Introduction

Pacific salmon and steelhead, which were once found in virtually every river from Monterey Bay to the Bering Peninsula, proceeded Native Americans by at least a million years (Wilkinson, 1992). There are five species of Pacific Salmon. A sixth species, the steelhead, is a sea-run rainbow trout. All are anadromous fish; that is, they are born in freshwater, spend part of their lives in the ocean, and return to freshwater to spawn. These fish are, and always have been, a major component of northwest Native American culture; in fact, salmon are extremely important to northwest Native Americans because the fish are the center-point of northwest Native American culture and tradition.

In addition to salmon, four other species of anadromous fish, the cut-throat trout, sturgeon, candlefish, and the lamprey eel are also a major source of food for northwest Native Americans. In many ways the chinook salmon is the most remarkable of all. It is the largest. Many of the chinook ran to seventy-five pounds, and the famous Columbia River "June Hogs" (bound for Canada) reached 125 pounds. The Canadian runs no longer exist because the upper thousand miles of the Columbia was made impassable by the Grand Coulee Dam (Smith, 1979). The chinook travels the longest migration routes (up to 10,000 miles), lives the longest (up to five years), and is prized for both commercial and sport purposes (Wilkinson, 1992).

The range of Pacific Salmon was enormous, and in spite of dams and other kinds of development that have reduced their inland habitat, these anadromous fish still penetrate vast areas. Historically, two of the largest salmon producing rivers were the Columbia and the Klamath. They also supported large populations of Native American people.

The Columbia River

The size of the historical runs was nothing short of fabulous. In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crested the Great Divide and worked their way down the Pacific slope into the Columbia River basin. When he first saw Columbia River salmon, Clark stated that "the multitudes of this fish are almost inconceivable" (qtd. in Forbes, Jay, and Masten, 1994).

The primary group that fishes the Columbia is the Sahaptin people of the Columbia Plateau. Historically, the Sahaptin's were comprised of many different bands belonging to the present day Warm Springs, Yakima, Umatilla, or Nez Perce tribes.

Wilkinson (1992) explains that before the Europeans, native people all along the Pacific coast depended on fish for their primary source of subsistence and for barter. They relied on salmon more than the Plains Indians depended on buffalo. The Columbia River gorge country (from near the present site of Bonneville Dam up to Celilo Falls) was at the heart of the salmon-based society of the Columbia basin. The Indian people revered the salmon and devised rites to ensure the continuance of their return. The "first salmon" ceremony at the beginning of the runs was a major religious festival. During the heights of the spring and fall runs, representatives of tribes from all over the Northwest gathered for exchange in its broadest sense. For example, from downriver, the coast, and Puget Sound came dried clams and mussels, whale and cedar products, shells (especially precious dentalia), beads, canoes, and baskets. From the south came baskets, obsidian, wocus (water lily seeds), Indian tobacco, and slaves. From the plateau to the east came animal robes (including buffalo), meat, couse and other plants, pipestone, horses, and plains-style garments. Ideas were also exchanged . The Long Narrows-Celilo Falls area became a major communications center where diverse cultures made alliances and shared stories, religions, politics, and history--in peace (Meehan, 1995).

These societies used far greater quantities of salmon than is commonly realized. The size of the Native take required bands and tribes to take conservative measures and establish systems for allocating the harvest. They had rigid prohibitions against any waste of salmon and took action, including closures, to ensure the runs would be sustained (Meehan, 1995). At the most sought-after sites, each fishing platform or rock was a property right, passing by inheritance to family members. Other Native Americans were allowed to fish, but if a rights-holding fisherman was not taking enough fish, he would slap his buttocks twice as a signal to the others to stop fishing (Wilkinson, 1992). Peer pressure was usually strong enough to guarantee that all of the law ways would be respected, but if they were not, designated leaders would enforce them by suspension or permanent withdrawal of fishing rights (Wilkinson, 1992).

Although Native Americans from various tribes and bands (in different areas of the Pacific northwest) have richly diverse cultures, they also share many similarities. The Native Americans of northwestern California, more specifically the Klamath River people, also have a culture that is salmon-based, and this is reflected in many aspects of their society too.

