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Ikanum is a Chinuk wawa word referring to Oral histories. It has become an operative word from the Grand Ronde tribe, the basis of their Indigenous theory of research. Ikanum underscores and provides foundation for traditional stories, for new stories, and for archaeological research practices. The Grand Ronde tribe has a long term Chinuk wawa language program with at least 4 years of immersive…

Heritage Oaks- a nice little oak savanna across 17th from the fair. The blue atop the grasses is camas.  In Salem, the state capitol is a number of camas fields, perhaps the most native of them is the two fields at the state fairgrounds. The Fairgrounds encompasses a large area bordered by 17th street, Silverton Road and Sunnyview. On Sunnyview, which bifurcates the south end of the fairgrounds…

Records of the Mountain  Molalla are very limited. Besides a few records of the tribe living around Pleasant Hill, at Lost Valley, there is nearly nothing known of their culture and territory. They were interrelated with the local Kalapuya peoples, of the Yoncalla (Komemma), and with the Klamath peoples, and likely related to the other Molalla tribes. The Mountain Band Molalla range to the Middle…

Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley by David G. Lewis The Willamette Valley is rich with history—its riverbanks, forests, and mountains home to the tribes of Kalapuya, Chinook, Molalla, and more for thousands of years. This history has been largely unrecorded, incomplete, poorly researched, or partially told. In these stories, enriched by photographs and maps, Oregon Indigenous historian…

Questions about the recent Supreme Court case Trump v. Barbara, and how a decision will affect American Indians’ rights are completely valid. There is a danger that all Native people who were born on Reservations, or all Native people born in the US, and/or born after the date of the exeutive order, could be denaturalized by a decision that affirms the view of the present regime and their racist…

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs’ record The Nestucca native peoples lived on the central Oregon coast at the Nestucca River. They were a tribe of Salish-speaking people, one of the Tillamookan tribes, which extended from south of the Clatsop territory to just south of the Siletz River. These tribes were the Nehalem, Tillamook, Nestucca, Nechesna, and Siletz tribes. In the 1850’s, the Nestucca…

The Clatskanie are a tribe that are not well known to many scholars in the region. There are rare documents about them and many people, I feel, have assumed they have gone extinct. Some years ago when I was a student at UO I recall organizing and attending the University of Oregon Pow wows (1990s), and a man by the name of Gerald Center was a regular attendee, he would normally play at one of the…

Reading early descriptions of the Tualatin Valley, they are all focused on the valley’s potential in agriculture. This theme is similar throughout the Willamette Valley, settlers and farmers did not think about the valley in any other way but for its readiness for agriculture. Considering this all-consuming focus, the traditional native nature of the land had very little chance. All descriptions…

Dairy Creek sign In the past 2 years, I have worked on signage projects in the Portland area for agencies of the city or state. In 2025, I consulted on a sign for the Dairy Creek project on Sauvie Island. Over the period of several months, I met with people in the West Multnomah Soils and water Conservation district to produce an interpretive sign that would capture the native wildlife of the…