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The Multnomah are a tribe of Chinookan people who live in the area of Portland, Oregon, in the United States. [1] 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 Multnomah people are a band of the Chinookan peoples who originally resided on and near Sauvie Island in Oregon. [2] The Multnomah and the related Clackamas tribes lived in a series of villages along the river near the mouth of the Willamette River on the Columbia River (the Willamette was also called the "Multnomah" in the early 19th century). According to archaeologists, the villages in the area were home to approximately 3,400 people year-round, and as many as 8,000 during fishing and wappato-harvesting seasons (wappato is a marsh-grown plant like a potato or onion and a staple food).
In 1830, a disease generally thought to have been malaria devastated the Multnomah villages. [2] Within five years, the village of Cathlapotle was abandoned and was briefly inhabited by the Cowlitz tribe. The Multnomah people had nearly been wiped out by the year 1834 due to malaria and smallpox outbreaks. With only a few Multnomah left by the year 1910, the remaining people were transferred to the Grand Ronde Community which is also located in the Northwest of Oregon. [3]
In 1854 Multnomah County became an official part of Oregon. [4] The Multnomah people were located in today's Multnomah County, but more specifically, they inhabited Sauvie Island on the Columbia River. The Native American term for Sauvie Island was Wappatoo Island. The Multnomah people shared Sauvie Island with other Chinook tribes under the collective name The Cathlascans. [5] Furthermore, the Multnomah people were considered “upper Chinook” and spoke the Wasco-wishram language. [6]
One of the larger villages, Cathlapotle, was located in present-day Clark County, Washington at the confluence of the Lewis River with the Columbia River and was visited by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805. According to their journals, Lewis and Clark found 14 houses in the village, most of them ranging from 14-by-20 ft (4.3 m by 6.0 m) to about 40-by-100 ft (12 m by 30 m). They reported that approximately 900 people lived in the villages. The Cathlacomatup were a group of Multnomah that resided along the Multnomah Channel at the Wappatoo Inlet. [8] Lewis and Clark came into contact with the Cathalacomatup in 1805. [9] [10]
The Multnomah people received their name from their chief. Yet, the existence of their great chief named Multnomah has been up for debate. Other Native American tribes in the Columbia River Valley area spoke of him in their oral history, while Oregon historians dismissed him as just a myth. [11] Therefore, there is conflicting evidence of whether or not he was real. The Oregon Historical Society had multiple presidents throughout the 1900s who dismissed him as only an imagined chief. However, on top of the oral descriptions of him there were writings including newspapers and journals, which indicate he was indeed real. [11]
Multnomah was the chief of tribes ranging across much of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Canada, and, during his 40 years of power, he was chief of the Willamettes, as well as war chief of the tribes and communities of Wauna, Oregon, ruling from his station on what is known today as Sauvie Island. [11]
Ann Fulton, a history professor at Portland State University, found and collected much of what is known of Chief Multnomah from many written stories. She documented this in her paper The Restoration of an Iłkák'mana: A Chief Called Multnomah. She hoped to bring more awareness to his existence. Particular accounts came from people such as William Tappan and Dr. Elijah White, both agents of Indian tribes. [11] The many verbal and written accounts of Chief Multnomah were similar. He was regarded highly, and many stated that while he was a warrior chief, he was very respected among his people.
It is believed that the end of Chief Multnomah's reign occurred with the eruption of Mount Hood during the 1780s. [11] In 1792, Captain George Vancouver and his crew did not encounter Chief Multnomah along their expedition, according to their records, however, later in 1805 when Lewis and Clark reached Sauvie Island they wrote of the “mulknomah” people. [11] This referenced Chief Multnomah, as well as the group of tribes that made up his people.
The houses of the Multnomah, like the other Chinookan peoples, were largely longhouses made of Western Redcedar planks. The size of a home depended on the wealth of the owner, with the larger houses furnishing living quarters for up to 100 people. Within each house, a particular family had a separate cubicle separated by woven mats. Each family had its own fire, with the families also sharing a communal central fire in the household.
The Multnomah diet included salmon, eels, sturgeon, elk, water birds and especially wapato.
