Previously published in Northwest Anthropological Research Notes, 31(1-2):71-95 (1997)
THE YAKAMA SYSTEM OF TRADE AND EXCHANGE
DEWARD E. WALKER, JR.
Abstract
The anthropological and other research concerning the prehistoric, protohistoric, and historic
patterns of trade and exchange of the Yakama and neighboring tribal groups is summarized. An
extensive system of trade and exchange extending from the Plains and Great Basin to the Plateau
and Northwest Coast is described. This was the preexisting basis for the Hudson's Bay
Company's system of trade and exchange, and it functioned both in parallel and as part of the fur
trade system. Access to this complex network of interrelated trade centers was essential to
maintenance of the Yakama traditional economy and way of life. As further evidence, Governor
Stevens gave repeated assurances during treaty negotiations in 1855 that the Yakama and certain
other tribes were to retain their traditional rights of access to this system. There can be little
doubt that the Yakama enjoyed off-reservation travel as an essential part of their economy and
way of life both before and after 1855.
Introduction
The evidence presented here provides the basis from which further exploration of the complex
interdependencies of Plateau and other tribes of the Northwest may be investigated. Tribally
focused research approaches continue to obscure the systematic nature of patterns of trade and
exchange in the regions. There is a need for more research focused above the tribal level
following the examples of Walker (1967), Anastasio (1972), Stern (1993), and others. The
apparent uniqueness of many groups described by ethnographers tends to disappear in this larger
analytic framework. In one sense, differences have tended to overwhelm similarities and
interconnections in much of the previous anthropological research in the Plateau and neighboring
culture areas. Likewise, obvious similarities and interconnections among culture areas have been
ignored or overlooked in our zeal to defend research domains.
Following Anastasio (1972), Chance (1973), Stern (1993), and others, four maps (Figs. 1-4) have
been prepared which contain information regarding tribal trade centers and networks of the
Northwest, with depiction of the Hudson's Bay Company operations in the Columbia region.
These maps help depict the nature and extent of the traditional system of trade and exchange in
which the Yakama have, and continue to be, primary players linking the Plains, Plateau, Great
Basin, and Northwest Coast areas. These maps also depict the two Hudson's Bay Company
(HBC) districts&endash;Nez Percés and Colvile&endash;where HBC fur traders engaged in
trade and exchange with Plateau tribes over several decades before 1846 after which time the U.
S. acquired the Oregon Territory. These districts, trading posts, and trade networks reflect

Prehistory
Sahaptian peoples appear to have occupied the Columbia Plateau for more than 10,000 years
(Leonhardy and Rice 1970:4; Daugherty 1973:4). The site at Five Mile Rapids in the Long
Narrows of The Dalles indicates continuous occupation from 7500 B.C. (Cressman and others
1960; Strong 1961). A large site at Goldendale, twenty miles to the northeast, has also been
dated to this general period by Warren (1968), and another large site in the same area was dated
at 5800 B.C. by Warren, Bryan, and Tuohy (1963). The evidence from historical linguistics and
oral history also support an original settlement of the area by Sahaptian speakers who all lack
migration tales. Not one myth in the extensive corpus of Sahaptian myths and legends that have
been collected since the middle of the nineteenth century indicates that they originated elsewhere
than in the Columbia Basin (Beavert and Walker 1974; Aoki and Walker 1989).
Archaeological evidence suggests that the Plateau way of life has remained fundamentally the
same for at least ten thousand years prior to the first Euroamerican influences of the eighteenth
century. What demonstrable changes did occur during this period of time can be traced to either
climatic change or to innovation in techniques. By 9000 B.P., rich archaeological deposits occur
throughout the Columbia Plateau from The Dalles, east to the Snake River at Windust Cave and
Hell's Canyon (Kirk and Daugherty 1978; Ames and Marshall 1981), north to Kettle Falls, and
west to the Fraser River canyon. These early Plateau peoples harvested fish, including salmon
and suckers (Ames and Marshall 1981:41), gathered plant foods in large quantities, hunted large
ungulates, and traded with coastal peoples for decorative shells (Kirk and Daugherty 1978:37;
Erickson 1990). Excavations near The Dalles have disclosed large quantities of salmon bones.
Ames and Marshall (1981:41) note that though fishing tackle and fish remains are generally rare
in southeastern Plateau sites, they are present throughout the regional sequence. Kettle Falls
archaeology reveals evidence of fishing as early as 9000 B.P. (Kirk and Daugherty 1978:67).
Nelson (1969) in his Salish-expansion theory asserts that the ancestral Salish brought intensive
fishing with them and helped produce the Plateau winter village settlement pattern. He says the
Salish expansion originated in the Fraser delta about 4500 B.P. at the end of the Altithermal
(Elmendorf 1965). Ames and Marshall (1981:43, 47) dispute this theory, arguing that pit-house
villages first appear by 5000 B.P. in the southeastern part of the Plateau, far from the center of
Salish expansion. Somewhat unconvincingly, they ascribe this new residential pattern not to
improved fishing techniques imported from the coast, but to an increased intensity of root
collection which emphasized a preexisting Plateau subsistence focus. Kirk and Daugherty
(1978:67) suggest that roots, berries, and greens have been major foods from the earliest times
and that the Marmes deposits bear this out.
They also conclude that culture change in the Plateau proceeded at a modest pace through
various millennia to historic time. For example, Kirk and Daugherty (1978:68) say that if
projectile points are:
arranged by age . . . [they] show a progression in form and manufacturing
technique, not necessarily an improvement through time&endash;for early
workmanship was as good as what came later&endash;but a definite and ordered
change. Points became gradually smaller . . . reflecting the change in weaponry
from spears that were thrust to those thrown with atlatls, and finally to bows and
arrows.
