Калапуя: история и современность коренных жителей Орегона

Native American tribe

The Kalapuya are a Native American people, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually intelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the Willamette Valley of present day western Oregon in the United States, an area bounded by the Cascade Range to the east, the Oregon Coast Range at the west, the Columbia River at the north, to the Calapooya Mountains of the Umpqua River at the south. Today, most Kalapuya people are enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon; in addition, some are members of the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz. In both cases descendants have often intermarried with people of other tribes in the confederated tribes, and are counted in overall tribal numbers, rather than separately. Most of the Kalapuya descendants live at the Grand Ronde reservation, located in Yamhill and Polk counties.

The tribal name has been rendered into English under various spellings as "Calapooia," "Calapuya," "Calapooya," "Kalapooia," and "Kalapooya."

The Kalapuyan people spoke dialects of the Kalapuyan language. It was categorized by John Wesley Powell as part of the Takelman language group. In the early 21st century, these are known as the Oregon Penutian languages. Catholic missionary François Blanchet said that "fourteen or fifteen different dialects were spoken by these tribes; they are not so essentially different but that they can understand each other. Moreover, the Chinook jargon is spoken among the Kalapooias [sic]." Chinook jargon was a trade language that developed among the Native Americans for their own use and for trading with Europeans. It became popular on the Grand Ronde Reservation. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community have renamed it as Chinuk Wawa, and developed a language immersion program for children to create new generations of native speakers.

The Kalapuya people are believed to have entered their historical homeland in the Willamette Valley by migrating from the south of the valley northwards and forcing out earlier inhabitants. Each of these bands occupied specific areas along the Willamette, Umpqua, and McKenzie rivers. Prior to contact with white explorers, traders, and missionaries, the Kalapuya population is believed to have numbered as many as 15,000 people. Catastrophic epidemics of infectious diseases such as malaria, smallpox, and other endemic diseases occurred after Natives contracted diseases from the white explorers, traders, and missionaries who entered the region. These diseases were endemic among the Europeans and Americans, but the Native Americans didn't have immunity to them and died at a high rate as a result. Some accounts tell of villages devoid of inhabitants, standing in grim testament to the high mortality of these epidemics. Blanchet reported in 1839 that diseases "reduced [them] to a very small population threatening to decline more and more." On April 12, 1851, at the Santiam Treaty Council in Champoeg, Oregon Territory, Santiam Kalapuya tribal leaders voiced strong opinions over where they would live. The Santiam leaders Alquema and Tiacan wanted to maintain their traditional territory between the forks of the Santiam River. In the 1854 Treaty of Calapooia Creek, Oregon, Umpqua and Kalapuyan tribes of Umpqua Valley ceded their lands to the United States. In the Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., at Dayton, Oregon (January 22, 1855), the Kalapuya and other tribes of the Willamette valley ceded the entire drainage area of the Willamette River to the United States.

Most Kalapuya Indians were removed to the Grand Ronde Agency and reservation. Some were assigned to the Siletz Reservation (known then as the Coast Indian Reservation) on the central Pacific Coast of Oregon, Warm Springs Reservation east of the Cascade Mountains in what are now Wasco and Jefferson Counties, or Yakama Reservation in Southern Washington State. Settled in 1855 as a temporary reserve, the Grand Ronde Reservation was first called the Yamhill River Reserve or Yamhill Valley reserve. It was officially renamed and established as the Grand Ronde Reservation by Executive Order in 1857. With members of at least 27 tribes removed to Grand Ronde, life at the reservation was difficult. Some of these tribes had historically been enemies. In the early years, the reservation was managed by the US Department of War. As it had earlier waged war against the tribes, it supervised Indian affairs across the country. Fort Yamhill was established to oversee the Indians. Later Indian management was taken over by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and finally the Bureau of Indian Affairs, placed within the Department of Interior. Rev. Adrien Croquet (Crocket) of Belgium was the Roman Catholic missionary at Grand Ronde and established St. Michael's church. The Roman Catholic Church also established a school there in the late 19th century with approval by the United States. The school was an on reservation boarding school to which children from other sites were at times forcibly removed and made to stay at school throughout the school year. Many children were later sent to off reservation Indian boarding schools, such as Chemawa Indian School in Salem. Most children were taught rural skills such as blacksmithing, farming, sewing, etc. believed to be important to their future lives on the reservation. Sanitation and health care at the reservation was poor, and mortality was high. In the 1850s a total of 1,000 people had been moved there. By 1900, only about 300 people survived.

In the mid 20th century, Federal policy continued to be directed at assimilation of Native Americans. Congress believed that some tribes were ready to enter the mainstream society and end their special relationship with the government. All of the bands and tribes of the Kalapuya descendants were terminated in 1954, along with all other western Oregon tribes, in the Western Oregon Indian Termination Act of 1954. This ended their special relationship with the federal government. Under final termination actions, the government sold most of the reservation lands, removed its services, and published final rolls of the tribe in the Congressional Record in 1956. In the late 20th century, the Kalapuya and other peoples in the confederated tribes reorganized to assert their Native American culture. The United States restored federal recognition in 1977 to the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz and in 1983 to those who were part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. The Kalapuya have intermarried extensively with descendants of their neighboring tribes. Most of the estimated 4,000 Kalapuya descendants today are enrolled in Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. This community is working to revive a common creole Native American language, long used for trade among various tribes and now known as Chinuk Wawa, by developing an immersion program for their children. They have had success in producing native speakers and are expanding the program through the eighth grade.