Takelma
The Takelma (also Dagelma) are a Native American people who originally lived in the Rogue Valley of interior southwestern Oregon.
Most of their villages were sited along the Rogue River. The name Takelma means "(Those) Along the River".
History
Much less is known about the lifeways of the Takelma than about their neighbors in other parts of Oregon and northern California. Their homeland was settled by Euroamericans late in the history of the American Frontier, because the surrounding mountainous country protected it. But once colonization began, it proceeded rapidly. The discovery of gold spurred the first white settlement of the region in 1852. The Takelma who survived were sent to reservations in 1856. Settlers and natives lived in the region together for less than four years.
Because Takelma territory included the most agriculturally attractive part of the Rogue Valley, particularly along the Rogue River itself, their valuable land was preferentially seized and settled by Euroamerican settlers in the mid-19th century. Almost without exception, these newcomers had little or no interest in learning about their indigenous neighbors, and they considered them a dangerous nuisance. They recorded little about the Takelma, beyond documenting their own perspective on conflicts. Native Americans living near the Takelma but on more marginal and rugged land, such as the
Conflicts between the settlers and the indigenous peoples of both coastal and interior southwest Oregon escalated and became known as the Rogue River Wars.[1] Nathan Douthit examined peaceful encounters between the whites and southern Oregon Indians, encounters he describes as "middle-ground" interactions, undertaken by "cultural intermediaries." Douthit argues that without such "middle-ground" contact, the Takelma and other southern Oregon Indians would have been exterminated rather than relocated.
In 1856, the
The Takelma spent many years in exile before anthropologists began to interview them and record information about their language and lifeways. Linguists Edward Sapir and John Peabody Harrington worked with Takelma descendants.
In the late 1980s, Agnes Baker Pilgrim, granddaughter of Takelma chief George Harney, emerged as the most significant spokesperson for the Takelma.[3]
"In 1994, on the banks of the Applegate, the Takelma people performed a Sacred Salmon Ceremony for the first time in a century and a half ... Another endeavor, the Takelma Intertribal Project, starting in 2000, has worked to restore edible, medicinal, and basketry plants through traditional techniques of burning and pruning."[4]
In the 2010 census, 16 people claimed Takelma ancestry, 5 of them full-blooded.[5]
Culture
Environment and adaptation
The Takelman people lived as
The limiting factor in the Takelma diet was carbohydrates, since fish and game provided abundant fat and protein. To get the carbohydrates and vitamins needed for good health, the Takelma collected a variety of plant foods. However, consistent with
Dwellings
During the winter months, the Takelma lived in semi-subterranean homes dug partly into the insulating earth with superstructures built of vertically placed
See also
- Latgawa
- Takelma language
- Frances Johnson
- Takilma, Oregon
- The US Navy "USS Takelma", now the ARA Suboficial Castillo (A-6), a patrol boat of the Argentine Navy
Notes
- ^ ICTMN staff (November 7, 2012). "Lost Oregon Indian Battlefield Discovery Attributable to 'Detective Work'". Indian Country Today Media Network. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
- ^ "Takelma Tribe". Oregon Caves National Monument. Nov 21, 2012. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
- ^ Stacy D. Stumbo. "'Holocaust' led to Indian massacre: On a Monday in 1855, the Indians decided they could take no more". The Daily Courier. Retrieved 2012-12-03.
- ^ Waldman, Carl. "Takelma." Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, Third Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. American Indian History Online. Facts On File, Inc. (accessed December 4, 2012)
- ^ "2010 Census CPH-T-6. American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2010" (PDF). www.census.gov. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
- ^ Atwood, Kay, Dennis J. Gray (2003). "Native American Cultures: The Takelma & Other Peoples". The Oregon History Project. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Sapir 1907, pp. 251–275.
Bibliography
- Beckham, Stephen Dow (1996), Requiem for a People: The Rogue Indians and the Frontiersmen, Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, ISBN 0-87071-521-6
- Campell, Lyle (1997), American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509427-1
- Douthit, Nathan (2002), Uncertain Encounters: Indians and Whites at Peace and War in Southern Oregon 1820s-1860s, New York: Oregon State University Press, ISBN 0-87071-549-6
- Hannon, Nan (1990), Hannon, Nan; Olmo, Richard K. (eds.), "An Underview of Southwest Oregon", Living with the Land: The Indians of Southwest Oregon, Medford, Oregon: Southern Oregon Historical Society Press
- Goddard, Ives, ed. (1996), Languages, Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 17, Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, ISBN 0-16-048774-9
- Gray, Dennis J. (1987), The Takelmas and Their Athapascan Neighbors: A New Ethnographic Synthesis for the Upper Rogue River Area of Southwestern Oregon, University of Oregon Anthropological Papers, Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon Press
- LaLande, Jeff (1987), First Over the Siskiyous: Peter Skene Ogden's 1826-1827 Journey through the Oregon-California Borderlands, Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press
- LaLande, Jeff (1990), "The Indians of Southwest Oregon: An Ethnohistorical Review", Living with the Land: The Indians of Southwest Oregon, Medford, Oregon: Southern Oregon Historical Society, ISBN 0-943388-08-2
- Mithun, Marianne (1999), The languages of Native North America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Press, ISBN 0-521-23228-7
- Sapir, Edward (1907), Notes on the Takelema Indians of Southwestern Oregon, American Anthropologist New Series, vol. 9, Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, pp. 251–275
- Sapir, Edward (1909), Takelema Texts, Anthropological Publications of the University Museum, vol. 2, Washington, D.C.: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 34–42
- Sapir, Edward (1922), "The Takelma Language of Southwest Oregon", in Boas, Franz (ed.), Handbook of American Indian Languages: Part 2, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office Press, pp. 1–296