Protohistory
One of the most dramatic shifts in Plateau history is stimulated by adoption of the horse after
A.D. 1700. The Yakama quickly learned to ride and to geld their stallions (Osborne 1955) and to
control both the behavior and the genetics of their herds. They acquired wealth in horses by the
thousands. Francis Haines has traced the spread of horses from their source in the Spanish
colonies of the Southwest. In 1860, horses spread up both sides of the Rockies from Apaches to
Comanches, from Pawnees to Kansas Indians, reaching the upper Missouri by 1740. On the west
they spread from the Ute on the Colorado Plateau to the Shoshone of the Upper Snake, then to
the Flathead by 1720 and on to the Nez Perce and Cayuse sometime after 1730.
The horse was adopted quickly and became an integral part of Plateau and Yakama life. It did
much to intensify existing patterns of subsistence, trade, and exchange, broadening the range of
Yakama travel by several orders of magnitude. Raiding became a problem as well. Lewis and
Clark noted that the Columbia River villages from the Umatilla to The Dalles were mostly
located on the north shore or on islands in the stream, for fear of the depredations of Shoshone,
Paiute, and Bannock raiders. They had adopted horses earlier and a wide-ranging predatory life
style, hunting bison in the headwaters of the Snake, Missouri, and Yellowstone rivers. The early
Shoshone-Bannock traveled east of the continental divide and warred with Blackfeet and Siouan
groups. Not long after horses enlarged the scope of intergroup raiding, fur traders began
extending their frontier outposts toward the eastern base of the Rockies. The new pattern of
warfare, while a dramatic innovation, probably had little effect on the basic ecological relations
of people and resources along the mid-Columbia River. Bison hunting did substantially increase.
Horses soon became accepted as standards of wealth, movable wealth that needed only to be set
loose to feed on the nutritious range grasses, abundant on the low plains and into the mountains.
The new life widely prophesied and promised by the coming of the whites brought many
changes (Walker 1969). The first recorded epidemics came about 1775. Robert Boyd (1985:8190) believes that the first wave of smallpox came from the west about 1775 from ships exploring
for furs along the north Pacific coast, rather than up the Missouri. My own research before Boyd
confirms this hypothesis. Smallpox ravaged the Columbia River area (Boyd 1985:99-100),
reducing the original population to about one half by the time of Lewis and Clark's exploration.
In their journals, Lewis and Clark describe old men with pockmarked faces among the Upper
Chinooks of the lower Columbia River and were told that the disease had struck a generation
before, essentially eliminating the vast Chinookan system of trade and commerce centered on the
lower Columbia River (Thwaites 1904-05). Asa Bowen Smith documents its ravages among the
Nez Perce at about the same time (Drury 1958:136). An outbreak of the disease was reported in
1824-25 (Boyd 1985:338-341). The epidemic of 1853 was documented in detail by McClellan
(1855) of the railroad survey party as they conducted their explorations for a trans-Cascades rail
route.
The "fever and ague" (probably malaria) that broke out at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort
Vancouver headquarters in the summer of 1830 (Cook 1955; Boyd 1985:112-145) raged
unchecked for four years before abating. It decimated the Chinookan villages of the lower
Columbia and Kalapuya Indian populations throughout the Willamette Valley extending to the
densely settled Central Valley of California. Though spared from malaria, the Plateau people
next found themselves in the path of thousands of immigrants crossing the continent over the
Oregon Trail. Seasonal respiratory diseases had become commonplace among the Indians who
congregated at fur trading posts each winter (Boyd 1985:341-348), a pattern repeated at the
missions. With the immigrants came new diseases against which the Indians had no resistance. In
1844 there was scarlet fever and whooping cough, and in 1846 more scarlet fever (Boyd
1985:349-350).
The Fur Trade
Fur clothing was in demand during the eighteenth century, especially in the Orient. The Hudson's
Bay Company claimed the furs from the Arctic to the Mackenzie and the Northwest Coast.
Northwest furs were collected throughout the Columbia drainage basin for shipment to China.
There they were exchanged for rare spices, silks, and tea for resale in New York and Boston and
thus the Americans became known as "Boston men."
Neither the Colvile nor the Nez Perce district ever proved a great producer of furs. In part this
may be attributed to the fact that a good fraction of the territory is not forested and supported
relatively few fur bearers. Equally significant is the fact that most Plateau peoples were simply
not interested in trapping furs for trade (Simpson 1931:42, 54); for example the Nez Perce
considered it beneath their dignity. Following the 1818 agreement between Britain and the
United States to share the Oregon country, the Northwest Company embarked on an aggressive
Snake River strategy designed to deny that region's furs to the Americans (Simpson 1931:46).
"Brigades" of trappers (not local Indians) were provisioned each summer at Astoria and packed
their provisions up the Columbia to Walla Walla by canoe, then loaded their goods on horseback
for the overland passage to the upper Snake where they engaged in intensive trapping, returning
with their furs to Astoria (or Fort Vancouver) in June of the following year.
The Plateau Indians' role in this operation was more that of spectator than participant, though
they were essential sources of horses used by the overland brigades
and&endash;curiously&endash;they were major providers of venison for fur company personnel.
The Columbia River was the main link in these commercial chains and Fort Nez
Percés&endash;established at the mouth of the Walla Walla River by Donald McKenzie in July
of 1818&endash;eventually became the nerve center of the entire inland operation, located as it
was at the strategic junction of the Snake and Columbia-Fraser shipping routes (Stern 1993). Fort
Nez Percés retained its importance until the 1846 treaty. Indian-fur trader relations were
relatively positive, since the goal of the trade was a profitable business in furs. To that end the
Indians tolerated the traders' presence and were free to pursue their seasonal rounds and
traditional trade and exchange. Traders actively discouraged intergroup warfare as an
impediment to free movement of the trapping brigades (Stern 1993). Marriages between Indian
women and European or Métis trappers had the effect of expanding the Plateau Indian social
network to include individuals of radically different world views. Some twenty Catholic Iroquois
trappers married into Flathead society before 1820 and may have provided them their first
instruction in Christian ritual practice.
