The Wanapum tribe of Native Americans formerly lived along the Columbia River from above Priest Rapids down to the mouth of the Snake River in what is now the US state of Washington. About 60 Wanapum still live near the present day site of

Priest Rapids Dam Priest Rapids Dam is a hydroelectric, concrete gravity dam; located on the Columbia River, between the Yakima Firing Range and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and bridges Yakima County and Grant County, in the U.S. state of Washington. The d ...

. The name "Wanapum" is from the

Sahaptin The Sahaptin are a number of Native American tribes who speak dialects of the Sahaptin language. The Sahaptin tribes inhabited territory along the Columbia River and its tributaries in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Sahaptin-s ...

''wánapam'', meaning "river people", from ''wána'', "river", and ''-pam'', "people". Today they are enrolled in the

federally recognized This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Wanapum Heritage Center on Columbia River

History

In prehistoric times, the tribe's territory was (and still is) an excellent

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...

-fishing area. It is unknown which tribes were overthrown by the Wanapum tribe when they claimed their ancestral land, or what happened to the original settlers that migrated from NE Asia centuries before the Wanapum and other tribes finally settled in the area. Because of the lost primitive and scarce archeology of the region, these secrets may never be known, and those people never acknowledged. The tribe made houses from tule and cut over 300 petroglyphs into the basalt cliffs. In 1805, according to the journals of the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gr ...

, the Wanapum, led by their chief Cutssahnem, greeted the expedition and treated its members well, sharing food and entertainment. Captain Clark’s journals provide descriptions of their dwellings, clothing, and physical characteristics. In the 1800s, a new Native religion, called Washane, Washani or "Dreamer Religion", was created by a spiritual leader of the Wanapum named Smohalla. Adherents to this religion believed that the white man would disappear, if rituals and traditional life was adhered to; instead of participating in armed conflicts, the people prayed. Whether due to this religion or for other reasons, the tribe never fought white settlers, did not sign a treaty with them, and as a result retained no federally recognized land rights. In 1953 the construction of the

and the Wanapum Dam flooded the riverbanks where the Wanapum had lived in traditional tule houses.

Heritage

About 60 Wanapum petroglyphs were blasted from the rock before being flooded; they may be viewed at

Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park/Wanapum Recreational Area is a geologic preserve and public recreation area covering on the western shoreline of the Columbia River's Wanapum Reservoir at Vantage, Washington. Petrified wood was discovered in t ...

.
Wanapum Heritage Center Museum
displays artifacts of the time before the dams, while the Wanapum River Patrol keeps watch over the ancestral lands, monitoring locations of special significance to the Wanapum to protect those places from depredation, and also providing information to visitors. The Washane religion is still practiced by some members of other tribes.

Notes

{{authority control Native American tribes in Washington (state) Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau