) that:
What spoils young people is being baptized. That chases Indian spirits away. Young folks cant get a spirit now. [another stated] These kids dont have a feeling for the woods and the mountains. They might inherit a power now, but they cant find one. [another asserted] Its eatin that white food. It spoils them inside; then they cant get a power. [still another responded] School killed my power. Maybe if I dont talk white way, Id [have power to] know things ahead.
Some years after the Hanford Site was established, the Grant County Public Utility District constructed the Wanapum Dam at Priest Rapids but was able to preserve a small piece of the old village. Puck Hyah Toot, somewhat encouraged, said the following:
It has always been this way for the Wanapums. We move up and down the river where our people lived, but there was never a place we could really call home. Someone always comes along and we must leave and find a new camp. This is the last place. Everywhere else is closed. Everyone has been kind to us and said they will try and help, but still we have no home and still the bones of our fathers and mothers call loudly to us for help. The cattlemen let us live along the river awhile and then told us to move. The government came to build its big medicine plant at White Bluffs and again we had to move. The Army Firing Center closed in from where the sun sets. Then came the dam builders. Now there is no placed left where we may go if we are not permitted to remain close by our old village. It will make little difference to us few old men. Soon we will be in the only unoccupied place on the hill, and there, perhaps, our bones will also call out loudly. Now there is hope for these young people.
In 1955, just one year prior to his death, Puck Hyah Toot spoke to the Grant County Public Utility District commissioners:
You know and I know that the white race, when they first came, looked upon the Indians as friends. We remember the first who came to the Northwest, where they met the Indians and found them friendly, and the Indians were respected. From White Bluffs to where the dam will be built, the soldiers respected those Indians and did them no harm. Their dealings were attended by friendliness. We have carried on tradition and live peacefully without being bothered or bothering anyone. Going back, before the earth was born, the Mighty Creator made this world. That part where we lived the Creator made. He made the earth. He spread upon the earth things for the Indian people so they could live. He gave them roots and berries. Salmon he put in their streams and he caused wild fowl and wild animals to come upon the land. These were the foods the Indian has enjoyed, the good food the C. When I think of losing these things I think of losing my life. I do not feel that I should get angry or say anything that a dam is to be built. I feel that somehow I and my people will get by as long as we have friends like are here. The Creator predicted and directed that the light shall fall upon the earth and give warming life to everything upon it. The sun will brighten and warm the body of the Indian and will preserve that body. You and I get this living under that light. (Johnson 1973)
In a feature article on Robert Tomanawash, Blonk (1991) wrote that this last full-blooded Wanapum was working hard to retain the culture and heritage of the only tribe that refused to sign a treaty with the white man when the Army sought to move them elsewhere. Tomanawish presides over Sunday services of the tribes Drummer religion in the long house and teaches children to carry on the ancestral ways by preserving the rituals of the Washat dance. His wife, Kiona, drives daily to Toppenish to help the Yakama Nation preserve its resources and culture and assists her husband in preserving the Wanapum rituals there. Tomanawash complained of restrictions imposed by state fisheries people and limitations in root-digging brought about because some of the Wanapum land is now within the Yakima Firing Range. Through the efforts of tribesmen like Tomanawash, Wanapum and other Indian traditional ways survived well past the 50 year anniversary of the founding of the Hanford Engineer Works.
Ruby and Brown (1989:102) observed that under the dominance of white culture, the Seven Drum practitioners, heirs to Smohallas teachings, no longer seek to avoid or destroy Euro-American culture as they did in Smohallas time. The surviving ceremonial activity now concentrates on first-food feasts. Ruby and Brown (1989:102) asked:
Do Smohallas survivors sense a loss of control over their destiny? Or are they overwhelmed by the technology that created monolithic Columbia River dams in ironic fulfillment of Smohallas prophecy of the flooding of the sacred island, Chalwash Chilni? Has the unlocking of atomic power at the Atomic Energy Reservation at Hanford, on what was once Wanapum land, superseded for them the quest for the powers with which he unlocked the spirit within the Washani? The greater question remains: Which triumphs in the world, the power of matter or the power of the spirit? In their rush to master the physical world, human beings may live to regret that they did not heed what spiritual leaders such as Smohalla, the Dreamer-Prophet Yantcha were saying.
Understanding the different world views of Indians and whites will help DOE-RL successfully comply with federal cultural resource laws and implementing regulations as they co-manage Hanfords cultural resources with the tribes. The greatest impediment to their doing so will be failure to understand Indian world view and failure to appreciate Indian concern for the land. DOE-RL should be mindful that the Indians lament the loss of their lands, not because they have been deprived of a piece of real estate or an investment, but because they have lost so much: a part of themselves and their people; a part of their culture, heritage, livelihood, and sense of place; and elements of their religion.
The first step is for DOE-RL to take the Indians seriously when confronted with Indian world view. The Indians will cherish many places within the Hanford Site, based in part on old stories. Trafzer (1994:474-475) writes that these Indian stories are not just superstitious myths. According to Indian elders, the ancient stories of the plants and animals, the rivers and rocks, are history in the native sense of the word. Indian elders say the stories are accurate representations of actual occurrences. They also represent:
... historical actions that provide a creative spark in life, offering significant meanings and interpretations of human action with each other and with the natural environment. The stories offer a dualistic understanding of history, of the past and present, positive and negatives, and male and female. They provide knowledge and wisdom through the interaction of the first inhabitants on earth. The stories are meant for all time and for all generations, and each time they are told, they offer a creative force that links today with yesterday. Thus, they are not linear like other historical texts, particularly those of Euroamericans. They are circular, carrying the participants in the stories, the storyteller, and the listeners to a time when the first creative activities emerged on earth. (Trafzer 1994:475)
Indian stories link the people of the earths surface with the plants, animals, rivers, rocks, and all things believed significant in the life of the Indians. Their stories tie them to the earth and its life through a spiritual kinship with the living and their dead relatives, the animal and plant people who were made by the Creator before the humans, and to whom the Indians are related. Indian elders will tell us that the historical interaction between the plants and animals has never ended. However, humans are less sensitive to their relationship with plants and animals and modern society does not recognize the Indian view that this relationship, over time, can be considered history. Trafzer (1994:476) notes that stories form a body of knowledge that is the first history of America, and there can be little understanding of Indian history, culture, or society without this viewpoint. To understand how the Yakama, Wanapums, and others view the Hanford Site an analogy can be drawn from the testimonies of Andrew George, a Palouse descendant.
Andrew George discussed his life in the Palouse country at the beginning of the 20th century, not with a discussion of his birth, parents, lineage, or childhood, but rather with that which ties his past with that of his people (Trafzer 1994:477-478). His story began with a geographical overview of the Palouse country that tied the ancient and recent dead of his people. He offered a unique creation story of the Palouse Hills that placed his life into a relationship with the earth and animals of the region and he explained his life in terms of the relationship of the Palouse Indians to the Animal People and Plant People who lived on the earth before humans. One of his stories addressed the delicate ecological balance between humans and fish - a story about a time when Indian people took too many salmon from the rivers as a way of emphasizing the intense struggle between Indians and white fishing interests in the region. His story is a historical text that refers to the issue to over-exploitation of salmon and the consequences of such. Trafzer (1994:478-479) paraphrases Georges story as follows:
There was a time in the far distant Palouse past when the Indians took too many fish, thus depleting the salmon. With spears, nets, seines, dip nets, weirs, hooks, and spears, the people soon depleted one of their central food sources. Salmon had no power to prevent the humans, so Salmon Chief sought the help of Rattlesnake. Salmon Chief moved his body onto the banks of the river where Rattlesnake sunned himself. Salmon asked Snake for some of his power, but Rattlesnake refused. The Chief responded by using his strong tail and beating Rattlesnake on the head. Brother, said Salmon Chief, may I have some of your power to combat the humans who are catching too many of my tribe? Again, Rattlesnake refused and again Salmon Chief beat the snake over the head. Five times Salmon asked the same question. Finally, on the fifth request, Rattlesnake grudgingly shared a portion of his power with Salmon Chief. The chief obtained some of the Rattlesnakes venom so that the fish could bite humans, infecting them but not killing them. More important, the gift of Rattlesnake helped reestablish the balance of power between humans and fish, a balance that must be maintained between two elements if they are to coexist over a period of time.
Trafzer (1994:485) observes that non-Indian historians have often separated the first history of America from that of the chosen historical truths of Euroamericans. Some argue that Indian history taught by Indian elders is unimportant because it is not based on fact and that traditional Indian stories have little or no bearing on the course of the real history of the Americas. Many professional historians ignore or discount Indian oral history and sacred teachings claiming that oral history taught by Indian elders is mere myth or fairy tale. Some summarily dismiss the teaching of oral tradition not understanding that traditional historical teachings of Indians involves an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses literature, art, religion, government, society, medicine, history, and more. Stated another way, Trafzer and Scheuerman (1986:xiv) observed:
Some scholars may discredit oral histories, labeling them as fish tales that grow with the telling. But like written documents, oral histories tell us a great deal about the American Indian communities and the people who made up those communities. Oral histories reveal internal matters within families, bands, and tribes that help explain the course of Indian events, decisions, and actions. Oral histories provide another dimension to a complicated past that should not - - indeed cannot - - be interpreted as good versus evil or civilized versus savage. Those who view the past using white documents alone, ignoring Indian sources, especially oral histories, fail in their tasks as scholars. Those who do not study the Indian cultures about whom they are writing cannot provide the thorough job required of them. For without an understanding of the Indians and their sources, scholars cannot presume to interpret the American Indian past.
This discussion illustrates how the Indian claim to the land and reverence for certain locations (rivers, mountains, fishing spots, gathering grounds, etc.) are inextricably intertwined with their world view of the sacredness of mother earth. This reverence is truth for them and DOE-RL should view their truths as equal with the truths of non-Indians.
To facilitate identification of associated property types that relate to the historic context, we must further identify some of these truths for the Indians who once were the caretakers of the Hanford Site. Indians believe they have always lived in the land the Creator made for them and that all of nature is interconnected and humans are a part of nature. The Creator told the Indians how to survive on the natural resources entrusted to them and how to care for their mother earth. Indians thus feel a special mandate to protect the environment and will speak up for resource protection because plants, animals and fish cannot speak for themselves. Indians feel a duty to protect their cultural resource sites, however defined, and that means protecting the sites of their legends and their cemetery sites. Even though the Department of Energy currently administers the Hanford Site, Indians view their occupation of these lands as a continuation from the past, through the present, and into the future. They maintain their right to use the land for cultural or religious purposes and each place in their aboriginal territory has a special meaning.
White encroachment has brought tremendous upheaval to Indian life with few perceived benefits. They lost their ancestral village sites, fishing sites, and plant gathering areas as a result of white encroachment. Loss of usual and accustomed fishing spots to dam projects has been especially damaging. Indians view the white mans way of life as altering and destroying natural and cultural resources and impeding their ability to pass on traditional knowledge to the younger generation. Indians believe that the white mans culture is depleting natural resources and unbalancing the ecosystem to a point that it might not be able to recover - witness the near extinction of salmon runs in the Columbia River today. They blame whites for the depletion of natural resources and believe the land should be restored to the condition it had before white settlement - a particularly important view with respect to the Hanford Site.
Alteration of the environment and land access restrictions reduce opportunities for Indians to use the habitat and natural resources in traditional ways and impair their ability to practice elements of their traditional economy and also elements of their traditional society and religious life. They also have seen Hanford development or clean up projects threaten life forms to satisfy the white mans global geopolitical interests during war and peace. Indians traditionally view people as belonging to the environment and its resources and not the other way around. In many cases, mitigation associated with Hanford development or clean-up projects is simply not an option they can consider.
3.6.3 Concepts and Perspectives on Resource Protection
American Indians were legally incorporated into the environmental impact assessment process through the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulation updating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 that appeared on November 29, 1978 in the Federal Register (Vol. 43 No. 230:44978-56007). According to Section 55989, Indian Tribes (on reservations) should have early knowledge of projects, be invited to participate in the formulation of issues and in the research itself, and be invited to comment on drafts of reports before they become available during the public comment period (Stoffle and Evans 1990:93). The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (92 Stat. 469; P.L. 95-341) defines the special status of sacred places, artifacts, plants, and animals of Indian peoples and guarantees access to sacred sites, including cemeteries, required in their religion and the freedom to use in the practice of their religion sacred natural species and resources, even though these resources may no longer be under their control.
As is explained in this section, it is crucial that Indians step forward and take a leadership role in the definition of property types associated with the historic context and help catalog their locations (even if such information is kept confidential). In the Section 106 or 110 process, an inventory of historic and archaeological resources and traditional cultural properties must be completed in order to identify potential historic properties. In fact, without Indian participation, an inventory of places of importance to the tribes can hardly be considered complete! At the time of this writing, only 10% of the Hanford Site has been systematically ground surveyed to identify archaeological sites. While several traditional cultural properties [TCPs] have been identified, evaluated, and nominated to or listed in the National Register of Historic Places (e.g., Gable Mountain), systematic survey to identify properties dating to the time period between contact with whites (1805) and the closure of the Hanford Site (1943) has not been accomplished. Active participation of the local tribes will be necessary if a complete inventory of properties dating to this ethnographic contact period (or context period) is to be compiled. Interviews, oral history, and additional research will be needed before all possible property types can be identified and before pertinent evaluation criteria can be developed to screen potential properties for their National Register eligibility.
