The Klickitat were noted for being active and enterprising traders, and served as intermediaries between the coastal tribes and those living east of the Cascade Mountains.
Name
The ethnonymKlikitat is said to derive from a Chinookan word meaning "beyond," in reference to the Rocky Mountains. The Klickitat, however, call themselves Qwû'lh-hwai-pûm or χwálχwaypam, meaning "prairie people" (X̣ʷáɬx̣ʷaypam).[1]
The Yakama called them Xwálxwaypam or L'ataxat. Other names for the Klickitat include:
The ancestral lands of the Klickitat were situated north of the Columbia River, at the headwaters of the Cowlitz, Lewis, White Salmon, and Klickitat rivers, in present-day Klickitat and Skamania Counties. They occupied their later base after the Yakama crossed this river. In 1805, the Klickitat were encountered by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Lewis and Clark found them wintering on the Yakima and Klickitat Rivers and estimated their number at about 700.
In the early 1850s, the Klickitat Tribe raided present-day Jackson County, Oregon from the north and settled the area. Modoc, Shasta, Takelma, Latgawas, and Umpqua Indian tribes had already lived within the present boundaries of that county.
Between 1820 and 1830, an epidemic of fever struck the tribes of the Willamette Valley. The Klickitat took advantage of the drop in population in this region and crossed the Columbia River and occupied territory occupied by the Umpqua. This was not permanent, however, as they were pushed back to their original homeland.
Despite accepting the un-ratified Treaty in 1855, the Kilkitats were reported to have surrounded the city during the Battle of Seattle on January 26, 1856.[2]
The Klickitats were noted to trade salmon, roots, and berries and to have two chiefs within the tribe who welcomed Lewis and Clark in their arrival.
Klickitat villages mentioned in historical sources
Tgasgutcu: occupied jointly with the Chilluckquittequaw Tribe, said to be about 34 miles west of long high mountain opposite Mosier, Oregon, and about 1 mile above White Salmon Landing but the exact location seems to be in doubt.
Nettie Kuneki, Elsie Thomas, and Marie Slockish, The Heritage of Klickitat Basketry: A History and Art Preserved. Portland, OR: Oregon Historical Society, 1982.
Selma M Neils and Greg Holly, The Klickitat Indians. Portland: Binford and Mort, 1985.
The Nez Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region has been occupied for at least 11,500 years.
The Yakama are a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in eastern Washington state.
The term Cowlitz people covers two culturally and linguistically distinct indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest; the Lower Cowlitz or Cowlitz proper, and the Upper Cowlitz / Cowlitz Klickitat or Taitnapam. Lower Cowlitz refers to a southwestern Coast Salish people, which today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes: Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Quinault Indian Nation, and Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation. The Upper Cowlitz or Taitnapam, is a Northwest Sahaptin speaking people, part of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation.
Chinookan peoples include several groups of Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest in the United States who speak the Chinookan languages. Since at least 4000 BCE Chinookan peoples have resided along the Lower and Middle Columbia River (Wimahl) from the river's gorge downstream (west) to the river's mouth, and along adjacent portions of the coasts, from Tillamook Head of present-day Oregon in the south, north to Willapa Bay in southwest Washington. In 1805 the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Chinook Tribe on the lower Columbia.
Gifford Pinchot National Forest is a National Forest located in southern Washington, managed by the United States Forest Service. With an area of 1.32 million acres (5300 km2), it extends 116 km (72 mi) along the western slopes of Cascade Range from Mount Rainier National Park to the Columbia River. The forest straddles the crest of the South Cascades of Washington State, spread out over broad, old growth forests, high mountain meadows, several glaciers, and numerous volcanic peaks. The forest's highest point is at 12,276 ft (3,742 m) at the top of Mount Adams, the second tallest volcano in the state after Rainier. Often found abbreviated GPNF on maps and in texts, it includes the 110,000-acre (450 km2) Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, established by Congress in 1982.
The Multnomah are a tribe of Chinookan people who live in the area of Portland, Oregon, in the United States. Multnomah villages were located throughout the Portland basin and on both sides of the Columbia River. The Multnomah speak a dialect of the Upper Chinookan language in the Oregon Penutian family.
The Lewis River is a tributary of the Columbia River, about 95 miles (153 km) long, in southwestern Washington in the United States. It drains part of the Cascade Range north of the Columbia River. The drainage basin of the Lewis River covers about 1,046 square miles (2,709 km2). The river's mean annual discharge is about 6,125 cubic feet per second (173.4 m3/s). Unlike nearby Lewis County and Fort Lewis the Lewis River was not named for Meriwether Lewis, but rather for A. Lee Lewis, an early colonizer who homesteaded near the mouth of the river.