In one legend described in Jeanne Eder's The Bridge of Gods, the name for the Multnomah people came from a dispute between two brothers. [12]
According to Eder's version of the story, the Great Spirit, who maintained no physical form, took care of the world's people. Although everyone was content, the two brothers were not satisfied. The Great Spirit brought the siblings to the top of a mountain that overlooked their land. He told the brothers to shoot an arrow in opposite directions, and the Great Spirit allowed each brother to claim their land and chief hood based on where their arrows landed.
What is now called the Columbia River became the dividing border between the two brothers’ land claims. The first brother's arrow landed in the Willamette Valley where he became Chief Multnomah of the Multnomah people. The second arrow landed north of the river in what is now modern day Klickitat County where he became chief of the Klickitat people.
According to Wasco legend, the daughter of Chief Multnomah sacrificed herself to the Great Spirit from the top of Multnomah Falls. Tribes along the Columbia River celebrated the marriage of the Chief's daughter to a neighboring tribe. The happiness didn't last long, however, before the area experienced an illness that affected all of the tribes along the river. The medicine man claimed the Great Spirit told him all of the tribe would die unless the Spirit received a sacrifice; the Chief's daughter's life. The Chief wouldn't allow it, but when the daughter saw the sickness affect her loved ones, she willingly left in the middle of the night to go to the top of the cliff overlooking the Columbia River. She threw herself off the cliff. When the Chief found his daughter's body, he prayed to the Great Spirit for a sign that her spirit was well. Water began pouring from the cliff and became known as Multnomah Falls. [13]
Most of the Multnomah people who are still alive today reside in the Grand Ronde Federation and Warm Springs Indian Reservation, but the Multnomah no longer exist as a distinct tribe or people.
Many locations in the Pacific Northwest can accredit their names to the Multnomah people. Multnomah County takes its designation from this Native American word. It can also be found in the titles of the Multnomah Athletic Club, Multnomah Falls, Multnomah Village, and the statue of Chief Multnomah in a Portland park. [11]
Located in Portland, Oregon, Washington Park features a statue of Chief Multnomah called Coming of the White Man . The bronze statue was erected in 1904 by the sculptor Hermon Atkins MacNeil. [14] He drew inspiration from the popularity of Frederic Balch's book Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon, which took the stories Balch had heard from Native Americans while growing up and embellished them. [11] The statue features two Native Americans looking eastward along the Oregon Trail. The two men look down upon the route that ox teams trudged bringing settlers to the western United States. The older of the two men is said to be Chief Multnomah of the Multnomah people. The statue was donated to the city of Portland from the descendants of David P. Thompson. MacNeil went on the make other statuettes of Chief Multnomah.
The inspiration and the name of this sculpture comes from Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition across the United States. In 1805, upon arriving in Oregon, Lewis and Clark encountered a village. The men described the village of Native Americans who were known as “mulknomahs” encamped on Sauvie Island, and they originally referred to the now Willamette River as the Mulknoma. [11]
Chief Multnomah was also depicted on linen postcards during the 1900s around 1930 and 1945. He is shown in colorful, traditional clothing. A print is currently part of The Tichnor Brothers Collection from the Boston Public Library. It is part of a series of Oregon related postcards and published by Angelus Commercial Studio of Portland, Oregon. [15]
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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 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population, including the state capital, Salem, and the state's largest city, Portland, which surrounds the Willamette's mouth at the Columbia.
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 upper 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.
Sauvie Island, in the U.S. state of Oregon, originally Wapato Island or Wappatoo Island, is the largest island along the Columbia River, at 26,000 acres (10,522 ha), and one of the largest river islands in the United States. It lies approximately ten miles northwest of downtown Portland, between the Columbia River to the east, the Multnomah Channel to the west, and the Willamette River to the south. A large portion of the island is designated as the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area. Sturgeon Lake, in the north central part of the island, is the most prominent water feature. The land area is 32.75 square miles (84.8 km2), or 20,959 acres (8,482 ha). Most of the island is in Multnomah County, but the northern third is in Columbia County. The Wapato Bridge provides access across the Multnomah Channel from U.S. Route 30 and was completed in June 2008, replacing the first bridge to connect the island to the mainland which was opened on December 30, 1950.
The Clatsop are 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 River south to Tillamook Head, Oregon.