Anyon (1991:215) notes that while protection of the past appears to be a simple concept, both the past and the nature of its protection are culturally defined. Anyons (1991:215) analysis of archaeological sites applies to potential property types that can be defined from the context (ethnographic) period (1805-1943):
Many issues of critical relevance to American Indians are often ignored, or merely implied, in discussions about archaeological resources protection. To Indians, archaeological resources are only part of the realm of cultural resources for which protection and preservation is a serious concern; cultural resources represent not only the past but also the present; they are a legacy derived from hundreds of generations of ancestors. For a western-trained scientist, protection of the past is a difficult proposition. The material record created in the past is now transformed into the archaeological record. The archaeological record is an unbiased present-day phenomenon; it can be measured, observed, and analyzed. The past, on the other hand, is what we make it: it is our interpretation of the archaeological record. The crucial problem for scientific archaeology is to develop methods to evaluate interpretations of the past.
The crucial problem here is similar - to develop methods to evaluate historic properties that derive their importance through the perspective of living Indian people. Anyon (1991:215) further observed that complete protection and preservation of cultural resources is a goal shared by Indians, archaeologists, legislators, and others. Nevertheless, non-Indians sometimes have difficulty understanding that while Indians share a common goal to protect and preserve cultural resources, their needs and objectives may differ. When laws and regulations to protect these resources were enacted, Indian perspectives were often overlooked.
Indians view preservation holistically and several Plateau tribes emphasize this holistic approach in their tribal law and codes. For example, the Warm Springs Tribal Code views cultural resources as invaluable, irreplaceable, and an endangered tribal resource needing protection and adequate management. They include sites that are ancient and contemporary cultural use sites and materials and/or those associated with traditional foods and other natural resources, other sacred sites as designated by the Tribes, habitations, and historical events and personalities (cf. Anyon 199l:216). Some of the property types identified here necessarily include archaeological sites (e.g., traditional fishing villages, vision quest sites, etc.). Indians wish to preserve archaeological sites as a part of their efforts to preserve cultural resources since these sites are integral to their cultural identify and their history as a people. Anyon (1991: 216) notes:
These resources are the heritage of Indians; with no written records of their past, these resources are their history to which they retain their links through legends and myths about the land and its people. Archaeologists and concerned non-Indians, on the other hand, wish to preserve and protect archaeological sites primarily to protect a nonrenewable data base that holds part of the record of human adaptive evolution. Indians are often dismayed at the restrictive values placed on definitions of cultural resources by non-Indians. It simply does not make sense to them that only a portion of their cultural history should warrant protection.
Even more important to the Indians is land ownership and protection. Non-Indian concepts of private property and individual property rights, as they extend to cultural resources, are foreign to most Indians. (Anyon 199: 216). Many Indians wonder why only the cultural resources that happen to lie on lands controlled and owned by federal, Indian, or state governments are protected under law? Many Indians believe that they did not give up ownership of cultural resources off the reservation and as a consequence, they expect that off-reservation cultural resources, under any land ownership, should be afforded equal protection as those resources on lands with protective legislation.
Winthrops (1994) analysis of the conflicting perceptions between tribal and regulatory views of nature, risk, and change provides further insights into the situation at Hanford. Section 106 or 110 mandated activities are not at all dissimilar to the activities associated with the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) since both activities stem from a similar epistemology (assumptions regarding the basis of valid knowledge or practice). In an EIS, an agency conceptually divides a project into a physical and biological environment on the one hand and a human environment on the other (cf. Winthrop 1994:26). The physical/biological domain includes separate studies of geology, air quality, soils, hydrology and the like while the human domain includes separate studies of socioeconomics, transportation, energy, and cultural resources. As Winthrop (1994:26) observed, cultural resources, as defined in federal environmental assessments, includes archaeological sites, historic sites, and TCPs. While agency acknowledgment of TCPs as a category of resource eligible for protection seems to be a culturally enlightened step:
... the value of this category is to a large degree vitiated, however, by the commodity metaphor inherent in all discussions of cultural resources. By treating an Indian medicine area as analogous to an owl nesting site or a patch of wetlands, its cultural character is ignored. The significance of medicines (to continue that example) does not accrue simply from the existence of particular physical substances at particular sites alone; rather, it is inherent in the culturally patterned relationship between the substances, the pristine settings in which they occur, the traditional knowledge of their properties and modes of use held by particular individuals, and the appropriate actied. (Winthrop 1994:26-27)
The underlying conflict that will emerge at Hanford will stem from radically different views of nature. The most important difference between regulatory and tribal assumptions regarding the environment is that between an agencys image of nature as an alien and thus external, biotic realm and tribal views of nature as a shared life-world (Winthrop 1994:28). In environmental assessment, the environment affected by a proposed project is analyzed by reducing it to its constituent elements (wildlife, flora, etc.) and each is interpreted through technically appropriate studies. From the tribal perspective, this kind of assessment is arbitrary because it is imposed from above and sets limits to critical thought. This kind of assessment is analytic rather than synthetic (it breaks down rather than sums up) and leads to abstraction. Finally, this kind of assessment envisions a world which is culturally vacant. That is, culture enter into the analysis only in highly circumscribed and reified fashion (e.g., as a site or a resource) to compete for preservation with other resources. As Winthrop (1994:28) notes, the Indian perspective on nature is vastly different:
Indians see nature as local and their knowledge of the environment pertains to very specific locales that are usually known in considerable detail
To the Indians, nature is personal and responsive and their interactions with the natural environment may take the form of personified spirits or forces
To the Indians, knowledge of the environment is gained through experience which alone can reveal its relevant properties and powers
Indians evaluate environmental change (that would result from a project) more in relation to their conception of collective good and collective identity. Continuity of their identity or ethnicity may depend in rather subtle was upon a continuity of the environment
To the Indians, environmental effects are viewed in relation to a time frame extending indefinitely into the past and future. Both the dead and those yet to be born may exert moral force as the living struggle to evaluate proposed environmental change to result from projects
Following Winthrop (1994:28), it is safe to say that environmental protection activities in the United States today is undergoing an important paradigm shift. At Hanford, a key challenge is to reshape Indian participation in the environmental decision making from the extremely formal and artificial approaches personified by the EIS or even the Section 106 or 110 processes, to ones that more adequately allow the Indians to express their conceptions of nature, risk, and change.
3.6.4 Operating Concept: Traditional Cultural Properties (Cultural Landscapes)
Government, Indians, and researchers alike are aware that piggy-backing ethnography onto environmental and/or archaeological assessments does not adequately address the cultural significance of all places that might be important to Indian people. Understanding the Indian conception of the physical environment is limited by framing significance assessments in terms of archaeological site definition and spot development. Many places of importance to Indian peoples are not archaeological sites. This creates an ambiguous area within cultural resource management (Kennedy et al., 1993:5-6).
Heritage legislators and historic preservation offices throughout the United States have recently acknowledged that "ethnic significance" is a valid form of meaning attached to the landscape that requires seriously considered revisions to heritage policy. The United States is now in the forefront in implementing culturally-sensitive legislation designed to preserve places of traditional cultural significance (Kennedy et al., 1993: 7) and the National Park Service, in particular, has shown strong leadership through the promulgation of various guidance documents (e.g., National Register Bulletins, CRM, Federal Archaeology Reports).
In 1990, the National Park Service developed the concept of traditional cultural property as a means to identify and protect places and objects that have special cultural significance to American Indians and other ethnic groups and published National Register Bulletin 38 - Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties (Parker and King 1990). Stoffle (1995:1) believes that the TCP concept is a logical extension of the National Historic Preservation Act, which was initially designed to protect individual buildings and historic objects. Although the TCP concept has been effective in protecting small places of extreme cultural significance, Stoffle (1995:1-2) suggests that it may not be the best way to conceptualize and protect Indian cultural resources and that the concept of cultural landscapes more accurately reflects how Indians organize cultural resources and how land managers should protect such resources.
Bulletin 38 provides a mechanism for recognizing and evaluating TCPs and defines "traditional" as referring to "beliefs, customs and practices of a living community of people that have been passed down through the generations, usually orally or through practice." Thus, a TCP is a property with significance to a community derived from "the role the property plays in a community's historically rooted beliefs, customs and practices" (Parker and King 1990:1). Since 1990, awareness of TCPs has grown and land managers and agency officials have experienced difficulties evaluating the National Register eligibility of TCPs. This helped prompt the National Park Service to issue further guidance through publication of a Special Issue of CRM - Traditional Cultural Properties, What You Do and How We Think (Parker 1993). In Parkers (1993:1-5) explanation of TCPs, she emphasizes the important role to be played by the Indians in evaluating significance:
A Traditional Cultural Property [TCP] is a property or a place that is eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places because of its association with cultural practices and beliefs that are (1) rooted in the history of a community, and (2) are important to maintaining the continuity of that community's traditional beliefs and practices. One fundamental difference between TCPs and other kinds of historic properties is that their significance cannot be determined solely by historians, ethnographers, ethnohistorians, ethnobotanists, and other professionals. Determination of significance of TCPs must be based on the perceptions of the community that values them.
Properties that are deemed to qualify as TCPs can be listed in the National Register and accorded protection equivalent to that given archaeological and historic structures. Properties thought or alleged to have traditional cultural significance and that might be affected by federally funded, licensed, or regulated activities are subject to a review process prescribed by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) under authority of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Amendments to this Act made in 1980, especially Section 502, recommended that traditional cultural resources, both tangible and without specific property referents, be considered by national and state preservation programs (Parker and King 1990:2).
The October 1992 amendments to the NHPA increased the role of Indians in the national program. The ACHP's regulations implementing Section 106 of the NHPA also provide for Indian participation in decisions regarding the identification and treatment of TCPs. Specifically, Congress added Section 101(d)(6)(A), specifying that "properties of traditional religious and cultural importance to an Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization may be determined to be eligible for inclusion on the National Register." Congress also added Section 101(d)(6)(B) directing federal agencies in carrying out their responsibilities under Section 106 of the Act, to "consult with any Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization that attaches religious and cultural significance to properties described in subparagraph (A)." The following policy statement was issued by the ACHP on June 11, 1993:
Historic properties with traditional religious and cultural importance ("traditional cultural properties") are essential to maintaining the cultural integrity of Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. Such properties are critical to the cultural lives of many Native American communities. To preserve the character of such properties in the context of Federal agency planning requires that all participants in Section 106 review carry out the requirements of the Council's regulations in ways that respectfully balance Native American cultural values with other public interests. The Council will, and other participants in Section 106 review should, interpret and use the Section 106 review process in a flexible manner that advances the goals of maintaining traditional cultural values and specific historic properties ascribed such values as "a living part of our community life" (16 U.S.C. 470(b)(2)), and fully take into account the effects of undertakings on such properties.
The ACHP will (and other participants in the Section 106 review process should) be guided by the following principals in applying the policy set forth above:
The principals of regulatory flexibility set forth in Section 800.3(b) should be employed by the participants in the Section 106 process. TCPs are an integral part of living communities and must be viewed in a culturally sensitive manner throughout the Section 106 process. Rigid adherence to the precise procedures in the regulations may be detrimental to the values that give a TCP its significance. Agencies should not require Native Americans to conform rigidly to procedures that may be alien to them, even though administrative procedures must be followed. For example, requiring Native American religious practitioners to fully disclose their beliefs about a traditional place may, from their perspective, require them to violate tradition in a manner that they believe to be destructive to the place, their culture, and themselves. Strict adherence to regulatory procedures must not be allowed to take precedence over respect for the rights and beliefs of Native Americans.
Communication with Native Americans should be initiated at the earliest stages of the Section 106 process. Native American groups who ascribe cultural values to a property or an area should be identified by culturally appropriate methods. Agencies should identify specific individuals and/or groups through discussions with tribal councils, other official points of contact, knowledgeable outside parties, and known or likely authorities on cultural matters within each potentially concerned group. Agencies should understand that Native American groups not identified during the initial stages of the Section 106 process may legitimately request to participate in consultation later in the process.
It should be understood that the purpose of consultation is to elicit the concerns of groups, ensure full consideration of those concerns, and, if possible, arrive at decisions that respect those concerns and take them into account. In this respect, the ACHP regards the consultation process as an effective means for reconciling the interests of the consulting parties (36 CFR § 800.1(b)). However, the requirement to consult with Native Americans is not a requirement that the agency always accede to their views. Recognizing the interest of a Native American group in a traditional cultural property does not confer right of ownership in the property.
Agencies should determine how to consult in a manner that will be effective, given the cultural values of the participating Native Americans. The consultation process must be conducted in a realistic manner that is cognizant of the cultural values, socioeconomic factors, and administrative structure of the group(s). Participants in the Section 106 process should learn how to approach Native Americans in culturally informed ways. Specific steps should be taken to address such factors as language differences, economic circumstances, seasonal availability, or other constraints that may limit the ability of individuals and groups to participate and to respond in a timely manner.
Agencies should consider the potential for effect on traditional cultural properties in determining whether an action is an undertaking, and again in establishing an undertaking's area of potential effect. Actions that may have no potential for effect on other kinds of historic properties may have effects on TCPs. Moreover, such properties may be subject to a wide range of effects that must be considered in establishing the area of potential effect.
For example, the spraying of pesticides, which may not have the potential to affect other kinds of historic properties, can affect the ability of Native American basketmakers to use historic resource areas needed to continue their traditional work. Similarly, more distant undertakings that occur within the vicinity of a mountaintop on which Native American religious practitioners seek visions "may introduce audible, visual, or atmospheric elements that are out of character with the property or alter its setting" (36 CFR §800.9(b)(3)), thus affecting the ability of practitioners to use the mountaintop for its historic, traditional use.
