Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; Grand Ronde, OR
About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1998)
September 15, 1998 "DUD GMgiOOil Ms) THE REVIEW 2 6a ODSQfcSGD Off Most tribal members know that the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon consists of five separate tribes whose members lived in the western part of the state. The five tribes that make up the Grand Qonde Confederation arc: Rogue River, Kalapuya, Chasta, Umpqua, and Molalla. Each of these tribes were made up of many different "bands." (The Mary's River band of the Kalapuya Tribe, for example.) Members have often expressed an interest in learning more about their specific tribe and its history. how their ancestors lived, depth articles on each of IN THE BEGINNING ... From a place near the summit of Mount Hood, Coyote scattered the heart of Grizzly Bear whom he had just willfully slain. To what would become Molalla Country he threw the heart and said, "Now the Molalla will be good hunters; they will be good men, thinking and studying about hunting deer." Grizzly's demise, and hence the birth of the Molalla Nation came about when he met Coyote who was on his way to "make the world," accord ing to an old Molalla story. The Great Bear de manded a fight but Coyote cunningly challenged him to a red-hot rock swallowing contest instead. But Coyote cleverly swallowed strawberries while Grizzly gulped down hot stones that burst his heart. After much thought Coyote skinned and cut up Grizzly and while scattering his body to the winds he foretold that the Molalla people "will think all the time they are on the hunt. " Much has transpired amongst this nation of good men and thinking hunters since their emergence from the land where Grizzly's heart was sown; to a mid-19th century treaty with the U.S. govern ment; and their relocation to a reservation in the Grand Ronde Valley. By the time Stephen Lambert Pasis Savage was serving as Grand Ronde legislative representative in 1876, the Northern, Upper or Valley Molallas, as the band is intermittently called, had winter vil lages from their legendary birthplace near Mount Hood to present day Oregon City and just east of Salem to the foot of Mount Jefferson. During the warmer months, these mostly no madic people left their mud, cedar and hemlock bark homes to freely roam parts of the Willamette Valley. Like their neighbors to the north, the Up per Chinook, the Upper Molalla used dugout ca noes and were also using horses by the early 1800s. While the Northern band shared hunting grounds and other similarities with northern bands of Kal apuya (Calapooia), the Southern, Lower or Moun tain Molalla lived east of present day Eugene and Roseburg in what is now the Umpqua National Forest. When combined with their early neigh bors, the Cayuse Tribe, they were estimated at 500 in number, according to a 1780 census report. Both the Molallas of the mountains and the val ley also had strong ties with the Klamath peoples who they regularly traded with and who it is said, called them "People of the Serviceberry Tract." Despite the distinction between the northern and southern bands of the Molalla Nation and the scar city of information on the latter, the general his tory and culture are more similar than different, says Grand Ronde Cultural Resource Specialist, June Olson. "The general difference was more regional than and how they came to Grand Rondc. In this issue of the tribes Part One: the anything else," explains Olson. "All Native people adapted to the region they were in. Molalla of the mountain region adapted to hunting the larger game of that area and those in the valley were more simi lar to the Kalapuya people who primary diet was roots and small game, common in the valley." Whether hunting large or small game, the prow ess of Molalla hunters, as foretold by Coyote, was duly noted by Savage who was also an ardent Na tive culturalist. In addition to mastery of the bow and arrow, he details rope traps used by Molalla hunters to catch deer in small passes along the trails. Hunters also camouflaged themselves with dear heads while stalking their prey and were renowned amongst neighboring tribes for their use of skill fully trained dogs for tracking and hunting. Molalla expertise also extended to fishing salmon and steelhead. The tribe developed a tradition both of spear and basket fishing. The latter used 10-by-12 foot vine baskets suspended on poles to catch fish under waterfalls as they were herded into the baskets with brush fences or by throwing stones. The Molalla emphasis on hunting skills