3220 Donald B. Zobel, Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331- 2902 e-mail: [email protected] Ecosystem Use by Indigenous People in an Oregon Coastal Landscape Abstract Data regarding probable uses of biological materials by the indigenous people of the Salmon River-Cascade Head area of the Oregon coast were used to estimate the peoples use of various ecosystems near villages. Of 308 uses identified, 256 were attributable to a given species; 124 species were identified. All local ecosystems were important sources of organisms for the people, with no apparent concentration of highly used species in any particular ecosystem. One species was cultivated, one domesticated, and five acquired by trade. Four major plant resources, camas, yew, hazel, and beargrass, are not known from the Cascade Head landscape, but may have been available from elsewhere in village territory. House construction without use of cedar planks, as indicated by ethnographic records, may have resulted from the paucity of western redcedar in the Salmon River lowlands. The scarcity of several widely used taxa near coastal village sites, especially western redcedar, may have limited the wealth of this indigenous population, even on the resource-rich Oregon coast. Introduction Tillamook, who resided near Cascade Head on the north-central Oregon Coast, in an area where Indigenous people used resources primarily from information about historic and modern plant and the landscape in which they resided. The natural animal species distribution is unusually complete. distribution of resources governed the pattern and The list of taxa used was compared to historic richness of their lives. Determining where they and current species distribution in local and re- obtained and how they used resources can help gional ecosystems. An estimate was made of the us understand where and how they lived, and how origin of each plant and animal used, based on ecosystems have changed since Euro-American ecosystem location relative to village sites and settlement. species importance in each ecosystem. Thus, the Data about the use of plants and animals by relative usefulness to indigenous people of each indigenous Oregon coastal tribes are limited, but ecosystem could be estimated. Local scarcity was useful (Lyman 1991, Lindsay 1995). A few de- identified for some widely used species. I sug- tailed interviews were recorded with persons born gest effects of and compensations for local scar- before Euro-American settlement. Archeological city of these important resource organisms. study has been rewarding, as bone, shell, and antler are preserved well within the shell-dominated Study Area middens (Lyman 1991, Hall 2001). Detailed study, however, is of limited extent even at the best-known The region of study is in and near the Salmon Oregon sites. Beckham et al. (1982), Lyman (1991), River drainage, on the north central Oregon coast Lindsay (1995), and Erlandson et al. (1998) have between Lincoln City and Neskowin, just north summarized information for numerous sites and of 45°N latitude. It includes primarily the Cas- tribes along the Oregon coast. cade Head Scenic-Research Area and Cascade Head Experimental Forest of the USDA Forest Understanding how a single local population Service, Siuslaw National Forest. I refer to this used resources requires detail beyond that pro- area as the Cascade Head landscape, named for vided by the summaries, as differences in usage the prominent headland bordering the Salmon River among tribes, villages, households, and times have to the north. Forests, marshes, and grasslands in been described (Barnett 1937, Newman 1959, this area have been studied scientifically and dis- Lyman 1991, Connolly 1992, Lindsay 1995). For tributions of vascular plants and vertebrates re- this study, I combined information from anthro- corded in detail (Greene and Blinn 1991; unpub- pologists with local, detailed ecological data. I lished species lists on file, Forestry Sciences developed a list of organisms used by one sub- Laboratory, USDA Forest Service, Corvallis, tribal group, the Salmon River people of the Oregon). The Salmon River estuary is less disturbed 304 Northwest Science, Vol. 76, No. 4, 2002 © 2002 by the Northwest Scientific Association. All rights reserved. than most others in Oregon (Murray and Marrant fish (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife 1983). The territory controlled by the Salmon River 1997). In 1923-1927, before a major decline, com- villages extended south several kilometers into mercial catch of salmon and steelhead from the the current location of Lincoln City and inland to Salmon River was much less than that in larger the crest of the Coast Range (Beckham et al. 1982). systems, 1% that in Tillamook Bay, 2% of the The Salmon River is small, draining 210 km. Nehalem, and 4% of the Nestucca and Siletz es- The Salmon River has 306 ha of estuarine habi- tuaries (Cleaver 1951). tat, including 223 ha salt