Indians 101: A Cowlitz canoe (museum tour)

by Ojibwa for Native American Netroots

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Thursday, Dec. 08, 2022 Thursday, Dec. 08, 2022 at 8:26:51am PST

Kalama, Washington is located on the aboriginal lands of the Cowlitz Indians. Like other tribes living along the Columbia River and its tributaris, the Cowlitz economy was based on fishing and supplemented with the gathering of wild plants and hunting.

With regard to language, the Cowlitz language belongs to the Sahaptin language family and is most closely related to Kittitas, Yakama, Klikitat, and Taitnapam. In his chapter in The First Oregonians: An Illustrated Collection of Essays on Traditional Lifeways, Federal-Indian Relations, and the State’s Native People Today, linguist Dell Hymes reports:

“Speakers of Sahaptin have evolved a language that offers great attention to the way in which an action is accomplished. Verb stems commonly have two parts. The second part names the act, while the first part identifies a means or manner.”

Thus, to communicate “cross the river”, the verb would distinguish between “swam across,” “waded across,” “crossed in a canoe,” “rode a horse across,” and so on.

The Interpretive Center at the Port of Kalama has a Cowlitz canoe on display. According to the display:

“Native American groups who lived along the lower Columbia and its tributaries used dugout canoes like the ones you see here—recently built by Cowlitz artisan Robert Harjfeu—to trade with each other and build social connections.

They made the canoes of red cedar, felling the trees using fire and stone tools. They carved out the inside of the log to about three-quarter-inch thickness, then used steam to open the sides and create its distinctive shape.”