The Missionaries
Openness to such intermarriage is shown in Walker's (1972) analysis of Nez Perce outmarriage
as a practice that helped maintain trade and exchange systems. Fur traders were often Christian
and provided impetus for various innovative religious movements (Walker 1969). The fur
traders' resistance to diseases that decimated the tribes was attributed to their spiritual powers
and to the power of their books. Following the Hudson's Bay Company's takeover in 1821 and
Governor Simpson's inspection tour of the Columbia Department in 1825 (Simpson 1931),
several chiefs' sons were brought to the Company's Red River headquarters to be educated in the
English manner. Disease took the lives of most of these young men, but a few returned to
positions of influence. A delegation of four Nez Perce and Flathead young men also traveled
eastward intending to secure missionaries of their own (Haines 1937; Drury 1958:106-107). The
missionary societies responded. The Methodists sent Jason Lee with Nathaniel Wyeth's fur
brigade in 1834. The rival American Board of Committees for Foreign Missions, a joint
Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Reform effort, active in Hawaii since 1820, sent
Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman in 1835. Whitman returned overland to recruit a permanent
missionary contingent for the following year.
The Whitmans established their mission in Cayuse territory, and the Spaldings moved to Lapwai.
In 1838 Walker and Eells arrived to set up the Tshimakain mission among the Spokans, and the
Methodists sent Perkins to join with Jason and Daniel Lee in founding a station at The Dalles.
Like the Hudson's Bay Company posts, the mission compounds were supported by farming
operations. Self-sufficiency, however, was only a secondary goal of the missionary farmers.
Uppermost in their minds was the goal of transforming their nomadic charges into settled
farmers. The constant travel of the tribes was a great impediment to the missionaries' efforts at
schooling their children and in eradicating cultural practices, such as the polygyny of chiefs and
other influential men. Whitman and Spalding had initial successes, reporting in 1843 that 234
children were in school, 140 Nez Perce were farming wheat, corn, and potatoes at Lapwai, and
60 Cayuses were farming at the Waiilatpu mission (Meinig 1968:136). Perkins and Lee are
credited with 1000 conversions in their great winter revival of 1839-1840 at The Dalles (Perkins
1843). Settled farming life was a radical break from the social and economic patterns of Plateau
peoples, and they soon reverted to their traditional subsistence rounds, leaving the missionaries
with empty pews.
The heyday of this first phase of missionary activity in the Plateau was brief, beginning with
Whitman's and Spalding's arrivals and ending abruptly after the death of the Whitmans in 1847.
Their deaths saw the beginnings of military pacification, forced Indian resettlement on
reservations, and the invasion of many more white settlers. Indian disillusionment with the
missionaries, who had been hailed first as miracle workers was due to several factors (Walker
1968, 1969), such as their association with epidemic disease and the presence of large numbers
of whites. The Nez Perce missionary, Smith, wrote letters revealing a deep skepticism about the
entire Northwest Indian missionary enterprise. Smith was well-educated, trained in Latin and
Greek, and he took the task of learning the native language seriously. He wrote, "without a
knowledge of the language we are useless," and "the difficulty of translation seems almost
insurmountable" (Drury 1958:104, 138). He worried at length over how to faithfully convey the
true meaning of such words as "baptism" (Drury 1958:112). Smith criticized Spalding for
admitting Timothy and Joseph into the church, "without any articles of faith or covenant in their
language and no one able to explain the articles of faith & covenant satisfactorily to them in the
Nez Perce language." Smith believed that they did not know what they were required to believe
(Drury 1958:143). Smith also took issue with Spalding's insistence on converting the tribes to a
settled farming life. He argued correctly that settling them would prevent them from providing
for their own subsistence. Smith departed from the mission field in the spring of 1841. Schuster
(1975) provides a detailed discussion of Yakama missionization.
The Treaty of 1855 and Establishment of the Reservations
Between 1778 and 1871 the government of the United States negotiated and ratified 371 treaties
with tribes of the present United States (Zucker, Hummel, and Hogfoss 1983:69). In 1871,
Congress determined that no treaties would thereafter be negotiated with any Indian tribe within
the United States as an independent nation or as a distinct people. Subsequent Indian reservations
were established and rescinded by executive order as in the case of the Colville, Spokane, and
certain other reservations of the Northwest.
The earlier treaties in the Northwest and elsewhere reflected the balance of power between
sovereign Indian governments and the still-tenuous power of the youthful United States. By the
mid-1800s the balance of power had shifted dramatically, except in the Northwest. Then Federal
Indian Commissioner George Manypenny wrote to Governor Stevens directing him to "enter at
once upon negotiations . . . having for principle [sic] aim the extinguishment of the Indian claims
to the lands . . . so as not to interfere with the settlement of the territories" (Relander 1962:39).
Stevens responded that "the large reserve (i.e., that of the Yakama) is in every respect adapted to
an Indian reservation (Relander 1962:44).
It is instructive to review the wording in the Act of 14 August 1848 (9 Stat. 323) establishing the
Oregon Territory. This Act stated that nothing in it: "shall be construed to impair the rights of
persons or property now pertaining to the Indians in said Territory, so long as such rights remain
unextinguished by treaty between the United States and such Indians."
In an address given at the Walla Walla treaty council ground on Tuesday 5 June 1855, Governor
Stevens (1985) reflected the honorable intent of the Unites States when he stated to the Yakama
and other assembled tribes as follows: "I need say nothing more. It [the Treaty of 1855] is
designed to make the same provision for all the tribes and for each Indian of every tribe. The
people of one tribe are as much the people of the Great Father as the people of another tribe; the
red men are as much his children as the white men."
On the same day, Governor Stevens (1985) explained further the various provisions that were
being proposed for all the tribes, including the following guarantees:
You will be allowed to pasture your animals on land not claimed or occupied by
settlers, white men. You will be allowed to go on the roads, to take your things to
market, your horses and cattle. You will be allowed to go to the usual fishing
places and fish in common with the whites, and to get roots and berries and to kill
game on land not occupied by the whites; all this outside the Reservation.