The Klamath River

The Klamath River tribes (in California) were/are comprised of many bands and family clans belonging to the Yurok or Karuk tribes. According to Pilling (1978), the Yurok people have lived in village communities along the Klamath River or near the Pacific Ocean for thousands of years. The villages were situated between the Little River near present McKinnleyville and Wilson Creek (just north of Klamath), and on the lower forty-five miles of the Klamath River. Prior to European contact, there was a great wealth of shellfish, salmon, sturgeon, eels, candlefish, surf fish, deer, elk, sealions, and acorns; however, it is mainly the salmon that has always been at the center of Yurok existence. The Yurok people historically fished in dug-out canoes made from redwood logs, and used spears, or nets made from woven grass. They devised twelve different forms of nets used for taking various species of fish, and had many different tools for making nets. The Yurok people also devised fish weirs at selected village sites on the Klamath River. The Yurok dependence upon salmon as a major source of food was moderated by an elaborate system of rights based on tribal law (Kroeber and Barret, 1957).

Kroeber and Barret (1957) explain the best fishing places along the river were privately owned, sometimes by individuals or sometimes jointly by several. When a fishing place was owned by several individuals they would use it in turn according to the proportionate share of ownership. An owner could give someone else permission to fish at his place on the day or days it was the owners turn, but no one was allowed to fish or to establish a new fishing place immediately downstream from a recognized fishing place.

A share in a fishing place was a personal property of real and recognized value (Pilling, 1978). It could be sold or given away by its owner, or could be passed on by inheritance. A fishing place or right was worth from one to three strings of dentalia (Kroeber, 1976). There were some fishing places that were not privately owned, but were open to the general public.

A system of private claims also existed in Yurok culture (to a somewhat lesser extent) and extended to the beaches, lagoons, and offshore rocks along the coast. These were considered more a prestige-giving right by the upper class or people of wealth than to productivity of food supply (Kroeber and Barret, 1957).

According to Kroeber and Barret (1957), Yurok property rights were apt to be widespread throughout Yurok territory. For example, a native of Orick might be a shareholder in a productive eddy located ten or fifteen miles up the Klamath River. Such geographical scattering of ownership was the result of intermarriage of families, inheritance, payment for wives, injuries, and occasional purchases.

Although much of Yurok society was based on individual ownership, there were many aspects of their culture which were based on community or the people as "one," and this still holds true today. This was/is reflected in religious ceremonies and in the taking of fish on a village-wide scale. Both are very much interrelated.

The Kepel Fish Weir

Although fish weirs (the Yurok people call them fish dams in the English language) are no longer used, they had great importance both as a source of food and in religious ceremony. To ensure adequate subsistence for all, communal fish dams were temporarily built at selected sites. Many people had to be involved in the construction of these dams, and every aspect of construction and use were highly ritualized to ensure that the subsistence needs of all would be met and the salmon runs perpetuated (Waterman and Kroeber, 1943). Perhaps the most advanced accomplishment of California Indians, (Kroeber, 1976) and certainly the largest fish dam, was located at the Yurok village of Kepel.

Kepel is located thirty-five miles upriver from the mouth of the Klamath. The fish dam at Kepel was the lowest (downriver) fish dam on the Klamath. Another Yurok fish dam was located farther upriver, just above Weitchpec. The Karuk people also constructed fish dams, one near Happy Camp and one near the mouth of the Scott River. Smaller fish dams (of several different varieties) were built on tributary streams and on smaller rivers along the coast (Waterman and Kroeber, 1943).

Yurok oral tradition explains how the people of Kepel obtained the fish dam. The Myth People (wau-gay) were fishing and hunting and celebrating festivals along the Klamath River. During this time, these early people tried to erect fish dams at various places, but things were not "right" until they came to the village of Turip. Turip is located just above the Klamath Glen, about seven miles from the mouth of the river, and about twenty-five miles downriver from Kepel. The Kepel people are said to have come down and taken the fish dam and its rites away. The Turip people mounted a retaliation effort and sent some men upriver to fight the people of Kepel and recover the dam and its rites. The Turip people arrived at Kepel, but when they came in sight up on the opposite bank, they became afraid. They decided they would watch and would be compensated when the dam was made. The Turip people stayed where they were standing, and turned into redwood trees. This is the farthest (upriver) grove of redwood trees on the Klamath. In addition, the Yurok people regard this grove of trees as the (spiritual) guardians of the Kepel fish dam.

