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The Tillamook are a Native American tribe from coastal
Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
of the
Salish Salish () may refer to: * Salish peoples, a group of First Nations/Native Americans ** Coast Salish peoples, several First Nations/Native American groups in the coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest ** Interior Salish peoples, several First Nat ...
linguistic group. The name "Tillamook" is a
Chinook language The Chinookan languages were a small family of languages spoken in Oregon and Washington along the Columbia River by Chinook peoples. Although the last known native speaker of any Chinookan language died in 2012, the 2009-2013 American Community ...
term meaning "people of he villageNekelim (or Nehalem)", sometimes it is given as a Coast Salish term, meaning "Land of Many Waters". The Tillamook tribe consists of several divisions and dialects, including (from south to north): *
Siletz The Siletz (pronounced SIGH-lets) were the southernmost of several divisions of the Tillamook people speaking a distinct dialect; the other dialect-divisions were: ''Salmon River'' on the river of that name, ''Nestucca'' on Little and Nestucca ...
/ Nachicolcho: (pronounced SIGH-lets): their name "Siletz" comes from the name of the
Siletz River The Siletz River flows about to the Pacific Ocean through coastal mountains in the U.S. state of Oregon. Formed by the confluence of its north and south forks near Valsetz in Polk County, it winds through the Central Oregon Coast Range. The ri ...
and Siletz Bay on which they lived; their own name is given as Se-la-gees (" eople on thecrooked river"), their name for the Siletz River is given as ''Nshlæch’/Nshlæts'' ("crooked river") or ''Nach’ikáltzu'' ("quiet river"), therefore their tribal name is given as Nshlæts’stiwat ("Crooked River People") or Nach’ikáltzustiwat ("Quiet River People"). *Salmon River / Nachesne / Nachesna: their name comes from the Salmon River on which they lived, both the river and the people were known as Nachesne / Nachesna. *Nestucca / Nastucco / Nestugga: they lived on
Little Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...
and
Nestucca River The Nestucca River flows for about through forests near the Pacific coast of northwest Oregon in the United States. It drains a timber-producing area of the Northern Oregon Coast Range west of Portland. Rising in the mountains of western Yamhi ...
and
Nestucca Bay Nestucca Bay is a bay formed by the confluence of the Nestucca River and the Pacific Ocean in northwest Oregon in the United States. It is near the town of Pacific City, which is in southwestern Tillamook County, about south of Cape Lookout. ...
; their own name was Stagaush meaning “People of Saga”, while "Nestucca / Nestugga" is the placename, meaning "People of Ne-staguash, i.e. Nestucca". (The placename identifier in this Salish Language is “Ne-” or “Na-“, meaning land of or place of….) *Tillamook Bay: their name comes from the
Tillamook Bay Tillamook Bay is a small inlet of the Pacific Ocean, approximately 6 mi (10 km) long and 2 mi (3 km) wide, on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located just north of Cape Meares in western Tillamook Count ...
, and the mouths of the Kilchis, Wilson, Trask, Miami and Tillamook rivers, which converge at the bay, and *Nehalem: on
Nehalem River The Nehalem River is a river on the Pacific coast of northwest Oregon in the United States, approximately long. It drains part of the Northern Oregon Coast Range northwest of Portland, originating on the east side of the mountains and flowing i ...
Estimated to have 2200 people at the beginning of the 18th century, the Tillamook lost population in the 19th century to
infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...
and murder by European Americans. In 1849 they were estimated to have 200 members. In 1856 they were forced to live on the Siletz Reservation with many other Tribes and Bands, the southern bands (Nestucca, Salmon River and Siletz River peoples’) territory being largely within the 1855 boundaries of the Siletz Reservation. In 1898 the northern Tillamook (Nehalem and Tillamook Bay) and the Clatsop (Tlatsop / łät'cαp), (which means "place of dried salmon", a Lower Chinook-speaking tribe abutting their territory to the north and speaking the Nehalem-dialect, reflecting intermarriage with the northern Tillamook), were the first tribes to sue the United States government for compensation for aboriginal title to land it had taken from them without a ratified treaty or compensation. They were paid a settlement in 1907. Their descendants are now considered part of the Confederated Tribes of
Siletz The Siletz (pronounced SIGH-lets) were the southernmost of several divisions of the Tillamook people speaking a distinct dialect; the other dialect-divisions were: ''Salmon River'' on the river of that name, ''Nestucca'' on Little and Nestucca ...
. Other Nehalem are part of the unrecognized Clatsop Nehalem Confederated Tribes.