On 9 June 9 1855, the day that the treaty with the Walla Walla, Cayuse, and Umatilla was
signed, Governor Stevens again assured the assembled tribes that the written treaties faithfully
reflected the oral explanations previously given to them at the council ground stating as follows:
My Friends, Today we are all I trust of one mind. Today we shall finish the
business which brought us together. Yesterday the Yakamas had not made up
their minds fully. Today they and ourselves agree; the papers have been drawn up.
A paper for the Nez Perces; they live on one Reservation. A paper for the
Walla Wallas, Cayuses, and Umatillas; they have their Reservation on the
Umatilla. And a paper for the Yakamas; they have their Reservation. These papers
engage us to do exactly what we have promised to do.
Again, Governor Stevens (1985), when addressing a reluctant Nez Perce chief, Looking Glass at
Walla Walla, stated as follows:
Looking Glass knows that in this [Nez Perce] reservation settlers cannot go, that
he can graze his cattle outside of the reservation on lands not claimed by settlers,
that he can catch fish at any of the fishing stations, that he can kill game and go to
buffalo when he pleases, that he can get roots and berries on any of the lands not
occupied by settlers.
Although slightly different wording was used in the treaties with the several tribes, it is doubtful
that this was intended to secure different off-reservation fishing rights to the different Indian
tribes. The right to use roads in order to exercise these and other rights essential to their
subsistence and system of trade and exchange also is affirmed repeatedly. For example, on 4
June, Governor Stevens states: "You will be near the Great Road and can take your horses and
your cattle down the river and to the Sound to market" (Slickpoo and Walker 1973:110).
Followed by another statement on 5 June describing their freedom of movement as follows:
"They [same as above] shall have the same liberties outside the Reservation to pasture animals
on land not occupied by whites, to kill game, to get berries and to go on the roads to market"
(Slickpoo and Walker 1973:114). Again on 5 June, he states: "My brother has stated that you
will be permitted to travel the roads outside the Reservation" (Slickpoo and Walker 1973:115).
Once again: "Now if our chief desires to construct such a road [railroad] through your country
we want you to agree that he shall have the privilege. You would have the benefit of it as well as
other people" (Slickpoo and Walker 1973:115). Finally Stevens says: "Now as we give you the
privilege of traveling over roads, we want the privilege of making and travelling roads through
your country, but whatever roads we make through your country will not be for your injury"
(Slickpoo and Walker 1973:116).
Most of the assurances communicated during the treaty negotiations in June of 1855 appear as
articles in the ratified treaties. For example, fishing and other off-reservation rights appear as part
of Article 3 in the Treaty with the Yakama (Kappler 1904):
The exclusive right of taking fish in all the streams, where running through or
bordering said reservation, is further secured to said confederated tribes and bands
of Indians, as also the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places in
common with citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary buildings for
curing them; together with the privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries,
and pasturing their horses and cattle upon open and unclaimed land.
In the Treaty with the Nez Perce (Kappler 1904), fishing and other off-reservation rights are
described as part of Article 3:
The exclusive right of taking fish in all the streams where running through or
bordering said reservation, is further secured to said Indians; as also the right of
taking fish at all usual and accustomed places in common with citizens of the
Territory; and of erecting temporary buildings for curing, together with the
privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses and
cattle upon open and unclaimed land.
Fishing and other off-reservation rights appear in Article 1 of the Treaty with the Walla Walla,
Cayuse, and Umatilla (Kappler 1904):
Provided also, that the exclusive right of taking fish in the streams running
through and bordering said reservation is hereby secured to said Indians, and at all
other usual and accustomed stations in common with citizens of the United States,
and of erecting suitable buildings for curing the same; the privilege of hunting,
gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their stock on unclaimed lands in
common with citizens, is also secured to them.
Similar language guaranteeing reserved rights to continue off-reservation subsistence pursuits
and travel are also found in the July 1855 Treaty Stevens negotiated with the Flathead, Pend
d'Oreille, and Kootenai.
In yet another Stevens treaty of 1855 (17 October) negotiated with the Blackfeet and various
tribes at the council ground on the upper Missouri River near the mouth of the Judith River in the
then Territory of Nebraska (now Montana), the reserved treaty rights of western tribes on the
upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers are clearly recognized and affirmed including a right to
travel to and from the common hunting territory. Article 3 of this treaty describes the area and
rights reserved to the tribes as follows:
The Blackfoot Nation consent and agree that all that portion of the country
recognized and defined by the treaty of Laramie as Blackfoot territory, lying
within lines drawn from the Hell Gate or Medicine Rock passes in the main range
of the Rocky Mountains, in an easterly direction of the nearest source of the
Musselshell river, thence to the mouth of Twenty-five Yard Creek, thence up the
Yellowstone River to its northern source, and thence along the main range of the
Rocky Mountains, in a northerly direction, to the point of beginning, shall be a
common hunting-ground for 99 years, where all the nations, tribes and bands of
Indians, parties to this treaty, may enjoy equal and uninterrupted privileges of
hunting, fishing and gathering fruit, grazing animals, curing meat and dressing
robes. They further agree that they will not establish villages, or in any other way
exercise exclusive rights within ten miles of the northern line of the common
hunting-ground, and that the parties to this treaty may hunt on said northern
boundary line and within ten miles thereof.
Provided, That the western Indians, parties of this treaty, may hunt on the trail
leading down the Musselshell to the Yellowstone; the Muscle Shell River being
the boundary separating the Blackfoot from the Crow territory.
And provided, That no nation, band, or tribe of Indians, parties of this treaty, nor
any other Indians, shall be permitted to establish permanent settlements, or in any
other way exercise, during the period above mentioned, exclusive rights or
privileges within the limits of the above described hunting-ground.
