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NPS Form 10-900

OMB No. 1024-0018

(Expires 05/31/2020)

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places

Registration Form

This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. See instructions in National Register Bulletin, How

to Complete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for

"not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the

instructions. Place additional certification comments, entries, and narrative items on continuation sheets if needed (NPS Form 10-900a).

1. Name of Property

historic name

Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property Historic District

To place like a necklace (Jordan Cove) and the Bay of the Coos People

other names/site number

Name of Multiple Property Listing N/A

(Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing)

2. Location

street & number Roughly Bounded by Coos Bay Estuary and Adjacent Uplands

X not for publication

city or town Coos Bay, North Bend

state

Oregon

code

vicinity

county

Coos

code

011

zip code 97420, 97459

3. State/Federal Agency Certification

As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended,

I hereby certify that this X nomination

request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards

for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional

requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60.

In my opinion, the property

meets

does not meet the National Register Criteria. I recommend that this property

be considered significant at the following level(s) of significance:

national

X statewide

X local

Applicable National Register Criteria: X A

X B

X D

Signature of certifying official/Title: Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer

Date

Oregon State Historic Preservation Office

State or Federal agency/bureau or Tribal Government

In my opinion, the property

meets

does not meet the National Register criteria.

Signature of commenting official

Title

Date

State or Federal agency/bureau or Tribal Government

4. National Park Service Certification

I hereby certify that this property is:

entered in the National Register

determined eligible for the National Register

determined not eligible for the National Register

removed from the National Register

other (explain:)

Signature of the Keeper

Date of Action

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

NPS Form 10-900

OMB No. 1024-0018

(Expires 5/31/2020)

Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me TCP

Coos Co., OR

Name of Property

County and State

5. Classification

Ownership of Property

Category of Property

Number of Resources within Property

(Check as many boxes as apply.)

(Check only one box.)

(Do not include previously listed resources in the count.)

Contributing

private

public - Local

public - State

public - Federal

building(s)

X district

site

structure

object

Noncontributing

154

156

buildings

site

structure

object

Total

Number of contributing resources previously

listed in the National Register

6. Function or Use

Historic Functions

Current Functions

(Enter categories from instructions.)

DOMESTIC: village sites

SOCIAL: meeting hall

EDUCATION: school, library

EDUCATION: library

HEALTHCARE: clinic

RELIGION: ceremonial sites

SOCIAL: meeting hall

FUNERARY: cemetery, graves/burial

RELIGION: ceremonial sites

RECREATION AND CULTURE: outdoor

FUNERARY: cemetery, graves/burials

AGRICULTURE/SUBSISTENCE: processing,

storage, fishing site

INDUSTRY/PROCESSING/EXTRACTION:

Processing sites, manufacturing facility

TRANSPORTATION: water-related

recreation

AGRICULTURE/SUBSISTENCE: processing,

storage, fishing site

TRANSPORTATION: water-related

LANDSCAPE: natural features, underwater

conservation area

LANDSCAPE: natural features,

underwater

DEFENSE: military facility

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

NPS Form 10-900

OMB No. 1024-0018

(Expires 5/31/2020)

Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me TCP

Coos Co., OR

Name of Property

County and State

7. Description

Architectural Classification

Materials

(Enter categories from instructions.)

COLONIAL

foundation:

OTHER: Traditional plankhouse

walls:

OTHER: Traditional sweat lodge

CONCRETE

WOOD: Shingle board and batten

OTHER: Board and Batten

roof:

WOOD: Shingle

other:

BRICK (chimney)

Narrative Description

(Describe the historic and current physical appearance and condition of the property. Describe contributing and noncontributing resources if applicable.

Begin with a summary paragraph that briefly describes the general characteristics of the property, such as its location, type, style, method of

construction, setting, size, and significant features. Indicate whether the property has historic integrity).

Summary Paragraph

“The Indians never lived at places hard to get into and inland, such as white people acquire. The Indians

always wanted a place on the water, and preferred deep water.” -Lottie Evenoff (Harrington 24:37)

Coos Bay, on the southwest Oregon coast (see Figure 1), is the extensive horseshoe-shaped estuary of the

Coos River leading out to the ocean. The application focuses on 26 square miles of Coos Bay with

approximately 16 square miles identified as the estuary subtidal. Ownership, both subtidal and estuary

adjacent uplands, consists of roughly 6.4 square miles of federal and state ownership, less than 0.2 tribally

owned, 7.8 of local government ownership and 4.6 square miles of private ownership. The primary zones of

Coos Bay include the Lower Bay near the ocean entrance of the bay and North Spit (see Photograph 1 and 2),

the Heart of the Bay near Jordan Cove (Photograph 3), and the Upper Bay on the eastern side of the peninsula

