The Watlala are a group of

Chinookan The Chinookan languages were a small family of languages spoken in Oregon and Washington (state), Washington along the Columbia River by Chinook peoples. Although the last known native speaker of any Chinookan language died in 2012, the 2009-2013 ...

-speaking Native Americans. They inhabited the meadows of Sams Walker Day Use Site, near

Skamania, Washington Skamania is a small unincorporated community in Skamania County in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Washington. History The Stevenson area has been home to Native American settlements for thousands of years. Their villages were foc ...

, and St. Cloud Ranch Day Use Site. An interpretive sign at Sams Walker states that the Watlata lived in earth-sheltered cedar plank homes. Another reports that they used

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist s ...

branches to construct temporary structures. Also called the Cascade Indians, they were a Chinookian tribe who lived at the Cascades of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

and the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

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 ...

. They fished and hunted the animals in the Cascade. In 1805-06 Lewis and Clark estimated that they numbered about 2,800 and in 1870, along with the Wasco, they had an estimated population of about 3,200. As there were also other tribes lived at or near the cascades and the people were very changeable due to the location being a popular fishing spot, it was impossible to identify them with certainty. Several other known bands, which may have been the Watlala or later have been included under them, included the Cathlakaheckit, Cathlathlala, Cathlayackty, Clahclellah, Katlagakya, Yehuh. In 1829, the Native Americans of the region suffered an epidemic which was called "ague fever," of unknown nature, which killed in a single summer, some four-fifths of the population. Whole villages disappeared and those that were left were consolidated. After the epidemic, the Watlala seemed to have been the only remaining tribe, the remnants of the others having probably united under that name, though they were commonly called Cascade Indians by the whites. In 1854 they were reported to number only 80 people, and in 1855 they joined in the Wasco Treaty under the name of the "Ki-gal-twal-la band of the Wascoes" and the "Dog River band of the Wasco," and were removed to the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon. Afterwards, they were no longer enumerated separately and of those that didn't join the Wasco, were thought to have joined the Wishram tribe.

External links and references

Sams Walker Day Use Site

Native American tribes in Washington (state) {{NorthAm-native-stub