Resources about Oregon Tribes: State

Lack of knowledge concerning the vast linguistic diversity of Oregon's languages has been a major obstacle to language revitalization in this state. This book tells the story of perseverance and survival against unbelievable odds, using the words of today's speakers and learners of Oregon's languages.

"A short vocabulary of the Chipeway language": p. 393-404
"A short vocabulary of the Naudowessie language": p. 405-411
Carver's Travels as printed was probably the work of Dr. John Coakley Lettsom

This book offers a collection of articles devoted to tribal libraries and archives and provides an opportunity for tribal librarians to share their stories, challenges, achievements, and aspirations with the larger professional community.

Nootka, Haida, Tlingit, and Eskimo words collected in 1791 by an unknown person, printed from the manuscript.

A cooperative project of the Oregon Department of Education Compensatory Education Department and the Oregon State Library.

Described by Rebecca Dobkins: Curator, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Professor of Anthropology, Willamette University.

The Art of Ceremony: Regalia of Native Oregon is an unprecedented exhibition of historic and contemporary ceremonial regalia from – and selected by – Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribal communities. As Oregon’s 2008 National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces Project, The Art of Ceremony presents the region’s tribal regalia as masterworks of American art. Tribal members have always considered regalia to be master works; the exhibition offers the wider public the opportunity to recognize these stunningly compelling treasures as American masterpieces.

Reprinted, with additions, from the Oregon Sunday Journal, July 27, 1924

In 1991, the Oregon Council for the Humanities published The First Oregonians, the only single-volume, comprehensive history of Oregon's Native Americans. A regional bestseller, this collaborative project between the council, Oregon tribes, and scholars served as an invaluable reference for teachers, scholars, and general-interest readers before it went out of print in 1996. Now revised and expanded for a new generation of Oregonians, The First Oregonians provides a comprehensive view of Oregon's native peoples from the past to the present. In this remarkable volume, Oregon Indians tell their own stories, with more than half of the book's chapters written by members of Oregon's nine federally recognized tribes.

The Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest inhabit a vast region extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and from California to British Columbia. For more than two decades, A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest has served as a standard reference on these diverse peoples. Now, in the wake of renewed tribal self-determination, this revised edition reflects the many recent political, economic, and cultural developments shaping these Native communities. From such well-known tribes as the Nez Perces and Cayuses to lesser-known bands previously presumed "extinct," this guide offers detailed descriptions, in alphabetical order, of 150 Pacific Northwest tribes. Each entry provides information on the history, location, demographics, and cultural traditions of the particular tribe. Among the new features offered here are an expanded selection of photographs, updated reading lists, and a revised pronunciation guide. While continuing to provide succinct histories of each tribe, the volume now also covers such contemporary--and sometimes controversial--issues as Indian gaming and NAGPRA. With its emphasis on Native voices and tribal revitalization, this new edition of the Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest is certain to be a definitive reference for many years to come.

This publication is supported by a generous grant from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde through their Cultural Resources Publication Sponsorship Program Instead of discovering a land blanketed by dense forests, early explorers of the Pacific Northwest encountered a varied landscape including open woods, meadows, and prairies. Far from a pristine wilderness, much of the Northwest was actively managed and shaped by the hands of its Native American inhabitants. Their primary tool was fire. This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to one of the most important issues concerning Native Americans and their relationship to the land. Over more than 10,000 years, Native Americans in the Northwest learned the intricacies of their local environments and how to use fire to create desired effects, mostly in the quest for food. Drawing on historical journals, Native American informants, and ethnobotanical and forestry studies, this book's contributors describe local patterns of fire use in eight ecoregions, representing all parts of the Native Northwest, from southwest Oregon to British Columbia and from Puget Sound to the Northern Rockies. Their essays provide glimpses into a unique understanding of the environment, one that draws on traditional ecological knowledge. Together, these writings also offer historical perspective on the contemporary debate over "prescribed burning" and management of public lands. This updated edition includes a foreword by Frank K. Lake and a new epilogue by editor Robert T. Boyd. Contributors include Stephen Arno, Stephen Barrett, Theresa Ferguson, David French, Eugene Hunn, Leslie Johnson, Jeff LaLande, Estella Leopold, Henry Lewis, Helen H. Norton, Reg Pullen, William Robbins, John Ross, Nancy Turner, and Richard White.  

From first encounters in the late eighteenth century to modern tribal economies, this rich documentary history charts the major trends shaping the lives of Oregon Indians and how those Indians perceived their changing world.

Modern western Oregon was a crucial site of imperial competition in North America during the formative decades of the United States. In this book, Gray Whaley examines relations among newcomers and between newcomers and Native peoples--focusing on political sovereignty, religion, trade, sexuality, and the land--from initial encounters to Oregon's statehood. He emphasizes Native perspectives, using the Chinook word Illahee (homeland) to refer to the indigenous world he examines. Whaley argues that the process of Oregon's founding is best understood as a contest between the British Empire and a nascent American one, with Oregon's Native people and their lands at the heart of the conflict. He identifies race, republicanism, liberal economics, and violence as the key ideological and practical components of American settler-colonialism. Native peoples faced capriciousness, demographic collapse, and attempted genocide, but they fought to preserve Illahee even as external forces caused the collapse of their world. Whaley's analysis compellingly challenges standard accounts of the quintessential antebellum "Promised Land."

This program explores the legacy of the Lewis and Clark expedition from the perspective of northwest Indians. It includes interviews with leaders from the Nez Perce, Wanapum, Yakama, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, Chinook, and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.

Across thousands of miles, Indian tribes, environmental activists, tourism promoters, and keelboat re-enactors saw the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial as a rare opportunity. The 200th anniversary of the expedition that helped open the West arrived at a time of seismic change in the region- a time when its economy, politics, and even population were shifting sharply. For three years, journalist and historian David Sarasohn followed the planning of the Bicentennial, recording how the past was being invoked to commemorate the Lewis and Clark Expedition and talking to those whose ideas were shaping national and regional events. Like the expedition itself, Waiting for Lewis and Clark ranges from Monticello and Washington, D.C., down the length of the Missouri, and over the Rockies to the Pacific, depicting three Wests: the past, the present, and the dreams of Westerners.