Where the interests of a Native American group in a TCP are religious in nature, such as the need to perform ceremonies at a traditional cultural property, or the belief that the property played a role in the traditional creation of the group, participants in Section 106 review must respect such interests in accordance with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. §1996), while avoiding actions that could be taken to constitute the establishment of religion in contravention of the First Amendment. The ACHP will, and other participants in Section 106 review should, interpret and use the Section 106 review process to advance the purpose of maintaining TCPs as "a living part of our community life" (16 U.S.C. 470(b)(2)).
Participants in Section 106 review should seek only the information necessary for planning in a manner that respects the Native American group's need for confidentiality. The cultural values of many groups require that information on traditional cultural properties be kept secret or shared only with selected parties. As a result, it may be both ineffective and offensive to ask a Native American group to assist in identification of such properties. For example, it may be unnecessary to define the precise boundaries of a TCP, or to describe in detail what uses of the property give it significance, as long as enough information is obtained to take into account effects on the property.
Tribal Perspectives on Traditional Cultural Properties
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation seek to preserve through management, research, interpretation, protection and development the integrity of their cultures. To the Indians, historic preservation or cultural resource management involves integrated efforts to: preserve and transmit language and oral tradition, arts and crafts, and traditional uses of plants and land; maintain and practice traditional religion and culture; preserve sacred places; record and retain oral history; communicate aspects of tribal culture to others; and use cultural resources to maintain the integrity of communities and advance social and economic development (Burney et al. 1993:1). Burney (1992:3) notes that while the Indians are certainly concerned about preserving historic properties and other cultural resources on reservation lands, they are often equally or even more concerned about preserving ancestral sites and traditional use areas on lands that they no longer control, whether these lands are now under Federal, State, or local control or in private ownership.
Indian world view, in which cultural resources are a part, includes: themselves and their treaty rights, religious beliefs, their communities, and their way of life; Indian elders with their unique information regarding their personal histories as well as tribal histories; clean air; clean water for the salmon and other varieties of fish, eels, and riverine resources; and the root grounds and berry patches scattered throughout the mountains (Burney et al. 1993:2). The Umatilla ascribe to the concept of subsistence magic - the hunting, fishing, and gathering of roots and berries traditional to the Indian way of life. Subsistence magic is associated with specific geographic locations (property types) as part of the Indians larger world view of sacred geography - sacred sites, religious areas, prehistoric and historic sites, areas for gathering traditional foods (fish, animals, roots, and berries), and medicines for secular and non-secular use (Burney et al. 1993:2). As Burney et al. (1993:2) observed:
Sacred geography has been recognized by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (n.d.:8-9) as well: Native American religions ... tend not to involve the use of major physical constructions: places of worship and veneration instead are in effect cultural landscapes: mountains, lakes, rocks, trees, and other natural features. Likewise, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983:30) has noted, Rivers, mountains, deserts, fields, stones, and running water, as well as plants and animals, are endowed with protective power in Native American religious belief. The National Park Service notes, A Site (Footnote 4) may be a natural landmark strongly associated with significant prehistoric or historic events or patterns of events, if the significance of the natural feature is well documented through scholarly research (National Park Service 1991c; Walker 1985b).
A good example of how the Indians look at sacred geography can be seen in a study of the Yakama (cf. Uebelacker 1984:104-105). To the Yakama, canyons are resource strips that lace together the desert landscape with water, trees, shrubs, and grasses providing shade in summer and protection from icy winds in winter. Canyons bring things together - a marriage of desert roots, ocean fishes, forest, and shrub. It is small wonder that the Yakama made these places their homes and work places. Similiarly, breaks, slopes, and bottoms bring together deer, elk, bear, sagehen, birds, oak, serviceberry, chokecherry, elderberry, currant, desert roots, and man. Canyon bottoms are major connecting points in the lives of animals as different as Steelhead and badger, eagle and freshwater mussel. It is a connection the Yakama knew well, since in canyon bottoms we find evidence of their houses, tools, and features used for catching, processing, storing, and consuming animals and plants, places of spiritual importance, and the remains of the Indians themselves. Canyon slopes are places where fish and aquatic animals were taken and contain springs, focal points of camping and working, and resources such as sagehens, horses, deer, rabbit, currents, serviceberry, elderberry, chokecherry and other foods and medicines. Springs were used by the Yakama and water from the earths breast is essential to traditional Indian heritage (Uebelacker 1984:105).
On talus slopes are rock features, including small depressions, or stone pits, and rock walls. Yakama elders know about the stone pits - - recalling their use as storage places, as ambush places for animals and enemies, and as windbreaks while watching for animals or travelers. On steep colluvial slopes are plants like bitterroot, Lomatium, arrowleaf balsamroot, currants, and a variety of traditional foods and medicines. Discarded tools left on these slopes attest to Yakama use of these plants. Quarries where stone tool materials could be sought are common in Canyon-Plateau and Canyon-Ridge landform regions. Rock shelters were used by the Indians to camp, store food and valuables, and bury their dead. Some are covered with paintings and carvings. Rock shelters are centers for spiritual activity, containing power and meaning for future generations. (Uebelacker 1984:105). These examples can help non-Indians better understand why Indians venerate their land as sacred geography.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have adopted the following definitions to deal with TCPs. Their definitions in large part follow definitions provided by the National Park Service or the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation with certain words given special emphasis in bold face (cf. Burney et al. 1993:Attachment 4).
Traditional
Traditional applies to beliefs and behaviors that have been transmitted across generations, and are identified by their Native American practitioners to be necessary for the perpetuation of their cultures. Characteristically, cultural practices are so interrelated that religious activities are not totally separable from subsistence, family life or other feature. Traditional also applies to the sites, objects, or places intimately associated with those beliefs or behaviors.
Ethnographic Resources
Ethnographic resources refer to those resources with traditional subsistence, sacred ceremonial or religious or other cultural meaning for contemporary Native Americans.
Sacred Resources
Sacred resources are those resources that apply to traditional sites, places or objects that Native American tribes of groups or their members perceive as having religious significance.
Traditional Cultural Value
A traditional cultural value means the contribution made by an historical property to an ongoing society or cultural value that has historical depth; a non-traditional cultural value is a cultural value that lacks such depth. There are several kinds of historic values including architectural, associative, use, information, and cultural. Associative value is the importance of a property as a reminder of an event, person, process or trend affecting the history of the world, the nation, or a region, community, or group. Cultural value is the contribution made by an historic property to an ongoing society or cultural system.
Traditional Cultural Significance
Traditional cultural significance is one kind of cultural significance that may make a property eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. Traditional refers to those beliefs, customs, and practices of a living community of people that have been passed down through the generations, usually orally or through practice. The traditional cultural significance of a historic property, then, is significance derived from the role the property plays in a communitys historically rooted beliefs, customs, and practices. Examples of properties possessing such significance include:
3.6.5 Consideration of TCPs at Hanford
A significant TCP, according to Bulletin 38, is one that is associated with "cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that (a) are rooted in that community's history, and (b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community." Bulletin 38 acknowledges that TCPs "are often hard to recognize" and encourages researchers to "address the intangible cultural values that may make a property significant," and do so without "ethnocentric bias." It is important to remember that the line between cultural practice and religious practice is often difficult to distinguish. In many Indian cultures, subsistence pursuits, family life, dreaming, sweat bathing, and other aspects of daily life are based in a spiritual understanding of the world. Euro-Americans, on the other hand, tend to separate the secular from the sacred.
Many Indians know of general areas where their ancestors or spirits stay and think of these areas as general locations, not specific "places" that can be bounded on maps. The boundaries of a mountain top on which religious practitioners seek visions can be drawn around the toes of a person sitting on it, the area of potential effect could include everything within that person's viewshed (Parker 1993:4). That is why it may often be quite difficult for the participating tribes to reveal specific places where hunting, plant gathering, or large social gatherings took place, much less to accurately circumscribe on a map where these activities took place. Parker's (1993:4-5) thoughts are particularly useful here. She notes that many, if not most, TCPs:
... were and are simply not meant to have lines drawn around them marking where they begin and where they end. For example, with vision quest sites, what is eligible for the National Register? The place where an individual sat or stood? That area and the path the individual took to get to the quest site? Those areas and everywhere the individual gazed while seeking a vision?
Since the release of Bulletin 38 in 1990, interested parties have met to grapple with the challenges inherent in dealing with TCPs (e.g., liaison with Indian groups, evaluation of significance, confidentiality, and contemporary use). With respect to liaison with Indian groups (Kennedy et al., 1993:20-29) assert that the key questions that arise in TCP studies are who should be consulted and how should this be done? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. What is known is that archaeological studies alone are not sufficient to determine the significance of TCPs and that ethnographic research is needed to document not just site-specific information but also the system of values of the participating Indian groups. If nothing else, it is desirable that the tribes assist in the identification of individuals who they consider to be tradition-bearers.
The issue of confidentiality is difficult to resolve. Often, the location or nature of, as well as the use of, some specific sites cannot be divulged without intruding upon the integrity of a TCP. Some Indians will indicate that practices of a religious nature cannot be discussed or documented at all, let alone be registered. Others believe that areas of sacred significance can be registered if the National Register can guarantee confidentiality (Kennedy et al., 1993:26). The Keeper of the National Register does have the authority to prevent disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act. In one case, Indians working with a consulting archaeologist released information classified into only two categories: ancestral ruins and "sacred sites." The government agencies were able to make decisions based on this limited amount of information. In that case, the approach resolved the conflict between confidentiality and the release of sufficient information to accord recognition and protection, providing there was no controversy regarding the integrity of the withheld data.
Some tribes have turned to the courts to have TCPs recognized but are then faced with the task of balancing secrecy with the demands of evidence. Hence, it is not surprising that land rights claims and cultural survival issues are phrased in terms of sacredness and veiled in secrecy to impart certain solemnity (Kennedy et al., 1993:26). Some tribes are opposed to all impact on culturally significant places, while others are willing to accept monetary compensation for loss of such places. Fortunately, many knowledgeable Native people are anxious to share their perception of the world around them, including place names and the traditional history associated with the landscape, with the hope of preserving this information and fostering cross-cultural understanding and appreciation for their perspective.
Bulletin 38 restricts TCPs eligible for nomination to those older than 50 years, except for places of sufficient historical importance that will likely be retained in the future. When applied to Indian sites, this can be problematic. As mentioned earlier, Bulletin 38 provides an example of a mountain peak that is now used by a tribe for religious activities, but is an area without a known historical antecedent. Places where such activities are known to have once occurred but went unused for many years before a renaissance of the practice are eligible.
Mt. Shasta, California - A Lesson in the Politics of TCPs
This document will be used by DOE-RL to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act and confront TCP issues head-on. The example of Mt. Shasta, California, is a valuable lesson from which all well-meaning managers can profit. Ted Rieger, writing in a recent issue of Historic Preservation News, notes that in one of the most controversial National Register status determinations to date, federal and state historic officials now agree that 19,040 acres of Californias Mount Shasta are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The determination resulted from several years of Section 106 compliance work initiated by the Shasta-Trinity National Forest as it considered federal impacts to historic properties in connection with a proposed ski area on Mt. Shasta (Rieger 1995:12).
Mt. Shasta is a dominant landscape feature, not unlike Gable Mountain in the middle of the Hanford Site, and it has been important historically and is still important in the traditions, cultures, and myths of the Shasta, Wintu, Pit River, and Karok Indians. In 1978, an avalanche, viewed by some of the Indians as a sign from the mountain, destroyed the Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl. which had operated since 1957. A proposal to build a new ski facility in a safer location - Panther Meadow - triggered Indian opposition since they used the area for ceremonial purposes. The Section 106 process began.
Although the Forest Service was aware of Indian use of the mountain, they found almost no archaeological evidence of such and informed the California SHPO that no National Register properties would be affected. In 1990, as requested by California Indian Legal Services, the Forest Service raised the issue of Mt. Shastas importance to the Indians. Tribal interviews resulted in a finding that Mt. Shasta, in its entirety, is considered sacred and historically important by the local tribes:
Mount Shasta is the most sacred area to our people. Our creator lives there, and thats where our spiritual leader receives her power. (Gloria Gomes - Wintu Tribe)
The Wintu elders still conduct ceremonies at Panther Meadow, a site of healing power from the springs in the area. The Forest Service and SHPO considered several approaches for defining an area of historic eligibility including the entire mountain (150,000 acres of federal and private lands), individual properties, or an in-between approach. They decided on a multiple-property approach they call Mount Shasta in Native American Culture and History - a 40 acre site at Panther Meadow and a 19,000 acre Native American Cosmological District on Mount Shasta that consists of the mountain above the timber line (Rieger 1995:l4). Dwight Dutschke, the Native American coordinator in the SHPOs office observed:
The National Register is a property-oriented designation, and what were dealing with in the case of Mount Shasta is not conducive to making clear boundary delineations. But under the eligibility criteria, were required to do so. (Rieger 1995:14)
While the Forest Service concurred, Indian groups and individuals (Save Mount Shasta) believed a larger area should be designated and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation reviewed the case and finally the Keeper of the National Register was also consulted. On March 11, 1994, the Keeper issued a determination of eligibility for the Mount Shasta Historic District that overruled the Forest Service and state findings to encompass 150,000 acres (including 50,000 acres of private land - some of which is developed or proposed for development). As Forest Archaeologist Winfield Henn explained:
Theres very little difference between a determination and a nomination for the purposes of Forest Service management. But when a nomination is done, private landowners must be informed. (Rieger 1995:14)
The Keeper issued its determination without informing the landholders, leading to a public uproar. In a situation not unlike that in the state of Washington, the 1992 California state legislature created the California Register of Historical Resources. Any National Register property, including those determined eligible for the Register, automatically became part of the California Register and such properties then come under the California Environmental Quality Act which requires an environmental review of uses that may affect historic values of the property. Some private landholders on the mountain became concerned that the eligibility determination would affect their ability to use or develop their land (Rieger 1995:14). As a result of the public uproar, the Keeper received over 2,500 letters opposing the designation. The Keeper then issued a redetermination to agree with the Forest Services original boundary of eligibility, based largely on his personal observations of Mount Shasta. Neither side was totally satisfied with the redetermination.
