Gathering Abalones – Nakoaktok
Edward S. Curtis (1868–1952)
Northwestern University Library, Edward S. Curtis’s “The North American Indian,” 2003.[1]Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian (1907-1930) v.10, The Kwakiutl. ([Cambridge: The University Press], 1915), plate no. 342.
Languages of the Chinookan group were spoken from the Pacific Coast to the lower end of the Columbia Gorge. On the coast, Lower Chinookan speakers spread from Willapa Bay (north of present Long Beach, Washington, the expedition’s farthest northern reach along the coast) through the Chinooks proper, and south to the Clatsop people on the Columbia’s south side.
The border between Lower Chinookan and Upper Chinookan languages was about the eastern end of the Columbia Estuary in 1805. There, as Clark took vocabularies from the The Wahkiakums, he noted that their language differed from those spoken upstream. The Wahkiakums shared the Kathlamet tongue with their neighbors on the Columbia’s south side, the Kathlamets proper. This language is generally grouped with Upper Chinookan, but some linguists designate Kathlamat (which some label Middle Chinookan) as a third full branch of the Chinookan family.
Upper Chinookan languages were used along both sides of the Columbia River. Now almost all extinct, they included dialects of the Cascades, Clackamas, White Salmon, and the Wishrams and Wascos at The Dalles. Their upper extent was, in fact, there at The Dalles, where the Sahaptian-speaking Nez Perce traveling with the Corps announced that they could no longer be helpful as translators.
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The Clatsops
by Kristopher K. TownsendThe creek where Coyote built his legendary house—today’s Neacoxie Creek—flows north to south bisecting nearly the length of the Clatsop Plain. A village at the estuary created by the ocean, Neacoxie Creek and the larger Necanicum River is Ne-ah-coxie Village. Nearby were three other Clatsop villages, and for a short time, a salt works built by soldiers from the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
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The Wahkiakums
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The Wascos and Wishrams
by Barbara FiferAt The Dalles lived Upper Chinookan people, the Wishrams on the Columbia’s north (Washington) side—and their allies the Wascos on the south (Oregon) side—who were the main masters of the regional trading center. The Lewis and Clark Expedition encamped on the north side.
The Kathlamets
by Kristopher K. TownsendThe expedition journalists recorded several encounters with the Kathlamets, or Cathlamets, during their stay at the Pacific coast during the 1805–06 winter. On 11 November 1805, while hunkered down in a “dismal nitch” on the north side of the Columbia, a canoe “loaded with fish of Salmon Spes. Called Red Charr” pulled to shore. After buying 13 sockeye, Clark marveled.
The Clackamases
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The Chinooks
by Kristopher K. TownsendToday, Chinook often refers to the politically united Lower Chinook, Clatsops, Willapas, Wahkiakums, and Kathlamets. To Lewis and Clark, the Chinook were the people living on the north side of the Columbia River’s estuary. When Lewis and Clark met them, the people of Baker Bay had been trading with European ships for more than a decade.
Chinookan Woven Hats
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Wind Mountain was at the western extent of a series of Upper Chinookan villages called by Lewis and Clark the “Chilluckkittequaw nation.” Apparently, when asked for a tribal name, the captains were given the word for ‘he pointed at me’. Chilluckittequaw was adopted as their name a century later by early ethnographer Frederick Hodge. Between Wind Mountain and Hood River, nine villages have been identified, some overlapping with Klickitats
Lewis and Clark appear to have been unaware of the existence of Chinook Trade Jargon. Never-the-less, some of the words they encountered would be later documented as part of the jargon.
Notes
↑1 | Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian (1907-1930) v.10, The Kwakiutl. ([Cambridge: The University Press], 1915), plate no. 342. |
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- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.