The Klallam (; also known as the S'Klallam or Clallam) are a

Coast Salish The Coast Salish peoples are a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak on ...

people Indigenous to the northern

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large peninsula in Western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the ...

. The language of the Klallam is the

Klallam language Klallam, Clallam, Ns'Klallam or S'klallam (endonym: , ), is a Straits Salishan language historically spoken by the Klallam people at Becher Bay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and across the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the north coast of ...

(), a language closely related to the North Straits Salish languages. The Klallam are today citizens of four recognized bands: Three federally-recognized tribes in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and one

band government In Canada, an Indian band (), First Nation band () or simply band, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subject to the ''Indian Act'' (i.e. status Indians or First Nations). Bands are typically small groups of people: the largest in ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Two Klallam tribes, the Jamestown S'Klallam and Lower Elwha Klallam, live on the

, and one, the

Port Gamble S'Klallam The Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, formerly known as the Port Gamble Indian Community of the Port Gamble Reservation or the Port Gamble Band of S'Klallam Indians is a federally recognized tribe of S'Klallam people, located on the Kitsap Peninsula ...

, on the

Kitsap Peninsula The Kitsap Peninsula () lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound, in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. Hood Canal separates the peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula on its west side. The peninsula, a.k.a. "Kitsap", encompasses all of Kits ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

state. In Canada, the Scia'new First Nation is based at Becher Bay on southern

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Name and etymology

The Klallam-language name for the tribe is (meaning "strong people"). According to the oral history of the Klallam, the name was earned after the tribe won a challenge around hoisting a log onto a house. They put the log in the water, and then floated it onto their shoulders. When they came back with the log, other tribes started cheering "strong people." There exists a wide variety of English spellings including "Chalam," "Clalam," "Clallem," "Clallum," "Khalam," "Klalam," "Noodsdalum," "Nooselalum," "Noostlalum," "Tlalum," "Tlalam," "Wooselalim," "S'Klallam," "Ns'Klallam," "Klallam" and "Clallam." "Clallam" was used by the

Washington Territory The Washington Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

legislature in 1854 when it created

Clallam County Clallam County is a List of counties in Washington, county in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 77,155, with an estimated population of 77,616 in 2023. The cou ...

. The following year "S'klallam" was used in the

Point No Point Treaty The Point No Point Treaty was signed on January 26, 1855, at Point No Point, on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. Governor of Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, convened the treaty council on January 25, with the S'Klallam, the Ch ...

. In the following decades the simpler "Klallam" or "Clallam" predominated in the media and research literature. In 1981 "S'Klallam" was used when the

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation ...

officially recognized the Lower Elwha, Jamestown, and Port Gamble (or Little Boston) tribes. In local media today "Clallam" is usually used to refer to Clallam County, Washington. It is also used in the names of a number of non-native commercial enterprises. The spellings with 'K' are used to refer to the native peoples. The Lower Elwha tribe has adopted "Klallam" as its official spelling. The Port Gamble and Jamestown tribes have adopted "S'Klallam" as their official spelling.

History

Pre-Contact

Before the arrival of Europeans to the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

the territory inhabited by the Klallam stretched across the north coast of the

from the mouth of the

Hoko River The Hoko River is a river in the U.S. state of Washington (U.S. state), Washington. It originates in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, and runs about to the Pacific Ocean through a rugged landscape that has been heavily Logging, logged. I ...

on the west to Port Discovery Bay on the east. There were also some Klallam living across the

Strait of Juan de Fuca The Strait of Juan de Fuca (officially named Juan de Fuca Strait in Canada) is a body of water about long that is the Salish Sea's main outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The Canada–United States border, international boundary between Canada and the ...

, in or near today's Saanich,

Sooke Sooke () is a district municipality on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Canada, by road from Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Sooke, the westernmost of Greater Victoria's Western Communities, is to the north and west of t ...

