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People of the Columbia Plains:
from The Great Columbia Plain - a Historical Geography
1805-1920 , D. W. Meinig Seattle, © 1968
When Lewis and Clark headed out across America from the
East, they expected one mountain range, and an easy passage
to a western sea. They found instead, a couple of massive
mountain ranges to pass.. the Rockies and the Cascades.
They'd hoped for easy down-river sailing, and it wasn't the
truth. There is a 'second' set of 'plains' in the geography
of North America.. it was a large area incorporating Eastern
Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana where there was no
easy access, aside from going South to the Columbia River
Gorge. This huge basin comprised the Columbia Plain, and was
inhabited by a number of Shoshone-related tribes; mostly
hunters and gatherers experiencing cultural infusions
related to horses and guns which would change their core
values and performance. The Columbia plains people did not
settle; they moved seasonally through wide areas at various
seasons. They did not 'inhabit' particular lots. Their use
of the land must have been hard for settlers to understand.
They came and went, are rarely registered with a bureaucrat.
So.. who were these people of the plains who often
visited the gorge in seasonal patterns not noted in family
histories? How were they faring? What was happening to them
when all hell broke loose in Skamania?
Some background first… looking to the North from
Stevenson.. to an understanding of plains Indians of the
area.. the Yakimas, Spokanes, and the rest. Lewis and Clark
loved them most and found themselves saved in more than a
couple of circumstances. (By comparison, they didn't like
the gorge Indians who were full of trading and haggling
instincts, and quite sneaky thiefs.)
Looking to the plains: this was not a bountiful land. The
Columbia Plain had no good animal staple, few usable plants,
and little material for fire and shelter. But it did have
one plentiful resource, and the salmon bound all the Indian
groups of the Plain to the river system; it was either an
anchor or a magnet: holding some permanently along the
banks, drawing others seasonally to replenish their
supplies.
Salmon was the staple, but there were other important
materials, few of which could be obtained from the Plain
region itself: deer, elk, and bear; berries, bulbs, and
nuts; pine and cedar timbers; flints, agates, and obsidians.
Thus the Indian settlement pattern was predominantly
peripheral. Even those groups most oriented to the streams
were concentrated along the regional borders near the
forested mountains: at The Dalles and lower Deschutes, and
along the Columbia above the Wenatchee. Those whose river
ties were more seasonal also lived around the fringes,
wintering in the low country and canyons, congregating at
favorable fishing sites for short periods, but spending much
of the year hunting and gathering in and along the forested
highlands.
Thus a large portion of the Great Columbia Plain remained
virtually empty. Along the lower Snake and middle Columbia a
few villages were at scattered wide intervals, but the arid
countryside was hardly used at all, and the higher grassy
plains to the north and east were entered only to hunt for
rabbits and grouse and gather the eggs of waterfowl.
Viewed more broadly, the Columbia Plain throughout most
of its prehistory stands out as a rather empty zone.
Inhabitants moved through large ranges in order to secure
the essentials of life. That region encompassed the whole of
the interior country between the Cascades and the
Continental Divide, and from the Blue-Salmon River mountain
country far into the upper Fraser drainage in the north.
Although more than two dozen distinct groups lived within
that area, all shared certain cultural fundamentals. All
were riverine fishing economies, supplemented by hunting and
gathering; all used similar materials, tools, and
techniques; in dress and decoration, social customs and
organization, religion and ritual, political order and
attitudes, there was sufficient identity to indicate a
common heritage. Furthermore, within this region neighboring
groups had lived in peace over a long period of time.
Cultural interactions
These features suggest a high degree of isolation and
stability. In general that was true, but neither
characteristic was absolute. The borderlands limited and
channeled contact with outside groups. West of the Cascades
lived the vigorous, aggressive, northwest coastal peoples
whose highly developed social systems differed from the
interior. But the physical barriers confined sustained
contact to two narrow river corridors: the Fraser and the
lower Columbia. By historic time coastal influences had
penetrated up the Fraser, but on the Columbia, The Dalles
had long persisted as a point of cleavage. Here the Wishram
and Wasco of coastal culture (Lower Chinook) dwelt almost
side by side with the Tenino of the interior.(2) They
occupied carefully delimited sites at this richest fishing
area, and they served as intermediaries in the flourishing
trade between coastal and interior peoples. Relations with
alien cultures along the Other border zones were more
sporadic and of a different character. Intermittent warfare
was carried on with the Shoshonean peoples to the south (3)
and with several tribes east of the Rockies, especially the
Blackfeet. Yet, just Drier to historic time, a major
cultural change was introduced into the Great Columbia Plain
from these contacts.
Even prior to that change, however, the internal patterns
of this interior zone were not completely stable. Despite
the basic similarities in culture, these peoples. were
separated into two distinct language groups. Each group
included several different spoken tongues. The linguistic
boundary cut across the Columbia Plain, dividing the Salish
languages on the north from the Sahaptin on the south and
indicating that two distinct peoples entered the region at
some remote time. Further evidences suggest that Sahaptin
peoples had long been shifting to the north and west,
infiltrating and absorbing Salish groups. However, this
encroachment was peaceful and gradual, and the peoples were
so similar that it produced no real disruption.(4)
The Horse
Far more significant was the acquisition of the horse.