And provided further, That the rights of the western Indians to a whole or a part
of the common hunting-ground, derived from occupancy and possession, shall not
be affected by this article, except so far as said rights may be determined by the
treaty of Laramie with the Blackfeet (Kappler 1904).
This treaty designates routes of travel across the Rocky Mountains, places prohibitions on
intertribal warfare (except in self-defense against certain groups), and limits and designates
hunting areas to be used by tribes when travelling to and from this "common hunting ground." It
is significant that the Flathead, the Upper Pend d'Oreille, and the Kootenay are mentioned in this
treaty, because they were all closely linked by trade, marriage, political, and other ties to the
Yakama, Umatilla, Cayuse, and other western tribes (Anastasio 1972).
Trade and Exchange in the Plateau
Intensive studies of traditional systems of trade and exchange in the Plateau have been
undertaken by Walker (1967), Brunton (1968), Anastasio (1972), Stern (1993), and Smith
(1964). Walker (1967) draws the following conclusions concerning trade and exchange within
the region (paraphrased):
1. Cross-utilization of resources among tribal groups in the aboriginal Plateau was the rule, not
the exception; such resources included game, fish, roots, berries, furs, skins, stone, and other
materials not distributed evenly throughout the area.
2. Chinook Jargon, the trade language of the Chinookan tribes employed by the Yakama,
continued to be important in intertribal trade and exchange until at least the end of the nineteenth
century. Although widely used, it was limited in its vocabulary to a few hundred words, and
suitable primarily for trade and exchange. Like other tribal languages, it was not anyone's
primary language.
3. Traditionally, the tribal groups of the region lacked fully developed and centralized tribal
organization in the political sense; such tribalization came later when treaties established
reservations, head chiefs, tribal police, etc. Instead, families, villages, and occasionally bands
may be said to have possessed stewardship over certain resources such as fishing sites. Rights to
membership in such groups were usually determined by birth and marriage. Cross-utilization of
resources between different families, villages, bands, or other groups was mediated primarily
through trading partnerships, kinship ties, and social relationships that knitted together the
peoples of the Plateau into a single economic system.
4. Annual as well as geographic variation in the quality and quantity of subsistence resources in
the Plateau was substantial in the aboriginal period. Subsistence activities thus required regular,
extensive travel throughout the Plateau and in the neighboring Plains, Great Basin, and
Northwest Coast. The Yakama joined with eastern groups such as the Nez Perce, Kootenay,
Pend d'Oreille, and Flathead to journey into the Plains to hunt bison, to trade, and to raid. This
exploitation of the bison in the Plains was similar to exploitation of the salmon and other
resources of the Columbia and its tributaries in the central and western Plateau. Southern Plateau
groups also exploited resources of the northern Great Basin in a similar manner.
5. By the time of contact with Euroamericans the Yakama had adopted the horse and been
influenced by Plains cultural patterns which greatly intensified and expanded the scope of their
system of trade and exchange. The impact of the fur trade accelerated the system even more.
In 1967, Walker (1967) cited Griswold (1954) and Daugherty and Fryxell (1962) who described
some of the prehistoric and traditional trading activity conducted through a network of trails
ultimately connecting the Plains through the Plateau to the Northwest Coast:
Not unexpectedly the materials traded along these routes were varied. The Plateau
tribes carried eastward coastal commodities such as the shells of dentalia, haliotis,
and olivella (all of which were used widely for ornamentation) and [other] Plateau
products such as salmon pemmican, salmon oil, woven bags, horn bows, wooden
bows, greenstone pipes, lodgepoles, wild hemp, berries, meats, moose skins,
spoons and bowls of mountain sheep horn, and basketry. In return, the Plains
tribes traded bison robes, father bonnets, catlinite pipes, obsidian, buffalo horn,
buffalo bone beads, paints, buckskin clothing, and horse equipment (Griswold
1954). Direct archaeological evidence, consisting of hundreds of Olivella shells
and obsidian fragments recovered from the Marmes Rockshelter site and other
sites in Yakama territory, demonstrate that similar exchange of materials had
begun at least 7000 years ago.
Walker (1967) continues as follows (paraphrased):
The Yakama were, with the Nez Perce and Flathead, a primary link between The
Dalles-Celilo region [and coast] and the Flathead [group]. Their importance in
introducing Plains influences to the Plateau is well known (Ray 1939). Plateau
groups employed a number of mechanisms to facilitate this trade. Important
among them were the annual trade fairs held in places like The Dalles-Celilo area,
the Yakima Valley, the junction of the Snake and Columbia rivers, the Upper
Columbia River and its tributaries, the Upper Missouri River, and the Upper
Snake River in southern Idaho. In 1814 Alexander Ross (Griswold 1954:115-116)
visited one such fair in the Yakima Valley which he described in the following
manner:
"We had scarcely advanced three miles when a camp of the true Mameluke style
presented itself; a camp of which we could see the beginning but not the end! It
could not have contained less than 3,000 men, exclusive of women and children,
and triple that number of horses. It was a grand and imposing sight in the
wilderness, covering more than six miles in every direction. Councils, root
gathering, hunting, horse-racing, foot-racing, gambling, singing, dancing,
drumming, yelling, and a thousand other things which I cannot mention were
going on around us."
Another major contributor to our understanding of Plateau trade and exchange is Anastasio
(1972). His 1955 dissertation on Plateau task groupings has been revised, updated, and published
through Northwest Anthropological Research Notes as "The Southern Plateau: An Ecological
Analysis of Intergroup Relations." In this important contribution he draws a number of
conclusions concerning the traditional patterns of Plateau trade and exchange. For example, he
(Anastasio 1972:175) describes the following customs that sustained this system of trade and
exchange:
Protection and hospitality, or at least tolerance, were extended even to members
of an enemy group who manifested friendly intentions or came on official
intergroup business and provided that there had not been a recent clash with that
enemy group in which loss of life had been sustained by the host group. ...
Visitors were expected to obey group norms and were not exempt if they
infringed on the rights of the host group.