The Clackamas Indians are a band of Chinook of Native Americans who historically lived along the Clackamas River in the Willamette Valley, Oregon.
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 Molala are a Native American people of Oregon that originally resided in the Western Cascades. There are few recorded sources about the Molala, the majority being unpublished manuscripts. This assortment includes the works of Albert S. Gatschet, Franz Boas, Leo J. Frachtenberg, Philip Drucker, Melville Jacobs, and Leslie Spier.
The Multnomah Channel is a 21.5-mile (34.6 km) distributary of the Willamette River. It diverges from the main stem a few miles upstream of the main stem's confluence with the Columbia River in Multnomah County in the U.S. state of Oregon. The channel flows northwest then north around Sauvie Island to meet the Columbia River near the city of St. Helens, in Columbia County.
The Klickitat are a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest. Today most Klickitat are enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, some are also part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon.
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.
Comcomly (1765–1830) was a Native American leader of the Lower Chinook, a group of Chinookan peoples indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, who inhabited the area near Ilwaco, Washington. Concomly spoke Lower Chinook and was known for his skill with diplomacy and trade.
Upper Chinook, endonym Kiksht, also known as Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its last surviving dialect, is a recently extinct language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers in 1990, of whom 7 were monolingual: five Wasco and two Wishram. In 2001, there were five remaining speakers of Wasco.
Tryon Creek is a 4.85-mile (7.81 km) tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the drainage basin of the Columbia River, its watershed covers about 6.5 square miles (16.8 km2) in Multnomah and Clackamas counties. The stream flows southeast from the Tualatin Mountains through the Multnomah Village neighborhood of Portland and the Tryon Creek State Natural Area to the Willamette in the city of Lake Oswego. Parks and open spaces cover about 21 percent of the watershed, while single-family homes dominate most of the remainder. The largest of the parks is the state natural area, which straddles the border between the two cities and counties.
The Wapato Bridge, formerly known as the Sauvie Island Bridge, crosses the Multnomah Channel of the Willamette River near Portland, Oregon, United States. The original Parker truss bridge, built in 1950 with a 200-foot (61 m) main span, was replaced with a tied arch bridge with a 360-foot (110 m) span in 2008 due to cracks discovered in 2001.
The Sauvie Island Wildlife Area is a state game management area on Sauvie Island in the U.S. state of Oregon. It contains more than 12,000 acres (4,856 ha) for mixed use including hunting, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, birdwatching and hiking. Established in 1974, it is located in both Multnomah and Columbia counties.
Balch Creek is a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Beginning at the crest of the Tualatin Mountains, the creek flows generally east down a canyon along Northwest Cornell Road in unincorporated Multnomah County and through the Macleay Park section of Forest Park, a large municipal park in Portland. At the lower end of the park, the stream enters a pipe and remains underground until reaching the river. Danford Balch, after whom the creek is named, settled a land claim along the creek in the mid-19th century. After murdering his son-in-law, he became the first person legally hanged in Oregon.
The Columbia Slough is a narrow waterway, about 19 miles (31 km) long, in the floodplain of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Oregon. From its source in the Portland suburb of Fairview, the Columbia Slough meanders west through Gresham and Portland to the Willamette River, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Willamette's confluence with the Columbia. It is a remnant of the historic wetlands between the mouths of the Sandy River to the east and the Willamette River to the west. Levees surround much of the main slough as well as many side sloughs, detached sloughs, and nearby lakes. Drainage district employees control water flows with pumps and floodgates. Tidal fluctuations cause reverse flow on the lower slough.
The Tillamook are a Native American tribe from coastal Oregon of the Salish linguistic group. The name "Tillamook" is a Chinook language term meaning "people of [the village] Nekelim ", sometimes it is given as a Coast Salish term, meaning "Land of Many Waters". The Tillamook tribe consists of several divisions and dialects, including :
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."
Nemalquinner was a Native American settlement inhabited by a band of Chinookan peoples on the east bank of the Willamette River near what is now the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon in the United States about 2 miles (3.2 km) upstream of where the Willamette River enters the Columbia River. When encountered by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in April 1806, it was reported to have one large longhouse, a few smaller ones, and a population between 100 and 200 people. People dwelling near Willamette Falls upstream would come here to gather wapato roots.