, and Beecher Bay. Klallam villages were mostly located along the coast, while some villages were inland along rivers, inlets or large lakes. Based on early interviews of tribal elders by early ethnologists and anthropologists, the estimated number of Klallam villages has ranged from ten to over thirty, with some ambiguity in distinguishing permanent from seasonal settlements, and some villages with mixed or disputed tribal identity. While language and tradition united the Klallam people, there were extensive trade, inter-marriage, and other forms of cooperation between the Klallam and surrounding tribes. Like many other indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast, the Klallam held

potlatch A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Scienc ...

es, which played a large role in determining social status.

Post-Contact

Europeans first began to explore the Pacific Northwest coast with Juan Pérez in 1774,

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

in 1778, and many others, especially maritime fur traders, from the 1780s on. Early explorers did not enter the Strait of Juan de Fuca or make direct contact with the Klallam. By the time direct contact was made, sometime before 1789, the Klallam had already heard about the European newcomers. Charles William Barkley was the first European known to have entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, in 1787. Robert Gray reached Clallam Bay in 1789. From 1790 to 1792 the Spanish, based at

Nootka Sound Nootka Sound () is a sound of the Pacific Ocean on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island, in the Pacific Northwest, historically known as King George's Sound. It separates Vancouver Island and Nootka Island, part of the Canadian province of ...

on Vancouver Island, made multiple expeditions into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Manuel Quimper reached Port Discovery Bay in 1790. In 1791

Francisco de Eliza Francisco de Eliza y Reventa (1759 – February 19, 1825) was a Spanish naval officer, navigator, and explorer. He is remembered mainly for his work in the Pacific Northwest. He was the commandant of the Spanish post in Nootka Sound on Vancouv ...

led a small exploring fleet, which for a time based itself at Port Discovery. It is not known which ship first made contact with the Klallam, but it was most likely before 1789 and probably at the village at Clallam Bay or Port Discovery, and involved gifts of knives, buttons, and copper.

George Vancouver Captain (Royal Navy), Captain George Vancouver (; 22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern West Coast of the Uni ...

made contact with the Klallam in 1792. He thought he was the first European to visit them and wrote about their indifference, which surprised him. He traded them copper, knives, and minor trade goods. In 1825 the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

(HBC) established

Fort Vancouver Fort Vancouver was a 19th-century fur trading post built in the winter of 1824–1825. It was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was ...

on the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

. There was little traffic between the Klallam and the fort. The only serious incident between the two occurred in 1828 when five white men were killed by a number of Klallam, two of which had been serving as guides and had been mistreated by the white men. In response a party of about 60 men from Fort Vancouver visited Klallam territory and attacked the first group they found, killing seven including women and children, and burning their house. Then, with the help of an HBC ship they attacked, plundered, and destroyed a Klallam village near Dungeness Spit. HBC records say they killed 25 Klallam altogether. In 1832 the HBC trading post

Fort Nisqually Fort Nisqually was an important fur trade, fur trading and farming post of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Puget Sound area, part of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department. It was located in what is now DuPont, Washington. Today it is a ...

was established on the southern shore of

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...

, in what is the city of

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

today. Fort records indicate that Klallam were visiting to trade furs and game by 1833. Between 1833 and 1835 Klallam parties visited Fort Nisqually at least nine times, and more regularly in the following decade. During the same period an HBC trading party visited Klallam territory. This party found the Klallam mostly unwilling to sell furs, saying the HBC's prices were too low and that they would instead wait for some other, more competitive trader.

Paul Kane Paul Kane (September 3, 1810 – February 20, 1871) was an Irish-born Canadian painter whose paintings and especially field sketches were known as one of the first visual documents of Western indigenous life. A largely self-educated artist, P ...

visited Fort Nisqually and the larger region in 1847. His descriptions of the Klallam indicate that they still practiced slavery, had given up bows and arrows for guns, that duck netting was common, shell money was still valued, and shamanism still practiced. One village he visited was fortified and inhabited by about 200 Klallam. In 1847 about 150 Klallam warriors joined with

Suquamish The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American people, located in present-day Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish people. Today, most Suquamish people are enrolled in the federally recognized Su ...

led by

Chief Seattle Seattle ( – June 7, 1866; , ; usually styled as Chief Seattle) was a leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples. A leading figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship wi ...

