Kalapuya Indians
From Lane Co Oregon
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Contents |
Fire Management
The Kalapuya significantly altered the surrounding natural landscape by setting fire to the prairie in the fall. Land adjacent to the Willamette River and other streams did not burn, allowing for maturation of trees and plants.
A party exploring the Willamette Valley in 1811 reported green, flower-covered prairies, riverbanks lined with oak and poplar, and hills in the distance. In 1826, David Douglas reported burning throughout much of the upper Willamette Valley. In the 1840s, immigrant settlers forced an end to the practice of large-scale burning. Palynological studies indicate the Willamette Valley has been dominated by oak savanna for more than 6000 years. Without fire management, the oak savanna would have given way to climax forests.
Burning was an important tool in both the collection and management of most species of plant food, e.g., camas, acorns, hazelnuts, tarweed, and grass seeds. It improved seed production, reduced brush undergrowth, and would have provided good habitat for tarweed, camas, hazelnuts, and acorns. The burning pattern produced an environmental mosaic, with an unusual abundance of edges optimum habitat for edge species, including white- and black-tailed deer., who were driven into areas of limited size where they could be killed.
Fire was used in the circle hunt of deer and made hunting more productive. The burning restricted feeding areas where animals congregated, thus making them more easily killed. Game was frequently stalked by a single hunter, disguised in a partial hide of the animal, including a head with antlers.
Burning of prairies also provided good opportunity for collecting roasted grasshoppers, which were a delicacy.
Relationship to the River
Groups stayed within a limited geographic area, such as the watershed of a major tributary of the Willamette River. Each band occupied its own valley or basin formed by one of the larger tributaries of Willamette River, and shared its own dialect and culture. Each major river valley offered a range of riparian, lowland, and upland habitat types.
Kalapuyans were denied access to the salmon "harvest." Chinooks to the north were more permanent and more structured socially because they could depend on fishing. Kalapuyans, too, were riverine oriented, but for different reasons. Kalapuyan life followed the cycles of the river. The Kalapuya were a people who were greatly influenced by and lived within the rhythms of nature and the seasons. What they ate and where they lived depended on the level of the river at any given time.
When the valley began to flood, people came together in winter villages, located on higher ground at the edge of the valley. As soon as floodwaters receded, they dispersed into smaller groups and moved to warm-season streamside camping areas. Deer, bear, raccoon, rabbit, beaver, muskrat, turtle, and squirrel were found at streamside sites. Rich floodplain soil produced abundant plant food, particularly the moisture-loving camas. Seasonal flooding may have contributed to maintaining the open nature of low-lying areas.
Sweat houses were often built near streams or rivers, and were used for purification purposes, to bring good luck, and to promote spiritual feelings.
The Kalapuya traveled on foot or by canoe made of cedar, fir or cottonwood. A whole tree was used for a canoe, which was 14-30 feet long. Canoes held from 4-30 people. Canoes were propelled with 3- to 4-foot cedar paddles; 10-foot long, 1_-inch diameter hardwood poles were used in riffles.
The Willamette River was called Multnomah below the Clackamas River. Above the Clackamas it was known as Wallama, which meant to "spill or pour water." Joseph Gale, a settler entering the Willamette Valley in 1838 who conversed with Kalapuyans in their language, reported that every group pronounced it the same: Walama, accent on the last syllable, dwell slightly on the final letter. He indicated that "et" and "ette" were added by the French, who were the first Europeans to have contact. According to Gale, "This word is used by them to discribt [sic] the River, and not as a noun merely to name it."
Skinner's Butte was known by the Kalapuya as Ya-Po-Ah, or "high place." These place names Ya-Po-Ah, Willamette pay small tribute to their long occupation of this territory.
Village Pattern
Archaeologists find three site types: low wet prairie (flood plain base camps), valley edge (hunting), and dry prairie (food processing; most subject to burning). The resources of each micro-environment prairie, marsh, deciduous forest, evergreen-deciduous woodland were within easy daily reach of inhabitants. The territory now known as Alton Baker Park was part of the range area. Its proximity to the river was ideal for fishing and food gathering.
Kalapuyans were seminomadic. Groups generally remained within a specific sub basin of the valley, moving on a seasonal round between winter villages and summer base camps. People congregated in large winter villages as soon as the flood waters began to rise, staying from mid-October to mid-March. Houses were pole structures with bark roofs surrounded by earthen banks; each held from four to ten families. During the remainder of the year, people divided into smaller bands to harvest food and hunt on the rich floodplains of the Willamette River. They did not build summer homes, but occasionally constructed windbreaks of fir boughs. Summer base camps were used for harvesting tasks and were frequently revisited over the centuries. From these locations winter villages or summer base camps smaller groups went to task-specific sites to exploit upland or lowland resources.
Stone tools were made of obsidian, CCS, basalt. (Rounded obsidian pieces and basalt could be found in the river.) Tools included points, knives, drills, scrapers, gravers, reamers, spokeshaves, hammerstones, choppers, anvils, scraper planes (used in woodworking), pestles, mortars, abraded stones, and small stone balls. Unusual tools included a crescent, edge ground cobble, notched stones. A wide variety of other tools and components were made of wood and sinew.
Winter was a time for story telling. Stories conveyed morals, beliefs, and world view to younger members of the band. Animals played a crucial role in Kalapuya life and mythology.
Kalapuyan sociopolitical structure was not at the tribe level; bands were not united under a single chief. Each village was autonomous with its own headman. The Kalapuya were a peaceful, non-warlike culture.
Bibliography
Aikens, C. Melvin., ed. Archaeological Studies in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. University of Oregon Anthropological Papers, No. 8, 1975.
Boyd, Robert, ed. Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific Northwest. Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 1999.
Beckham, Stephen Dow, Rick Minor, Kathryn Anne Toepel. Prehistory And History Of BLM Lands In West-Central Oregon : A Cultural Resource Overview. Eugene, Oregon : Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, 1981.
Carter, Elizabeth, Michelle Dennis. Eugene Area Historic Context Statement. Eugene, Or.: The City, 1996.
Cheatham, Richard D. The Fern Ridge Lake Archaeological Project, Lane County, Oregon, 1982-1984. Report to the Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Eugene, Oregon: Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, 1984.
Cheatham, Richard D. Late Archaic Settlement Pattern in the Long Tom Sub-Basin, Upper Willamette Valley, Oregon. Eugene, Oregon: Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, 1988.
Forester, Thomas B., ed., et al. The Cultural and Historic Landscapes of Lane County, Oregon : Summary Report of the 1986 Cultural and Historic Landscape Resource Survey. Eugene, Or. : The Survey, 1986
Mackey, Harold. The Kalapuyans. Salem, Oregon: Mission Mill Museum Association, 1974.
Walling, A.G. Illustrated History of Lane County. Portland, Oregon: A. G. Walling, 1884.
White, John Robert. Prehistoric Sites of the Upper Willamette Valley: A Proposed Typology. Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon, 1974.