Although there was no question that Mt. Shasta held Indian historical significance, historical integrity proved to be the deciding factor. The Keeper said that for purposes of Register eligibility:
We focus on the aspects of traditional Native American historical and cultural significance rather than on the sacred values, to make a secular decision rather than one that ties in religion. [and that designating areas for such reasons, even when little or no physical evidence is present] ... is not a new concept but one weve only begun to fill out more through listings in the last few years. (Rieger 1995:14)
The Keeper expressehasta controversy was inflamed by misperceptions among the public and news articles that misinterpreted what a National Register designation really means in terms of its effects on private property and land-use issues. The National Trust for Historic Preservations associate general counsel Elizabeth Merritt explained:
We didnt want the redetermination perceived as being a response to a property-rights backlash, or to let such groups as those affiliated with the wise-use movement get the idea they could kick and scream to get a political change. We wanted to be sure that specific reasons related to eligibility were pointed out to justify a redetermination. (Rieger 1995:14)
The Yakama Time Ball Study - A Lesson in Successful Indian Participation in Cultural Resource Management
The broad purpose in preparing Time Ball: A Story of the Yakama People and the Land (Uebelacker 1984) was to prepare a cultural resource overview so that the Yakama Indian Nations prehistoric and historic resources can exist in productive harmony and fulfill the cultural, social, and economic needs of present and future generations of the Yakama Indian Nation. To realize such a broad purpose required achievement of four basic goals: locating, evaluating, preserving, and enhancing these resources. These goals are very similar to the management objectives of this context statement (e.g., location/identification, evaluation, preservation, and enhancement of Indian TCPs at the Hanford Site).
As Uebelacker (1984:5) noted, the Time Ball cultural resource overview project was initiated by the Branch of Forestry of the Yakama Indian Agency as part of the overall Forest Management Plan. A broader approach was necessary because the lifeways of the Yakama people -- past, present, and future -- encompasses the entire landscape from forested lands to the arid steppe in an interconnected mosaic of land and life. In what now might be referred to as a GIS (geographic information system) approach, the Time Ball study established a spatial system for organizing information on the lifeways of living Indians and Indians that lived in the past (Ancestors). Drainage basins provided the basic unit of analysis while landform regions provided units which cross-cut and tied drainage basins together.
Landform regions were studied in terms of seasonal aspect, physiographic expression, geological foundations, and further divided into landform components. Resources known to be important to past, present, and future Yakama Indians were evaluated by broad class, season, and landform association. A preliminary (and confidential) list of resources was compiled from existing literature and interviews with tribal elders. The study defined types of places in reference to landform regions, resources and season, and field observations. One of the more important elements of the study was its definition of cultural resources, from the Yakama perspective. Uebelacker (1985:6) writes:
What is a cultural resource? Resources are cultural appraisals! This is a key point - culture defines what constitutes a resource and what does not. Culture sets the values of resources relative to one another and since culture changes so too do resources change. What is perceived as a resource today may not have been a resource fifty years ago, or it might not be a resource tomorrow. In this sense all things a culture recognizes as useful economically, socially, and spiritually, are cultural resources ... A vista of uncut and roadless forest may be a cultural resource, or a small meadow, or a basalt outcropping, or an owl, or a crane, or a million other things.
The Yakama are concerned with not only the material evidence of their ancestors land use but with the objects and meanings of culture and nature which are necessary for the continued preservation, protection, and enhancement of a living culture. They cannot ignore the traditional foods and medicines or vision quest sites that are present on the landscape, nor can they ignore the places which have no material objects yet hold special meaning to the culture. Uebelacker (1984:7) opines that cultural resource management is the attempt to locate, preserve, protect, rejuvenate, and enhance the relationship of culture and place. Place is the ceded lands of the Yakamas and culture includes the chronology, lifeways, and cultural processes of their ancestors lives and the lives of present and future Indians. Thus:
... cultural resources involve not only the sites, buildings, structures, or objects ... but also involves the maintenance and rejuvenation of cultural places like camas meadows, huckleberry fields, hunting areas and camps, and bitterroot grounds. It involves knowing the places the culture uses today are the historic places of tomorrow and by use become significant or meaningful parts of peoples lives. It involves helping a culture locate, preserve, protect, and establish a meaningful relationship with land and life. It most obviously involves traditions, customs, and modern life styles.
Uebelacker (1984:179-200) defined types of places in relation to landforms and seasons and developed a predictive model of prehistoric or ethnographic Yakama Indian land use patterns. Types of places include base camps, work camps (processing and storage places, collecting camps, hunting camps, fishing camps, special resource camps), transient camps, interaction camps, and extractive locales. When landform regions and seasonal resource patterns are considered, the types of places include winter villages (base camps), cemeteries, winter hunting camps, rockshelters, animal traps, and hunting places. Other places include spring hunting sites, fishing sites, and root collecting areas; summer fishing camps; and fall hunting and berry gathering camps, and fall fishing sites.
The Time Ball study would not have been possible without the active participation of the Yakama Tribe and several elders and tribal officials. The approach used in the Time Ball study is directly applicable to the Hanford Site. Not only were the Yakama once the caretakers of portions of the Hanford Site, but the types of places and many of the landforms and seasonal resource patterns that apply to the Yakama Indian Reservation also apply to the lands to the east -- the Hanford Site. The Time Ball study was prepared prior to the formal recognition of TCPs as being eligible for listing in the National Register. If Time Ball had been prepared in 1994 instead of 1984, the types of places described by Uebelacker (1984) would be good candidates for consideration as TCPs. Having been prepared prior to the publication of Bulletin 38 and other federal guidance pertaining to TCPs, Time Ball does not provide any guidance as to evaluating the types of places for National Register eligibility. Nevertheless, Time Ball can serve as a framework by which Hanford decision-makers and participating Indian tribes can identify potential TCPs at the Hanford Site. The integration of types of places, landforms, and seasonal resource patterns in the Time Ball study provides an effective point of departure for those looking to understand how the Indians used the land and how the locations of TCPs can be reasonably predicted.
TCPs or Cultural Landscapes - A Framework for Property Types
As noted earlier, Stoffle (1995:1-2) argues that cultural landscapes rather than TCPs should be the operating concept when dealing with natural and cultural resources of value to American Indians. For one, the term cultural landscape has official standing in a number of federal laws, regulations, and guidelines. Secondly, Stoffle (1995:4) observes that it is places that are managed by land management agencies and sometimes the place is the cultural resource (and termed a TCP). In most instances, however, a place is set aside to protect the cultural resources it contains. Given the reality of land management practice in the United States, ultimately cultural resources must be studied and managed as geographically coherent units. The key question is how large must these geographically based units be in order to provide acceptable protection to the cultural resources they contain?
In 1994, the National Park Service issued Cultural Resource Management Guidelines (National Park Service 1994) wherein cultural landscapes are defined as a geographic area, including both natural and cultural resources, associated with an historic event, activity or person (National Park Service 1994:94). Using these criteria, the National Park Service recognizes four cultural landscape categories: historic designated landscapes, historic vernacular landscapes, historic sites, and ethnographic landscapes. Ethnographic landscapes are associated with contemporary groups (Indians) and typically are used or valued in traditional ways (cf. Stoffle 1995:5).
Stoffle (1995:5) argues:
The NPS definition of cultural landscapes is both similar and dissimilar to those often expressed by Native Americans. Both definitions include the land, its natural components, places touched by pre-human spiritual beings, and objects left there by Indian people as these are conceived within the cultural system of the people. Both conceptualizations of cultural landscapes reflect the full range of human activities, all of which are perceived of as being a part of life and thus culturally significant. Native American landscapes, however, are much larger in geographic space than are those considered by the NPS guidelines. The latter suggests that tracts of several thousand acres are the upper size limit for cultural landscapes (National Park Service 1994:94). However, by simply broadening the spatial parameters of cultural landscapes, the NPS and Native American conceptualizations of these cultural resource units can be united.
Cultural landscapes can be divided into three types: (1) holy landscapes, (2) regional landscapes, and (3) landmarks. Regional landscapes are further divided into ecoscapes and storyscapes.
Holy land is a term that seeks a common land perception in order to convey to non-Indians the cultural significance of Indian land perceptions. At Hanford, for example, a holy land is created by the Creator who established a birthright relationship between the Indians and that portion of the earth where they were created. This relationship provides the Indians with special rights to use and obligations to protect resources on this portion of the earth. The relationship between the Indians and their holy land cannot be broken by the fact that the government controls the Hanford Site and the Indians are not permitted to live therein. Forced relocation by others (e.g., removal of the Indians to reservations) does not break a relationship created by the Creator, so hold land ties tend to be viewed similarly by contemporary occupants and those who have moved away (cf. Stoffle 1995:6).
Regional landscapes are components of holy lands and are defined in terms of both geography and culture. Typically, regional landscapes are spatially expansive involving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of square miles (e.g., the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Grand Canyon, the Columbia River). Two major subcomponents of regional landscapes are ecological landscapes (ecoscapes) and story landscapes (storyscapes). Ecoscape refers to a portion of a regional landscape that is clearly defined by an unusual or distinct local geography and its unique cultural relationship to the Indians. Examples at the Hanford Site might include Rattlesnake Mountain, Gable Mountain/Butte, the Columbia River, and White Bluffs. Indians ultimately define an ecoscape when its local geography is specially incorporated into their culture. Storyscape refers to a portion of a regional landscape or parts of a number of regional landscapes that are delineated by an Indian story or song (Stoffle 1995:7-8).
Landmarks are discrete physical places within a cultural landscape and tend to be small parts of the local geography that are topographically and culturally unique (White Bluffs, Priest Rapids). Landmarks are easily defined both in terms of their physical boundaries and the reasons why they are culturally important. A landmark can be a power rock that will heal sick people if they can talk to it in an Indian language and perform a proper ceremony (cf. Stoffle 1995:8).
Stoffle (1995:13) concludes that Indian cultural resources are better protected as cultural landscapes than as TCPs because:
The meaning and cultural significance of plants, animals, archaeological sites, mineral deposits, and water derive as much from their relationship to one another as it does from their independent values.
The various cultural landscape concepts closely reflect how Indians perceive how their cultural resources fit together.
The concept of TCPs has generally been restricted to areas the size of landmarks and always limited to geographic areas smaller than ecoscapes, thus eliminating from protection or management regional landscapes and holy lands.
Land management agencies are currently using the concept of ecosystem to frame their studies and management practices. The concept of TCPs has neither the spatial scope nor the explanatory power to make significant contributions to ecosystem studies and management. In contrast, the concept of cultural landscape attempts to explain the relationships between cultural resources and ties these to a protectable environment.
Technology exists in the form of GIS and multimedia data integration systems so that scientific studies and informed management plans can finally begin to reflect the holistic cultural visions of the Indian people.
Stoffle (1995:13) further asserts that the TCP concept is too restricted by the laws and regulations that created it to be used to protect larger, multiple component Indian cultural resource areas. Although Stoffles arguments have great merit, particularly in reference to geographically expansive TCPs at the Hanford Site (Gable Mountain/Butte, the Columbia River, etc.), Hanford decision-makers must always act in reference to current law, regulation, and federally promulgated guideance. Agency policy regarding the management of Indian cultural resources has advanced rapidly between 1990 and 1995, and it is reasonable to assume that the operating concept advanced here (TCPs) will evolve in the coming years - quite likely in the direction advocated by Stoffle (1995). This evolution can be seen in the lead article of the Thematic Issue on Landscape Interpretation published by the National Park Service in CRM (Birnbaum and Page 1994:3):
Until recently, historic preservation and, in turn, interpretation primarily focused on structures. Buildings were often viewed in isolation, instead of within their cultural landscape context. Interpretation of the landscape focused at best on the historic scene or site associated with a building. However, during the past 20 years cultural landscapes have become an integral component in historic preservation both in the U.S. and abroad. We now recognize the importance of the landscape to an understanding of the cultural value and significance of a particular place. Additionally, there has been a growing awareness that cultural landscape preservation encourages a holistic approach to resource management by engendering an increased understanding of the inter-relationships between cultural and natural resources within a property. Based on this increased recognition and understanding, the story being told at many properties is expanding and includes myriad landscapes, designed, vernacular, and ethnographic.
