Yakama Explained

Group:Yakama
Total:10,851
Total Year:2000 Census
Popplace:United States
Rels:Christianity, Indian religions
Langs:English, Ichishkíin Sínwit
Related:Klickitat

The Yakama are a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in eastern Washington state.

Yakama people today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Their 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, including within land ceded by the tribe to the United States. Their right to fish in their former territory is protected by treaties and was re-affirmed in late 20th-century court cases such as United States v. Washington (known as the Boldt Decision, 1974) and United States v. Oregon (Sohappy v. Smith, 1969), though more than a century of U.S. industrial pollution has contaminated these waterways with dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.[1] The Columbia Basin Initiative aims to improve salmon-fishing for the tribe.

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".[2]

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. The Yakama identify as the Mamachatpam.

Historic Yakama Band and Territories

″Yakima″ or ″Yakama″ was first a collective term for five (originally six) regional bands who spoke the same language or dialect of Sahaptin, also known as Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit (″this language″). Usually they named the individual bands, village groups, local groups, and rivers after a specific rock formation, their main camps, or after an important village or fishing site.

The English names of the following local rivers were derived from Sahaptin: the Klickitat, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Palouse, Yakima, Satus, Toppenish, Tieton, and Wenatchee (in each case the original native term referred not to the river itself, which generally was left unnamed):[3] [4]

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/Chem-na-pum, 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

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[8] and the Yakima War of 1855, the tribe was forced to cede much of their land and move onto their present reservation.[9] 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, todays Crow Butte, Washington, opposite of Boardman, Oregon), 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)),[10] 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.[11]

Language

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".[12]

Notable Yakama people

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Miller . Tony Schick,Maya . The U.S. Promised Tribes They Would Always Have Fish, but the Fish They Have Pose Toxic Risks . November 22, 2022 . ProPublica . en.
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20140611061726/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3048800075.html "Yakama," U*X*L Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, U*X*L. 2008.
  3. THE GRISSOM SITE (45KT301): A REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS OF INVESTIGATIONS AND EXPLORATION OF THE SITE'S RESEARCH POTENTIAL. R. P. A.. Holly Shea M. S.. www.academia.edu.
  4. http://faculty.washington.edu/hunn/vitae/Sahaptin_placenames_JLA.pdf Sahaptin placenames – Columbia Plateau Indian Place Names: What Can They Teach Us?
  5. Web site: Greater Yakima Chamber of Commerce :: About Yakima :: Location and History. www.yakima.org.
  6. Web site: Federal Register, Volume 71 Issue 212 (Thursday, November 2, 2006). www.govinfo.gov.
  7. Web site: Yakima Valley Museum:Dark Times, Bright Visions. yakimavalleymuseum.org.
  8. Trafzer . Clifford E. . Fall 2005 . Legacy of the Walla Walla Council, 1955 . Oregon Historical Quarterly . 106 . 3 . 398–411 . 10.1353/ohq.2005.0006 . 166019157 . 0030-4727.
  9. http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/tribal/wa_tribal_ceeded_lands.pdf Tribal Ceded Areas in Washington State
  10. http://faculty.washington.edu/hunn/vitae/Yakam_U_and_A_draft.pdf 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
  11. Web site: Treaty with the Yakama, 1855 . . April 24, 2007 . September 3, 2020 . Note that while the Tribe's name is spelled 'Yakama' in the treaty, the spelling 'Yakima' later became common, and is still used in the names of the river, county, and city derived from the tribal name, but in 1994 the Yakima Tribe changed the spelling of its name back to the original Yakama Tribe..
  12. [Virginia Beavert|Beavert, Virginia]

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