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Ourigan: Wealth of the Northwest Coast

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Ourigan: Wealth of the Northwest Coast In 1922, Harlan Smith photographed this Bella Coola man setting out on one of the Nuxaulk-Carrier grease trails with a box of valuable ooligan grease - renderedfrom a type of smelt. This content downloaded from 71.34.78.7 on Wed, 27 May 2020 20:23:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms o ur igMand Wealth of the Northwest Coast By Scott Byram and David 0. Lewis With the Plains Indian Tribes, and I suspect the vast majority of the Indian groups, the most revered person was the scout. On his knowl edge and powers of observation the rest of the community vested their survival.... Lying by a scout was a dreadful act punished by death or banishment. Vine Deloria, Jr. Red Earth, White Lies, 1997 There is nothing improbable in the supposition, that the Indians in the Upper Mississippi and Missouri may have had early intercourse with the Indians beyond the Rocky Mountains, or even visited the Oregon in person, and given it some significant name of their own. Anonymous, 1839 quoted by Vernon F. Snow in "From Ouragan to Oregon," 1959 BYRAM AND LEWIS, Our!gan 127 This content downloaded from 71.34.78.7 on Wed, 27 May 2020 20:23:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE HISTORY OF A CULTURAL LANDSCAPE IS PORTRAYED IN its geographical place names. In North America, these place names re flect both European colonial and indigenous experiences. With such disparate heritage, the origin of many place names is quite complex. Although the colonial origin of a name may be clear from compara tively recent written records, the deeper history of an indigenous place name is sometimes more difficult to bring to light. The challenge in volves finding ways to see through the veil of a North American geog raphy created during the colonization of Indian homelands. Although many historians have investigated the origin of the name Oregon, its original meaning has remained elusive. There is even uncer tainty as to its origin in North American Indian or European languages. In recent years, however, Northwest indigenous communities have been the subject of unprecedented research, as Indians from Northwest tribes have increasingly participated in cultural heritage studies. These efforts have shed new light on many aspects of Indian history in the North west, including further insight on the original meaning of the word Oregon. In addressing the source of this place name, this research ex plores the extent of indigenous geographic knowledge and cultural inter action across the North American continent during the eighteenth century' The place name Oregon first appeared in literature in 1778 when Jonathan Carver published Travels through the Interior Part of North America, a book widely read in England and the United States.2 Carver reported Indian accounts of a great river in the Northwest known as the River Oregon. Soon Oregon appeared on published maps of the west ern continent, in some cases as a name for the river we know today as the Columbia. By the early decades of the nineteenth century, the name described the region in the Northwest that now encompasses the prov ince of British Columbia and the states of Washington and Oregon. As boundary decisions were made between the United States and Canada, Oregon signified a northwest U.S. territory and finally the thirty-third state in the Union. One of the first of several scholars to examine this question was T.C. Elliott, who demonstrated in the 1920s that Jonathan Carver's Oregon was almost certainly borrowed from Robert Rogers's Ourigan, a place name that appeared in four documents written earlier than Carver's book.3 As cartographer on an unofficial expedition that Rogers orga nized, Carver had seen Rogers's communications before writing Trav els, and in his manuscript journal he uses Rogers's most frequent spell ing of the river name, Ourigan.4 Rogers was a British officer serving in the Great Lakes region in the early 1 760s, and while there he learned of a river route to the Pacific Ocean from Indians who had been to the Pacific Coast. He outlined this route in petitions submitted in 1765 and 1772 to King George's privy council, in which he sought funds to 128 Oregon Historical Quarterly / Summer 2001 / Vol. 102, no. 2 This content downloaded from 71.34.78.7 on Wed, 27 May 2020 20:23:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Photo by Lloyd L. Winter and Edwin P Pond, Alaska State Library, PCA 87-10 Traditionally, Northwest Coast peoples were known for their vibrant arts and wealth, including abundant natural resources. The interior of Tlingit Chief Klart-Reech's house in Chilkat, Alaska, shows some of his riches. The two intricately carved bentwood cedar boxes on the middle level are similar to those used to store ooligan grease for potlatch feasting. support an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage for trade shipping, and also in two 1766 letters to his agents James God dard and James Tute, whom Rogers intended to have explore the Pacific Coast.' Rogers's description of the route to