Organization of Indian Salmon Fishing in Western North America
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Eastern Washington University EWU Digital Commons Allan T. Scholz Papers Regional History 1965 Organization of Indian Salmon Fishing in Western North America Dietrich Treide Leipzig University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.ewu.edu/scholz Part of the Cultural History Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Treide, Dietrich, "Organization of Indian Salmon Fishing in Western North America" (1965). Allan T. Scholz Papers. 1. https://dc.ewu.edu/scholz/1 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Regional History at EWU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Allan T. Scholz Papers by an authorized administrator of EWU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Publication of the Leipzig Museum of Ethnography: Issue 14 Die Organisierung des indianischen Lachsfangs im westlichen Nordamerika [Organization of Indian Salmon Fishing in Western North America] By: Dietrich Treide Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1965 [Copyright owned by: State Ethnographic Collections Saxony (SES)/State Art Collections Dresden (SKD). Permission was granted by the copyright owner for placement of this German to English translation of Treide’s dissertation on the Eastern Washington University, JFK Library, Digital Commons Website] Translation by: Jaimie Kenney Department of Entomology University of California, Riverside Riverside, California 92521 Foreword by: Allan T. Scholz, Ph.D. Eastern Washington University Department of Biology 258 Science Building Cheney, WA 99004 Biographical Sketch by: Frank Usbeck, Ph.D. Kustos / Curator, Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen American Collections, Anthropological Museums at Leipzig and Dresden, Collection at the Anthropological Museum Herrnhut 2021 Foreword On Indians of the Upper Columbia Basin and their Salmon Fisheries I am currently working on a book titled “Indians of the Upper Columbia River Basin and Their Salmon Fisheries”, which expands two earlier reports “Compilation of Information on Salmon and Steelhead Total Run Sizes and Hydropower Related Losses in the Upper Columbia River Basin”1 and “Aboriginal and Historic Sport Fisheries”2 that I published about this subject. This book describes the Salish [i.e., Nespelem (Nespelim), Sanpoil (Nesilextclˈn), Colville (Sxʷy̌ ʔiɬpx – pronounced Skoyelpi), Lakes (Sinixt), Spokane or Spokan (Sp'q'n'iʔ), Kalispel (Ql’ispé), Coeur d’Alene (Schitsuˈumsh), Okanogan (Sylix), Sinkiuse-Columbia (.tskowa'xtsEnux), and one band of Shuswap (Kenpesq't)], Sahaptin [i.e., Nez Perce (Niimíipuu), Cayuse (Liksiyu), Yakama (Mámachatpam) Palouse or Palús (Naha` ‘ampoo)], and a language isolate [i.e., Kutenai (Ktunaxa) Indians] who lived in (and fished) the upper Columbia River Basin between Chief Joseph Dam [at Columbia River kilometer (RKM) 872.2 or river mile (RM) 545.1] in Washington and the headwaters of the Columbia River [at Columbia River RKM 1988.5 (RM 1242.8)] in British Columbia, as well as the principle tributaries of the Columbia River in this region [i.e., Nespelem, Sanpoil, Spokane, Colville, Kettle, Pend Oreille, and Kootenay (Canadian spelling)/Kootenai (United States spelling) rivers]. In particular, my book describes their dependence upon salmon as a chief item of subsistence and trade/barter. These peoples derived approximately 30 – 50 % of their annual caloric intake from anadromous (ocean-going) Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Coho Salmon (O. kisutch) and Steelhead Trout (O. mykiss). Indians assembled annually during the summer and autumn months at traditional fishing sites where they harvested sufficient quantities of salmon to provide their sustenance not only during the fishing season but also throughout the long winter months. Besides enjoying fresh baked or broiled salmon, they pounded the flesh into fine flakes using a mortar and pestle, then mixed it with nuts and huckleberries, using tallow (animal fat) to make a concoction called pemmican. In addition to consuming salmon they bartered or traded it for items such as horses, buffalo meat, or bison hides that they used for making robes or blankets. Finally, they used byproducts of salmon for a variety of everyday uses. For example, salmon skins were sewed together to make durable (and recyclable) bags that could be used to store nuts, berries, salmon pemmican, or possessions. Salmon skins were also used as backing for bows to strengthen them. The people of the Upper Columbia Plateau built their culture around the return of the salmon. Salmon were one focus of their mythology: Their creator deity Speelya (spilyeˀ), a grizzled, horny Coyote, was a shapeshifter who could morph into a handsome Indian man almost instantaneously (e.g., think about Taylor Lautner’s role as Jacob Black in the Twilight Saga of films, in which the space of just a few seconds, he transformed himself from a wolf into a ruggedly muscular man). Speelya travelled upriver bringing the salmon in his wake. Along