marsh, 51 ha tideland, Extensive red alder (Alnus rubra) and conifer and 32 ha submerged land (Thompson and Snow forests dominate slopes above the Salmon River 1974). There is evidence in the estuary of earth- valley. The conifers are primarily Sitka spruce quake-induced subsidence and tsunami deposi- (Picea sitchensis) near the shoreline, with west- tion, which covered Indian hearth areas about A.D. ern hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) becoming im- 1700 (Minor and Grant 1996). A sand spit block- portant a short distance inland. Several kilome- ing most of the estuary mouth supports dune for- ters farther inland, Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga est and grassland, although there was probably menziesii) becomes abundant and often dominant, less stable vegetation there before the introduc- and abundance of spruce declines. This forest tion of European beachgrass (Ammophila arenaria) pattern is not an artifact of logging; it existed in (Wiedemann 1984). A 69 ha grassland dominates the uncut forests near the time of Euro-American the southwestern promontory of Cascade Head, settlement, according to timber cruise records for just uphill from major village sites. Cascade Head Tillamook County (Anonymous 1908). Most of also supports smaller grasslands above the ocean the forested area burned in the 1840s (Munger cliffs farther north. Little rocky shore can be 1944), although areas of old-growth and isolated reached on foot, but much is accessible by water. old trees survived (Greene 1982). The conifer Stellers and California sea lions (Eumetopias forests are productive and dense, especially when jubatus, Zalophus californianus) haul out on small young (Harcombe et al. 1990). rocky islands <0.25 km offshore (Lyman 1991). Village sites near the mouth of the Salmon River The rocks provide roosting and nesting sites for have been dated to as early as A.D. 1020 (Ross thousands of sea birds of several species (Murray 1990). In 1854, Tillamook people, the southern- and Marrant 1983). The beach, rocky shore, rocky most Salish-language group, occupied the area islands, estuary, dune, salt marsh, and upland grass- (Beckham et al. 1982). Other Salish-speaking land are within minutes by foot or canoe travel of groups lived north of the Columbia River. The major village sites. Salmon River people, referred to as the Nechesne The Salmon River estuary is the smallest of (also an early name for the Salmon River), Kowai, seven major estuaries and bays used by the or Salmon River Indians, continued to live there Tillamook tribe; others are 1.6-12 times its size well into historic time (Beckham 1975, Beckham (Thompson and Snow 1974). The Salmon River et al. 1982). Their population was about 10 in estuary has the lowest proportion of submerged 1854 (Beckham et al. 1982), but had probably and tideland of any of them, and a limited inver- been reduced by disease before 1840, as had other tebrate fauna. It supports 4 of 16 estuarine inver- coastal groups (Seaburg and Miller 1990). The tebrates listed by Thompson and Snow (1974) and Salmon River people lived primarily by fishing Emmett et al. (1991), compared to 5 for the Siletz, and gathering shellfish, although hunting and use 7 for the Nehalem, 11 for Tillamook Bay, and 16 of marshlands and forest were also critical to their for Netarts Bay. Sand Lake and the Nestucca es- survival (Murray and Marrant 1983), like other tuary support fewer of these species than the Oregon coastal groups (Lyman 1991, Connolly Salmon River, although they are larger. The es- 1992, Erlandson et al. 1998). They apparently did tuarine fish fauna is relatively richer (Cornwell not hunt in the open ocean. et al. 2001). Of 22 major fish species (Emmett et The Cascade Head landscape was included in al. 1991), the Salmon River estuary supports 14, the Siletz Indian Reservation, established in 1855, compared to 15 in the Siletz estuary, 18 in Netarts although the life of the local people probably re- Bay, 19 in the Nehalem estuary, and all 22 in mained unchanged. Most of the landscape was Tillamook Bay. Pre-hatchery runs of salmon and excluded from the reduced reservation in 1875, steelhead in the Salmon River totaled 4000-5000 although the Salmon River itself remained in the Indigenous Ecosystem Use 305 reservation until 1894 (Beckham 1975). The area example: eating elk meat is one use of elk; wear- appears to have been used as pasture by settlers ing elk skins is a second use; fashioning a wood- from the Willamette Valley by 1851. Although splitting wedge from elk antler is a third use. early squatters of European lineage settled the north Each species of use was assigned to its most bank of the Salmon River in the 1870s, most settle- likely origin. For most species, the origin was the ment occurred in the 1890s, primarily along the type of local ecosystem from which it was easi- lowlands near the Salmon River and Neskowin est to collect, based on ecosystem accessibility Creek.