Anastasio (1972:184) summarizes his lengthy analysis as follows:
To summarize, the many intergroup activities of the Plateau were possible
because of a series of mechanisms which allowed interaction for all sorts of tasks.
There were intergroup norms which limited the use of warfare as a mechanism of
intergroup relations and permitted the settlement of intergroup disputes by
discussion, arbitration, and agreement. There were norms permitting the coutilization of resource sites and the peaceful congregation of groups for
ceremonies, conferences, and games. There was group responsibility for the
welfare of person and property of visiting members of other groups. There were
norms for the exchange of goods and services and the extension of kinship and
friendship ties across groups. Such patterns of agreement and interaction can
hardly be seen as the result of fortuitous and haphazard contacts. They were
established, maintained, and ordered by consensus. Therefore, we would say that
the norms of intergroup relations and the relevant beliefs and values formed part
of an intergroup culture. The component groups were bound together by their
acceptance of this culture.
Theodore Stern in his recent Chiefs and Chief Traders (1993:18-33) describes the "Columbian
Trading Network," observing first that "despite their [mostly American traders] growing
importance [in the period before 1846], they cannot have been responsible for giving rise to the
network: they had only a traffic already in existence." Further, Stern (1993:26) says:
Exchange was deeply embedded in social relationships. Something of its complex
nature can be seen in the career of Kammach, son of a headman and himself in
time to become a headman of the Tualatin Kalapuya, dwelling above the falls of
the Willamette. Trade such as his brought to the Kalapuya exotic articles
including Klickitat baskets, woven mountain goat wool blankets from the Salish
of the western Plateau, and buffalo robes from the Plains. Kammach early aligned
himself with the interests of the prominent Clackamas Chinook leader, Cassino.
When he thereafter married the daughter of a Chinook headman&endash;either
Clackamas or Wishram-Wasco&endash;his father paid over a bride price of
twenty slaves and ten rifles. Annually thereafter, Kammach visited
friends&endash;in all likelihood trading partners&endash;among the Luckiamute
and Mary's River bands of Kalapuya in the middle valley, as well as the Alsea on
the coast, in trips that might last six months. He brought them horses and money
dentalia, together with rifles, blankets, coats, tobacco, and gunpowder. From them
he received in return slaves, beaver skins, buckskins, and other hides. These he
handed over to his father-in-law, perhaps as a supplement to the bride price, but
surely as something more: for his father-in-law was probably the source of his
trading goods, and in turn traded the beaver pelts and the hides at Fort Vancouver,
while trading the slaves within the native network.
Additionally Stern (1993:30-31) says:
In the interregional trade of the Northern Plains and Great Basin, formality and
control were greater, in part as an expression of Plains ceremonialism. Recalled
one man of Palus-Nez Perce ancestry, when the Plateau party arrived, "the Crow
chief would indicate to us the place where our people were to pitch their separate
camp circle. Each man had a trading partner who put by goods to trade" against
the time they came together. When Salishan parties encountered erstwhile foes on
the prairies, leaders of the two sides might smoke together, then announce a
trading truce for a set period. During that time, then, members of the two parties
danced, gambled, and traded together. Often, less than a day after the groups had
separated, members on either side might already be engaged in trying to cut off
stragglers or run off horses from the other group.
Finally he (Stern (1993:30-31, 33) says that:
Within the Plateau, it was not the coming of British and American traders alone
that gave fresh impetus to exchange. Speaking of the upper Columbia in terms
broadly applicable to the Plateau as a whole, Teit [1928] remarks that in those
days when trade was conducted either afoot or by canoe, the articles exchanged
had been of necessity light and of high value, while trading parties were small and
infrequent. All this was changed with the advent of the horse: in those latter days,
both the volume and variety of goods carried increased, being extended to include
raw and semi-processed materials. Routes became more direct and led overland,
while parties grew in size and trading ventures in frequency.
Thus in a manner largely unacknowledged by Euroamerican traders, they
operated alongside, and sometimes in competition with, a native trading network,
whose participants brought native expectations into their dealings with these
foreign newcomers. It is not enough, however, to compare their systems as
distinct entities: further features lie in the interaction of tribe with tribe in
juxtaposition with the interaction of tribe and traders. It is to the peoples of the
Nez Percés District that we next turn. The three chapters that follow provide a
summary overview of those peoples and their cultures, and of their leaders.
Focusing on more recent times in the 1960s, Brunton (1968:1-28) has discovered that the Nez
Percés and Colvile districts of the Hudson's Bay Company era continue to function as multi-
tribal ceremonial groupings, divided roughly along Salishan and Sahaptian language boundaries
(significant political alliances within these ceremonial groupings have been detected by Walker).
This organization of Plateau social and cultural groupings, and their relationship to other
ceremonial groupings in the Northwest Coast, Great Basin, and Northwestern Plains conforms to
the views cited above of Walker, Anastasio, and Stern. While Brunton (1968:21-22) fails to
pursue the economic and political functions of these groupings, that should not prevent us from
understanding that these structures continue to serve kinship, economic, and political functions at
this time despite the imposition of the reservation system.
Yakama Trade and Exchange
In 1854 Gibbs, ethnographer for Governor Stevens, noted the intensity and wide geographical
extent of Yakama trade and exchange, particularly evident among the Klikitat. Gibbs (1854:403)
described them as follows:
The Klikatats and Yakimas, in all essential peculiarities of character, are identical,
and their intercourse is constant; but the former, though a mountain tribe, are
much more unsettled in their habits than their brethren.... They manifest a peculiar
aptitude for trading, and have become to the neighboring tribes what the Yankees
were to the once Western States, the travelling retailers of notions; purchasing
from the whites feathers, beads, cloth, and other articles prized by Indians, and
exchanging them for horses, which in turn they sell in the settlements.
