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About Siletz news / (Siletz, OR) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 2001)
JOB OPENINGS CTSI Job Openings Position: Programs Clerk Location: Siletz, Oregon Salary: $10.20 per hour Opening date: 5/1/01 Closing date: 6/22/01 Position: Bookkeeper I Location: Siletz, Oregon Salary: $14 per hour Opening date: 4/27/01 Closing date: 6/8/01 Position: Groundskeeper Location: Siletz, Oregon Salary: $10.20 per hour Opening date: 5/3/01 Closing date: 6/11/01 Call the Job Line at 541-444-8296 or 1-800-922-1399 for a tribal application. Dispute, con’t from page 9 Tututunne Title: Ethnographic Notes on the Tututni Indians (Rogue River) Author: Cora A. DuBois Orator: There was man in Tutoten who always preached to the people. He told them to be good, not to fight, not to be mean. He stood outside and everybody went to listen to him. He said people should not step over his words. He knew lots of high words; he tried to teach the young people. He was not a rich man, he was not a chief, he was just a man who knew how to talk well. After a feud has been settled with the payment of a weregeld, he tells the people not to fight anymore. ♦Weregeld: Blood Money - (payment for injury or death). Murder: When they kill a man, the man who did the killing pays the relatives of the dead man. Weregeld: Less for a poor person than a rich. If a poor man kills a rich one he has to pay “big money” or maybe a sister or a brother. If a poor man kills a poor man, they don’t pay in dentalia. That is a rich man’s money. Intent makes no difference in weregeld. When a weregeld payment is being settled between two villages, the opponents line up facing each other in two lines with a space between them. They are already to fight. Then a man and a woman appointed by the chief carry the money back and forth between the two sides. The messengers can’t be on one side or the other, they have to be fair. Sometimes they had two men and a woman. The woman could talk well, just like the men. If they settle the payment the two sides mingle and an orator adjures them to be peaceable and to behave themselves. If the kin of the person for whom the weregeld is being paid, is not satisfied, he kicks the fire and that is a signal to fight. The messengers are called - kwxeshtuketnaga. At sundown the two sides return to their respective villages. Do not camp on site of négociations. War: Informant knows of only one fight between Indians. Was between Tututen and Yukwitce. Tututen went to Yukwitce and burned a dwelling. As inmates rushed out they were thrown back into the fire. Was in revenge for a murder which had not been paid for properly. 10 □ Silet^ News , □ June 2001Jv In this war bows and arrows and spears were used as weapons (also elk skin armor?). Wars were always precipitated by weregeld feuds. In the one case known to informant one of the relatives of the informant’s father who was chief at Tutoten was killed by a man from Yukwitce. The relatives was a rich man. The Tutoten Chief sought aid from his wife’s relatives among the Smith riverTolowa. The group of Tolowa joined him and all the men from Tutoten. Two women accompanied them to carry and prepare food. Only old people and girls were left in Tutoten. At Yukwitce they made a surprise attack and burned the house of the offender, throwing the escaping occupants back into the fire. All surprise attacks are at night. If a night bird gives a call it is an omen of war. Those at Yukwitce who didn’t believe in this were killed. The others all ran and hid themselves when they heard that bird. Chiefs participate in the combats. Shamans are not consulted (?); nor are there any dreams about war parties by the chief or other persons so far as the informant knew. When a war party comes home they have to bathe as does everyone else in the community. “It is just like after a burial.” Also everyone eats a little fresh salmon - that is medicine to keep them from getting sick when they eat salmon again. They always fight at night, (i.e. surprise attacks, camp disputes arising from négociation of weregeld - see Murder) When giving a suppositional case of war between two villages on the Rogue River, the informant answered that the people on the river were good people and would not fight with each other. Implication that disputes were with coast villages. One case of war is with a coast village. Yet intermarriage between coast and river villages seems to have been lively. A northern tribe “from around Portland, I guess” stole a Kususme woman. She stayed there a year and then ran away and came back to her native village. Slaves: Repeated questioning failed to elicit information on this subject until finally it came out under the question of adoption. It seems most properly to belong under that heading. Male slaves - tcunas Female slaves - tcane, means wife. If a poor man committed a breach like theft, adultery, or the inability to meet a debt, the creditor threatened to kill his children. So the debtor gave the creditor one of his children. Preferably a girl who was then termed tcane - wife. When she grew up he kept her as a wife. He seems not to have sold her for a bride price. If the debtor could not furnish a girl, he gave a boy who then worked for the creditor. The creditor sat around all day in the sweat house and the boy worked for him. When he grew up, the creditor bought him a wife. Slave children were well treated, “treated just like their own children.” The custom of keeping a slave was confined to the rich. Adoption: A poor man who has lots of children and can’t raise them will give one to a rich man to bring up. Is usually given as an infant and is raised by foster parent on acorn gruel. This has a very definite association of debt payment in mind of informant. Was probably the most frequent reason for adoption. Joel Palmer Papers Siletz Ind. Agency Jany 2nd 1873 Sir I have the honor to submit this my report for the month of December 1872. The month has been one of more than ordinary excitement and interest to these Indians for reason that an effort has been made to establish a tribunal among themselves and by their own election to try and decide matters of differences between individuals - and to adopt a code of laws by which the arbitrators or court thus selected should be governed. Several councils have been held and after a full discussion of the importance of such a measure - the following plan has been adopted for the time being. To elect a court-of five arbitrators consisting of (See Dispute on page 11)
