Umatilla is a name derived from a village name meaning "many rocks." This group is culturally similar to other Sahaptian people, such as Klikitat, Nez Perce, Wallawalla, and Yakima.
Location The Umatilla homeland was located along the lower Umatilla River and the Columbia River west of the mouth of the Walla Walla River. Today, most Umatillas live in Umatilla and Union Counties, Oregon, and in regional cities and towns.
Population The late-eighteenth-century Umatilla population was roughly 1,500. In 1990, over 1,000 Umatillas, Cayuses, and Wallawallas lived on the Umatilla Reservation, and approximately 700 Umatillas lived off-reservation. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation had a combined enrollment of around 1,900 in the mid-1990s.
Language Umatilla was a member of the Sahaptian division of the Penutian language family.
Historical Information
History As with other regional Indian groups, the Umatillas first encountered non-natives when the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through their territory around 1805. Fur traders quickly moved in shortly thereafter. Severe epidemics began in the mid-nineteenth century, about the same time Catholic and Protestant missionaries flocked to the region.
The Umatillas enjoyed a peaceful relationship with non-Indians until the late 1840s. In 1851 a Catholic mission, previously established in 1847 and then abandoned, was rebuilt. At that time the Umatillas sent warriors to support the Cayuses in their war against whites from the Willamette Valley. In the mid-1850s they were forced, with the Wallawallas and the Cayuses, to cede over four million acres and accept the creation of a reservation. The Umatillas joined the Yakima war of resistance from 1855 to 1856. However, two decades later, they fought against the Indians in the Bannock war. Umatillas were responsible for the death in that war of the Paiute chief Egan. Despite the Indians’ possible hopes for better treatment at the hands of the whites, the original reservation of over 245,000 acres was quickly pared to under 100,000 by the process of allotment and sales of "surplus" to non-Indians.
Religion After years of instruction, adolescents sought the protection and power of spirits in nature by fasting and visiting remote places. Men and women shamans, with especially strong, heavenly-oriented guardian spirits, provided religious leadership. They cured illness, controlled the weather, and presided at ceremonies. They might also inflict harm. Dreams were also connected to good and evil events. During the winter religious ceremonies, participants dressed as their spirits and sang their spirit songs. Most important ceremonies centered on the first gathered fruit and salmon catch of the season.
Government Small, local bands each had one or more villages and fishing areas. Civil chiefs led the bands, although war chiefs exercised temporary power during periods of conflict. Chiefs were generally selected by a combination of merit, heredity, and wealth. Chiefs and old men made up the village and tribal councils; decisions were taken by consensus. The bands came together under a single chief in times of celebration and danger.
Customs Each band contained at least one permanent winter village and a number of temporary fishing camps. Some subsistence areas were considered tribal property. Menstruating and late-term pregnant women were strictly segregated. Young, unmarried men slept in the sweat lodges. Young men and women, especially the latter, were married by about age 14. Brides were commonly purchased, and polygamy was common. Abortion was rare, as was birth out of wedlock. Adultery was a capital crime. Women did most domestic work, including dressing skins; men’s work revolved around hunting and war.
Immediately after death, corpses were dressed in good clothes and had their faces painted. After several days, they were wrapped in deerskin and buried with their former possessions. Boulders and cedar stakes marked grave sites. The family in mourning cut their hair and wore poor, dirty clothing.
Pipe smoking was an important part of burial and other rites and ceremonies. The murder of a tribe member usually required blood revenge or at least blood money. Theft was punished by public disgrace. Other serious crimes and infractions included adultery, rape, and lying. Typical games included archery, dice, hoop-and-pole, and the hand game; most included betting. Childrens’ games included tops and string games.
Dwellings Permanent settlements were located along rivers. Winter dwellings were semisubterranean, circular wood frame structures covered with cedar bark, sage, mats, grasses, and earth. The roof was flat or conical. Mats covered the floors. These houses, up to 60 feet long, held up to 50 families. People slept along inner walls and shared fires along the center. In summer, people built temporary brush lean-tos. Some groups adopted hide tipis in the eighteenth century.
Diet Umatillas moved with the food supply. Fish, especially salmon, was the staple, along with trout, eel, and sturgeon. Salmon was broiled, baked, boiled, or dried, smoked, and stored. Animal food included elk, deer, moose, mountain sheep, rabbits, and small game. Parties also traveled to the Plains to hunt buffalo. Some meat was "jerked" for winter. Deer were run down or shot, as were other game, with a bow and arrow or killed with a spear. Some animals were hunted with the use of decoys.