in a major attack on the

Chimakum The Chemakum, also spelled Chimakum and Chimacum, Native American people (known to themselves as Aqokúlo and sometimes called the Port Townsend Indians), were a group of Native Americans who lived in the northeastern portion of the Olympic Peni ...

people, intending to wipe them out completely. They largely succeeded, destroying the last Chimakum villages and leaving nearly everyone dead or enslaved. The few surviving Chimakum fled and subsequently joined the Twana, or Skokomish, near the southern end of

Hood Canal Hood Canal is a fjord-like body of water that lies south of Admiralty Inlet in Washington State that some consider to be the western lobe and one of the five main basins of Puget Sound. The first white settler of Port Townsend arrived in 1850. That same year the Klallam chief Chetzemoka, known as the Duke of York—many Klallam were given royal names by whites who had difficulty pronouncing Klallam names—was taken by a ship captain on a visit to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, returning very impressed. In the early 1850s many settlers came to Port Townsend and elsewhere in the region. By 1853 there were sawmills operating at Port Townsend, Port Gamble, and Port Ludlow. A small settlement was established in Klallam territory near Dungeness Spit and present-day Sequim. These early settlers, who lived in conditions little better, or worse than the Klallam, began selling large amounts of liquor to the Klallam, which quickly had deleterious effects. The

ethnologist Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Scien ...

George Gibbs visited the Klallam in 1855. He reported their population as 926 and blamed alcohol and disease for their population decline. Although his count was probably too low, the Klallam population was significantly reduced from earlier times, mostly due to alcohol and disease. According to Gibbs, the Klallam regularly raided their neighbors but had almost completely stopped using clubs and bows. The Klallam had many tools and utensils of European manufacture. They were growing potatoes in cultivated fields. The fur trade, formerly vital, was almost extinct. Slavery and potlatching were still practiced. In 1855 the Klallam, along with the Skokomish and the surviving Chimakum, signed the

. Under the treaty the Klallam were supposed to give up their land and move to the Skokomish Reservation, near today's Skokomish, Washington, in exchange for government aid in the form of rations and instruction. However the Klallam never made this move and remained in their territory along the northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula.

was established in 1854, but its population and infrastructure remained minimal for decades. Around 1860 there was smallpox among the Klallam, but it is not known how serious it was. The last act of intertribal warfare involving the Klallam occurred in 1869. A band of over thirty

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; ) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terrace and ...

, men, women, and children, were killed on Dungeness Spit by a group of about twenty Klallam men. One Tsimshian woman survived by pretending to be dead. The attack was in retaliation for the abduction of some Klallam women by the Tsimshian a few years earlier. Before the attack the Klallam debated over how the white settlers would react, but after some hesitation the attack was carried out in the traditional manner. One Klallam man was killed, which led to arguments among the Klallam who in the end threw away their trophies and went home dejected. A few were arrested by white settlers and sentenced to hard labor at the Skokomish Reservation, but they were not held for long and the punishment was generally considered to have been mild. After Gibbs's questionable census of 1855, which counted 926 Klallam, somewhat better censuses were conducted in the 1860s and 1870s. It appears that from initial contact to about 1862 the Klallam population declined but not too severely. Between 1862 and 1878 a more rapid decline occurred—from about 1,300 to 597. By 1870 most Klallam lived near Dungeness Spit and what is now Sequim. The period around 1870 marked what appears to be the lowest point in Klallam history. Due to rampant alcoholism, petty bickering and fighting, and thievery, the white residents of

Dungeness Dungeness (, ) is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the ham ...

forced them to relocate to other nearby areas twice, and then threatened to have them moved to the Skokomish Reservation. This led to Chief James Balch, who had been a heavy drinker until his reform in 1873, to lead the Klallam in purchasing their own land and create their own community. He and other leading Klallam collected enough money to purchase a parcel of 250 acres, in 1874, and found a town they named Jamestown, after James Balch. This was very unusual for the time, not least because Native people were legally barred from buying land at the time. By doing this and not moving to the Skokomish Reservation they gave up the possibility of federal assistance of any kind. For many decades Jamestown was one of the few examples of a Native settlement fully owned and managed by the native people themselves, with no governmental assistance or oversight. In 1981, over a century later, and after six years of effort to gain official recognition as a tribe, the federal government agreed, resulting in the federally recognized Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe of Washington. Some Klallam never joined the Jamestown project. Today there are several other Klallam groups, such as the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the Port Gamble Band of S'Klallam Indians, and, in Canada, the Scia'new First Nation.