3.6.6 Property Types - Definitions
Although several property types are defined below, and methodologies to evaluate historic properties are suggested as well, it is essential that the Indian tribes become actively involved in the identification of TCPs (or cultural landscapes). Tribal involvement can be initiated through an intensive oral history program conducted with tribal elders. An oral history program can be used to both identify property types and impart tribal knowledge as to the location and significance of TCPs. Tribal involvement can also be initiated through an intensive survey program that includes knowledgeable tribal members who can identify important hunting, gathering, and medicine areas within the Hanford Site. Tribal involvement can also include tribal participation in the management of identified resources such that National Register eligibility evaluations are conducted with tribal participation. Traditional cultural contexts and associated property types for the ethnographic contact period at Hanford are summarized in Table 1 on the following page.
| TABLE 1. TRADITIONAL CULTURAL CONTEXTS AND ASSOCIATED PROPERTIES FOR THE ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTRACT PERIOD AT HANFORD: 1805/1806-1943 | ||||
| THEME OR PROPERTY TYPES | CRITERIA OR REQUIRED CONDITIONS AND CHARACTER | IDENTIFIED PROPERTIES OR PROPERTY TYPES | IMPORTANCE | NATIONAL REGISTER LISTED OR DETERMINED ELIGIBLE PROPERTIES |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Archaeological Sites |
Information developed from reconnaissance surveys |
Several hundred archaeological sites have been recorded to date. See Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory Site Files |
Importance of archaeological sites to the tribes is to be determined by tribal elders or representatives based on their criteria |
Coyote Rapids, Rattlesnake Springs, Wahluke, Locke Island and other designated/listed archaeological districts |
|
Cemeteries |
Identified by Wanapum leader |
Five cemeteries between the south end of Hanford Townsite and the 100K Area. Specific locations confidential |
Relatives of living people are buried in these locations |
One such site is in a registered Archaeological District |
|
Located during archaeological surveys |
Four additional cemeteries, on islands and river terraces, locations confidential |
Ancestors of the Tribes are buried here, remains are sacred |
none | |
|
Trails and Pathways |
Located during archaeological surveys or identified by Tribal elders |
|||
|
Camp Sites and Villages (Residence Areas) |
Identified by Wanapum and Palouse elders |
A location near the Hanford townsite |
Wanapum winter village |
none |
|
A location between White Bluffs townsite and the 100D Area |
Wanapum winter village, visited by Walla Walla, Palouse and Yakima in fishing season |
included in Locke Island and Wahluke Archaeological Districts | ||
|
A village site at Coyote Rapids |
Small winter village, location of Smohalla's first Washat Ceremony |
Located in Coyote Rapids Archaeological District | ||
|
A location between Highway 240 and Jaeger Island |
Major winter village, the late Wanapum leader Frank Buck was born here; home of Puck Hyah Toot, former Washat and Wanapum leader |
Location of the Vernita Site, which meets criteria for listing in the National Register | ||
|
Fisheries (Fishing Sites) |
Identified by Wanapum elders |
A place for gathering spawned-out fish located 8 miles north of Richland, west bank of the Columbia River |
Indian people may seek to reestablish fishing activity here |
none |
|
Identified by Wanapum and Palouse elders |
Banks, islands and channel, Columbia River between the White Bluffs Ferry Landing and 100D Area |
Indian people may seek to reestablish fishing activity here; used the area until 1943 |
fishing stations and camps were included in Locke Island and Wahluke Archaeological Districts | |
|
Moolimooli at 100N Area was an important dog salmon fishing place |
Indian people may seek to reestablish fishing activity here; used the area until 1943 |
none | ||
|
Ahnukwhum to Mookmookhah, located from Jaeger Island to the upper end of China Bar |
Wanapum fish this reach today |
none | ||
|
Hunting Grounds |
No information obtained |
|||
|
Plant Gathering Areas (Food, Fiber, Medicine) |
Information elicited from Wanapum and Palouse elders |
None identified; area not known for plant food production |
||
|
Traditional Holy Lands (see subsets below) |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
|||
|
Information from Indian leaders, elders |
The Columbia River |
Water is sacred, brings food (salmon) |
Being considered for Wild and Scenic River designation | |
|
{Dwelling Places of the Spirits} |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
Gable Mountain |
Plays part in origin myth, and one of principal spirit quest places |
Listed as the Gable Mountain/Gable Butte Cultural District |
|
Information from Wanapum and Yakima informants |
Goose Egg Hill |
Plays central role in origin myth |
none | |
|
{Vision Quest Sites} |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
Gable Butte, including all outcrops |
Formerly a spirit quest place |
Listed as the Gable Mountain/Gable Butte Cultural District |
|
Information from Wanapum leader |
Rattlesnake Mountain, particularly the ridge crest |
Plays central role in origin myth, important spirit quest place where theWashat prophet Smohalla received the songs of the seven drums religion |
none | |
|
Saddle Mountain, crest and rocky outcrops |
one of principal spirit quest places |
none | ||
|
{Washat Dance Sites} |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
The location, with evidence for structures where rituals took place; site and natural setting |
Coyote Rapids Archaeological District (first Washat) | |
|
{First Salmon or First Foods Ceremonial Sites} |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
|||
|
{other ritual or ceremonial locations} |
Places where rituals first performed, information supplied by Tribal elders |
The location, with evidence for structures where rituals took place; site and natural setting |
||
|
Landmarks and Important Places - Indian History/Culture |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
|||
|
Places of Adaptation and Accommodatio n (Indian- White Relations) |
Treaty Sites |
not locally applicable |
none identified | |
|
Camps of non- treaty Indians |
Localities where those who opposed submission to white resided; location with natural setting |
|||
|
Places of Persistence and Resistance |
Skirmish Sites |
Locations where fighting or ambush took place; location with natural setting |
Rattlesnake Springs Archaeological District | |
|
Landscapes of the Heart |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
|||
|
Others to be Defined by Tribes |
Information supplied by Tribal elders |
|||
The major challenge will be to overcome any Indian perceptions that Bulletin 38 and/or any other current federal regulation represents business as usual that only allows tribal participation within the confines of federal criteria (e.g., as commentors). As much as Bulletin 38 attempts to correct certain non-Indian biases in the federal review process by explicitly recognizing the eligibility of Native American TCPs, Indians and non-Indians must work together to create functional methodologies to identify resources and evaluate their eligibility. The existing federal criteria (36 CFR 60) is still a part of a non-Indian process designed to meet the land management needs of non-Indians who have a non-Indian world view or perspective. Creation of evaluation criteria that are responsive to the Indian perspective is allowed under federal regulation and in fact is being actively encouraged at this time.
Archaeological Sites
The first associated property type defined here is the archaeological site. As is suggested here, the line between archaeological sites and ethnographic sites is less than precise. A multiple property nomination requires identification of historic contexts and associated property types. From the Indian point of view, the past, the present, and the future are all part of a continuum and each is interrelated with the others. Thus, the regulatory requirements force the imposition of secured calendrical dates that are more closely linked to white history than Indian history. The first encounter between the Indians and Lewis and Clark in 1805/1806 is used here to define the beginning of the contact period, or ethnographic present.
Anthropologists usually consider ethnographic sites to be those sites which were occupied or used during the contact period while archaeological sites are considered to be those sites which have been abandoned in the past or were only used prior to the contact period. The complicating factor is that during the early portion of the contact period, the Indians continued to inhabit the same camps and villages and fished, hunted, and gathered in the same places as before. Once the original Indian lifeway was destroyed through white pressure, the camps and villages, and fishing, hunting, and gathering places were finally abandoned and have become both archaeological sites that can also be considered to be ethnographic sites. Clearly, there is continuity between the archaeological and ethnographic periods and the dichotomy is one that is set forth by the white mind. Interestingly, where archaeological sites are present in a given landscape that Indians identify as a TCP, the archaeological sites are often viewed as evidence of cont from the past into the present. Obviously, though, not all archaeological sites are viewed by Indians as TCPs and many TCPs have no archaeological remains present within them to provide physical evidence of past or continuing use.
This overlap between archaeological and ethnographic sites has important management implications since the significance evaluation criteria for archaeological properties is wholly different than the significance evaluation criteria for TCPs. Where significance evaluation of archaeological properties is a well understood process that uses familiar criteria, formal guidance for the application of significance evaluation criteria to TCPs was only recently published (cf. Parker and King 1990). Since potential TCPs must be evaluated in terms of the importance given them by the people who care about them (the Indians), the eligibility of certain archaeological sites as TCPs must be demonstrated by the Indians. The way in which the Indians can demonstrate their importance is to define the properties, set forth standards or criteria to measure the significance of the properties, and then apply these standards or criteria to evaluate properties.
Archaeological sites that might be ineligible on their own merits might be eligible properties when viewed by Indians as TCPs. Nowhere is this a more thorny issue than with Indian cemetery sites.
Cemeteries
Another associated property type is Indian cemeteries or places where the Indian dead were buried by their loved ones. Along the Columbia are numerous sites which functioned primarily as cemeteries, but, there are several instances where large village sites might also have a cemetery area. As noted above, birthplaces and graves are normally only eligible if their significance is for reasons that go beyond their association with a famous person. Bulletin 38 shows how a burial site of a famous folk healer was eligible once the site was related to the intangible belief held by the healer's followers that his spirit was stronger at this particular site than any other. Similarly, cemeteries are ineligible unless, as is stated in Bulletin 15, they derive their primary significance from graves of persons of transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design values, or from association with historical events (National Park Service 1991c:34-35). Sites that contain cemeteries are not necessarily ineligible because of their presence, and the graves may in fact be an intrinsic component of the overall cultural significance.
Given the Indian viewpoints presented throughout the context statement, Indian cemeteries or burial sites at Hanford would be eligible given their overwhelming cultural importance and association with the timeless sweep of Indian history. Certainly Euro-Americans venerate their dead and consider cemeteries to be hallowed ground, the key difference is that Indians, unlike most whites, consider the land itself to be sacred and their cemeteries are places where their dead are returned to mother earth. It would be difficult for either the Indians or anthropologists to determine if any of the cemetery sites at Hanford have graves of persons of transcendent importance. Such a concept is foreign to the Indians. All Indians arose from mother earth and are returned to her at death. Design values or association with historic events would also be difficult to prove. Given Indian belief systems and the interrelationship of Indian religion and Indian culture, graves and cemeteries do form an intrinsic component of overall cultural significance and should be almost always eligible. At the Hanford Site, Indian cemetery sites are protected under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Camp Sites and Villages
As noted earlier, civilians were removed from the Hanford Site in 1943 and Indian use of the area was halted. Although Indian habitation of the Hanford Reach had declined precipitously in the early 20th century, several sites were used at least seasonally for various purposes (e.g., fishing). Since it has been over 50 years since the Hanford Site was closed to civilian use, all former Indian camp sites, village sites, and seasonal use areas that may have been in continuous or semi-continuous use between 1805 and 1943 are now, at least from a regulatory point of view, archaeological sites. Federal regulations now enable Indian groups to claim continuity of traditional use in situations, like Hanford, where their continuing use of an area is artificially blocked. Camp sites and villages that might not otherwise be eligible as archaeological sites might be eligible when viewed by Indians as TCPs. Because Indians view their cultural resources from a holistic framework, many of their former camp sites and villages may be eligible TCPs if the tribes demonstrate that, as historical properties, the sites have traditional cultural value as reminders of events, persons, processes or trends affecting their history and/or have traditional cultural significance as places where their beliefs, customs, and practices were passed down through the generations.
Trails and Pathways
Trails and pathways that lead to and from villages, camp sites, fishing, hunting, and/or gathering places, or spiritual places might be viewed as the Indians as eligible TCPs. A trail leading to a location where Indian religious events (Washat dances) had historically taken place, or a place where ceremonial activities (first salmon ceremony) are carried out in accordance with traditional cultural rules of practice, might be an eligible TCP.
Fisheries
The treaty-guaranteed fisheries have been found by the courts to be indispensable for preserving the Indian way of life and as such, the fisheries are a cultural resource as well as a natural resource (Rogers 1991:13). An obvious approach to identifying traditional fisheries as an associated property type is to assume that any village or camp site along the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River was a fishing spot or a potential fishing spot. Since fishing tends to be underrepresented in the archaeological record, a one-to-one correlation between archaeological sites situated along the river and traditional fisheries may not be valid (cf. Gard 1992:33). As Gard (1992:33) observed, research into prehistoric fishing practices and locations has taken on increased importance as native salmon runs decrease and modern fisheries management becomes subject to litigation as Indians assert their treaty rights to fish in usual and accustomed places. To find the usual and accustomed places, Gard (1992:33) proposed looking through the fishes eyes with a view toward building a model from the bottom up. That is, examine how fish use the river and extrapolate where the Indians went to exploit them.
Anadromous fish require well delineated channels of fast water for travel, sheltered pools or eddies for resting, and expanses of well-aerated gravel that remains inundated, silt free and oxygenated year-round for spawning. Gard (1992:36) assumed that the Indians were intimately familiar with fish behavior and that migration channels, resting pools, and spawning areas would have been known and exploited with equipment and techniques for each. Gard (1992:36) explained that the restrictive shape of migration channels and the speed with which fish travel through them, suggests these areas were conducive to fishing with drift nets, weirs, traps, and possibly seines. Resting pools, which are occupied by stationary individuals, would have lent themselves to fishing from platforms or canoes with leisters, dipnets, and harpoons, or, possibly with hook and line. In spawning areas, where fish congregate in large numbers, canoe fishing by torchlight, seining, or even drives into weirs or drift nets may have been used.
Gard (1992:36-37) correlated known archaeological sites with known migration channels, resting pools, and spawning areas and found that net fishing sites seem to be found consistently in areas with well delineated, fast water channels. House pit sites appear to correlate with the distribution of spawning areas. Additional research is needed to correlate fish resting pools with archaeological sites. Gard (1992:37) concluded that:
... the method, which entails looking at the requirements of the biotic resource and how it uses its habitat, and from this information inferring the most likely settings for extraction locations appears to be a promising tool for deciphering prehistoric land use patterns.
