Clatsop

The Clatsop are a small tribe of Chinookan-speaking Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In the early 19th century they inhabited an area of the northwestern coast of present-day Oregon from the mouth of the Columbia River south to Tillamook Head, Oregon.

Language

Clatsop in the original language is łät’cαp, which means "place of dried salmon".Clatsop was originally the name of a single settlement, later applied to the tribe as a whole.

The Clatsop dialect used by the tribe is an extinct dialect of the Lower Chinookan language. Most Clatsops spoke Chinook Jargon by the time Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery made contact with them. Some spoke Nehalem, reflecting intermarriage and cohabitation with that tribe.

Chinook Jargon is a trade language, and was once used throughout much of the Pacific Northwest. Many place names in the area come from the Chinook Jargon, for example, Ecola Creek and Park — "whale".

History

The tribe is first reported in the 1792 journals of Robert Gray and was later encountered at the mouth of Columbia in 1805 by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The expedition named their last encampment Fort Clatsop after the tribe, whose nearest major village was approximately seven miles (12 km) away. The tribe later gave its name to Clatsop County, Oregon. According to the journals of William Clark, the Clatsop comprised about 200 people living in three separate villages of large cedar-plank houses. Clatsop members regularly visited the fort for trading purposes.