(see Figure 2). The bay is the second largest drowned river valley on the Oregon Coast. The bay's primary

features include the ocean entrance and North Spit of the bay (Lower Bay), an extensive arch of water around

the peninsula (Heart of the Bay), the expansive inlets and sloughs around the peninsula, and the confluence of

the Isthmus Slough known as Gwsuu and the Coos River, known as the Kulwutl’iich, (Upper Bay). The

peninsula is low-lying land that has been settled and urbanized over the past 160 years; the cities of

Charleston, Coos Bay and North Bend dominate the central landscape but the landscape retains many of its

landforms and viewsheds. Major features of the estuary, visible from a satellite perspective, include: dunal

lakes; beaches; the long arm of the North Spit, located on the west side of the bay at the jetty; the North Bend

airport, located at the bend of the horseshoe in the Heart of the Bay; a rail line and swing bridge east and

across from the airport, adjacent to the North Slough (see Photograph 4); National Register listed McCullough

Bridge, which is part of Highway 101; the forested foothills of the western Coast Range, which frame the east

and south side of Coos Bay; and the sloughs and mouth of the River where it might be calmer on a windy day

indicated by the named place in this area, Wil’lench or “good weather place.”

Q’alya-“to put around the neck”, like a necklace, now known as Jordan Cove, and the associated village site,

Kuunatich, is the heart or central feature in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property

(TCP) historic district. The TCP includes boundaries up and down river from the Heart of the Bay zone to

encompass features significant to Coos history and way of life (Figure 3). The various features described

throughout this document support the connection that Coos families have with this area through time, which is

evident when overlaying a map with these important features that support Coos identity (Figure 4). While the

maps may look like a constellation of loci, the boundary takes in each of the locations and the surrounding

features typically associated with them such as burials, resource gathering locations, and ceremonial areas.

The boundary also absorbs the central support system responsible for perpetuating Coos way of life still today,

United States Department of the Interior

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Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me TCP

Coos Co., OR

Name of Property

County and State

the Bay itself. A few contributing properties are not in proximity to the estuary itself but have a direct

relationship to the TCP’s significance and integrity and are therefore included as discontiguous elements, such

as the two Tribal government parcels and historic burial at the Marshfield Cemetery. The connection to this

place has been unbroken despite a history that has challenged tribal life in Coos Bay.

The Native American community has continuously used the estuary since time immemorial to the present. This

is demonstrated by archaeological sites, nearby fish weirs and traps, named places in Hanis and Miluk dialects

of the Coosan Language, the presence of prehistoric and historic burials of peoples at former villages and

subsistence sites of Native Americans (see Appendix A, Figures 6-13), and significant Coos knowledge

holders who transferred their knowledge and captured the meaning of the Coos and Coos Bay in words,

places, relationships, stories and tragedies. The boundary includes the legacy of Coos women who were

permitted to stay during forced removal of tribes from their homelands and the story of how these families

heritage through European settlement of the area (see Figures 14-21), as well as, the locations of events in the

oral literature of the Coos people and stories associated with distinct natural features (see Appendix B). Coos

Families continue to use the estuarine and shore lands in the area all our lifetimes to fish, gather shellfish (see

Photograph 5 and 6), harvest berries, medicines (see Photograph 7), and plants for consumption or cultural

purposes (Figures 22-29). Additionally, the estuary's main stem served as a primary transportation route for

the Coos and today, continues to be used for fishing and canoeing by tribal members as well as for resource

gathering and/or ceremonial purposes.

Generally, contributing components of this nomination are important to the culture and way of life unique to the

Coos. Examples include viewsheds, oral literature sites (see Photograph 8), archaeological resources,

including but not limited to fish weirs, middens (see Photograph 9 and 10), burials, processing sites, gathering

sites, traditional places that carry religious or spiritual significance and natural resources that support the

vitality of tribal members as well as landmarks that still carry a connection to certain locations in Coos Bay. A

total of 156 resources contribute to the TCP historic district. Of the total of contributing resources, there are

(154) sites and (2) buildings. Within the (154) contributing sites, fifty-six (56) are contemporary resources within

various traditional use areas in Coos Bay, including the estuary itself and the adjacent gathering and

contemporary use areas (see Figures 23-29, also Appendix C, bolded), seventy-four (74) are places with

cultural significance to the Coos (pre-contact and historic), and twenty-four (24) of the sites are fish weir

locations. The two (2) buildings are the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians

(CTCLUSI) plank house and the sweatlodge, which are both located on Tribal Hall property (see Photographs

