LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
I am a descendant of the Tututni Indians. The Tututni Indians had numerous
villages located on the Lower Rogue River and the Pacific Ocean, north and south
of the river’s mouth, in the Oregon Territory.
The meaning of Tututni is unknown to white historians. However, we were
also known at Hlilush by the Nestucca Indians, Tâlëmaya by the Umpqua Indians.
The Chetcos called us Ta-Qû-Qûc-cë. Others, we assume the white people, called
us Lower Rogue River Indians or Rogue River Indians named after our habitat.
I have read two different spellings of Tututni in Siletz News data in the last 30
days: Toototoney and Tootootney.
The proper spelling is Tututni. The good news is that the pronunciation and
spelling is easier than the names given to us by our Umpqua and Chetco brothers
and sisters (referenced above).
My intention for noting this correction is only to educate. This information
comes from the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin
#145, The Indian Tribes of North America, written by John R. Swanton, published
in 1952 by the Smithsonian Press.
Cid Caba
To the editor:
My name is Tina Ehret and I am a
Siletz descendant. You may remember
letters I have written in the past to the
editor about my great niece who was in
a white foster home in Bozeman, Mont.
We started trying to get her when
she was 4 months old and only after a
long drawn-out battle with the courts,
and us getting her newborn full sister,
we finally got Ceilly shortly after her
third birthday. She is my blood and we
fought hard. We traveled back and forth
to Montana many times to see her and
let her get to know us and her baby sister.
After the fight was over, we adopted both
girls and love them very much.
Why this letter? Because I feel that
I am not done! I know of three little
Siletz Indian boys who ended up in a
white foster home, away from the
Native way. Where are their relatives?
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Siletz News
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I know of a little Siletz Indian boy and
girl who are in need of a good home.
Where are their relatives? Why do they
end up in white homes?
I have a solution. If you are a
Moose Lodge member, you know about
Moose Haven, a place where if the
parents of children die or can’t take care
of them and no family member can take
them and raise them, they can go and
live there and everything is paid for,
even college.
Why can’t we build a haven of our
own for our Native descendants? If we
build it in Siletz, it would offer more
jobs to the Native people and some of
the elders could be called upon to teach
our Native ways, before all is lost. We
could have horses and animals for the
children. It could be great.
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of Siletz News.
Editor-in-Chief: Brenda Bremner
Editor: Diane Rodriquez
Assistant: Natasha Kavanaugh
September 2002
Editor's note: The letter at left
caught the editor's eye and interest, so
Robert Kentta, cultural resources
director, was asked for comment.
Robert’s response: Cid Caba’s
letter highlights seldom-mentioned
information about names that other
groups called the Tututni people.
Generally, I agree that the spelling
“Tututni” is the most accepted and
commonly used. His letter also
reminded me of other details about
tribal names that I would like share.
Tututni is the people’s name for
themselves, though originally (pre
reservation days) only the people of the
village of Tututun (a few miles up the
Rogue River from its mouth) would
have referred to themselves as Tututni
(by the water, place, people of). In fact,
individuals referred to themselves as
“Tutu” because Tututni actually refers
to the whole group.
I feel very strongly about our
children, for they are our future.
Remember, it takes a whole village ...
We are a small tribe; we should
take care of our own. Think about
fostering a Native child or even
adopting. We did and there are many
joys that come along with it. If I could,
I would take them all.
Sincerely,
Tena and Scott Ehret
Send letters to:
Siletz News
P.O. Box 549
Siletz, OR 97380-0549
In the reservation era, though, and
possibly beginning with the reports of
Southwest Oregon sub-agents, (mostly
politically autonomous) villages that
spoke similar dialects of the same
language were grouped together as
“tribes” in ways that the people may
never have perceived themselves
before. As far as I can tell, the closest
old-time term referring to all people
who spoke similar dialects on the lower
Rogue River was Tu-gwe-ta-tun-i (all
the people of the river).
Often today, descendants of people
from near Whales Head (north of the
Chetco River) to the Floras Creek-area
villages and as far up the Rogue as
Shasta Costa country all get grouped
together as “the Tututni Tribe.” Some
people extend that designation to the
Tolowa and Chetco peoples. Tolowa is
an example of a group’s name for
their neighbors that’s been accepted as
the common name for that group.
Tolowa (or something close to it) is
the Yurok people’s name for their
northern neighbors.
Our tribe has never voted (to my
knowledge) to accept one spelling or
another as “the official spelling” of any
ancestral tribal group. The problem is
that these names were never written by
our own people in the early days, and
multiple ways of (correctly?/
phonetically?) spelling these village/
band names using the English alphabet
often exist.
An example is the You-kee people,
whose main village was at the mouth
See Robert on page 4.
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