The Clackamas Indians are a tribe of Native Americans of the U.S. state of Oregon who traditionally lived along the Clackamas River in the Willamette Valley. Lewis and Clark estimated their population at 1800 in 1806. At the time the tribe lived in 12 villages that occupied from the lower Columbia River to an area what is now called Oregon City. They resided towards the east side of the Willamette River given this length of land. In February 1841, Reverend François Norbert Blanchet and Reverend Alvin F. Waller converted Clackamas Chief Popoh.
Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau, also referred to by the phrase Indigenous peoples of the Plateau, and historically called the Plateau Indians are indigenous peoples of the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, and the non-coastal regions of the Northwestern United States.
The history of Washington includes thousands of years of Native American history before Europeans arrived and began to establish territorial claims. The region was part of Oregon Territory from 1848 to 1853, after which it was separated from Oregon and established as Washington Territory following the efforts at the Monticello Convention. On November 11, 1889, Washington became the 42nd state of the United States.
The Yakima War (1855–1858), also referred to as the Plateau War or Yakima Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama, a Sahaptian-speaking people of the Northwest Plateau, then part of Washington Territory, and the tribal allies of each. It primarily took place in the southern interior of present-day Washington. Isolated battles in western Washington and the northern Inland Empire are sometimes separately referred to as the Puget Sound War and the Coeur d'Alene War, respectively.
The Sahaptin are a number of Native American tribes who speak dialects of the Sahaptin language. The Sahaptin tribes inhabited territory along the Columbia River and its tributaries in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Sahaptin-speaking peoples included the Klickitat, Kittitas, Yakama, Wanapum, Palus, Lower Snake, Skinpah, Walla Walla, Umatilla, Tenino, and Nez Perce.
Sahaptin or Shahaptin, endonym Ichishkin, is one of the two-language Sahaptian branch of the Plateau Penutian family spoken in a section of the northwestern plateau along the Columbia River and its tributaries in southern Washington, northern Oregon, and southwestern Idaho, in the United States; the other language is Nez Perce or Niimi'ipuutímt.
Kamiakin (1800–1877) (Yakama) was a leader of the Yakama, Palouse, and Klickitat peoples east of the Cascade Mountains in what is now southeastern Washington state. In 1855, he was disturbed by threats of the Territorial Governor, Isaac Stevens, against the tribes of the Columbia Plateau. After being forced to sign a treaty of land cessions, Kamiakin organized alliances with 14 other tribes and leaders, and led the Yakima War of 1855–1858.
Wasco-Wishram are two closely related Chinook Indian tribes from the Columbia River in Oregon. Today the tribes are part of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs living in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation living in the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington.
Wishram Village, referred to as nixlúidix by its residents, was a summer and winter village on the Columbia River, Washington, United States occupied by Upper Chinook people. It is considered the largest prehistoric Chinook village site. The site is now part of Columbia Hills State Park.
The Kathlamet people are a tribe of Native American people with a historic homeland along the Columbia River in what is today southwestern Washington state. The Kathlamet people originally spoke the Kathlamet language, a dialect of the Chinookan language. They were also called "Guasámas, or Guithlamethl, by the Clackamas", and "Kwillu'chini, by the Chinook."
Binford & Mort Publishing is a book publishing company located in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1930, the company was previously known as Metropolitan Press and Binfords & Mort. At one time they were the largest book publisher in the Pacific Northwest. The privately owned company focuses on books from the Pacific Northwest, and has printed many important titles covering Oregon's history.
The Native American peoples of Oregon are the set of Indigenous peoples who have inhabited or who still inhabit the area delineated in today's state of Oregon in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. While the state of Oregon currently maintains relations with nine federally recognized tribal groups, the state was previously home to a much larger number of autonomous tribal groups, which today either no longer exist or have been absorbed into these larger confederated entities. Six of the nine tribes gained federal recognition in the late 20th century, after undergoing the termination and restoration of their treaty rights starting in the 1950s.
The Skinpah were a Sahaptin-speaking people of the Tenino dialect living along the northern bank of the Columbia River in what is now south-central Washington. They were first recorded as the E-nee-shers in 1805 by Lewis and Clark. Their village, Sk'in, was located adjacent to Celilo Falls in modern day Klickitat County.
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