the way Speelya raised rapids and low head waterfalls where salmon would aggregate, which made it easier for the various tribes to catch them. As payment he asked each tribe to supply him with a wife (he had a voracious appetite for beautiful young maidens), at which time he morphed into human form and had his way with her. (This was not necessarily a displeasing experience for the maiden if you remember he resembled Taylor Lautner instead of a mangy old Coyote during his congress with her.) For tribes not inclined to be so generous with their women, Speelya erected massive barrier falls that prevented salmon from reaching that tribe’s territory. A vivid description of Speelya’s wrath in one such instance was provided in Sherman Alexie’s poem “That place where ghosts of salmon jump”, which was commissioned as public art for the construction of a new Spokane Public Library in 1990 and installed in Overlook Park in 1995, overlooking the falls on the Spokane River. Spokane Falls, a barrier falls for salmon, was said to have been created by Speelya to prevent their migration into Coeur d’Alene territory when the tribe refused him a wife. A copy of Alexie’s poem was reprinted in 2018.3 All the Upper Columbia Basin tribes also practiced an elaborate religious ritual called the First Salmon Ceremony, the point of which was to ensure continued good runs of salmon, enough to sustain the Indian people whose subsistence and continued good health were incumbent upon the continuance of salmon runs. Finally, most tribes had an office of salmon chief (or salmon shaman) that was elected independently from (or sometimes appointed by) the head chief of the tribe. Such a person possessed a tutelary spirit, obtained during a vision quest when he came of age, with salmon power. Salmon chiefs directed the construction of the communal fishing apparatus (usually some sort of fish trap or weir, or J- shaped basket traps that were suspended under waterfalls that salmon, failing in their attempt to leap the falls, would fall back into.). Salmon chiefs ostensibly used their “salmon power” to summon the fish into the weir or basket trap. Salmon chiefs were also granted absolute authority to regulate the fishery by telling people when to fish for them and when to stop fishing, allowing some of the fish to escape upriver, either to spawn and reproduce themselves, or to provide sustenance to Indian peoples who lived along the river above them. Finally, the salmon chief distributed the catch from the communal weir or basket trap equally between all of the people assembled at the fishery he was responsible for. The salmon chief’s regulation of escapement and equal distribution of the catch were important aspects of his office, as explained by Christine Quintasket (Mourning Dove) of the Colville Confederated Tribes in her autobiography, to ensure that : “Everyone got an equal share so that the fish would not think humans were being stingy or selfish and refuse to return.” 4 The Canadian artist Paul Kane, who visited the Indian fishery at Kettle Falls in 1847, reported that the Colville Salmon Chief there, named Seepays, frequently shut down that fishery to allow the salmon to escape upstream. Kane wrote, “Infinitely greater numbers of salmon could readily be taken here, if it were desired; but as the chief considerately remarked to me, if he were to take all that came up, there would be none left for Indians on the upper part of the river; so they content themselves with supplying their own wants.” 5 Analysis of faunal remains from archeological sites on the Columbia River near Celilo Falls [Columbia River RKM 320 (RM 200)] and Kettle Falls [Columbia River RKM 1125.6 (RM 706.4)], and on the Spokane River below Spokane Falls, indicated that anadromous salmonids have been fished by the aboriginal inhabitants of the Columbia Basin for about the past 8,000 to 9,600 years before present (YBP) (Chance 19866; Butler 19937; Butler and O’Connor 20048: Walker et al. 20189). At an archeological site near the Dalles, Oregon, the recovery of 250,000 salmon bones in association with human artifacts from several stratigraphic layers that were radiocarbon dated between 4,970 and 9;280 YBP points to this conclusion (Butler 1993; Butler and O’Connor 2004). In the mid-1970’s archeological investigations at Kettle Falls also found numerous salmon bones in association with human artifacts, including harpoon points and net sinkers used to capture the fish, in several stratigraphic layers that were radiocarbon dated between 180 and 7,600 YBP (reviewed by Chance 1986). Salmon bones were also found in association with human artifacts in a stratigraphic layer below (i.e., that was older than) the 7600 YBP date but was not radiocarbon dated due to a deficiency of dateable material. Chance (1986) estimated that fish bones and artifacts in this stratigraphic layer dated approximately to as old as 9,600 YBP. More recently, Walker et al. (2018) conducted archaeological excavations at People’s Park, located at the confluence of the Spokane River and Latah (Hangman) Creek, in Spokane, Washington.