10-13). Most of the culturally significant sites have traditional names, which carry a special meaning and use or

were occupied by the Coos as villages, and are all listed in Appendix A. Coos informants identified these

locations and these sites possess a contemporary ceremonial and religious significance to Tribal members

today, even if not accessible for contemporary practice. Tribal members often note and feel protective of these

places even when talking in association about modern landmarks in Coos Bay. Viewsheds in the area permit

long distance views (see Photograph 15, 16) of natural or cultural landscape features from the shorelines or in

the Bay itself (see Photograph 17, 18). The Bay contains hundreds, if not thousands, of fish weirs; twenty-four

(24) of these locations have been recorded within the TCP boundary (see Table 1) and are identified as

contributing resources. These weirs are symbols of Coos subsistence on salmon and other fish and life that

are still central to Coos identity (see Photograph 19). Thirteen (13) archaeological features (see Table 2 and

Appendix A) represent past practices and lifeways important to Tribal members today, and are identified as

part of the seventy-four (74) contributing places with cultural significance.1 The CTCLUSI plankhouse and

sweatlodge on the Tribal Hall property are part of Coos traditions and are associated with significance to past

and contemporary Coos practice or ceremony that are included as part of this application. Additionally, ten (10)

resources within the boundary were previously listed in the National Register of Historic Places. 2

While there are thirteen (13) resources identified in Table 2, twelve (12) are part of the contributing resource count in Section 5

because one (1), 35CS24 Archeological Site, is previously listed in the National Register.

The ten resources listed in the National Register are as follows and are listed by their historic name: Marshfield Elks Temple, NRIS#

83002146; Chandler Hotel & Annex, NRIS# 84002966; Hub Department Store Building, NRIS# 92001307; Coos Bay National Bank

Building, NRIS# 89001868; Coke, J.S., Building, NRIS# 91000048; Coos Bay Bridge (McCullough Memorial Bridge) NRIS# 05000817;

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Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me TCP

Coos Co., OR

Name of Property

County and State

Non-contributing features, those not important to Coos culture and way of life, would typically be described as

built environments not associated with the Coos traditions. Features like roads, the airport, bridges (see

Photograph 20), active commercial properties, residential buildings, outbuildings, yards, gardens, active

pasture/farm lands and/or active industrial operations, components of the navigation channel not attributed to

perpetuating Coos practices, and commercial oyster operations, are not considered contributing features.

Additionally resources listed on private lands where gathering is not permitted are not contributing. Our

nomination does not attempt to include resources that are not important to contributing Coos beliefs, history or

cultural practice.

As demonstrated in this TCP nomination, and expressed by the Coos community, the integrity and the feeling

of association with the area has not been lost. Despite the removal of major parts of the property from native

ownership, dredging for the navigation channel, and the transition of parts of the general area into industrial

sites, commercial developments, and modern residences, intact features related to Coos practices and beliefs

remain that connect the Coos People with their culture and traditional way of life.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Narrative Description

Coos Bay has remained important for Native American use throughout history. This is demonstrated through

the thirty-two (32) Coos villages, with and without toponyms (see Appendix A) that have been identified, and

the continued uses in and around these adjacent ancient villages, burial areas, culturally named places and

myth tale sites. Significant persons listed in this TCP were critical to the transmission of these important

places, language, or customs, participated in important events in Coos history, and/ or had leadership roles

within the Coos Tribe and the history of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians

(CTCLUSI). Coos Bay also contains the largest fish weir systems in the Pacific Northwest (see Photograph 21,

22); these systems defined not only a reliance on fish for subsistence, but also in and of themselves are a

unique construction feature contributing important information about prehistory for this area (see Figures 5,711). Additionally, other contributing archeological features associated with village sites (see Table 2 ;

Photographs 9, 10, 23) as well as undiscovered villages lie beneath the dunes, fill, forest, and even 30-feet

below the bottom of the navigation channel, which are important to the history of Coos Bay. The Bay has been

occupied for millennia and for thousands of years people have lived here, fished here, celebrated here and

died here. This has been a good place to be as long as humans set foot here. Although development of the

area caused damage and change to some of these features and cultural resources, the viewsheds and

connected landscape features (see Photograph 24), villages, important traditional gathering areas (see

Photograph 25), as well as, the continued use of the Bay (see Photograph 26), there are still intact features to

Coos practices and beliefs that connect the Coos People with their culture and traditional way of life—a

reflection of the abundant resources that can be found in the bay of the Coos People, Kukwis shichdii me.