The extent of Yakama involvement in interregional trade and exchange with Northwest Coast
groups has also been investigated by Allan Smith (1964) in his study of tribal uses of Rainier
National Park. He notes that traditional Yakama trails (passes) through the Cascades included
Naches, Chinook, Carlton, Cowlitz, and White passes which range from 4100 to 5440 ft. of
elevation. His informants also affirm that the passes used by whites today were those followed
by the Yakama. Smith (1964) provides a list of passes known to the Yakama which are presented
in Table 1.
TABLE 1. PASSES IN YAKAMA COUNTRY (after Smith 1964)
Pass ca. Elev. Location
Snoqualmie 3000 Between Coal Cr. (Yakima R. system) & S. Fork Snoqualmie R.
Yakima 3525 Between Roaring Creek and Cedar River
Meadow 3650 Between Meadow Creek and Sunday Creek (Green River system)
Dandy 3750 Between Meadow Creek and Sunday Creek (Green River system)
Stampede 3800 Stampede Creek and Sunday Creek (Green River system)
Sheeta 3450 Cabin Creek and Green River
Tacoma 3450 Cabin Creek and Green River
Green 4988 Middle Fork Naches River & Greenwater River (White R. system)
Chinook 5440 Rainier Fork American River & Chinook Creek (Cowlitz system)
Carlton 4100 Bumping River and Carlton Creek (Cowlitz system)
Cowlitz 5191 Indian Creek and Summit Creek (Cowlitz system)
White 4500 Clear Creek and Milridge Creek (Cowlitz system)
Tieton 5050 North Fork Tieton River and Clear Fork Cowlitz River
Chinook Pass (5440 feet)
According to Smith, this pass linked the Rainier Fork of the American River on the east with the
low divide in the Park separating the headwaters of the White River on the north from those of
the Chanapscosh on the south. Specific information confirms use of this pass and is provided by
the Yakama. Information indicates that their forebears used to travel through Chinook as well as
Naches passes. According to the late Alec Saluskin, who visited the Rainier berry fields once
when he was a youth, the trails used by the members of the Yakama follow the present trails
through these two passes almost exactly.
Naches Pass (4988 feet)
Smith states that Naches Pass lay just to the northeast of the northwestern corner of Rainier Park,
and hence north along the Cascade Divide from Chinook Pass. According to his informants, the
Yakama were familiar with and used this pass. The trail through this defile was said to have
followed the present trail. Smith states that this defile was also known to Puget Sound tribes and
used by them. For example, members of the Nisqually tribe are reported to have often traveled
east of the Mountains through Naches Pass and Cowlitz Pass. The route by way of Naches Pass
between the coast and the Plateau ran slightly to the north of Mt. Rainier Park. Information from
a Muckleshoot informant, Louis Starr, indicates that practically all Muckleshoot could speak
Yakama but not the reverse. He said that the Muckleshoot went to the Yakama country to get
things they could not obtain in their own territory, such as certain roots. Similarly, the Yakama
came over to the Muckleshoot country to catch and dry fish. The Muckleshoot trail, he reported,
went along the White River, Greenwater River, and then over Naches Pass.
Carlton Pass (4100 feet)
According to available maps and to Yakama informants, Smith says that this pass is the first
significant break in the crests of the Cascades south of Chinook Pass. It lies about 1 mile
southeast of the point where the eastern boundary of Mt. Rainier National Park leaves the
Cascades Divide and breaks away to the southwest. According to the Mt. Aix U. S. G. S.
Quadrangle, a trail today ascends the Bumping River from the east, moves through this pass, and
descends Carlton Creek in a southwesterly direction to Summit Creek and this stream to the
Ohanapecosh. In this valley it unites with the Nisqually River-to-Cowlitz Pass trail. It thus
provides another link between the country of the Yakama and Taidnapam territory.
Cowlitz Pass (5191 feet)
This pass, also termed Packwood Pass by Smith, lies about 6 miles southeast along the Divide
from the southeastern corner of Rainier Park. Although no data were obtained from informants
demonstrating aboriginal travel through this pass, the literature shows this to have been the case.
For example, the Nisqually are reported by Haeberlin and Gunther (1930) to have often traveled
east of the Mountains using Cowlitz Pass. The Yakama evidently knew of Cowlitz Pass and used
it. Just east of the Muckleshoot and the Nisqually lived the Klikitat, whose lands extended south
to the Columbia River and eastward to the mountains. The Klikitat in family groups crossed the
mountains once a year in July or August, using Cowlitz Pass. There is a stream near the
waterworks in Tacoma which the Klikitat used to travel down to the Sound. "Klikitat" was
sometimes used for all Sahaptin-speaking peoples immediately to the east of the Cascades.
Passes North of Naches Pass: Yakima and Snoqualmie
According to Smith, several of these more northerly passes through the Cascades were used as
thoroughfares between the Plateau and the Coast. Smith relies on Teit (1928) in concluding that
the Wenatchi occupied at least a part of the recent Yakama territory in earlier days. Tradingparties of Wenatchi went toward the coast by way of the Yakima, Snoqualmie, and other passes
through the Cascades, where they traded with Snoqualmie. The Wenatchi also used other passes
through the Cascades, where they traded with Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Nisqually, Puyallup, and
Cowlitz. The first horse seen by the Coast tribes was brought over by Wenatchi. Both of the
passes mentioned specifically are located to the northeast of Mt. Rainier, near the headwaters of
the Yakima River in the vicinity of Keechelus Lake. Smith also notes that Teit (1928) described
large, well-armed and well-equipped parties of Wenatchi annually passing through the Yakama
country to The Dalles. Smith believes that this indicates that the Wenatchi, on their trading
expeditions to the west of the Cascades, probably also followed routes through some Cascades
passes south of Yakima Pass.
Passes South of Cowlitz Pass: White and Tieton
Immediately south of Cowlitz Pass were White and Tieton passes. Smith notes that as with
Carlton and Cowlitz to the north, these two joined the country of the Yakama with Taidnapam
territory. The Taidnapam to the west of this pass and the Yakama to the east were not only
Sahaptin-speakers but were also culturally close, being linked by frequent intermarriage.
