NOVEMBER 15, 2002 Smoke Signals 9

The Annual Calendar of The Atfa'lati Kalapuya Indians

By David Lewis Grand Ronde Tribal member

In November and December of 1877, Albert S. Gatschet, a noted scholar much of a problem in the summer. With more non-Nativ- es settling in the of Native American languages, was on the Grand Ronde Reservation and valley, the Kalapuya people became subject to American acculturation at Dayton, Oregon interviewing Indian people. Gatschet interviewed through Methodist and Catholic missions, and through the Federal Clackamas, Molala, Sasti (Shasta), Athapaskan (Rogue River), and government's boarding and day schools. At these institutions, Kalapuyas Kalapuya Indians about their languages. I first learned of Gatschet when were in American agricultural methods and Euro-America- n conducting research at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural Gregorian time. In the Euro-America- n style of intensive agriculture, that History. I was with the Southwest Oregon Research Project II team in uses plants highly sensitive to temperature changes, there is a greater Washington D.C. in 1998. I found that Gatschet was the first trained need for attention to be paid to summer weather. linguist to transcribe Grand Ronde's Tribal languages. The altered time frame, with the beginning of the year in the Gregorian While at the National Anthropological Archives, I the an- autumn, is interesting and shows us the value of this calendar and how nual calendar of the Atfa'lati Kalapuya Tribe, which Gatschet transcribed. well it fits the unique western Oregon climate. In the calendar, the "first This was a revelation, as I did not know that the Kalapuya intellectual spring," Aatcha'-uyu-, appears to be about the time of the end of April. traditions, such as the calendar, had been preserved. In all, Gatschet cre- While the end of the summer, August, is the end of the Kalapuya year, ated about 14 manuscripts from his conversations with the Indians from the month of Aku'piu. Anyone who has dug camass knows that it is diffi- Grand Ronde. Much of his work is published in Kalapuya Texts, which is a cult finding the roots without the blossoms to mark their locations. When compilation offield research transcriptions from Leo J. Frachtenberg, Albert the Kalapuya dug camass outside of the blossom period, April-Ma- y, they S. Gatschet, and Melville Jacobs, who was also the editor. (Note: Atfa'lati is knew exactly where the roots were hidden underground as they had been the original word from which the Tualatin place-nam- e originates). harvesting in the same location for many generations. The calendar is a special and uniquely Kalapuya cultural intellectual Gatschet presents us a window into the Kalapuya culture through this icon deserving of being ed into Tribal cultural traditions. The calendar. How accurate it is depends on his intentions for doing this re- cultural information of the calendar, presents information on different search over 100 years ago. Today, we can only speculate as to Gatschet's stages of the camass harvest, wapato harvest, and the harsh winter living intentions. Gatschet was an extremely learned man, who traveled exten- conditions that probably meant that food needed to be stored for this time. sively in South and North America and worked among Indian Tribes wher- The planned harvest of vegetal foods, combined with landscape changes ever he traveled. He is know to have worked extensively on Klamath, (like seasonal burning, replanting of seeds and annually returning to spe- Cherokee, Choctaw, and Seneca and was fluent in German, French, En- cific fields) represent Kalapuya agriculture. glish, and Spanish. His scholarly range was vast and at the end of his life The changes to the calendar allow us a window into the changes hap- he was working on learning Cantonese. My understanding of the calen- pening to the Kalapuya in the 19th century from large Canadian and Ameri- dar, after reading extensively of Gatschet's correspondence, is that the can populations settling in the Willamette Valley. Their original calendar, calendar is cultural icon relatively unaltered in Gatschet's transcription.

six-mon- as Gatschet states in his notes, was a th calendar because they My hope is that through further research and dialogue with Tribal Elders "did not notice" the summer months, probably because food was not as that more information about the calendar will become available.

Transcription: Divisions of Time Among The Atfa'lati Tribe of The Kalapuya Indians of Northwestern Oregon

Their hinations (ato'b) begin with the new moon (wapa'l ato'b) the first quarter of the m oon is: ye'dsh to'kaloi ato'b; the full moon kopinfu ato'b; the third quarter: tcha'shtu ato'b. The year, ami'dshu, begins in autumn. The earlier Kalapuyas did not notice the summer months and hence had only six months in the year, but presently they have twelve.

1st month: atchi utchu'tin; after harvest the Indians are still out. 2nd month: atcha'lan kuaik; commencing to get the sagittaria- - root from the lake (ma'mptu); Gaston Lake, Oregon. 3rd month: ala'ngitapi; they go to the houses for winter season. "7 4th month: adsha'mpak "good (month)"; not bad weather. 5th month: a'talka (ato'b); they stay all day in the winter houses. 6th month: atchi'ulantadsh "out of provisions"; some hunt, some starve. 7th month: aatcha'-uyu- : first spring; women dry camass-roo- t. 8th month: ama'nta kita'ntal: pounding the (cooked) camass. 9th month: ata'ntal: about may camass begins to blossom. 10th month: ani'shnalyu: camass is now ripe. 11th month: ame'ku, or wayo'yu ame'ku: midst of summer. 12th month: Aku'piu end of summer, August.

The Albert Gatschet manuscript "Divisions of Time among the Atfa'lati tribe of the Kalapuya Indians, Northwestern Oregon," is Gatschet 1385 in series 1 ofthe Southwest Oregon Research Project Collection. Grand Ronde received complete copies of series 1, 2 and 8 in 1998 and 2002 as gifts from the two Coquille Potlatches at the University of Oregon. Seventeen other aa.Ai... SS - mk&T Oregon regional Tribes also received portions of the collection in these pot-latche- s. j ffy Sy ?y X, The original manuscript is at the Smithsonian Institution's Na- " eitt: r wii'im ; Jem ? Jm ftvty, tional Anthropological Archives in Washington, D. C. David G. Lewis is a Grand Ronde Tribal member and the coordinator of the SWORP archival collection at the University of Oregon's, Knight Li- brary Special Collections. An index to the collection "Southwest Oregon Research Project: Inventory to the Archival Collection," was written and f edited by David in 2001 and published by the University of Oregon. David coordinated the project to make 18 copies of the collection follow- ing the 2001 Coquille Potlatch and is currently in a Ph.D. program in Anthropology at the University of Oregon under the support of the Grand Ronde Tribe's full-tim- e Higher Education Scholarship. Copies of the A An annual calendar of the Atfa'lati Kalapuya transcribed by Gatschet manuscripts, as well as other SWORP manuscripts may be or- Albert S. Gatschet, a noted scholar of Native American languages. dered from Special Collections, Knight Library of the University of Oregon

8. Copies of the calendar will be sent to anyone who requests

them from Mr. Lewis, coyotezoregon.uoregon.edu, or 5. B Photo of calendar courtesy of David Lewis