was also embodied in competitive target practice games such as Kakalinpasa where the object was to hit a roll ing wheel of maple bark and grass with an arrow. Like a number of other traditional Molalla games, Kakalinpasa involved betting with stakes such as money, skins or slaves, according to Savage. THE ARRIVAL OF WHITE SETTLERS By the mid-1800s the Molalla tradition of hunting and fishing became seriously threat ened by encroaching white settlers and it would not be long before their very lifestyle was under siege. As more pioneers pushed westward, Native hunting grounds began shrinking causing Indiansettler tensions to mount in Molalla Country. Dwindling Native resources combined with set tler prejudice and fear of Indian retaliation fur ther escalated the strain and in 1846 the peace be tween the two communities was nearly lost. It was preserved only by last minute negotiations. But two years later inevitable violence broke out near Abiqua Creek, in present day Silverton. Al though falsely called a "war" by many non-Indian historians, Native peoples have a different story to tell. "The real story," says Olson, "is that during that same period - 1848, it was about six months after a Cayuse attack on the Whitman Mission and the settlers in the Willamette Valley were afraid there would be an Indian uprising." She says that when a horseback mailman hap pened across Klamath travelers camping with their Molalla hosts, he sounded the alert that the group was preparing to attack. Molalla Tribe. But Olson says what pioneers thought was an army of male warriors "was really a group of women, Elders and children." She notes the mailman prob ably thought he saw a band of Indian men because Molalla men, women and children traditionally wore deer-hide trousers. (Savage's records also confirm that while Mola lla women occasionally wore hide skirts, they most often wore buckskin pants and shirts distinguished only by the beads that might decorate the female attire and the feathers that might be donned for ceremony or by chiefs.) Blinded by fear and ignorance, the settlers took arms and attacked the group killing about 13 and wounding one. Olson says the Elders, women and children fled as the aggressors pursued them to the Abiqua Creek. Before dying a warrior's death, "one of the women defended the group With a bow and wounded a soldier in the shoulder," narrates Olson. But when the attackers caught up with the band at the river, she says "they realized what they had done and were so ashamed that they rode off leaving the women to care for the wounded." Molalla Kate dressed in full regalia. ta iivi ! "r yA ii lb l. -"1 v t I ' -Hit- 'i f 'feY' The Review, vc have begun a Olson offers an interesting addendum to this so called war. She says the Daughters of the Ameri can Revolution, a group that commemorates pio neer patriotism with on-site monuments, honored the alleged "battleground" with a plague on a stone marker. The farmer who owns the land says that after the stone was rolled into the creek a number of times by vandals, it seemed pointless to return its place on the bank. Olson says, "In my opinion, it was not vandals at all, but the spirit of the woman warrior who continuously pushed the stone into the water. Eventually the plaque was removed from the stone and the rock was left to rest in the creek bed. The plaque is housed in Silverton's museum and hopefully the spirit of the woman warrior is at peace. STRIKING AN AGREEMENT WITH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT On May 6 and 7, 1851 Indian Affairs (IA) Su perintendent, Anson Dart, secured treaties with the Northern Molallas (10 Stat. 1143, ratified March 3, 1855) at Champoeg, Oregon as part of a U.S. campaign to acquire the entire Willamette Valley. The original intent was to relocate all Native tribes east of the Cascade Mountains but Molalla peoples, like many other Western Oregon nations, refused to move so far from their traditional homelands. The treaty shows that Chiefs Quai-eck-ete, Yal ukus (Yelkis) and Crooked Finger signed on be half of the 58-member Molalla River band and Chief Coast-no signed for the 65 members of the Santiam River. These were two of six treaties signed at Champoeg that comprise 19 pacts initi ated by the U.S. government with Willamette Val ley Tribes that year. Four years and a new IA superintendent later, Congress finally acknowl edged the agreements. However, Congress was quick to recognize and spur-on white settler land-grabs by passing and up holding the 1805 Northwest Donation Land Act. The act doled-out 'free' acreage to westward