Culture

Transportation

The rugged terrain and dense vegetation of the Olympic Peninsula made the

canoe A canoe is a lightweight, narrow watercraft, water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using paddles. In British English, the term ' ...

the preferred mode of transportation. The canoes were carved from

western red cedar ''Thuja plicata'' is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the family Cupressaceae, native to the Pacific Northwest of North America. Its common name is western redcedar in the U.S. or western red cedar in the UK, and it is also called pacific re ...

(''Thuja plicata'') through an intricate and arduous process requiring great skill, beginning with the selection of the proper tree. Stone adzes, fire, and heated water were used to hollow and shape the canoe. This knowledge was passed to a select few of each generation, and some of the canoes were purchased from other tribes, especially the larger ones. There were two main types of canoes used by the Klallam: The smaller

type used on protected waters, and the larger Chinook style for use in rougher waters. The smaller type of canoe had a rounded bottom and was long, wide, and deep. This type was used on calm waters for fishing or to haul small loads. The larger canoes had flat bottoms and could be over long, wide, and deep. These were used on the rougher waters of

, the

, and in particular off the Pacific coast, for whaling, transporting larger loads, and carrying up to thirty passengers. Early white settlers in the area noted the great skill the Klallam used in canoe handling and navigation, and that the Klallam canoes tended to be larger than those used by other Puget Sound tribes.

Diet

The lands, rivers, marine waters, and beaches in Klallam territory provided an abundant, year-round supply of food. Strategic intertribal marriages and agreements also allowed them permission to hunt or forage outside their homeland. Though their diet included large and small land game, sea fowl, and shellfish, the most important source of food was fish. Salmon still plays a significant nutritional and spiritual role in the Klallam culture. The Klallam fished year round using a variety of tools and techniques particular to the species, location, and season. They were known to use traps,

trolling In slang, a troll is a person who posts deliberately offensive or provocative messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a internet forum, forum, a chat room, an Multiplayer video game, online video game) or who performs similar be ...

gillnet Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

s, spears, rakes, dip nets, and holes dug in the beach. Specific locations were known to produce certain fishes at the right time of year, and special implements and skills were employed for a successful catch.

Ethnobotany

They apply a

poultice A poultice or cataplasm, also called a fomentation, is a soft moist mass, often heated and medicated, that is applied to the skin to reduce inflammation, soothe pain, promote healing, or otherwise treat wounds or ailments. Soft materials like cer ...

of the smashed flowers of '' Viola adunca'' to the chest or side for pain.Gunther, Erna, 1973, Ethnobotany of Western Washington, Seattle. University of Washington Press. Revised edition, page 40

Tribal groups

* Lower Elwha Tribal Community of the Lower Elwha Reservation, Washington * Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe of Washington * Port Gamble Indian Community of the Port Gamble Reservation, Washington * Scia'new First Nation ( Becher Bay Indian Band), Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Schools

The Klallam tribes do not operate their own schools. Lower Elwha Klallam children are offered a Klallam cultural and language immersion program at the Lower Elwha Klallam Head Start. Older children are provided with

and tribal history courses at Dry Creek Elementary School, Stevens Middle School and Port Angeles High School, where most Lower Elwha Klallam children attend school. A majority of Jamestown S'Klallam children attend Sequim School District schools. A majority of Port Gamble S'Klallam children attend schools in the North Kitsap School District in the Kingston area.

References

External links

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe

* ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A54559-2003Mar30¬Found=true Washington Post: "Northwest Tribe Struggles to Revive Its Language"
Klallam language

(Olympic National Park)

A web-based museum showcasing aspects of the rich history and culture of Washington State's Olympic Peninsula communities. Features cultural exhibits, curriculum packets and a searchable archive of over 12,000 items that includes historical photographs, audio recordings, videos, maps, diaries, reports and other documents. {{Coast Salish