Yakima Valley

“ Net sinkers are much more common than on the coast, where they are plentiful only from Gray's Harbor southward and in the Lower Columbia Valley. Long pestles with the tops carved to represent animal heads are distinctive of the Yakima area, while cylindrical pebbles used as pestles but slightly changed from the natural form, which are quite common in the Yakima Valley, are rarely found in the Coast country. One style of club made of stone commonly found in this vicinity has not been seen anywhere on the coast, although some clubs made of stone are like specimens from that region. ”

“ The upland farms produce quantities of all grains—wheat, oats, and barley—and some field corn is successfully raised in the warmer parts. Sheep, cattle and horses are also exported. Hops are a large crop.
PRINCIPAL CITIES AND TOWNS. North Yakima is at once the county seat and chief metropolis of the entire Yakima valley, having a population of about 12,000. It is situated on the Northern Pacific railway and Yakima river, and is the distributing center for both merchandise and farm products for a large surrounding territory. ”

“ The River from the foot of Priest Rapids is regularly navigated by several steamers connecting the new lands and towns with Pasco, the railroad centre seventy miles below. This section of the River is deep and tranquil, a superb watercourse. Below Hanford the River receives the Yakima River, which is the important agent in the irrigation of the great Yakima Valley. ”

“ This is indicated by the remains of underground houses, some of which are as far up as Ellensburg. These remains are similar to those found in the Thompson River region, where such [Pg 12] houses were inhabited in the winter. The people of the Yakima area probably seldom went up to the higher valleys and the mountains, except on hunting expeditions or to gather berries, roots and wood for their scaffolds, canoes and other manufactures. ”

“ Bolon returned by way of The Dalles, to the Yakima Valley where he was murdered by some of the Yakima Indians. The Yakima chief, Kamai- akan, had been strongly opposed to the Yakima treaty made in June 1855 at Walla Walla, and was known to be dissatis- fied with it. The Catholic missionary in the Yakima country stated that the Yakima Indians had been talking of nothing but war with the settlers from the time of their return from the Walla Walla council until September 1, 1855, after which time few of the Indians had been near the mission. ”

“ Crossing the Cascade Range by a pass south of Mount Adams, he proceeded northward over the plains on the eastern side of the range to the Yakima valley, moving one hundred and eighty miles in thirty days, and remained there a month longer, during which Mr. Gibbs examined the lower and Lieutenant Duncan the upper valley. Captain McClellan himself, leaving his party in camp, made a hasty examination of the Snoqualmie Pass, at the head of the main Yakima. ”

“ Equally illustrative of the life of the fur-traders is the account given by Alexander Ross of one of his many adventures in the Columbia country. In 1814 Ross went from Okanogan to Yakima to secure horses. With him were four other whites and three Indian women. The Yakima Valley was then as now a paradise of the Indians. There the tribes gathered by the thousands in the spring to dig camas, to race horses, and to gamble, as well as to form alliances and make plans for war. ”

“ The master and the court below judicially noticed that the route via the Yakima valley was a much more advantageous one in respect of the country traversed, and the probable available traffic, than the more direct route between Lind and Ellensburg. The total population along the latter is said to be less than a thousand persons and the traffic originating thereon practically nil. On the other hand, the Yakima valley is one of the most fertile and productive agricultural sections in the Northwest. ”

“ As in other Washington towns, Indians from the near-by reservation are frequently seen along the streets of Yakima, as are also Japanese, who operate truck farms in the vicinity. Along South Front and part of Chestnut Street is a small Chinatown, and a few Negroes also make their home in the city. At harvest time many Filipinos come to work in the fields and factories. As the center of the Yakima Valley apple region, the city gives much publicity to the local apple. Hotels make lobby displays of the fruit, and guests are urged to send boxes of apples to friends. ”