Through trades and raids Spanish horses were spread
northward from one Indian culture to another. About the end
of the seventeenth century, Shoshonean tribes in the upper
Snake River plain acquired a few horses, and within two or
three decades parties of Flatheads, Nez Perces, and Cayuses
had obtained their first animals. Brought into the mountain
valleys and the richly grassed plains, these animals
thrived, multiplied, and soon became an integral part of
Indian life.(5)
The impact of the horse upon these societies was immense.
This new mobility improved hunting efficiency, enlarged the
economic area, extended trading contacts, and intensified
warfare with traditional enemies to the south and east.
Expeditions to the buffalo range far to the southeast now
became annual affairs, often marked by intermittent fighting
with Plains culture tribes. Increased contacts with these
alien peoples brought further changes. The Indians of the
Columbia took over many of the Plains "horse culture"
characteristics, especially the techniques and rituals
associated with warfare. Wealth and prestige became bound up
with horses and war. Access to the buffalo and increased
range and efficiency of hunting enhanced economic security,
and this in turn allowed larger groups to live together.
Numerous autonomous fishing villages tended to amalgamate
into organized bands, necessitating political and social
change, and over-all populations probably began to increase.
At the opening of historic time these changes had been
under way for little more than half a century. They were
still in progress and unevenly spread over the region, and
the peoples of the Great Columbia Plain mirrored the full
gradation of differences which had appeared. Along the
southeast, the Net Perces add Cayuse, who had obtained
horses first and who occupied areas where a combination of
low protected valleys and high, thickly grassed plains
provided superb year-around grazing, were the most deeply
altered. Each was a linguistic unit composed of several
large bands; each band owned hundreds of horses, fishing was
less important, buffalo expeditions were major annual
events, and trading contacts within and beyond the Plain
were extended.
Beyond this southeastern corner, the intensity of change
decreased, the number of horses held were fewer, and the
veneer of new, imported cultural characteristics became
shallower. The Umatilla and Yakima on the west, and the
Palus, Spokane, and Coeur d'Alene to the northeast were in
the process of change, but their herds were smaller and the
fishing and gathering economy was still important. The
Tenino, Molala, and Klickitat in the southwest and Kittitas,
Wenatchi, Okanogan, and Columbia owned few horses and were
only slightly affected. A few villages in the arid center,
and the San Poil and Nespelem along the northern branch,
remained as riverine fishing communities almost untouched by
the new influences.
Introduction of this valuable animal resulted in more
mobile relationships which heightened trade, trespass,
thievery, and petty quarrels. Yet peace prevailed and the
geographic pattern of these groups remained stable. However,
the higher grassy plains took on a new value, and tribal
limits, formerly vague zones in the empty interior, now
became more sharply defined.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century perhaps
twenty-five to thirty thousand Indians lived in and around
the Great Columbia Plain. The horse was opening a new way of
life, transforming social relations within and without,
extending the perimeters of contact, enlarging available
resources, and promising a new period of social enrichment
and progress.
But at this very time a different kind of influence was
becoming vaguely known. Rumors began to spread over the
interior of a new kind of people--of foreign tongue, curious
customs, odd clothing and adornments -- vho came in huge
boats to the ocean shore and even up the great river for
some distance. At The Dalles the Chinook traders displayed a
few objects -- beads, bracelets, knives--unlike anything
known before. And then one early autumn, to the delighted
interest of the local Indians, a party of these strange men
appeared at the opposite corner of the region.
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(1) The broader patterns of Indian culture areas are well
displayed in Robert F. Spencer, Jesse D. Jennings et al.,
The Native Americans (New York, Evanston, and London,
1965); for the interior I have relied upon Verne F. Ray,
"Cultural Relations in the Plateau of Northwestern America,"
Publications of the Frederick Webb Hodge Anniversary
Publication Fund, S (Los Angeles, 19S~9), which
describes culture areas, traits, and intertribal
relationships. Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Nez Perce
Indians and the Opening of the Northwest (New Haven,
Conn., and London, 1965), chap. i., is a masterly synthesis
and presentation of historical and ethnological materials on
one of the most important tribes.
(2) Leslie Spier and Edward Sapir, "Wishram Ethnography,"
University of Washington Publications in
Anthropology, 8, No. S (1950), 151-300.
(3) Verne F. Ray et al., "Tribal Distribution in Eastern
Oregon and Adjacent Regions," American
Anthropologist, n.s., 40 (July-September, 1958),
384-415.
(4) Melville Jacobs, "Historic Perspectives in Indian
Languages of Oregon and Washington," Pacific Northwest
Quarterly, 28 (January, 1957), 55-74.
(5) Francis D. Haines, "The Northward Spread of Horses
Among the Plains Indians," American Anthropologist,
40 (July, 1938), 429-37; and Josephy, The Nez Perce
Indians, pp. 27-29.
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