Cetacean Hunting in Oregon: Perspectives from Tillamook and Clatsop Ethnographic and Ethnohistorical Records

Abstract

The Tribal Historic Preservation Office in the Land and Culture Department of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Indian Community of Oregon (CTGR) is creating an ethnographic and ethnohistorical database to quantify ethnographic data related to the Northern Oregon Coast. Specifically, the area of interest is the historic land and sea base of two distinct tribes, the Salish speaking Tillamook and the Chinookan speaking Clatsop, who lived near the mouth of the Columbia River. As an intern in the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the CTGR, I helped analyze and organize the previously created ethnographic database. The purposes of the database are to provide quantitative figures in the interpretation of oral histories and pursue the validation or negation of the ethnographic data through archaeological investigations. These ethnographic data were recorded using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to provide a geographic representation of the material.

Because of the high prevalence of ethnographic information related to cetaceans (whales, porpoises, and dolphins) and the long-held anthropological perspectives asserting that the hunting of whales was not carried out by Oregon's coastal tribes, I sought to investigate the ethnographic data to further understand the use of cetaceans in the region. The current project is important owing to the limited understanding of cetacean use within Oregon and the potential that such species were hunted in antiquity. The summary is directed toward anthropologists working along the Pacific Northwest Coast and is grounded in the theory of maritime adaptations of coastal hunter, gatherer, and fisher peoples exhibiting maritime adaptations along the Pacific Rim of North America.