Posts Tagged ‘Indians’

By Any Other Name

Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Our Place

       The sign on the porch above our gate has been there as long as I can remember.  It says “TSAKO-TE-HASH-EETL” and means “place of the red-topped grass.”  It is what the Chinook Indians called this area because in the summer, beginning about now, the seed heads on the native grasses turn red.
     I’ve never thought of tsako-te-hash-eetl as a house name, although I’ve heard visitors refer to the house that way.  As I understand it, they are the words Old Klickeas used to describe this northeastern shore of the peninsula to my great-grandfather, R.H. Espy, in the fall of 1853.  It’s a place name, not a house name.
    Tourists often want to know how to pronounce it (pretty much like it looks) and ask, “exactly what language is it, anyway? Japanese?  Finnish?”
     “Chinook Jargon,” I tell them.  At least, I’ve always thought that because I’ve been told Espy was fluent in the Jargon; I’ve never heard that he knew the actual Chinook language.  Of course, the Jargon was a spoken, not a written language, so the words on our sign must be an approximation only.  One of my friends who was trying to learn the Jargon told me he didn’t believe I was right about those words; he couldn’t find anything similar  in Edward Harper Thomas’s Chinook: A History and Dictionary.
     Another friend working toward her PhD in biology at the University of Washington picked samples of all the red-topped grasses in our meadow in front of the house.  She identified three different kinds but said none of them were “native.”   She said they are all “introduced” species.  Hmmm.  Foiled again!
     Nevertheless, I’m sticking to the explanation that my mother, my aunt, and my uncles always gave about the sign and its meaning.  Throughout my lifetime it has defined this place in a very special way.  And that’s good enough for me. 

…and oyster shells all in a row!

Monday, April 19th, 2010
Oyster Schooner Louisa Morrison, 1868

     The garden beds on either side of our east door grow native oyster shells – or so it seems.  Each spring as I begin the winter clean-up chores, I find that more than the weeds have multiplied.  The small, worn oyster shells from long ago are always there in force, ready to welcome the flowers that are soon to appear.
     I wonder where they came from.  Is our house sitting on an old shell midden left over from the time that Indians camped here on their yearly rounds of hunting and berry-gathering?  Or did the first residents of the house simply throw their garbage out of what was then the front door?  However the bright little shells got here, I enjoy turning them up each time I work in the garden.  And I like the way they look, glistening among the nasturtiums and primroses.
     But I can’t help but wish that some of those acclaimed gold pieces from the pioneer days would also turn up.  Oystermen of the nineteenth century were paid in gold when they delivered their bushel baskets of oysters to the waiting schooners anchored in front of Oysterville. As far as I know, however, not one stray gold coin has ever turned up here — certainly not in our backyard!   

Happy Birthday to Oysterville!

Monday, April 12th, 2010



A Salute to Oysterville


Hip Hip Hooray!  Raise the Flag!  Fire the Cannon!  Today marks the 156th anniversary of the founding of Oysterville!  According to the account by Robert Hamilton Espy, he and Isaac Alonzo Clark kept their rendezvous with Chinook elder Klickeas on April 12, 1854.  This is what Espy said: …when came along front [what is now] Oysterville tide was out – was foggy – could not see shore but heard something tapping in shore.  Tied up & came in.  Found Klickeas pounding on old stump on beach (one had been washed in).  He had seen [us] coming & tried to call…