“ A party of lawless wretches from the Sound Country, passing over the Cascade Mountains into the Yakima Valley, on their way to the Upper Columbia mines, found some Yakima women digging roots in a lonely place, and abused them. The women fled to their village and told the chiefs of the outrage; and a party followed the guilty whites and killed several of them in a fight. ”

“ The resources of the prehistoric people of the Yakima Valley, as indicated by the specimens found in the graves and about the village sites, were chiefly of stone, copper, shell, bone, antler, horn, feathers, skin, tule stalks, birch bark and wood. They employed extensively various kinds of stone for making a variety of objects. Obsidian, [26] glassy basalt or trap, petrified wood, agate, chalcedonic quartz with opaline intrusions, chert and jasper were used for chipping into various kinds of points, such as those used for arrows, spears, knives, drills and scrapers. ”

“ It is clear that the ancient people from the Yakima region had extensive communications not only with the region southward as far as The Dalles, but also northward, as far as the more distant Thompson River tribes. If the products of the sea found in this region came up the Columbia, as may be inferred from Lewis, [435] it is a good illustration of how trade as a rule, follows the line of least physical resistance ”

“ During free time they seek recreation in movies or beer parlors, or throng the sidewalks, window-shopping along the streets where many stores keep open to catch late business. When the harvest is over, the throng of fruit workers dwindles to a comparative handful of girls and women, who pack the orders with-
drawn from cold storage for shipment to England, France, Germany, Canada — to all parts of the world and to every State in the Union. The Yakima Valley was not settled until 1858, primarily because of Indian troubles, which crystalized in the Indian War of 1855-7. ”

“ Each year thousands of farm workers descend into the Yakima Valley to help in harvesting the apple crop, and, after the great droughts of 1934 and 1936, many more families came from the stricken States. An investigation of living conditions showed that the transient workers lived in insanitary and inadequate camps, where sickness was prevalent. The Yakima Chamber of Commerce, in 1935 and again in 1937, appealed to the Farm Security Administration (formerly the Resettlement Administration) ; various studies were made by the State College of Washington and other agencies ”

“ Just north of the Stampede Pass the Yakima River has its source in three small lakes,—Kitchelas, Kalichass, and Cle-ee-lum, and the railroad follows down this stream to its entrance into the Columbia. The valley of the Yakima is rather a great basin than a valley, bounded by the Cascade Mountains on the west,
the Wenatehe Eiver on the north, and the Columbia River on the south and east, containing several smaller valleys on the west side, namely, the Wenass, Nachess, Atahnam, Pisco, Topunish, and Klickitat, with numerous small streams debouching into the Columbia. ”

“ S—— had joined us in Tacoma, so we four bought excursion tickets, and climbed into one of eleven packed passenger coaches of a Northern Pacific special, and made the trip. Eight hours of it, due east and southeast, across the snow-capped Cascade Mountains and down into the dry, arid Yakima River basin to the city—big village—of North Yakima. An arid valley, but yet green as an Irish hedge, a curious sight. The hills all round sere and brown, tufted and patched with dry buffalo grass and sage brush; the flat bottom lands mostly an emerald green ”

“ Here are recorded the deeds of the heroic; great men, great places, and times.
"Our conference was held in Salem that year, where Bishop Foster appointed me to the Yakima circuit, in Washington.
INDIAN POPULATION
"Of course, the whole country there originally belonged to the Indians, and they were always a menace to settlement. On the Simcoe Reservation there were [331] about 3,000 Indians. Then came the Yakima Valley proper; then across on the Columbia at Priest Rapids, there was the Smoholla band of about five hundred. ”

“ It is impossible to state the exact date when this ditch was opened, but it is believed that it was in 1853, and that the chief was instructed regarding the use of it by the Roman Catholic missionaries stationed near by. At any rate this place is generally recognized as the starting point of irrigation and stock raising in the Yakima Valley. ”