bound pioneers decades before formal treaties were signed with the aboriginal inhabitants. A policy that Olson says heightened tensions between Indi ans and their new non-Indian neighbors. These tensions prompted the new immigrant gov ernment to create more legislation that favored settler fears over the aboriginal rights of Wil lamette Valley Tribes. In 1854 the Oregon Ter ritorial Legislature enacted a ban on the sale of firearms to Indians thwarting the capacity of the Molalla and other Tribes to hunt competi tively with their new neighbors for scarce game on rapidly shrinking hunting grounds. The following year an 1855 Oregon proclama tion sought to confine Willamette Valley Indians to temporary reservations, charging them to account for their whereabouts at all times or be imprisoned. five-part series of in By November of that same year diminishing resources and mounting con flicts helped IA Superintendent, Joel Palmer, persuade South ern Molalla tribal leaders to move to the Umpqua Reser vation where treaty negotia tions began. ' -it H "War One month later a treaty endorsed by Chiefs Steencoggy, Lattchie, Duggins and Counisnase (12 Stat. 981, ratified March 8, 1859) ceded Moun tain Molalla lands to the United States and the band of about 30 Molallas agreed to relocate, along with the Kalapuya and Upper Umpqua Tribes, to the Grand Ronde Valley. Some Molalla Indians, unhappy with their new life on the reservation, tried to return to their tra ditional lands near the Molalla River only to find the landscape so changed by the fences and ploughs of white farmers that they could no longer call it home. On April 3, 1950 the Court of Claims awarded the Southern Molallas $34,996.85 for reservation lands the 1855 treaty mandated they would share with the Umpqua. The amount was awarded, but the Molallas only lived there for two months be fore being removed to Grand Ronde. MOLALLA COUNTRY TODAY Despite a May 1955 federal register showing that 141 of the 882 members then enrolled in the Con federated Tribes of Grand Ronde were of Molalla decent, by the middle of this century non-Indian sources began proclaiming the near extinction of many smaller tribes and the Molalla were no excep tion. It was not uncommon for photos such as one of Fred Yelkis, nephew of famed Molalla Kate and grandson of treaty signing Chief Yelkis, to appear in newspapers like the July 1957 Portland Journal captioned as one of 'the last Oregon Tribesmen.' But despite the lack of complete data on the Mo lalla people in non-Indian sources, Grand Ronde community members such as Esther LaBonte (b.1895 d. 1987); great nieces of Molalla Kate Culture Board member, Marie Schmidt and Coun cil Chair, Kathryn Harrison; and many others tes tify to some of the countless Molalla links in In dian Country. Harrison's rich memories of her great-aunt in clude Molalla Kate's remarkable proficiency in making baskets, stringing bead necklaces and bak- n 6 1 Top: The Daughters off the American Revolution mounted this plaque near the site off the Battle off the Abiqua. Now it is on display at the Silverton museum. Bottom: A recent photo off Abiqua Creek. ing bread in spite of her near blindness in old age. But what Harrison says she remembers most about her name sake was how she made her feel as a young girl. "She was so interested in us kids. When we would visit her, we used to have to line up so she could feel our faces because she couldn't see us," recalls Harrison. "She always made us feel kind of special. It gives you a lot of self-confidence." In addition to living links to Molalla history and tradition in Grand Ronde and throughout the North west, there are also a number of historical points of interest. Some of these include the McLaughlin Museum in Oregon City which houses a few items crafted by Molalla Kate; the site of the Abiqua Massacre on the banks of Silverton's Abiqua Creek; and cultural artifacts that may some day soon be displayed at the planned Grand Ronde Cultural CenterMuseum. As members of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, the Molalla, 'a nation of good hunters,' has taken part in today's successful hunt for tribal survival, resto ration and resources. They continue to use their hunting prowess to secure a better tomorrow for the children of Grand Ronde and of all Native America. Because, as Coyote declared, they "will think all the time they are on the hunt." Historical data and resources used in this article were generously provided by the Grand Ronde Cultural Protection office and the board of the Kwelth Tahlkie Culture and Heritage Society.
