Yakama

Yakama

Yakama Warrior ca. 1913,
photographed by Lucullus V. McWhorter
Total population
(10,851 (2000 Census))
Regions with significant populations
United States ( Washington (state) Washington)
Languages
English, Ichishkíin Sínwit
Related ethnic groups
Klickitat Tribe Klickitat

The Yakama is a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, inhabiting Washington state.

Yakama people today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The Yakama Indian Reservation, along the Yakima River, covers an area of approximately 1.2 million acres (5,260 km²). Today the nation is governed by the Yakama Tribal Council, which consists of representatives of 14 tribes.

Many Yakama people engage in ceremonial, subsistence, and commercial fishing for salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon in the Columbia River and its tributaries within land ceded by the tribe to the United States. Their right to fish is protected by treaties and has been re-affirmed in late 20th-century court cases such as United States v. Washington (the Boldt Decision, 1974) and United States v. Oregon (Sohappy v. Smith, 1969).

Etymology

Scholars disagree on the origins of the name Yakama. The Sahaptin words, 'E-yak-ma,' means "a growing family", and iyakima, means "pregnant ones". Other scholars note the word, yákama, which means "black bear," or ya-ki-ná, which means "runaway".[1]

They have also been referred to as the Waptailnsim, "people of the narrow river" and Pa’kiut’lĕma, "people of the gap" which describes the tribe's location along the Yakima River.[1] The Yakama refer to themselves as the Mamachatpam.[1]

Historic Yakama Band and Territories

″Yakima″ or ″Yakama″ was first a collective term for five (original six) regional bands speaking the same language or dialect of Sahaptin or Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit (″this language″); usually the individual bands, village groups or local groups were named after the rivers where they had their main camps or after an important village or fishing site:[2]

Their lands lay within the Yakima Rivers (in Yakama: Tapteal - ″rapids″ because of the waterfalls at Prosser, Washington) watershed and for the most part east of the Cascade Range, to the south along the northern tributaries of the Columbia River (in Yakama: Nch’i-Wána - ″great river″) (here the Yakama bands frequently lived in bilingual villages together with Southern/Columbia River Sahaptin-speaking bands: Umatilla, Skin-pah/Skin, Tenino/Warm Springs), to the southwest along the Lower Snake River and Columbia River (here the Yakama bands lived also in bilingual villages together with Lower Snake River Sahaptin-speaking local groups of Chamnapam, Wauyukma and Naxiyampam), to the northeast their tribal territories ranged up to the Wenatchee River (because of frequently intermarriages some of the originally Interior Salish-speaking Wenatchi bands switched to Sahaptin as first language), in the north to the lakes of Cle Elum Lake (after the Upper Yakama / Kittitas name Tie-el-Lum, meaning "swift water", referring to the Cle Elum River), Kachess Lake ("more fish") and Keechelus Lake ("few fish") at the headwaters of the Yakima River (with the directly northwest living Coast-Salish-speaking Snoqualmie the Yakama bands kept family ties), in the west across the Cascade Range to the headwaters of the Cowlitz River (shch'il), Lewis River ((wl'ɫt'kh) and White Salmon River (where there were also family ties with Coast-Salish-speaking Lower Cowlitz and Upper Chinookan/Kiksht-speaking Wasco-Wishram).

History

Yakima woman, ca. 1911

The Yakama people are similar to the other native inhabitants of the Columbia River Plateau. They were hunters and gatherers well known for trading salmon harvested from annual runs in the Columbia River. In 1805 or 1806, they encountered the Lewis and Clark Expedition at the confluence of the Yakima River and Columbia River.

As a consequence of the Walla Walla Council[7] and the Yakima War of 1855, the tribe was forced to cede much of their land and move onto their present reservation.[8] The Treaty of 1855 identified the 14 confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama, including "Yakama (Lower Yakama or Yakama proper, autonym: Mámachatpam), Palouse (now written Palus, Yakama name: Pelúuspem), Pisquouse (P'squosa, now Wenatchi), Wenatshapam (Yakama name: Winátshapam, now Wenatchi), Klikatat (Yakama name: Xwálxwaypam or L'ataxat), Klinquit (a Yakama subtribe), Kow-was-say-ee (Yakama name: Kkáasu-i or K'kasawi, Tenino subtribe), Li-ay-was (not identified), Skin-pah (Sk'in tribe or Sawpaw, also known as Fall Bridge and Rock Creek people or K'milláma, a Tenino subtribe; perhaps another Yakama name for the Umatilla, which were known as Rock Creek Indians), Wish-ham (Yakama name: Wíshχam, now Wishram, speaking Upper Chinook (Kiksht)),[9] Shyiks (a Yakama subtribe), Ochechotes (Uchi'chol, a Tenino subtribe), Kah-milt-pay (Kahmiltpah, Q’míl-pa or Qamil'lma, perhaps a Klikatat subtribe), and Se-ap-cat (Si'apkat, perhaps a Kittitas (Upper Yakama) subtribe, Kittitas autonym: Pshwánapam or Psch-wan-wap-pams), confederated tribes and bands of Indians, occupying lands hereinafter bounded and described and lying in Washington Territory, who for the purposes of this treaty are to be considered as one nation, under the name 'Yakama'…". (Treaty with the Yakama, 1855) The name was changed from Yakima to Yakama in 1994 to reflect the native pronunciation.

Language

Yakama tipi, by Edward Curtis, 1910

Yakama is a northwestern dialect of Sahaptin, a Sahaptian language of the Plateau Penutian family. Since the late 20th century, some native speakers have argued to use the traditional Yakama name for this language, Ichishkíin Sínwit. The tribal Cultural Resources program wants to replace the word Sahaptin, which means "stranger in the land".[10]

Notable Yakama people

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "Yakama," U*X*L Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, U*X*L. 2008. Retrieved August 14, 2012 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3048800075.html
  2. ↑ Holly Ann Cecilia Shea: The Grissom Site: A Review and Synthesis of Investigations and Exploration of the Site's Research Potential
  3. ↑ Department of the Interior - National Park Service - Notice of Intent To Repatriate Cultural Items: Thomas Burke
  4. ↑ Yakima Valley Museum - Traditional Life
  5. ↑ Another interpretation is that the bread made from the root kous was called kit-tit. Kous grew in the Kittitas Valley. “Tash” is g(enerally accepted to mean “place of existence.”
  6. ↑ another version for the origin of the tribal name Klickitat is probably a Chinookan word meaning "beyond" in reference to the Rocky Mountains
  7. ↑ Trafzer, Clifford E. (Fall 2005). "Legacy of the Walla Walla Council, 1955". Oregon Historical Quarterly. 106 (3): 398–411. ISSN 0030-4727.
  8. ↑ Tribal Ceded Areas in Washington State
  9. ↑ Eugene Hunn: Anthropological Study of Yakama Tribe: Traditional Resource Harvest Sites West of the Crest of the Cascades Mountains in Washington State and below the Cascades of the Columbia River, October 11, 2003
  10. ↑ Beavert, Virginia and Hargus, Sharon Ichishkíin sínwit yakama = Yakima Sahaptin dictionary. Toppenish, Wash. : Heritage University ; Seattle : in association with the University of Washington Press, 2009; 492 pp. OCLC 268797329

References

Further reading

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