About the Chinook Indian Tribes
The language of the Chinook tribe, upon which the family name was based, was derived from the mouth of the Columbia. As now understood the family embraces a number of tribes, speaking allied languages, whose former homes extended from the mouth of the river for some 200 miles, or to The Dalles. According to Lewis and Clarke, our best authorities on the pristine home of this family, most of their villages were on the banks of the river, chiefly upon the northern bank, though they probably claimed the land upon either bank for several miles back. 66Their villages also extended on the Pacific coast north nearly to the northern extreme of Shoalwater Bay, and to the south to about Tillamook Head, some 20 miles from the mouth of the Columbia.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
| Lower Chinook: | Upper Chinook: |
| Chinook. Clatsop. | Cathlamet. Cathlapotle. Chilluckquittequaw. Clackama. Cooniac. Echeloot. Multnoma. Wahkiacum. Wasco. |
Population.—There are two hundred and eighty-eight Wasco on the Warm Springs Reservation, Oregon, and one hundred and fifty on the Yakama Reservation, Washington. On the Grande Ronde Reservation, Oregon, there are fifty-nine Clackama. From information derived from Indians by Mr. Thomas Priestly, United States Indian Agent at Yakama, it is learned that there still remain three or four families of “regular Chinook Indians,” probably belonging to one of the down-river tribes, about 6 miles above the mouth of the Columbia. Two of these speak the Chinook proper, and three have an imperfect command of Clatsop. There are eight or ten families, probably also of one of the lower river tribes, living near Freeport, Washington.
Some of the Watlala, or Upper Chinook, live near the Cascades, about 55 miles below The Dalles. There thus remain probably between five and six hundred of the Indians of this family.
