PSU Magazine Spring 2005

Chasing the A history professor uncovers the stories behind an ubiquitous Oregon name. ose around Lhe ciLy of Ponland and you can find many references Lo MulLnomah. There is the county, of course, and its myriad agencies. There is MulLnomah Village, MulLnomah Athletic Club, even a sLatue of Chief MulLnomah in WashingLOn Park. JusL a short distance away, Multnomah Falls lures tourisLs by the thousands each summer. The name is everywhere, but just who-or what-was Mulmomah7 For Ann Fulton, adjunct professor of history, this quesLion wouldn't go away. Fulton teaches American hisLOry, and abouL Lwo years ago she realized she was avoiding Lhe history of Native Americans in Oregon; iL was an area she knew liLtle aboul. She decided to educate herself and began talking wiLh Indian people and reading. Focusing on Oregon'.s settle– ment era, the 1840s Lhrough Lhe 1860s, she read Indian accounts, cap– Lains' logs, settlers' journals, diaries, and many, many newspapers. A name conLinually cropped up: Chief Multnomah. Some of Lhe refer– ences pointed Lo his existence as an archetype only, while Indian sources assured her that he was a great chief– tain who dominaLed the Columbia River Valley in the 18th century. Fulton was hooked on the research and kepL digging. Frederick V Homan, fourth president of the Oregon HisLOrical Society, wrote in 1910, "Multnomah was not the name of a chief nor of any one Indian, buL it may have been used as a nick– name." Another president, Omar C. Spencer, agreed, wri.Ling in 1953 thaL "Chief Multnomah is pure fiction." FulLOn suspected that Lheir verdicts were handed down simply because Lhey discounted Indian oral history. 16 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING 2005 Those who lived closer Lo the leg– endary chiefs time saw-or heard-it differenLly. Very differently. "Before the pale-face appeared, this country had been the home of the powerful Mult-no-mah, Lhe mosL noLed chiefLain of his Lime, who counted his warriors by Lhe Lhousands, in Lhe days before they had horses. " Thus wrote Andrew Jackson Splawn, based on sLories he had heard from Native Americans. Splawn was six in 1851 , when his family settled in Linn County. He and other settler children were probably eager listeners when Indians repeated the stories of their tribes. From their accounts, wri.uen when they became adults, and other corroborating sources, Fulton, has pieced togeLher the life of Chief Multnomah. F or 40 years in the 1700s, Mult– nomah ruled from the Cascades LO the Pacific Coast as chief of the Willamettes and war chief of the Wauna confederacy. This vast network included tribes from areas now known as Okanagan Valley, Puget Sound, Willamette Valley, and Lhe Oregon Coasl. Within Lhe Wauna confederacy, the WillameLtes were the most powerful. One Native American recalled in the 1880s Lhat "Once, long before my faLher's Lime and before his father's time, all the Lribes were as one tribe and Lhe Willameues were Lyee (chieO" "Over sixLy or seventy petty Lribes sLretched the wild empire," wrote Frederic Balch, and Lhey were "welded togeLher by the pressure of common foes and held in Lhe grasp of the herediLary war-chief of Lhe Willameues." Sculpture by Hermon Atkins MacNeil, 1907, Metropolitan Museum of Art