Waterman and Kroeber (1943) explain the fish dam at Kepel was constructed (in early autumn) in ten days, and it spanned the width of the river. Hundreds of men were involved in the construction of the Kepel fish dam, and men from villages both above and below Kepel participated in its construction. It consisted of a tight fence of poles and stakes driven into the bed of the river, strengthened and shored up with structural devices against the force of the current. At regular intervals along the course of the dam were ten openings leading into ten small corral-like enclosures the Yurok people called "fish houses." Once the salmon entered these corrals they would become trapped, and the men would remove the fish with dip nets (Kroeber, 1976). Not only did construction of this elaborate system have to be built in ten days, but it was also built in ten named sections by ten different groups of men. Once completed, the fish dam was used for ten days and then was partially dismantled and left to wash away with the winter high waters. There were also several gates located along the fish dam. These gates were left open at night when no one was gathering--to let the salmon through. This was done to ensure the people upriver received their allocation of fish and to perpetuate the salmon runs. In addition, during the ten days the fish dam was in operation, people from anywhere upriver of the dam had the right to come down to Kepel and take all the salmon they needed. The men that built the parts to the dam spent each night in the sweathouse praying and making themselves spiritually pure. They also fasted during this time. The construction of the fish dam was performed under the actual working direction, as well as the ceremonial direction, of one lead man (a medicine man) called Lockner, and his assistant (Thompson, 1991). Very few people were trained to become this lead person and only those very few knew all of the law ways to qualify as Lockner (Thompson, 1991). All aspects of the Kepel fish dam, from the making of the stakes (in the beginning) to the partial dismantling of the dam, were steeped in religious observances. Not only did ceremonial preparations begin long before the actual construction, but dances and prayers continued well after the fish dam was taken down, too. The Kepel dam cycle of ceremonies, which involved both men and women and lasted for fifty to sixty days (Kroeber and Barret, 1957), were centered around world-renewal, with emphasis on the perpetuation of salmon and the People. The complete cycle was designed to ensure collective and individual health, prosperity, and abundance of salmon and other foods (Kroeber and Barret, 1957). This is also the time of the New Year's celebration for the Yurok people.

During the ten days of the dam's construction, there was a vast array of ceremonies and rites that had to be performed, too many to include within the scope of this paper. However, on the ninth day of construction there was a ceremony where workers from the villages downriver of Kepel went to collect redwood boughs that were used to line the "fish houses" of the dam. Waterman and Kroeber (1943) report that this ceremony resembled a type of theatrical performance, although Native people believe this was done to honor the fish and the dam's origins. The group of downriver workers; that is, all of the workers from villages below the dam, would take a number of stones from the river and take them up the hill to the guardian redwood grove, in essence, the guardian people from Turip. These downriver folks pretended that the flat river stones were obsidian blades, which were used for money. At the grove of guardian trees, the downriver folks would choose one man to be a mourner. The group gets ready to take the boughs for which they came, but the mourner objects on the grounds that it interferes with his sad feelings. The group then offers the mourner two obsidians as compensation for the injury. The mourner refuses, and the group offers four obsidians, two flints, and a fishing place. A bargain is struck, the mourner accepts the payment, and someone suggests they have a White Deerskin Dance. The obsidians are left leaning against the sacred redwood trees, and the group holds a short Deerskin dance substituting brush for ceremonial objects. Waterman and Kroeber (1943) have written they had seen hundreds of these stones (from past years) neatly leaning against the sacred redwood trees. On the way down the hill, the group stops twice to dance again. When they reach the river at the bottom of the hill, the boughs are taken to the dam site in canoes.

Thompson (1991) explains on the night the dam was completed and during the next day, the White Deer Skin Dance was danced. Then the dam was used for its customary ten days and dismantled. A few days after the dismantling, the people would gather again and dance the White Deer Skin Dance for another ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen days. This was a very serious dance and the richest regalia was brought out for it. People came from great distances to attend this dance, which included Tolowa from Crescent City, Karuk from Orleans and above, Hupa from the Trinity River country, and Yurok from as far south as Trinidad. After another ten days the Jump Dance was held for another night and one day. This would conclude the Kepel fish dam cycle of ceremonies.

The fish dam at Kepel was a major undertaking requiring the labor and cooperation of many people. It was a major component of Yurok religion, culture, and society, and demonstrates the importance of salmon to the Yurok people. In addition, it demonstrates their communal ways in its broadest sense.

Prior to European contact, the Yurok people lived in a society where no one ever went hungry. There was a hierarchy of social status including a slave class, but everyone's basic needs were met. The Kepel fish dam demonstrates their historically rich culture and tradition, and their caring and generosity toward each other. The Yurok people also extended (and still do) these humanitarian qualities to other neighboring tribes and included neighboring tribes to share in their most sacred ceremonies.

Conclusion

After the arrival of the Europeans, things moved with great speed for the Native American people of the Columbia and Klamath Rivers. Three great events--the treaty with England in 1846, the treaty with Mexico in 1848, and the discovery of gold in California in1849 made imminent what was already inevitable. Homesteaders and miners were on the way, so the Native American tribes had to be confined to clearly defined and preferably small reservations. On the Columbia, treaties were negotiated. In California, Yurok territory was reduced, and a reservation was created by Executive Order.

After many court battles and Supreme Court decisions, most northwest Native Americans have retained their rights to fish (although their fishing territories have been reduced) using traditional means in their usual and accustomed places. However, the traditional freedoms and traditional law ways of regulating the fisheries is gone forever. There are constant attacks on tribal sovereignty (which includes the right to fish) in addition to constant fingers of blame pointed at native fisherman for depletion of fishery resources. Native people know the fight will go on forever.

Celilo Falls, once the great center of the Columbia River's salmon-based societies (and still one of the most productive Native American fishing places on the Columbia) was dynamited to accommodate the construction of Bonneville Dam. The Sahaptin people still proudly fish there but it, too, has changed forever.

The Kepel fish dam and cycle of ceremonies has not been made since 1913 (Pilling, 1978). There is talk on the river about possibly reconstructing the Kepel fish dam, although there would be a lot of opposition by nonnatives, and it's highly probable that the required knowledge for the ceremonies and rites to the dam have been lost. In the summer of 2000, the White Deer Skin Dance was danced by the Yurok people for the first time since 1939. The sacred grove of redwood trees (the Turip guardians) was cut down and marketed by the Simpson Timber Company in the late 1960's. The Jump Dance is still danced by the Yurok people. Despite all these losses to Pacific northwest Native Americans, they still retain vibrant parts of their cultures and salmon-based societies.

Today, on the Klamath River and on the Columbia River, traditional fishing sites remain in place and have been passed along to individuals through the generations. These fishing places are still used by descendents of the original owners, and are still considered a property right. The spirit of fishing is still strong on the two rivers and is evident in the fish camps of today. During the salmon runs, up and down the Klamath River and along the beach (the river becomes a bustle of activity for the Yurok people), fish camp fires glow and boats pass back and forth. The Yurok and Sahaptin peoples have experienced decline in their cultures this century, but now, up and down the rivers, there is talk of hope and reversing this trend. Clearly, salmon fishing is at the very center of the struggle to preserve Pacific northwest Native American identity, traditions, culture, and tribal sovereignty.

References

Forbes, N., Jay, T., and Masten, B. 1995. Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People. Seattle: Alaska Northwest.

Kroeber, A. L. 1976. Handbook of the Indians of California. New York: Dover. (Original work published 1925).

Kroeber, A. L., and Barret S. A. 1957. Fishing Among the Indians of Northwestern California. (Anthropological Records Vol. 21, No. 1). Berkeley: University of California.

Meehan, B. T. 1995, October 29. River of ghosts: lessons of the past. The Oregonian, pp. S1, S8.

Pilling, A. R. 1978. Yurok. In W. Sturtevant and R. Heizer Eds., Handbook of North American Indians (pp. 137-154). Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.

Smith, C. L. 1979. Salmon Fishers of the Columbia. Corvallis: Oregon State University.

Thompson, L. 1991. To the American Indian: reminiscences of a Yurok woman. Berkeley: Heyday Books. (Original work published in 1916).

Waterman, T. T., and Kroeber, A. L. 1943. The Kepel fish dam, In A. Kroeber, R. Lowie, T. McCown, and R. Olson Eds. American Archaeology and Ethnology. (Vol. XXXV). (pp. 49-80). Berkeley: University of California.

Wilkinson, C.F. 1992. Crossing the Next Meridian: Water and the future of the West. Washington DC: Island Press

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