Klickitat Indians. The original home of the Klickitat was somewhere south of the Columbia, and they invaded their later territory after the Yakima crossed the river. They joined in the Yakima treaty at Camp Stevens, June 9, 1855, by which they ceded their lands to the United States, and most of them settled upon the Yakima Reservation.
Many tribes have sub-tribes, bands, gens, clans and phratry. Often very little information is known or they no longer exist. We have included them here to provide more information about the tribes. Camiltpaw (‘people of Kamilt’; so named from their chief). A band of the Pisquows, formerly living on the East side of Columbia River. One of the original treaty tribes of 1855, classed with the Yakima but really Salishan. They are now on Yakima Reservation, Washington.
Klikitat Indians, Klickitat Tribe, Klickitat Indians (Chinookan: ‘beyond,’ with reference to the Cascade Mountains. ). A Shahaptian tribe whose former seat was at the headwaters of the Cowlitz, Lewis, White Salmon, and Klickitat rivers, north of Columbia River, in Klickitat and Skamania Counties, Washington. Their eastern neighbors were the Yakima, who speak a closely related language, and on the west they were met by various Salishan and Chinookan tribes. In 1805 Lewis and Clark reported them as wintering on Yakima and Klickitat rivers, and estimated their number at about 700. Between 1820 and 1830 the tribes of Willamette valley were visited by … Read more
GEORGE BENSON KUYKENDALL, M.D. – This gentleman, one of the foremost physicians of Eastern Washington, was born near Terre Haute, Indiana, in the year 1843. When three years old he was taken by his father’s family to Wisconsin. In 1852 the family set out on the long, hard journey to the Pacific slope. That was the sad year of cholera and pestilence. Being somewhat late in starting, the Kuykendall family followed in the wake of sickness and death, the mournful evidences of which were most vividly impressed on the mind of the boy who afterwards became the man here described. … Read more
Wenatchee Indians (Yakima; winätshi, ‘river issuing from a canyon,’ referring to Wenatchee river). A Salish division, probably a band of the Pisquows, formerly on Wenatchee river, a tributary of the Columbia in Washington. In 1850 there were said to have been 50 on Yakima Reservation, but 66 were enumerated in the Report on Indian Affairs for 1910 as under the Colville agency. It is uncertain whether these bodies belonged to one original band.
Atanumlema Indians. A small Shahaptian tribe living on Yakima Reservation, on Atanum Creek, Washington. They are said to speak a dialect closely related to the Yakima and Klikitat. For Further Study The following articles and manuscripts will shed additional light on the Atanumlema. Mooney in 14th Rep. B. A. E., 738, 1896.
REV. JAMES HARVEY WILBUR, D.D. – It will not be claimed that the plain people, whose lives are briefly recorded in this volume, merit the title of greatness. They were simple honest men who did their duty. They merit a niche in the halls of our history, since it was they who hewed out the stones with which this stately structure has been built. It requires very great qualities to be called great. In many regards, such as self-reliance, ability to live alone with little or no inspiration or motive except such as they found within themselves, the power to … Read more