Cayuse Pass (4700 feet)
Evidently one trail led north and south near Mt. Rainier. This was the one between the
headquarters of the White River system on the north and the source streams of the CowlitzChanapecosh system on the south. The pass through which travelers passed from one of these to
the other was Cayuse Pass.
According to Smith (1964:149-226), the reasons impelling the Yakama to engage in transCascade travel were various. The natural products&endash;particularly foods&endash;of the
coastal slopes and the more eastern hills were in some respects sharply different, and, being so,
often desirable to those of the contrasting ecosystem. Dried eastern roots were carried westward
over the Cascades Divide through the mountain passes as dried coastal products found their way
eastward to the Yakama.
Smith claims that movement for the sake of trade occurred in both directions across the
Cascades. Plateau groups journeyed westward to the Puget Sound tribes for this purpose and
parties of the latter crossed the mountains in an easterly direction to trade with Plateau peoples.
The evidence suggests, however, that Plateau groups were probably more commonly the active
members in this commercial arrangement, themselves undertaking the mountain crossing.
Smith (1964:244) cites Haeberlin and Gunther (1930:32) concerning Nisqually trade with the
Yakama as follows:
The Nisqually traded largely with the Klikitat [a name used for most member
groups of the Yakama], using shell money for payment. Shell money was highly
prized by the Indians east of the mountains and the coast tribes used it more in
trading with them than among themselves. The shell money which the Klikitat
obtained from the Nisqually they in turn passed on to the Indians of Idaho and
Montana. When the Klikitat came to the coast in summer they bought clams,
herring, smelts and berries. In return they gave the Nisqually dried Columbia
salmon, which is highly prized by the coast people. They also brought dressed
buckskins and clothing made of skins. The Nisqually never bought baskets from
the Klikitat because they made better ones themselves, but the Klikitat bought
coiled baskets from the Nisqually.
According to Smith (1964:246), Teit (1928) reports that the Wenatchi also journeyed to the west
of the Cascades to trade with Nisqually, Puyallup, and Cowlitz. Teit continues:
A great impetus was given to trading with the introduction of the horse.
Rootcakes, dried berries, buffalo robes, and many other heavy or bulky packs,
which in former days it did not pay to carry, were not transported across the
mountains. Before the introduction of the horse, the trading with Coast tribes was
chiefly in light and valuable articles. Pipes, tobacco, ornaments of certain kinds,
Indian hemp, dressed skins, bows, and some other things, were sold to the Coast
tribes, the chief articles received in return being shells of various kinds. Some
horses were also sold to the Coast people.
In his summary description of reasons for this trans-Cascades travel Smith claims that the
Yakama followed these trans-Cascades trails to secure supplies of various natural resources
available in the region of Rainier Park as well as to enter the country of their friendly Northwest
Coast neighbors and share their food resources. For example, they fished for red salmon in the
Cowlitz River in Taidnapam country. According to one of Smith's Muckleshoot informants, the
Yakama also journeyed westward through Naches Pass into Muckleshoot territory to catch and
dry fish. On occasion, coastal groups passed east of the Cascades to secure local foods. For
example, the Muckleshoot traveled through Naches Pass to Yakama country to obtain things they
could not obtain in their own territory, including certain roots, berries, and other products.
There was also some movement along the trails over the Cascade Divide to obtain spouses and
then subsequently to maintain contact with relatives. Material items moved east and west through
the passes as part of this social interaction. Especially close relationships were maintained
between the Taidnapam and Yakama. Moreover, both Nisqually-Puyallup and Muckleshoot
informants reported to Smith substantial numbers of Yakama intermarriages in the upriver
villages of their respective tribes. This intermarriage was often the result of Coast men securing
Yakama wives and establishing virilocal residences. The same was the case, of course, to an
even greater extent with the Taidnapam. Some few Nisqually-Puyallup and Muckleshoot women
were also married to Yakama men and maintained their homes with their husbands' group
according to Smith. In a similar vein, Haeberlin and Gunther (1930:11) note: "Many Nisqually
spoke Klikitat and there were frequent intermarriages between the two tribes." These authors
evidently employ "Klikitat" as a general designation for all Sahaptins on the eastern side of the
Cascades, thus it is likely that at least some Yakama were involved. According to Smith, it is
also clear that goods and other material possessions brought through the passes were wagered in
intertribal stick (bone) games (Brunton 1968). Gambling was either a secondary aim to the travel
or developed, after the groups had met, as a pastime of mutual interest. Finally, the passes and
trails through the Cascades were used by war parties, despite the peaceful relations that normally
prevailed between the Coastal and Plateau tribes of this area (Teit 1928:123).
Conclusions
The Yakama were part of a prehistoric, protohistoric, and historic system of trade and exchange
that linked them with other Plateau tribes as well as more distant tribes of the Northwest Coast,
Plains, and Great Basin culture areas. The Yakama system of trade and exchange was essential
for maintenance of the Yakama way of life. Through it they obtained fish and other aquatic
resources, large and small game, slaves, decorative objects, buffalo products, coastal products,
desert products, and other items essential to their survival. The Yakama exercised free and open
access to trade centers and trade networks in order to maintain their system of trade and
exchange.
The Hudson's Bay Company trading operation in the Columbia Basin was built on and operated
within the traditional tribal system of trade and exchange. Rather than replacing it, the Hudson's
Bay Company system intensified this traditional system. The Yakima Treaty of 1855 contains
assurances that the Yakama and other treaty tribes would be free to continue their free and open
use of roads and trails to reach their customary trade centers, fisheries, hunting grounds, and
other areas they accessed as part of their traditional system of trade and exchange.
Following the Treaty negotiation and ratification, the Yakama continued to exercise offreservation travel for Treaty purposes and continue to do so now as is reflected in their numerous
off-reservation fisheries, root and berry gathering grounds, and hunting areas.
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