History

The Tillamook people traditionally lived in an area ranging from Tillamook Head in the North, to Cape Foulweather and extending to the summit of the Coast Range mountains
Coastal Oregon Native Americans
calculates that the population was about 2200 in at the beginning of the 19th century, based on written historic accounts. The first documented encounter of Europeans with the Tillamook was in 1788 by
Robert Haswell Robert Haswell (November 24, 1768 – 1801?) was an early American maritime fur trader to the Pacific Northwest of North America. His journals of these voyages are the main records of Captain Robert Gray's circumnavigation of the globe. Later du ...
, second mate on Robert Gray's ship. A second encounter was in late 1805 by the American
Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...
, who were wintering at
Fort Clatsop Fort Clatsop was the encampment of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the Oregon Country near the mouth of the Columbia River during the winter of 1805–1806. Located along the Lewis and Clark River at the north end of the Clatsop Plains approxim ...
. They had reached the Pacific Coast while exploring beyond the extent of the newly acquired
Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...
for President
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
. A whale was washed ashore near Necost (in what is now
Ecola State Park Ecola State Park is a state park located approximately 3 miles north of Cannon Beach in Clatsop County in the U.S. state of Oregon on the Oregon Coast. It is administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. The park encompasses of c ...
), and the Tillamook quickly stripped it of flesh, saving the flesh/blubber as food and the rendering oil for later use. After hearing of this, Lewis and Clark sought to trade for blubber. They received 300 pounds and some oil in exchange for trade goods. Lewis and Clark described a village of around 1000 people living in about 50 houses, estimating the entire population at around 2200. According to the expedition, the staple food source of the Tillamook was
salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...
. The people caught salmon during the annual
salmon run ''Salmon Run'' is a 1982 video game for the Atari 8-bit family created by Bill Williams and distributed via the Atari Program Exchange. ''Salmon Run'' was the first game in Williams's career, followed by a string of successes noted for their o ...
of April to October, when the salmon went upstream in freshwater rivers from the ocean to spawn. The Tillamook ate some fresh and processed much of the fish to use throughout the year, preserving it by drying it and grinding it into a powder. In 1824 and 1829 the tribe suffered high mortality in
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
epidemics; this was a new
infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...
to them, introduced by contact with European peoples, among whom it was
endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
. Native Americans suffered because they had no acquired
immunity Immunity may refer to: Medicine * Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease * ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press Biology * Immune system Engineering * Radiofrequence immunity desc ...
. The arrival of
Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what ...
settlers in 1841 and resulting conflicts over land and resources caused further population losses. By 1845 Wilkes estimated there were 400 Tillamook remaining. In 1849 Lane estimated 200 of the tribe survived. During the early-mid 19th century Chief Kilchis was the leader of the Tillamook people. Kilchis may have been a descendant of one of the survivors of a Spanish
Manila Galleon fil, Galyon ng Maynila , english_name = Manila Galleon , duration = From 1565 to 1815 (250 years) , venue = Between Manila and Acapulco , location = New Spain (Spanish Empire) ...
that wrecked near
Neahkahnie Mountain Neahkahnie Mountain is a mountain, or headland, on the Oregon Coast, north of Manzanita in Oswald West State Park overlooking U.S. Route 101. The peak is part of the Northern Oregon Coast Range, which is part of the Oregon Coast Range. It is be ...
and the mouth of the
Nehalem River The Nehalem River is a river on the Pacific coast of northwest Oregon in the United States, approximately long. It drains part of the Northern Oregon Coast Range northwest of Portland, originating on the east side of the mountains and flowing i ...
. Known as the beeswax wreck, it was probably the ''Santo Cristo de Burgos'', which was lost in 1693 while sailing from the Philippines to Mexico. Warren Vaughn, an early white settler in Tillamook, knew Kilchis and believed he was a descendant of one of the survivors of the wreck, and said that Kilchis himself claimed such ancestry. In 1856 the federal government forced the Tillamook and more than 20 other remnant tribes to the Siletz Reservation. Additional population estimates are impossible as the tribes have intermarried and are no longer separately enumerated. In 1898 the Tillamook became the first tribe to sue the US government for compensation for the lands they had taken, along with the
Clatsop The Clatsop is a small tribe of Chinookan-speaking Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In the early 19th century they inhabited an area of the northwestern coast of present-day Oregon from the mouth of the Columbia R ...
. In 1907, along with two other tribes, they were awarded $23,500.