It is important to note that salmon fisheries may not have been the most important factor in village site selection. Ames and Marshall (1980) suggest that plant resources and overall resource availability mayhave been the determining factor. Greengo (1982) states that historically, salmon were so abundant that they could be easily taken at any point along the river. His study of the Priest Rapids and Wanapum dam areas indicated that two thirds of the village sites were located on the more sheltered western shore, indicating that wind and other environmental factors may have played a role in village site location.
Hunting Grounds
The approach used by Gard (1992) worked well using salmon behavior to predict archaeological (fishing) site locations. This approach can be applied to the prediction of other important resource exploitation areas and TCPs. The locations of traditional hunting grounds, as an associated property type, might be identified if the behavior or habitat requirements of the sought prey is considered. Traditional or accustomed hunting grounds might be found in lowland areas where deer or antelope are known to spend the winter months or where migratory birds are known to nest. Certain habitats where burrowing mammals such as rodents and lagomorphs are known to den might also be places where hiced. Technological innovations such as the shift from atlatl to bow and arrow may have changed hunting strategies, logistics, and success rates. While this method is surely a useful tool to decipher prehistoric land use patterns, it might be applicable to the ethnographic contact period as well. For example, areas where wild horses congregated or pastured might have been important locations where Indians acquired their horses. Mounted on horses and armed with rifles, Indians probably altered the logistics of hunting as hot pursuit of certain game animals become possible, or necessary.
The Indians who occupied the Hanford Site did not have ready access to abundant big game. No herds of bison or caribou grazed in the area, although the range of the bison did extend into the Columbia Plateau between 1500 and 500 years ago (Hunn 1990:138). Pronghorn antelope were hunted on the plains within the big bend of the Columbia until shortly after contact, but were not abundant. Hunting was pursued year-round and men who accompanied root and berry gathering parties stayed alert to any game they might encounter (Hunn 1990:138). The fall was the most productive hunting season and where rutting deer and elk gathered, so too did the Indians to pick berries. The mule deer or black-tailed deer were the most common ungulates hunted.
While big game is often associated with hunting, the Indians also exploited smaller mammals, mostly rodents and rabbits. These mammals were most valuable as food sources when they were concentrated in a small area and had put on fat for their seasonal nap. The yellow-bellied marmot (groundhog or rockchuck) emerges from hibernation in March and warms on rocks in his low elevation habitat. They are readily hunted and found in good numbers close to the summer fishing camps. The Townsends (and Washington) ground squirrel (prairie dog) sleeps most of the year underground but in the spring emerges to put on fat. Congregating in large colonies in sandy soils of the plains and foothills, they can be easily caught by flooding their burrows and clubbing or shooting them as they emerge. In certain years of abundance, an area of sagebrush flat could be so infested with jackrabbits as to make communal hunting worthwhile. Rabbit nets several hundred feet long were strung from bush to bush. The Indians would drive the stampeding rabbits into the net where they could be clubbed.
In the grasslands, Lewis and Clark observed hordes of sharp-tailed grouse (prairie chickens) and sage grouse on the sagebrush steppes. They were easily shot with a bow and arrow. Duck and Canada goose were shot or netted on the islands in the Columbia River. Many other birds were hunted for feathers rather than for food.
Plant Gathering Areas
TCPs at the Hanford Site will necessarily include important plant gathering areas. Plants were placed on the earth by the Creator for the Indians to use and the Indians used plants in manifold ways for food, fiber, and medicine. Understanding which plants were used and where these plants could be found can help identify the locations of plant gathering areas as an associated property type. Some of the more important plants and their uses are as follows.
Food Plants
Indian celerys that are sought in the spring include sprouts of Lomatium grayi and later in the season, Lomatium nudicaule. When the lomatiums dry out by mid-May, the Indians would find substitutes that grow higher in the mountains such as balsamroot sunflowers (Balsamorhiza careyana/B. sagitatta), mules ear (Wyethia amplexicaulis), and cows parsnip (Heracleum lanatum) (Hunn 1990:170). Plants whose harvesting required use of a digging stick include bitterroot, camas, cous, Lomatium canbyi, Indian carrot (Perideridia gairdneri), Indian pototo (Claytonia lanceolata), Lomatium piperi, Lomatium grayi, Brodiaea hyacinthina, Yellowbell (Fritillaria pudica), Lomatium canbyi, Tauschia hooveri, Lomatium hambleniae, Calochortus macrocarpus, and Lomatium minus (Hunn 1990:171-172). While spring was the time of root digging, summer and fall were organized around the activity of picking plant foods, fruits, berries, nuts, and tree lichen. The harvests begin with sweet golden currants and bitter white dogwood fruits that ripen by the end of June at low elevations along the major rivers (Hunn 1990:178). Between late June and mid-August the Indians harvested lowland and foothill species such as chokecherries (Prunus virginiana), and serviceberries (Amelanchier alnifolia). The important black mountain huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceaum) was harvested along with Grouseberries (V. scoparium), blue huckleberries (V. ovalifolium), red huckleberries (V. parvifolium), and low mountain blueberries (V. deliciosum).
Plants Used for Fiber
Various trees were used to fabricate tools such as maple for dip net hoops and ocean spray (Holodiscus discolor) for dip net hoop crosspieces. Oak (Quercus garryana) was favored for making digging sticks. Of great importance were Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) and tule or bulrush (Scirpus acutus/S. validus). Hemp was used for making twine for knotting nets and root digging bags. Tule was used to weave mats that covered the winter longhouses or to cover summer teepees. When a rigid open-work mat was needed to support drying salmon, the stiff culms of common reed (Phragmites communis) was employed. Large, soft containers were fabricated from cattail (Typha latifolia). Grasses, such as giant wild rye (Elymus cinereus) had many uses. Cedar root was used to weave berry collecting baskets.
Medicinal Plants
Over 75 species of plants were used for medicinal purposes (Hunn 1990:193, Appendix 3). Lomatium had a wide range of uses including as a fish poison, an edible spring vegetable, and for a host of medicinal purposes. Its root was used to make a hair rinse for itching scalp, its root pulp was used to make a poultice for infected wounds and boils, while internal uses included a dilute infusion for upper respiratory infections.
A study by Cheryl Mack provides some useful concepts that can help in the delineation of important plant gathering areas at Hanford. Mack (1992:3) identified a number of sites in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest which contain the remains of huckleberry processing features. The features represent aboriginal efforts at drying huckleberries through the use of reflected heat from a log fire and are often associated with other features representing generalized camp activities. Mack (1992:5) writes that Colonel George Wright who was commander of the Ninth Infantry during the Yakima Wars in 1856, wrote to the assistant Adjutant General of the Department of the Pacific:
The whole country should be given to the Indians. They require it; they cannot live at any one point for the whole year. The Roots, the Berries, and the fish, make up their principal subsistence: these are all obtained at different places, and different seasons of the year: hence they are frequently changing their abodes.
Macks (1992:6) ethnographic review confirms the importance of Huckleberries. Curtis (1911a:5-6) observed that no fewer than 18 different kinds of berries were used as food by the Yakama. While eaten fresh, vast quantities of berries were dried for later consumption. Schusters (1975:79) Yakama informants told her that they would dry the berries using the heat of a smoldering log. Mack (1992:6) reports one observer seeing the Indians excavate a trench along the base of a down log and building up a sloping mound along the edge of the trench opposite the log. Then, tule mats were placed along the mound, held in place by a row of rocks lining the base of the trench. The log was then set on fire, and berries distributed over the mats. They were stirred with a paddle until dry, which took an entire day. Mack (1992:8) reports 11 sites in and near the Indian Heaven Wilderness Area as representing huckleberry processing sites and each of these sites contains anywhere from one to over 20 log-fire drying trench features visible on the surface.
Huckleberries grow best at elevations over 914 meters (3000 feet) in the Cascades and it is assumed here that the Hanford Site was environmentally unsuitable for huckleberries. Nevertheless, the concept advanced here is that if the physical remains of plant processing features can still be found in the Cascades, the remains of plant processing features have probably survived at the Hanford Site. Macks research demonstrates that physical evidence can be used to document the location of former plant gathering areas. In the case of the huckleberry, Mack (1992:13) suggests that Sahaptin Indians probably used fire as a tool for enhancing huckleberry production and that it is likely that the locations of huckleberry fields would simply shift as naturally-occurring fires opened up new areas, and older burns reforested. At Hanford, prior to the government take-over in 1943, Euro-American agricultural land use practices have undoubtedly obscured many important native plant gathering areas. Destruction of native root gathering locales by grazing livestock is well documented. Through additional ethnographic research, tribal oral histories, and archaeological survey, it should be possible to identify important plant gathering areas within the Hanford Site.
Traditional Holy Lands
The Hanford Site is an important region to members of the present-day Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and Wanapum tribal groups because their ancestors resided here for thousands of years before Euro-American occupation. During these thousands of years, the Indians utilized the land and its resources and built these into a cultural definition of themselves as a people. Most of the Indians who traditionally lived at Hanford perceive that they were created there and, that in so doing, the Creator gave them a special supernatural responsibility to protect and manage the land and its resources. In western terminology, the Hanford Site and surrounding areas is their Holy Land (cf. Stoffle and Evans 1988:754). Associated property types might include dwelling places of the spirits, vision quest sites, Washat dance sites, and ceremonial sites where first salmon or first food rites took place, among others
Dwelling Places of the Spirits
Places where the Spirits dwell can only be identified through oral interviews with knowledgeable tribal elders. As an associated property type, dwelling places of the Spirits that would have a physical presence within the Hanford Site might include mountain tops or peaks, prominent geographic or small rock outcrops; streams, ponds, or rivers; groves of trees, fields or meadows; and rockshelters, caves or crevices among others.
Vision Quest Sites
Vision quest and/or spirit quest sites are likely to be eligible TCPs. These may consist of rock cairns located in isolated places or quest sites may have left no physical traces on the landscape. One example might be the place on or near Rattlesnake Mountain where Smohalla conducted a vision quest and subsequently received from the Creator the elements of the Washani religion. Because the Hanford Site had been closed off to Indian use for several decades, areas traditionally used for spirit quests could not be accessed. Interviews with tribal elders are essential if quest site areas are to be identified and preserved.
Washat Dance Sites
Washat dance sites would be eligible TCPs for their association with Indian religious activity. Some dance sites are located outside the Hanford Site (e.g., Priest Rapids) but others might be present anywhere within the Hanford Site. Tribal elders or modern day Washani practitioners would know of such former locations.
First Salmon or First Foods Ceremonial Sites
An important element of the Washani religion and traditional Indian culture of the region is the giving of thanks to the Creator for food. In the early spring, first salmon, or first food ceremonies were held by the Indians either at the places where the first edible roots could be gathered in the early spring or where the first migrating salmon were caught. Often the first foods ceremony incorporated a thanksgiving for both the first salmon and first roots. Such places in the region include the site of the former Celilo Falls located along the Columbia River near The Dalles. At the Hanford Site, first salmon or first foods ceremonial places were surely present at certain spots along the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River and at certain places along the Yakima River (e.g., Horn Rapids). Tribal elders and/or Washani practitioners are likely to know where such sites are located.
Landmarks and Important Places of Indian History or Culture
Indian history of the Hanford Site and surrounding areas is largely preserved as oral history passed down from generation to generation. With some exceptions, little of this rich oral history has been shared with anthropologists and as a result, landmarks and important places of Indian history or culture are unknown to Hanford decision-makers. Such important places might include spots where the animal or plant people lived or did important things that influenced how Indian cultures and traditions developed. Important places might include spots where important events took place. Such events might include important battles between the animal people or battles between the spirit forces. Other events might include the creation of mountains or rivers, the creation of animals and plants, the places where the ancestors were first created, etc.
Places of Adaptation and Accommodation
While Indian life on the Plateau was changing in response to the introduction of the horse, guns, new diseases, and the presence of fur traders, Indian life in the Hanford area was relatively unaffected in the years immediately after contact with Lewis and Clark. With the influx of whites associated with the Oregon Trail and more particularly with the opening of the territories for white settlement after the 1855 treaty councils, Indian life started to undergo rapid change. For many of the Indians who lived within the Hanford Site or who used the Hanford Site for various purposes, white pressure resulted in their withdrawal from their traditional villages and camps and decreasing access to and use of their traditional hunting, gathering, and fishing areas. Disruption of their traditional subsistence and settlement patterns during these turbulent years undoubtedly resulted in their occupation and use of the Hanford Site in different ways, using different technologies, and at different times and seasons. For lack of a better term, the places where the Indians engaged in non-traditional subsistence and settlement practices are referred to here as places of adaptation and accommodation to the advancing white world.
Some of these places are coterminous with places where traditional activities were once carried out. For example, a fishing village occupied for the last several hundred years may have been used during these turbulent years, but with changing technologies (with boats, fishing gear, and other implements of Euro-American manufacture). In this example, the place of adaptation and accommodation would have an archaeological component (e.g., the ethnographic occupation overlain upon a prehistoric fishing village). Another example would be sites or areas along streams and rivers where several Umatilla and Cayuse Indians were reported to be successfully farming during the middle decades of the 19th century. Physical remains might reflect a mix of Indian and Euro-American material culture where these Indian homesteads were once present. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Euro-Americans actively dry-land farmed inland portions of the Hanford Site, places of adaptation and accommodation might include the living quarters areas where Indians lived with or adjacent to Euro-American farmsteads as they provided their labor to the whites for wages.
Places of Persistence and Resistance
The Indians may revere special places where they formerly (or currently) gathered to resist white culture and its disruptive pressures on Indian life and/or places where they gathered to reify their traditional cultural practices. Such spots might include longhouses where Washat dances took place, council grounds where tribal leaders met with their counterparts from other tribes, battle or skirmish sites, and remote hiding places among others.
Landscapes of the Heart
The National Park Service has been pioneering the concept of landscapes of the heart (Rogers 1991:16). In the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, several candidates for this designation have emerged including favorite old eating or drinking haunts, community gathering spots, parade routes, and traditional teenage parking spots (Tads Chicken & Dumpling road sign, cherry festival activities in The Dalles, the Hood River brewery deck, and the Bridal Veil post office). Certain locations or larger geographic expanses at Hanford may be of equal importance to the Indians as some of these early 20th century landmarks are for the white community. These landscapes of the heart could also be referred to as Indian Cultural Landscapes.
Landscapes of the heart may emerge as one of the most important property types from the ethnographic context period at Hanford. Within the memory of living descendants may be several places within the Hanford Site which may qualify as landscapes of the heart. These places may or may not be congruent with other property types such as fishing stations, burial grounds, and village sites, etc. and/or recognized TCPs such as Gable Mountain/Gable Butte. Following Stoffles (1995) suggestions, these landscapes of the heart could be ecoscapes or storyscapes. Landscapes of the heart may also include special places where Indians gathered to pray, feast, or dance. They may be places d to groups, engaged in contemplative meditation or prayer consistent with the practice of traditional Indian religion (e.g. holy lands). Since Indians view the land as a sacred gift from the Creator, landscapes of the heart legitimately dovetail with places associated with individual or group religious activity.
3.6.7 Methods to Evaluate Cultural Significance
Assuming that the DOE-RL and local Indian tribes work together to identify TCPs at the Hanford Site, it should be possible to devise a culturally sensitive, and operationally effective, methodology to identify and evaluate the cultural significance of Indian TCPs. While it would be desirable to preserve all identified TCPs at Hanford, there will be instances where this is not possible - particularly in those areas where human heath and safety concerns necessitate a clean-up. The current regulatory framework requires mitigative measures be considered only for those properties that are eligible for listing in the National Register. The burden to evaluate the cultural significance of TCPs must fall upon the DOE-RL and cooperating tribes.
As Stoffle, et al. (1990:420) observed, agencies involved in implementing development projects that potentially affect Indian cultural resources generally provide Indians with the opportunity to recommend actions for mitigating or avoiding adverse impacts on those resources. For their part, Indians now regularly participate in the assessment of how proposed development projects can affect their TCPs. Indians and anthropologists are still seeking ways to adapt traditional cultural perceptions and ethnographic research methods to the policy requirements of the environmental impact assessment process. While most agencies are willing and able to take alternative courses of action when ground-disturbing operations threaten burials and other physical remains, plants present problems. Plants are ubiquitous features of the landscape and some species are encouraged by ground disturbing activities while others can be destroyed by such disturbance. Rare and endangered plants are protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (PL 93-205) and are therefore likely to be mitigated and other plants are protected by local or state regulations. Unfortunately, there are no guidelines for protecting plants or plant gathering areas of special importance to Indians or other ethnic groups save for whatever protective measures can be developed as a result of the successful identification and evaluation of plant gathering as TCPs eligible for listing in the National Register.
Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and Owens Valley Paiute became directly involved in the evaluation of cultural resources potentially impacted by a proposal to place national high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Sixteen tribal groups participated in an ethnobotany study that resulted in substantial refinements to a quantitative plant evaluation model that can be adapted to the Hanford Site. The Yucca Mountain study provides a useful model for similar studies that can be conducted at the Hanford Site and the theoretical assumptions used to guide the Yucca Mountain study can guide such studies at Hanford. Stoffle, et al. (1990:417) assumed:
Ethnic groups differ in how they use and assign value to plants
Although plant experts from the same ethnic group may vary in their knowledge about plants, the responses of tribal plant experts can be assumed to be representative of those of the ethnic group
IV. Plant experts would be more knowledgeable about plants from the area where they were raised, and The use and significance of specific plants will not vary from one portion of the study area to another
The first phase of the Yucca Mountain ethnobotanical study consisted of on-site visits in the study area. An ethnobotanical survey instrument was developed so that identical questions could be asked about each plant identified by an Indian plant expert. Stoffle, et al. (1990:420-421) explained the available options considered at Yucca Mountain.
Holistic Conservation
As Stoffle, et al. (1990:420) explain, development projects that potentially affect Indian cultural resources present Indians with a culturally specific ethical dilemma. Projects often force them to shift from a traditional position of favoring protection to a position of resource prioritization. The traditional Indian position can be termed holistic conservation - a term that refers to the common, initial response of Indian people to questions regarding the importance of plants and other cultural resources. Indians will tend to identify all plants as important since they were put on the earth for a purpose by the Creator. The holistic conservation position would state that all resources should be left alone or avoided. Thus, when all plants, or other cultural resources, are equally important, there are only two options for their protection: (1) no project or (2) limit earth-disturbing operations to areas without plants. The first option rarely occurs unless the plants are extremely rare and cannot be mitigated and the second is almost impossible since plants grow everywhere.
Cultural Triage
If all plants cannot be protected, there must be a basis for selecting those species to be protected. Criteria for prioritizing plants or the areas where they grow must be set forth. When Indians prioritize equally important cultural resources, they engage in what can be termed cultural triage (cf. Stoffle and Evans 1990). Cultural triage can be defined as a forced-choice situation in which Indians must rank in importance those cultural resources threatened by impending development. Like battlefield triage where some soldiers are saved and other left to die, when Indians engage in cultural triage in order to have some effect on projects, they often experience ethical conflicts, emotional stress, and even fear of reprisal (Stoffle, et al. 1990:421).
Egalitarian triage is one approach to mitigating plants where all plants are identified as being equally significant and assigned an identical value. Since plants are given the same value, they cannot be prioritized. However, the areas where they grow become the criteria for setting priorities and areas with higher scores would be defined as more significant and prioritized for protection from ground-disturbing operations (Stoffle, et al. 1990:421). The advantage of egalitarian triage is the ease with which areas can be evaluated. Once Indians have identified plants of cultural significance, botanists can map the distribution of those plants in order to produce a prioritized list of significant areas. Egalitarian triage also reflects the holistic conservation principle of most Indians. A drawback of the procedure is that it cannot protect individual plant species and does not take into account real ethnic differences in the cultural significance of plants.
Weighted triage is another procedure where plants are assigned a value based on such factors as the number of uses, the number of different plant parts used, the number of Indian ethnic groups who used the plant, and whether of not the plant is currently used. Through this procedure, individual plant species as well as the areas where they grow can be prioritized for protection. Weighted triage reflects the fact that plants traditionally made and still make differing types of contributions to Indians and illustrates that some elements of a cultural system can be more central to the cultural, social, or biological survival than others. As Stoffle, et al. (1990:421) observed, because Indians have special needs for different plants, they will often recommend providing special protection for individual plant species. While weighted triage more accurately reflects indigenous knowledge systems, it is complex to calculate and difficult to explain to both Indians and policymakers. Nevertheless, Stoffle, et al. (1990:421) adopted a weighted triage model first developed by Turner (1988).
The Turner model is based on calculation of a score produced by assigning values to several factors that contribute to a plants significance. Combined scores produce an Index of Cultural Significance (ICS) for a given plant species and the ICS formula is calculated using three criteria: quality, intensity, and exclusivity of use. Turner (1988:275) defines cultural significance as the importance of the role a plant plays within a particular culture. The cultural significance of a given plant can be determined by a number of ecological and cultural factors regarding the frequency of occurrence or distribution of a certain species in a spatial area, the physical characteristics of a plant that cause it to be recognized as distinctive by people who use it, and the plants potential utility as a food, medicine, or utilitarian item.
Stoffle, et al. (1990:423), after applying and improving upon the Turner model, should not be ranked by the quality of their use unless the Indians themselves make the ranking, or unless such ranking can be clearly derived from the ethnographic literature. In the absence of such data, all plants should be assigned an equal quality-of-use value. The Yucca Mountain data suggested that the number of different uses was a good indicator or cultural significance and that the parts of a plant used for specific purposes should be part of the calculation of the plants cultural significance. In addition, plant storage emerged as a critical variable in both the cultural significance of plants and the intensity of their use. Stoffle, et al. (1990:424) further suggest that in cases where plant species have been managed or intentionally maintained through habitat modification (cultivation, burning, transplanting seeds and cuttings), intensity of use and cultural significance are elevated. Finally, at Yucca Mountain, the investigators found that it was important to take into account the contemporary significance of plants in determining the ICS. That is, the Yucca Mountain researchers elicited the contemporary significance of traditional plants as a means to determine if traditional knowledge was being transmitted from one generation to the next. They concluded that plants currently being used and taught about to younger generations are more significant than those plants that are no longer used and no longer the subject of teaching.
Stoffle, et al. (1990:428) note that a common first step in the assessment process is to evaluate the significance of individual sites using ethnobotanical data on each sites plant clusters. They observed, however, that Indians tend to interpret sites not as individual units but as related components of larger areas and plants are seen as part of local use areas that are larger spatial units of occupation than sites - a smaller unit conceptualized by archaeologists. Thus, identification of local use areas should consider the indigenous cultural logic of the Indians as they perceive an area consisting of natural, archaeological, and botanical resources. Stoffle, et al. (1990:429) conclude:
It is difficult to combine both Western scientific and Native American cognitive reasoning into one model of cultural significance. This adaptation of Turners model and application to the Yucca Mountain data set is an attempt to incorporate Western scientific and Native American perspectives in order to mitigate the potential adverse effects of ground-disturbing activities on culturally significant plants. We conclude that from both resource policy and ethnographic standpoints, the cultural significance of plants can be evaluated by including the perspectives of American Indian people.
The same challenge will continue to face DOE-RL as they attempt to meet the spirit and intent of the federal cultural resource regulations. These regulations require identification and evaluation of cultural resources of importance to the Indians (e.g., TCPs). The regulations that require National Register eligibility determinations of TCPs were drafted from mostly a Western scientific or administrative/managerial perspective. These regulations do not, per se, incorporate Indian cognitive reasoning, although Bulletin 38 provides useful guidance. Bulletin 38 does go a long way toward sensitizing federal agencies to the fact that Indians and other ethnic groups view the world much differently than does the dominant Euro-American culture and society. The model tested at Yucca Mountain concentrated on plants and plant gathering areas. Similar models must be developed for calculating the significance of other TCPs. Stoffle, et al. (1990:429) captured the essence of the issue and the fundamental collaborative role of Indians in the regulatory process:
New collaborative models need to be developed to measure the importance of places and areas where events have occurred that are of religious or historic importance to Indian people as well as to the dominant society. These models, like Turners ethnobotanical model, can be refined to reflect the concerns of Indian people and eventually integrated to produce a holistic model for calculating the cultural significance of all American Indian cultural resources.
Eligibility Criteria
The four evaluation criteria outlined in National Register Bulletin 15 (e.g., Criteria A, B, C, and D - cf. 36 CFR 60), reflect a Euro-American cognitive system. Indians are likely to prefer an approach discussed earlier as holistic conservation and linking TCP eligibility only to Bulletins 15 or 38, may well pressure the participating Indian tribes to engage in some form of cultural triage to secure a voice in the decision-making process. Unfortunately, any form of cultural triage fosters further alienation of Indian culture or cultural values. Thus, it is essential that Indians participate in the identification and evaluation of TCPs and should play a major role in defining the specific criteria by which their TCPs can be evaluated for National Register eligibility.
It is not being suggested that all of the four Bulletin 15 eligibility criteria be discarded when it comes to assessing National Register eligibility of potential TCPs. Rather, it is acknowledged that some of the four Bulletin 15 criteria may not work well since the Indian cognitive approach and/or world view is so different. Therefore, Indians can greatly assist DOE-RL by providing specific eligibility criteria that would supplement, or replace, the four Bulletin 15 criteria. As important would be for Indians, from their unique perspective, to demonstrate how TCP integrity can be measured. For example, does the presence of radio/meteorological towers result in a loss of integrity of Rattlesnake Mountain as a potential TCP? Does the presence of large reactor buildings along the Columbia River in the 100 Areas result in loss of integrity of river-side occupation or fishing sites as TCPs? Bulletin 15 states that a property that possesses integrity will possess several or all of the following aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feelings, and association. Design, materials and workmanship will, in most cases, have little bearing on TCPs such as usual and accustomed fishing sites or plant gathering areas. Location, setting, feeling and association will probably be the more relevant aspects of integrity when it comes to such TCPs.
As pointed out in Bulletin 38 (Parker and King 1990:2), TCPs are often difficult to recognize and that their identification may not emerge from archaeological, historical, or architectural studies, but require the application of ethnographic methodology. Since it is often difficult to distinguish those places having considerable cultural significance from those whose significance is spurious, the authors of Bulletin 38 compiled guidelines for evaluation of TCPs that were meant to be used in conjunction with Bulletin 15, which provides evaluation guidelines for historic places. Bulletin 38 also responds to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), which requires Federal agencies to reconcile their procedures in accordance with this legislation (Parker and King 1990:2).
Qualities that give significance to places are often intangible and thus their evaluation must reflect the community's opinion of these sites within their own cultural framework. A rigorous evaluation procedure considers foremost the assertions of the community, but is complemented with critical analysis of supporting documentation (Kennedy et al., 1993:8). Places considered eligible for the National Register are those that have integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feelings, and association and meet one or more of the four evaluation criteria: (a) association with a significant event, (b) association with a significant person, (c) embodiment of the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or (d) potential to yield information important to our history or prehistory. (The evaluation criteria in its entirety is listed in the MPD introduction.)
