The Skinpah (

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- ...

: , ) were a

-speaking people of the Tenino dialect living along the northern bank of the Columbia River in what is now south-central

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 ...

. They were first recorded as the E-nee-shers in 1805 by

Lewis and Clark Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * " Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohe ...

. Their village, Sk'in, was located adjacent to

Celilo Falls Celilo Falls (; , meaning "echo of falling water" or "sound of water upon the rocks," in several native languages) was a tribal fishing area on the Columbia River, just east of the Cascade Range, Cascade Mountains, on what is today the border bet ...

in modern day

Klickitat County Klickitat County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 22,735. The county seat and largest city is Goldendale. The county is named after the Klickitat tribe and contains part of the Y ...

. They were signatories of the Yakama Treaty of 1855 at Walla Walla, and were relocated onto the

Yakama Reservation The Yakama Indian Reservation (spelled Yakima until 1994) is a Native American reservation in Washington state of the federally recognized tribe known as the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The tribe is made up of Klikitat ...

as one of the fourteen constituent bands incorporated into the

Yakama Nation The Yakama Indian Reservation (spelled Yakima until 1994) is a Native American reservation in Washington state of the federally recognized tribe known as the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The tribe is made up of Klikitat ...

. Some Skinpah returned to Celilo Falls after relocation, living in Sk'in in close association with the Tenino Wayámpam band until the area was buried under

Lake Celilo Lake Celilo is a long reservoir on the Columbia River in the United States, between the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. It was created in 1957 with the construction of The Dalles Dam near The Dalles, Oregon, and stretches upstream to the J ...

by the 1957 completion of

The Dalles Dam The Dalles Lock and Dam is a concrete-gravity run-of-the-river dam spanning the Columbia River, east of the city of The Dalles, Oregon, United States. It joins Wasco County, Oregon, with Klickitat County, Washington, upriver from the mouth o ...

. As a result, some enrolled with the

Warm Springs Indian Reservation The Warm Springs Indian Reservation consists of in north-central Oregon, in the United States, and is governed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Tribes Three tribes form the confederation: the Wasco, Tenino (Warm Springs) and ...

and contributed to the founding of Celilo Village.

Etymology

The term , meaning 'the people of Sk'in', is the dominant Sahaptin endonym for the Skinpah. Various names have been used in English-language sources to refer to the Skinpah. ''Eneeshur'' and ''Eneesher'' were used by the Lewis and Clark expedition in late 1805 to refer to a range of Sahaptin peoples speaking the Tenino dialect within modern

. Skinpah is a transliteration of , the locative form of Tenino ''sk'in'' '

cradleboard Cradleboards (, , , , , Kazakh: ''бесік'', Kyrgyz: ''бешік'') are traditional protective baby-carriers used by many indigenous cultures in North America, throughout northern Scandinavia among the Sámi, and in the traditionally noma ...

', a reference to a local rock formation which gave the principal village its name. Various other transliterations and spellings (Skeen, Skin, Skein, Sk'in-pam) are also used to refer to the group.

Culture

The Skinpah were extensive salmon fishermen, sharing the lucrative Celilo Falls fishing grounds with other Sahaptin and Upper Chinookan peoples. Like other Columbia Gorge communities, they produced powdered salmon cakes (Sahaptin , Wasco-Wishram ). These could be stored for up to a year.

Great Basin The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

groups such as the

Paiute Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three languages do not form a single subgroup and th ...

and Hudson Bay Company traders traded with the Skeen, trading goods such as horses, guns, knives, and cloth for ''ch'láy''. The Skinpah typically wore clothes fashioned from deerskin.

History

Human presence in the vicinity of Celilo Falls is attested from . Prior to colonization, Sk'in was one of various Sahaptin and Upper Chinookan fishing villages along the Columbia. Other tribal communities active in the Celilo Falls region included the Upper Chinookan Wasco and Wishram; and the Sahaptin Klickitat,

Yakama The Yakama are a Native Americans in the United State, Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in Eastern Washington, eastern Washington (state), Washington state. Yakama people today are enrolled in the federally rec ...

, Tygh, and Tenino. Immediately downstream was the village of Wapáykt, closely associated with Sk'in and grouped under Skinpah in the 1855 Yakama Treaty. By the mid-19th century, the two villages had become essentially synonymous. Across the river was Wayám, the chief village of the Wayámɫáma band of Tenino (also known as the Celilo). Upstream was the village of Qmił (or K'míł) at Rock Creek Canyon. During the return journey of the Lewis and Clark expedition, a village later associated with Sk'in was marked as having 19 lodges. Villages were the nexuses of regional and cultural interaction for the groups along the Columbia Gorge. During the

Yakima War The Yakima War (1855–1858), also referred to as the Plateau War or Yakima Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama, a Sahaptian-speaking people of the Northwest Plateau, then part of Washington Territory, and the tr ...

, some members of the otherwise neutral Skinpah joined the Yakama and other Plateau groups in raids against American settlers. Chief Men-ni-nock signed the 1855 Yakama Treaty as a member of the "Skin-pah band of Yakama", beginning the relocation of Skinpah to the Yakama reservation. Sk'in was destroyed by the US Army during the war. Fishing rights to the area was maintained, and Sk'in was rebuilt in the decades following the war to enable access to the lucrative fishing sites at Celilo Falls. With significant conflict over local fishing rights between settlers and natives, white vigilantes destroyed Sk'in again in 1932, burning the village while its residents were away. Following the 1932 arson, Skinpah fishermen moved across the river to a site named Waxlaytq'ish. Both this site and the traditional village site of Sk'in were buried under Lake Celilo following the construction of The Dalles Dam. Skinpah contributed to the settlement of Celilo Village, which survived the flooding of Celilo Falls and still stands in the vicinity of the former Sk'in settlement. Descendants of the Skinpah are today enrolled in the Yakama and Warm Springs nations.

Notable people

* Skimiah, prophet and contemporary of

Smohalla Smohalla (Dreamer) (circa 1815 - 1895) was a ''Wanapum'' dreamer-prophet associated with the Dreamers movement among Native American people in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia Plateau region. Biography Born between 1815 and 1820 in the Wallul ...

* Me-ni-nockt, signatory of the Yakama Treaty of 1855 at the Walla Walla Council

Notes

References

{{Sahaptin peoples Native American tribes in Washington (state) Yakama History of Washington (state) Klickitat County, Washington