Language

The Tillamook initially spoke
Tillamook Tillamook may refer to: Places: * Tillamook County, Oregon, United States * Tillamook, Oregon, a city, the seat of Tillamook County * Tillamook River, United States * Tillamook Bay, a bay in the northwestern part of Oregon * Tillamook Head, a natu ...
, a
Salishan The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ...
language, but gradually began to use English in greater amounts. The last fluent speaker of Tillamook died in 1970, rendering the language extinct. Between 1965 and 1972, in an effort to revitalize the language, a group of researchers from the University of Hawaii interviewed the few remaining Tillamook and created a 120-page dictionary. Early 20th-century anthropologist Franz Boas wrote, "The Tillamook Indians are the most southern branch of the Coast Salish. They live on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and are separated from their more northern kinsmen by tribes speaking Chinookan languages. Their language is spoken two dialects, the Siletz and the Tillamook proper. It was first described and classified by Horatio Hale in the Publications of the Wilkes Expedition."''The Journal of American Folk-Lore,'' Vol.11, No. 40, Pg. 23-28 The name Tillamook was derived from Chinook people's references to them, referring to their place of settlement. It meant the people of Nekelim (pronounced Ne-elim). The latter name means the place ''Elim,'' or, in the Cathlamet dialect, the place ''Kelim.'' This dialect differed from the northern dialects in its peculiar phonetics. Boas noted that the culture of the Tillamook seemed to have differed quite considerably from that of the northern Coast Salish, and has evidently been influenced by the culture of the tribes of northern California.


Culture

According to the work of
Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
, the culture of the Tillamook tribe was significantly different from that of their Salish neighbors, evidently influenced by the tribes of northern California. The Tillamook were skilled basket-weavers, and had a detailed mythology with links to existing events; the Story of the Thunderbird and Whale, for example, reflects the large earthquake in that region in 1700. The Tillamook divided their mythology into three categories; the earliest was the Myth Age, followed by the Age of Transformation, when the "South Wind" remade the land. The third age is the "period of true happenings", or events that happened in what the Tillamook considered recent history. Despite this, stories from the third age were considered just as much of a myth as those from the first or second. The Tillamook exercised
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
roles in numerous ways. During infancy, children were named at an ear-piercing ceremony where boys had their nasal septa pierced. If the infant had older siblings, they were required to stay away for at least a week for fear that their presence would swell the ear of the infant and cause its death. Throughout childhood, boys and girls were rarely punished. Certain activities were emphasized depending on the person's
sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...
. A boy's first food kill and a girl's first gathered food were reserved for the elderly. At the onset of
puberty Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy. ...
, girls were secluded and underwent a series of ritual behaviors and food taboos. One such ritual was an all-night guardian spirit
vigil A vigil, from the Latin ''vigilia'' meaning ''wakefulness'' (Greek: ''pannychis'', or ''agrypnia'' ), is a period of purposeful sleeplessness, an occasion for devotional watching, or an observance. The Italian word ''vigilia'' has become genera ...
in the woods, during which the girl repeatedly bathed in a cold stream in an attempt to gain guardian spirits. For boys, fasting and guardian spirit quests that included bathing became important. A boy's power and adult occupation were equated with the spirit he obtained through the quest. Boys and girls activated spirit powers acquired from their guardian only at middle age. Tillamook adults distinguished themselves further with fashion as both sexes painted their central hair part red, but men wore their hair in a single braid, while women would have two braids. Men and women also had tattoos and wore ear pendants according to their preference.
Marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...
s among the Tillamook were arranged with services being exchanged between the two families according to their status. Initial residence was in the groom's parents’ village. If men acquired high status, they might have sought more than one wife. Illegitimate births were a common result of the arranged marriage process and led to a high occurrence of
infanticide Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose is the prevention of reso ...
.


Today

Some Nekelim people are enrolled in either the
federally recognized This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...
Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians of Oregon or the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon.Pritzker 208 Other Nehalem are part of the unrecognized Clatsop Nehalem Confederated Tribes. The Bald Point archaeological site preserves some aspects of the Tillamook culture. The city of
Tillamook Tillamook may refer to: Places: * Tillamook County, Oregon, United States * Tillamook, Oregon, a city, the seat of Tillamook County * Tillamook River, United States * Tillamook Bay, a bay in the northwestern part of Oregon * Tillamook Head, a natu ...
and Tillamook County in Oregon are named in the tribe’s honor.


See also

*
Tsin-is-tum Tsin-is-tum, also known as Jennie Michel (c. 1814–1905, Clatsop), was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American folklore, folklorist based on the Pacific Coast of Oregon. Called "Last of the Clatsops" at the time of her death in 19 ...


Footnotes


Further reading

* Boas, Franz. "Traditions of the Tillamook Indians," '' Journal of American Folklore'', v. 11 (1898), pp. 23–38. * Crawford, Ailsa. ''Tillamook Indian Basketry: Continuity and Change as Seen in The Adams Collection.'' MA thesis. Portland State University, Department of Anthropology, 1983. * Jacobs, Elizabeth Derr. ''Nehalem Tillamook Tales.'' Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Books, 1959. * Pritzker, Barry M. ''A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. * Sauter, John and Johnson, Bruce. ''Tillamook Indians of the Oregon Coast.'' Portland, OR: Binfords and Mort, 1974. * Seaburg, William (ed.) ''The Nehalem Tillamook: An Ethnography.'' Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2003. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tillamook People Native American tribes in Oregon Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians