Forgotten People: Plank Evokes Long-Vanished Tribe

AMBOY, Clark County - They are the forgotten people, vanished with little trace.

When Washington celebrated its centennial last year, slight mention was made of the original pioneers, the Indian tribes who had their own great civilizations here long before the first white man showed up to kill them off with bullets and diseases.

Not much is known of those first Americans, especially the ones who called Chelatchie Prairie their home. The word ``chelatchie'' itself reportedly is an Indian word meaning ``valley of the tall ferns,'' an apt description of the level, sometimes swampy plain at the northern edge of Clark County.

But once in a while something is discovered that brings to mind the Indian nations and the small tribes that might have lived on Chelatchie Prairie. One such artifact was pulled from the mud when a pond was dug along Chelatchie Creek, the small stream that drains the prairie. It is a cedar plank, about seven feet long, apparently split from a log with primitive tools, possibly made of elk horn.

``In my opinion, this must have been a corner post for an Indian long house or lodge,'' said Virgil Wallace, Amboy logger, author and local historian, who now possesses the plank. ``You can see where the horn was used to split the wood. There are six holes along the plank, probably burned out, for the walls of the lodge to be inserted.''

If the plank is indeed of Indian origin, as Wallace believes, it suggests the Chelatchie Prairie Indians had a permanent settlement there.

Barbara Hollenbeck, U.S. Forest Service historian who has studied the Indian culture of this area for years, said it is possible such a lodge existed on Chelatchie Prairie. ``They would have chosen such a location for a permanent encampment because of the supply of food, such as roots, camas bulbs and wild potatoes,'' she said. ``It might have been occupied as a winter village, or perhaps in the spring and early summer when the food supply was plentiful.''

However, Hollenbeck continued, it is more likely the plank was carved by some early white settler to become part of his own primitive home. ``Those first settlers on Chelatchie Prairie were not rich and probably had to make their homes from what they had at hand,'' she said.

The Indian tribes that ranged up and down the valley of the Lewis River were known as the Cathlapootles but could have been Chinookans, Klickitats or members of the Cowlitz tribe, she said.

An Indian campsite of prehistoric days was uncovered just north of the prairie about 1950 when an archaeological exploration was made before construction of Yale Dam. Digging at the confluence of the North Fork of the Lewis and Siouxon Creek, an area now flooded by Yale Lake, the archaeologists found a circular house pit about 30 feet in diameter which yielded about 35 stone artifacts. Included were arrow points, knives, scrapers, a chipping hammer and an arrow-shaft smoother.

At the time, the scientists said the Lewis River Valley was used by Klickitat Indians from the Mount Adams area for hunting and fishing but was never intensively occupied.

However, as late as 1877 a La Center resident, Summer Lockwood, in an article in the Vancouver Independent, described a huckleberry-picking trip to the Chelatchie and Yacolt areas in which he observed Indians holding horse races and celebrating the food-gathering season.

One of the last Indian residents of the area might have been a woman known only as Eliza. The April 28, 1889, Independent said the woman had died on land she claimed on the Lewis River. She had refused to leave her hut after white settlers had chased the other members of her tribe from the area. She was buried in a little yard fenced with split rails on a hillside on her land.

Hollenbeck said it might never be known which tribe lived on Chelatchie Prairie and when. ``It's just too bad they didn't keep diaries,'' she said.