Women gathered plant foods such as camas, kouse, bitterroot, wild carrot, wild onion, and berries. Camas, dug in midsummer, was peeled and baked in a pit oven. Most berries were dried and stored for winter. Other food included shellfish, fowl, eggs, and birds. People ate horses, lichens, and tree inner bark when there was nothing else to eat. Most food was either boiled, steamed in pits, or roasted in ashes.
Key Technology Fish were speared from platforms and caught using nets, spears, small traps, and weirs. Men used various nooses, snares, nets, and deadfalls for hunting as well as bows made of mountain sheep horn. Women made a range of woven and coiled baskets, some watertight, as well as woven reed bags. They also made cups, bowls, winnowing baskets, women’s caps, and mats of cattails and tule. Many baskets were made of Indian hemp, bear grass, and other grasses.
Other important raw materials included bone, horn, and wood. Many tools and items, such as mortars, pestles, knives, and mauls, were made of chipping and flaking stone and also obsidian. Mattresses were cottonwood inner bark or dry grass, blankets were elk hides, and folded skins served as pillows. The ubiquitous digging stick was fire-hardened with a wood or antler cross-handle.
Trade Relatively early acquisition of horses gave the Umatilla a trade advantage, although they also traded widely before they had the horse. They acquired items made as far away as British Columbia and the Mississippi Valley. Abalone was among the items they acquired from coastal Indians, as were carved wooden items, dried clams, dentalium shells, and wapato root.
Notable Arts Traditional arts included woven baskets, wallets, petroglyphs, and blankets and tipi skins decorated with pictographs.
Transportation The Umatilla used snowshoes and dugout canoes. They acquired the horse in the early eighteenth century.
Dress Clothing was made of cedar bark and the untailored skin of deer, elk, and buffalo. Men wore moccasins, leggings, breechclouts, shirts, and highly decorated robes. Women wore moccasins, fringed gowns, and basket hats, replaced in the historic period with skin caps decorated with fringe and elks’ teeth. People painted their faces and bodies for decoration and against snow blindness. Tailored, Plains-style skin clothing became popular in the eighteenth century.
The Umatilla moved with the food supply. Fish, especially salmon, was the staple, along with trout, eel, and sturgeon. Salmon was broiled, baked, and boiled or dried, smoked, and stored. These women are hanging fish out to dry (1887).
War and Weapons To counter the threat of attack from Paiutes, their most feared enemy, Umatillas formed a war alliance with the Nez Perces. They often took refuge on Blalock Island, now under water.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations The Umatilla Reservation (1855; Umatilla, Cayuse, Wallawalla) is located in Umatilla and Union Counties, Oregon. It contains roughly 172,000 acres, most of which are individually allotted. The 1990 Indian population was 1,028. The constitution and by-laws, adopted in 1949, call for an elected nine-member Board of Trustees.
Umatilla Indians are also members of the Columbia River Indians, who live primarily in Priest Rapids, Cooks Landing, Billieville, and Georgeville, Washington; in Celilo, Oregon; and in non-Indian communities. The Council of Columbia River Chiefs meets at Celilo, Oregon. The community at Priest Rapids is directly descended from that of Smohalla, a founder of the Dreamer or Longhouse religion.
The tribes are also members of the Umatilla Basin Project, the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, the Basalt Waste Isolation Project, the Hanford Environmental Dose Project, the Columbia Gorge Commission, and other environmental and planning organizations.
Economy In 1953, the tribe received almost $4 million in compensation for fishing sites lost to the Dalles Dam. The tribe has won other land claims settlements as well. It is currently developing an Oregon Trail interpretive center. Other sources of income include farm leases as well as a tribally owned forest, range, resort, trailer court, grain elevator, store, and lake (camping and fishing). A golf course and entertainment park are planned. Tribal programs provide credit as well as seasonal and regular employment.
Legal Status The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation is a federally recognized tribal entity. The Columbia River Indians are not federally recognized.
Daily Life The tribe values both traditional and modern education. There are some language preservation programs, and there is a college scholarship fund. The Seven Drum religion is a major force in cultural revitalization. People’s religious practices also include traditional salmon and roots ceremonies. Facilities include a day care center and an arts and crafts organization. The tribe also operates health education and substance abuse programs. It sponsors an annual Pendleton Roundup, including dances, crafts fair, and rodeo, and an annual Indian festival of the arts. The regional political and economic effectiveness of the Umatillas continues to grow.
