History isn't a rigid thing - it changes with the generations, and varies greatly based upon the perspective of those who report it.
The history of the Cowlitz Tribe is an example of how fluid history can be, and how differently it may be viewed by white settlers, later generations of people who have settled this area, and the tribe itself.
In honor of the upcoming Cowlitz Indian Pow Wow, we'll focus primarily in this column on the views the Cowlitz have of themselves.
But first, a search of the files at the Lewis County Historical Museum led to a plethora of information and photos about the Cowlitz people in Lewis County and beyond. Among the museum's photo archives were pictures of Chief Atwin Stockam (or Stockum, as it's sometimes spelled); Mary Kiona, the grand matriarch of the Cowlitz tribe in the 19th and 20th centuries; Thomas Jim, a Shaker preacher and member of the Cowlitz Tribe; and Kitty Tilikish, born on Cowlitz Prairie and a familiar figure in Toledo in the early 1900s.
In a brightly colored book called "History of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe" by Roy I. Wilson, we learn that Wilson and his father served on the Cowlitz tribal council for many years, and that Wilson served also in tribal leadership. He writes that Cowlitz means, "The People Who Seek Their Medicine Spirit," and that his tribal ancestors identified themselves as the spirit-seeking people.
Wilson wrote:
"The concept of defining sharp boundaries in order to set off the territory of one group from that of another is typical of Anglo-Americans but it is a foreign concept to Native Americans. They had loosely defined use areas, and the territory of one group would often heavily overlap with those of others.
"The white man needs boundaries in order to draw his maps, but Native Americans never held the concept of being able to say who owns what part of the Earth Mother's breast. That said, there were four divisions, or bands, of the Cowlitz Tribe. These were the consequences of geographic, historical and linguistic factors."
From Patty Kinswa-Gaiser, a modern-day Cowlitz, The Chronicle received the following e-mail: "I have some historical pages of the tribe, but it is in a PowerPoint presentation. I can fax it to you … Patty,"
And fax it she did. Kinswa-Gaiser is an organizer for the upcoming Cowlitz Indian Pow Wow, and she sent the following information, formally adopted by the Cowlitz Tribe leadership. It is both interesting and poignant.
"Southwest Washington has been home to the Cowlitz Tribe from time immemorial. Radiocarbon dating of artifacts at an ancient village site show our presence 4,000 years ago. In the 1800s, the Cowlitz numbered more than 30,000 and occupied Lewis, Cowlitz, Clark, Skamania and Wahkiakum counties. The tribe's original territory in Southwest Washington comprised some 3,750 square miles. Several Southwest Washington towns are built on original Cowlitz village sites."
Other interesting PowerPoint "points" include information that the earliest historical accounts of the Cowlitz begins in 1811 with John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Co.; that the Cowlitz had a trading relationship with the Hudson's Bay Co. at Fort Vancouver, Wash., and that the company farm employed many Cowlitz Indians in production and river transportation. Many Cowlitz are still said to be buried at Fort Vancouver.
In 1919, special U.S. Indian Agent Charles E. Roblin described the Cowlitz as "a powerful tribe that, in the early days, constituted the 'blue bloods' of Western Washington; the Cowlitz are weavers of watertight baskets thought by some specialists to be the 'most perfect baskets'; they're experts in felling the red cedar to shape dugouts for traversing the treacherous Cowlitz, Lewis and Kalama rivers and are masters of horsemanship."
In another section of their PowerPoint called "Weathering Storms With Honor," the Cowlitz Tribe account states, "When war erupted in 1855 between the Indians and the whites, Chief Atwin Stockam was told the Cowlitz Tribe would be given a reservation if our warriors remained peaceful, which they did.
"After the war, the Cowlitz were told that we would be forced to move onto reservation land near Quinault, far away from our homelands.
"The Cowlitz declined to sign away rights to our land, village sites, prairies, fishing places and burial grounds."
Before he died in 1912, distraught by the plight of his people, Chief Atwin Stockam looked across the prairie and lamented: "Long ago all this land belonged to Indians - salmon in the chuck (river), mowich (deer) and moollok (elk) in the hills. Then white men come. Atwin their friend. Now all this land belong to white man."
According to the PowerPoint presentation material, on April 12, 1973, the Indian Claims Commission found that the United States government had indeed deprived the Cowlitz Tribe "of its aboriginal Indian title as of March 20, 1863, without payment of any compensation therefore. The total area of Cowlitz territory, recognized by the commission, was 1.66 million acres - about two-thirds of the actual aboriginal territory (2.4 million acres).
"For nearly 150 years, since the tribe refused to move to a reservation, members of the Cowlitz Tribe have maintained tribal cohesion in Southwest Washington. The tribe began seeking compensation for the land we had lost and formal federal acknowledgement. When an acknowledgement bill finally passed Congress in 1928, President Coolidge vetoed it.
"On February 14, 2000 - 72 years later - the Cowlitz Tribe finally secured formal federal acknowledgement."
In a November 27, 1965, article in The Daily News, Longview, we learn that the Cowlitz Indians were one of the few tribes in the nation without a treaty. A Vern Ray, an anthropology professor at the University of Washington in 1965, was retained by the Cowlitz Tribe to prove that the Cowlitz were an identifiable group with descendants still living.
He is quoted as saying "The Cowlitz are an old and highly respected tribe among the others. They have a great pride in their tribal heritage … We used their name on a county, a river and some 23 businesses have the word Cowlitz in their names. Perhaps the federal government will show its gratitude, too."
Pat Jones is The Chronicle's lifestyle editor. She may be reached by e-mail at pjones@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8226. The Lewis County Historical Museum's Internet address is www.lewiscountymuseum.org.