the River Ourigan from the Great Lakes follows former Western Cree trade routes across the north ern Rockies to the upper Fraser River. According to Rogers, "the great River Ourigan [flows] through a vast, and most populous Tract of In dian Country to the Straits of Annian, and the Gulf or Bay projecting thence north-easterly into the Continent." Details of the River Ourigan's location closely match the location of the Fraser River. Furthermore, the Fraser lies within what was once a vast indigenous trading net work, known as the "grease trails." The key commodity traded through this network, which stretched from the Pacific Coast eastward across the Rockies, was the highly sought-after oil, or "grease," of the fish BYRAM AND LEWIS, Ounigan 129 This content downloaded from 71.34.78.7 on Wed, 27 May 2020 20:23:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Historical Occurrences of the Word Ooligan and Its Variants throughout the Northwest Grouped by location and tribal group; date of use, author or source, and spelling Southeast Alaska (Tlingit) 1948 USGS euchalon 1971 Orth hooligan 1986 Schorr hulakon, eulachon 2000 Grandmother Teew hooligan Nass River, B.C. (Tsimshian, Haida, Gitksan) 1834 Tolmie oolachan, oolaghan 1980 People of 'Ksan oolichan 1997 Miller oolichan, eulachon, ulaken, hooligans Ulkatcho, B.C. (Nuxaulk) 1982 Kuhnlein ooligan 1993 Boyd oolichan SOUTHEAST ALASKA ULKATCHO, B.C. USGS and Donald J. Orth, Harriet Dictionary V Kuhnlein et al., "Ooliganof Alaska Grease: A Place Names (Washington, Nutritious D.C.: Fat U.S.Used by NativeGPO, People 1971); of Coastal Alan Edward Schorr, Alaska British Place Columbia," Names Journal of (Juneau,Ethnobiology 2:2 Alaska: Denali Press, 1986), (1982): 154; 46; Chief GrandmotherStan Boyd in Sage Birchwater, Teew (Tlingit elder), unpublished Ulkatcho: Stories of thejournal Grease Trail, Anahimrefer Lake, enced in letter from Caskey Bella Coola, Russell Quesnel (Anahim (Tlingit) Lake, B.C.: Ulkatcho to authors, August 2000, copy Culture of Curriculum journal Committee, in Russell's 1993), 5. possession. VANCOUVER ISLAND NASS RIVER, B.C. J.K. Lord, naturalist in Vancouver, Oxford English Dic William Fraser Tolmie, The Journals of William tionary, 2nd ed., s.v. "eulachon, oolakan";James Sewid, Frasier Tolmie, Physician and Fur Trader (Vancouver, Guests Never Leave Hungry: TheAutobiography ofJames B.C.: Mitchell Press, 1963), 275, 305, 314; People Sewid, a Kwakiutl Indian, ed. James P Spradley (New of 'Ksan, Gathering What the Great Nature Provided: Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 31. Food Traditions of the Gitksan (Seattle: University FRASER RIVER, B.C. of Washington Press, 1980), 89-93; Jay Miller, McDonald-Fort Langley Post Journals in The Fort Tsimshian Culture: A Light Through the Ages (Lin Langley Journals, 1827-30, ed. Morag Maclachlan coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 17. (Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press, 1998), 60, 108, 147. 130 Oregon Historical Quarterly / Summer 2001 / Vol. 102, no. 2 This content downloaded from 71.34.78.7 on Wed, 27 May 2020 20:23:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Vancouver Island (Kwakwaka'wakw) 1866 Lord eulachon 1969 Sewid olachen Fraser River, B.C. (Cowitchan?) 1829 McDonald-Ft. Langley Post ulluchan 1830 McDonald-Ft. Langley Post ulachan Columbia River (Chinook, Chinook Jargon) 1806 Lewis and Clark; ol-then, oll-can, ulken Ordway; Gass 1811 Franchere outhelekane 1811-1813 Ross ulichan 1812 Stuart uthulhun, uthlechan, uthlecan 1812 Astoria Post Journal uthelcan, uthlecan 1828 Fort Langley Post Journals ullachun 1836 Richardson oulachan 2000 Johnson ulxa'n Alsea River (Alsea) 1849 Talbot olhuacan COLUMBIA RIVER Astoria, ed. Robert F Jones (New York: Fordham Captain Meriwether Lewis University and William Press, Clark 1999),in 70, 72, 73, 83; Fort The Journals of the Lewis & Langley Clark Expedition, PostJournals vol. in The Fort LangleyJournals; 7, March 23-June 9, 1806, Sir ed. J. Gary Richardson, E. Moulton Fauna in Boreali-America, 226, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska cited in OxfordPress, 1990),English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. 12; SergeantJohn Ordway in"eulachon, TheJournals oolakan"; of Cap Tony Johnson (language tain Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant specialist, John Confederated Ordway, Tribes of Grand Ronde), ed. Milo Quaife (Madison: personalState Historical communication Soci with authors, Septem ety of Wisconsin, 1916), ber329; 2000. P Gass, Journal, 1807:187 cited in Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ALSEA RIVER ed., s.v. "eulachon, oolakan"; Gabriel Franchere, Theodore Talbot in "Report to General Smith, Adventure at Astoria, 1810-1814 (Norman: Uni Fort Vancouver, Oregon, October 5, 1849," Re versity of Oklahoma Press, 1967), 113; Alexander port of the Secretary of War, Communicating Infor Ross, Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon mation in Relation to the Geology and Topography of or Columbia River (Corvallis: Oregon State Uni California, 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1850, S.
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