Several kinds of properties are not commonly considered eligible for listing in the Register: religious properties, moved properties, birthplaces and graves, cemeteries, reconstructed properties, commemorative properties, and properties achieving significance within the past 50 years. However, such properties will qualify if they are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria or if they fall within certain Criteria Considerations. Considerations applicable for TCPs and ethnographic/contact period properties are explained below: (The complete listing of Criteria Considerations is found in the MPD introduction.)
Consideration A: Ownership by a religious institution or use for religious purposes. This criterion requires additional justification beyond religious grounds due to the necessity of the U.S. government to avoid any appearance of favoring a particular religious doctrine. Sites of a religious significance to Native Americans may be eligible if the activities associated with a specific place are expressions of traditional beliefs that may be implicit in the continuation of the cultural practices. Parker and King (1990:13) stress that properties can be listed if they possess "scholarly secular recognition" (e.g., if a traditional history and culture may be discussed in religious terms, it does not follow that it is less historical or less significant to culture, nor does it make properties associated with traditional history and culture ineligible for inclusion in the National Register).
Consideration C: Birthplaces and graves. Such sites are eligible only if their significance is for reasons that go beyond their association with a famous person. Bulletin 38 shows how a burial site of a famous folk healer was eligible once the site was related to the intangible belief held by the healer's followers that his spirit was stronger at this particular site than any other.
Consideration D: Cemeteries. These sites are ineligible unless, as is stated in Bulletin 15, they derive their primary significance from graves of persons of transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design values, or from association with historical events. Sites that contain cemeteries are not necessarily ineligible because of their presence, and the graves may in fact be an intrinsic component of the overall cultural significance. Given the Indian viewpoints discussed throughout the context statement, Indian cemeteries at Hanford would be eligible given their overwhelming cultural importance and association with the timeless sweep of Indian history.
Consideration G: Significance achieved within the past 50 years. Cultural beliefs and practices that are associated with a property must be older than 50 years, unless "sufficient historical perspective exists to determine that the property is exceptionally important and will continue to retain that distinction in the future" (Parker and King 1990:15). Bulletin 38 provides an example of a mountain peak that is now used by a tribe for religious activities, but is an area without a known historical antecedent. Places where such activities are known to have once occurred but went unused for many years before a renaissance of the practice are eligible.
TCPs that are thought to be eligible require thorough documentation, which is submitted to the SHPO with a request for their comments on the property's eligibility for inclusion in the National Register. This evaluation includes substantiation of the TCP application's conformity with the above-noted criteria of eligibility, and must include definition of the site's boundaries.
For each property type, then, a set of criteria must be developed that will enable DOE-RL (including the tribes who are co-managing Hanfords cultural resources) to assess integrity (or lack thereof) and to evaluate National Register eligibility. One possible approach to develop criteria by which integrity and eligibility can be assessed is to follow a cultural resource study methodology shown to be sensitive to the culture of Indian people. This study methodology, described by Stoffle and Evans (1990:96-97) is as follows:
Consultation
The first step is to contact the tribal governments to discuss the upcoming Hanford project and establish a consultation and research relationship. Fortunately, through the Co-Management Agreement with the tribes, the necessary linkages with the tribes has been established. The project is presented to tribal officials who then can determine how the tribe will participate.
OTCR Training
Once the tribal governments agree to participate, it is important to establish a point of contact between them and the project officials. This person can be referred to as the Official Tribal Contact Representative (OTCR) who is trusted to follow the day-to-day progress of a project, to review technical reports, and to summarize findings for the tribal government. All OTCRs should be trained together to facilitate inter-tribal interactions and consensus on cultural resource eligibility and/or mitigation options. Again, the Co-Management Agreement has already set up a framework for designation of OTCRs.
Key Cultural Expert Interviews
Key cultural experts, identified by the tribal government, should be interviewed. These individuals should be asked to speak for the cultural resources of the tribe and they will likely repeat holistic conservation statements made earlier by the tribal government. Key cultural experts, however, can move beyond expressing general concerns for cultural resources by specifying what types of cultural resources (property types) are potentially impacted by a Hanford project. These experts can define the variables that should be assessed (e.g., they can help define evaluation criteria).
Archival Research
At Hanford, with the availability of this context statement document, it is already known which Indian groups were associated with the Hanford Site and therefore which groups should be participating in the process. Since this context statement is intended to be dynamic document that is constantly improved as new information becomes available, additional archival research conducted for specific Hanford projects can contribute to the a deeper understanding of the ethnohistory of the Hanford Site. This deeper understanding will in turn help all parties better frame the cultural and historical context for understanding contemporary Indian concerns.
On-Site Visits
On-site visits with tribal members should be conducted. The tribal governments should be asked to specify a cultural resource expert or experts who would visit a project site or study area to provide project or site-specific identification and interpretation of cultural resources. During on-site visits, the cultural resource experts may make holistic conservation statements, especially if they had not been contacted during previous research tasks. Usually, however, these experts will focus on prioritizing cultural resources which helps direct the process in the direction of making determinations of eligibility.
Mail Survey
This is appropriate in situations where the study or project area is very large or there are many tribal members. A mail survey can measure variables defined by previous interviews with tribal members and issues that emerge from the ethnographic and social impact literature. Mail surveys must be developed in cooperation with tribal government representatives. Mail surveys are especially important for reaching group members who live off the reservation. Surveys can be designed to allow the Indians to scale their concerns for cultural resources and when the numeric scores agree with the judgment of tribal elders, tribal governments would be confident in passing resolutions regarding how to triage cultural resources (e.g., evaluate resources for eligibility).
Tribal Review
Two types of tribal review can occur. A preliminary draft of findings should be sent to the OTCR who reads the document for accuracy and suggests changes. A revised preliminary draft can then be sent to the tribal council for an official response. Tribal responses should then be incorporated at the end of the draft report.
Mitigation
A set of mitigation recommendations can be developed and enacted only if all cultural resources have been identified and cultural triage has occurred during the previous steps. At this stage, the process which has relied on the close cooperation and participation of the tribes, will have resulted in the identification of TCPs that are eligible for listing in the National Register. Implicit in this process is the concept that the Indian people have practiced cultural triage, as needed, to effectuate protection of those cultural resources that are most important to them.
This proposed methodology should be effective if four guiding principles are followed (cf. Stoffle and Evans 1990: 96):
Trust
V. Opportunity
VI. Knowledge
VII. Validity
First, the Indian people must believe that their participation in consultation and identification of cultural resources is more likely to protect these resources than would be the case if they did not participate. Indian people must have the opportunity to discuss among themselves whether or not to participate before they are asked to proceed with the identification and triage of cultural resources. The research should be phased to allow tribal discussions to occur. Indian people must fully understand how the Hanford project(s) could impact cultural resources. A tribal representative should view firsthand the study area and existing analogous projects. Videotape, photographs, background readings, and face-to-face orientation are all useful if they present both positive and negative project impacts. Finally, the research findings must be accepted by scientists, regulatory agencies, and the Indians if the study is to be valid. Participation in the research process is perhaps the best means to assure mutual validity of the findings.
Conclusion
This document emphasizes that Indian participation is crucial if TCPs pertaining to the ethnographic contact period (1805-1943) are to be recognized, evaluated for their eligibility, and ultimately protected. As noted by Stapp and Jones (1995: 2), tribal representatives have discussed important issues with the Department of Energy for generations and they are tremendously frustrated over the lack of progress in some areas. From their perspective, they have given concessions to the Federal government time and again only to be asked to make further compromises. The tribes ask when will it end? And DOE-RL will continue to ask the Indians to step forward and participate in a regulatory process which may result in cultural triage. The 1989 Hanford Cultural Resources Management Plan described how the Department of Energy is responsible for providing leadership in the preservation of prehistoric, historical, and cultural resources on lands it administers, to manage these lands in a spirit of stewardship for future generations, and to protect and preserve the rights of Indians to religious freedom. Recent meetings between the Tribes, the Department of Energy, and cultural resources staffs of the Hanford Site contractors served to:
... shed some valuable light onto the historical and current state of cultural resource management at Hanford and revealed [to us] many of the great challenges that DOE-RL will need to face in the coming years ... As partners in our effort to improve cultural resource management and protection at Hanford, Tribal government representatives worked with us to identify shortcomings of past practices and to suggest means of improving the record (Stapp and Jones 1995: 1).
The meetings also revealed tribal frustration with the piecemeal approach to cultural resource management at Hanford. The Tribes see less value in attempting to designate specific locations as worthy of special protection and more value in viewing the Hanford Site as an integrated and interdependent community. As stated elsewhere, the Tribes include the plants, animals, and other resources on the land as cultural resources. To this end, the Tribes are interested in protection of resources, access to sacred sites, and rights to bounty as well (e.g., rights to use resources). To the Tribes, cultural resources encompass not just archaeological and sacred sites, but traditional use areas, landforms, animals, fish, and vegetation among others and proper management of cultural resources needs to integrate all these disciplines (Stapp and Jones 1995:3).
The meetings also revealed that the Tribes consider cultural resource protection to be sacred and/or spiritual work. This can be particularly problematic to DOE-RL since the Indians believe that knowledge verbally passed between generations is to be respected and cannot be openly shared with others. The Indians believe that it is not necessary to go to a place to make it sacred since the feelings of sacredness are present even when these places are seen. The Tribes believe that all along the Columbia River and the mountains themselves are sacred. They also assert that what is of value to the scientific community and to archaeological and anthropological scholars is not necessarily what is of value to Tribal representatives, their children, future generations, and other members of the extended Tribal community (Stapp and Jones 1995:4).
The Tribes are concerned that access to the Hanford Site has been and may continue to be difficult for Indians. As a result, many members of the Tribal community can no longer visit traditional and sacred land when they want to. Access limitations restrict what otherwise would be continuous of use of TCPs.
Although Site access is still rather limited, massive reductions in Site security have occurred. As a result, Tribal officials are increasingly concerned that TCPs along the Columbia River may be subject to increased incidents of looting. Looking ahead, Tribal officials are concerned that lands under the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy may fall into private ownership. Since deed restrictions and other forms of protection do not always work effectively, the Tribes are concerned that cultural resource protection on lands reverting back to private ownership will be difficult at best. New land use decisions, such as designating the Columbia as a Wild and Scenic River would adversely affect archaeological and cultural sites resulting from increased recreation on the river (Stapp and Jones 1995:6).
The meetings also revealed tribal concerns that cultural resource protection work at Hanford is still too compliance driven, responding to specific projects of limited scope or impact while ignoring holistic approa protection. The Tribes expressed keen interest in seeing DOE-RL implement long-range cultural resource planning and protection. In fact, tribal representatives believe that the Department of Energys financial committment to a long-term cultural resource program plan would be a wise investment in strong working relationships with the Tribes and could be a national model for other Federal agencies. A plan might include the following elements (Stapp and Jones 1995:7):
Cooperatively manage Hanfords cultural resources by the Department of Energy and the Tribes.
Resurvey all lands and re-recorded sites (as needed) over a 10-year period (10%/year). Collect data on archaeological sites, sacred areas, and traditional use areas (TCPs) as well as oral historical, biological, wildlife, fisheries, and geomorphological data.
Identify and analyze significant areas on an ongoing basis.
Prepare special management plans for areas already known to be significant (Gable Mountain, Rattlesnake Mountain, the Columbia River shoreline, and the Columbia River islands).
Educate the public on cultural resource issues and implement a strong enforcement program.
Prepare, and revise annually, a Cultural Resources Preservation Plan to cover the entire Hanford Site.
Maintain ongoing programs to promote legislative compliance.
Identification, evaluation, and protection of TCPs can be better accomplished within the context of a plan as outlined above than undertaken independently. Tribal participation is crucial in the identification of TCPs and in setting criteria by which their eligibility for listing in the National Register can be evaluated. Co-management of Hanfords cultural resources affords a convenient, and hopefully effective, avenue of tribal participation. Re-survey of all Hanford lands provide opportunities for tribal participation on field crews as archaeological and other kinds of data are acquired. Identification and analysis of significant areas on an ongoing basis facilitates identification and evaluation of TCPs. Preparation and implementation of special management plans for significant areas would help protect TCPs. Public education is essential if TCPs and other cultural resources are to be protected from looting, vandalism, or inadvertent disturbance. Annual revision of a Cultural Resources Preservation Plan will afford the Tribes with yearly opportunities to include additional TCPs in the roster of sites and places to be protected. Maintaining legislative compliance will ensure that TCPs continue to be considered during project review and environmental permitting.
With regard to evaluation of significance, TCPs at Hanford must be submitted through the Washington SHPO and nominations to the National Register will require documentation conforming to acceptable scholarly standards common to the field of anthropology, and fused with the cultural insights of the tribal tradition-bearers. Even if DOE-RL can adhere to these ideals, problems can and will arise. For example, at a Seattle workshop on TCPs in December 1992, a number of these problems were discussed (cf. Kennedy et al., 1993:24-25). In one case, the issue was not whether a place was significant to the Indians, but how big the significant section of the site actually is. The Indians asserted that only the entire site, as they defined it on the nomination form, could retain the integrity of cultural significance. In another case, a question of a TCP's boundaries was debated between a SHPO and the Bureau of Land Management. The cases discussed at the workshop illustrated that a mechanism for conflict resolution reflecting the interests of all concerned parties is pivotal to the unprejudiced evaluation of cultural significance. ACHP regulations (36 CFR §800.4c) provide for a determination from the Secretary of the Interior in the event of disagreement between a federal agency official and the SHPO regarding National Register eligibility (ACHP 1986:6-7).
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