“ No one could say that he knew the Columbia River or the State of Washington without a visit to that valley, the largest in the State and the scene of the most extensive development in irrigated lands anywhere in the North-west. Three thousand carloads of fruit and vegetables were shipped from the Yakima in 1907. Buyers of Yakima fruits come from [Pg 325] all parts of the East, from England, and even from France. Fortunes have been made in that fair land,—a fair land when supplied with water, but an arid waste without it. ”

“ On the other hand, many differences in culture are observable. Thus objects made of nephrite and mica which occur, the former being common in the Thompson River valley, were not found in the Yakima area. Quarries and terraced rock-slides such as were seen here are not known to us in the Thompson River region. The bone of the whale occasionally found in the Thompson River country is lacking in Yakima collections. ”

“ It was found in the Yakima Valley and is in the collection of Mr. Janeck. It is 590 mm. long. The top is roughly the form of the fustrum of a cone, being circular in cross section and gradually expanding downward, but it is somewhat celt-shaped, the sides for some distance being ground off nearly flat. They approach each other more closely towards the front than they do towards the back. In each of these surfaces there is an incision which represents one side of an animal's mouth and a pecked dot indicating an eye. The tip of the nose is broken off. ”

“ During the summer the Indians for the most part live in the small valleys lying well into the foot of the mountains. These are, however, uninhabitable during the winter, and they move further down, or to more sheltered situations. The mission which, in summer, is maintained in the A-tá-nam valley, is transferred into that of the main river." [25]
[Pg 20] After passing the top of the divide, to the left of the trail from Ellensburg to Priest Rapids, chips and fragments of variegated float quartz suitable for chipped implements were found. ”

“ A groove is pecked part way around near the top as if to carve the knob and begin the reduction of the top of the shaft. There is also a pecked surface on one side near the base, apparently the beginning of an attempt to form a striking head by first removing irregularities. The one shown in Fig. 28 was found within eight miles of North Yakima and is of rather unusual shape, having a short striking head of the shape of the typical pestles of northern and western Vancouver Island. ”

“ Yet, within our recollection, this was an uncivilized Indian country, and exposed pioneers were working day and night to insure and upbuild American civilization. In the winter of '55 and '56 the settlers of this valley, apprehensive of the spread of the Yakima outbreak among the Indians that were gathered at the Grand Ronde Reserve, assisted probably by Lieut. Hazen's soldiers, began the building on the hill on the rim of that Reserve this old Block House as a Fort, and surrounded it with a stout stockade for refuge and defense. ”

“ It will be remembered that mat covered tipis are found in the Nez Perce region to the east. [141] Lewis and Clark [142] mention but one buffalo skin lodge among the Nez Perce in 1806 and that was apparently reserved for special occasions, but a few years later this type of lodge had practically supplanted the mat lodge among that tribe and was in common use among all the interior Salish and Sahaptin tribes. The mat houses of the Yakima are mentioned by Gibbs in the Pacific Railroad Reports. ”

“ The greater part of the area was formerly inhabited by Sahaptian speaking people, including the Yakima, Atanum, Topinish, Chamnapum, and Wanapum, while the northern part of it was occupied by the Piskwans or Winatshmpui of the Salish linguistic stock. ”

“ It is watered by the Yakima river and its tributaries, and through its valleys the railroads from the east find their easiest grade toward the Cascade passes. It is a county of level valleys and plateaus, having a soil made up chiefly of volcanic ash and disintegrated basaltic rocks, of great depth, which yields fabulously in cereal and grass crops, fruits and vegetables with the magic touch of irrigation. Artificial watering is 30 years old in this valley, and yet only a very small area was thus treated until the matter was taken up by the national government. ”

“ Perforated slate tablets like Coastal gorgets are unknown to us from the Yakima area. Cairns common on the coast are not found in the Yakima country, while the reverse holds true of rock-slide burials. Graves in knolls are unknown on the Pacific, and artifacts are often found in the Yakima graves but they seldom, if ever, occur with ancient burials on the coast. ”