“When the tide is low the table is set,” is a common phrase amongst the tribal people of Coos Bay. This speaks

to the rich diversity of foods that were and are available to the people. Fed by both upwelling marine currents

and upriver environments, estuaries in the Pacific Northwest are some of the richest biotic environments in the

world (McConnaughey and McConnaughey 1986). Taxa supported in large numbers historically in Oregon

coast estuaries include salmon, herring/smelt, flounder, sturgeon, sculpin, lamprey (“eel”), and many other fish

(Monaco et al. 1990) (See Appendix C), as well as a variety of sea mammals and waterfowl. The intertidal

zone is an important habitat for cockles, mussels, piddocks, mud or goose-neck clams, razor clams, barnacles,

native oysters (now nearly extinct), red rock crab and Dungeness crabs (See Appendix C). The bay is the

habitat of harbor seals, sea lions, sea otter, occasional visiting whales, and numerous waterfowl. Some of

these species continue to frequent the harbor entrance and lower bay. The size of the Coos Bay reflects the

greater extent of ocean influence in large portions of the estuary, compared with river-dominated estuaries

elsewhere on the Oregon Coast. Different parts of the Coos estuary have varying levels of marine or

Marshfield IOOF Cemetery, NRIS# 12000483; Tower, Dr. Charles, and Flanagan, Patrick, House, NRIS# 84002976; Tribal Hall of the

Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, NRIS# 89000202; 35CS24 Archeological Site, NRIS# 97001029.

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Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me TCP

Coos Co., OR

Name of Property

County and State

freshwater input. The ocean heavily influences the lower portion of the bay, from its “north bend” to its ocean

entrance point, which includes Jordan Cove. Because of the ocean influence, Jordan Cove has been

remarkably historically productive, particularly for fish, shellfish, birds, mammals, and plants important in

traditional Coos subsistence and culture.

Historically, numerous tidal channels along the margins of Coos Bay drained extensive salt marshes (Dicken

1961) within the bay. Many of the channels are still present albeit modified. These channels are habitat for

numerous fishes, and served as the location for fishing weirs and traps; efficient systems for harvesting fish in

intertidal channels and on tidal flats (Byram 2006: 2-1). Both freshwater and tidal marshes are present in and

around the Coos Bay. The distinction between freshwater marshes and seasonal ponds or lakes is arbitrary,

with lakes and ponds having areas that remain submerged all or most of the year; many intact ponds and

freshwater marshes are still present around Jordan Cove.

Salt marsh losses in parts of Coos Bay may historically be as high as 90 percent, and as with other Oregon

estuaries, the bay has changed due to diking, draining, and filling (Proctor et al. 1980). Many of these areas

retain smaller remnants of these marshes as witnessed by plant communities such as sedge, tule, cattail,

eelgrass, pickleweed, etc., but are not as large as historically they would have been. Additionally, several

channel alteration activities including driftwood removal have modified drainage patterns and changed fish

habitats (Dicken 1961; Schultz 1990:320; Simenstad et al. 1997b:176-77). The construction of jetties at the

harbor entrance has slowed the outgoing movement of coarser silt and sand, causing these to settle on

channel floors. As the channel floor has risen, currents have increased along channel banks, producing severe

erosion (Byram 2002: Chapter 5). Nonetheless, these smaller marsh areas still provide critical habitat for

important cultural plant and fish species and ongoing cooperative work with watershed groups has increased

the size of several of these marshland areas across the bay. Even though channel dredging occurs regularly,

there are still fish, plants and shellfish communities present in the bay. Because of water quality monitoring and

continuing fish habitat restoration efforts, these critical habitat areas are still common and increasing in the

intertidal areas. The materials from former dredging in Coos Bay were deposited on tidal wetlands, resulting in

significant portions of upper Coos Bay’s tidelands covered with dredged materials. These areas include the

commercial area at the head of Pony Slough, the lower business district facing the bay in North Bend, large

dredged material islands in the center of the Upper Bay, and the business district of the City of Coos Bay,

Henderson Marsh among other locations. Despite these changes, there are still natural resources present,

such as plants and animals that Tribal members continue to harvest within their traditional homelands. The

connection to this place for Tribal members has remained strong since they continue traditional and religious

practices within these same areas as their ancestors and the Tribe continues to work as a partner with various

federal, state, local, and non-profit agencies to restore and enhance these resources to a state that is more

reflective of historic times.

Adjacent to the estuary and tidal wetlands are rolling dunes and uplands containing many varieties of trees and

plants with berries, roots, leaves or other parts that are culturally important as well as forested deer and elk

habitat (see Appendix C).

The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property includes parts of the Lower Bay and Upper Bay

sub-systems as well as Pony Slough, North Slough, and Haynes Inlet as well as Kentuck (see Photograph 27,

28) and southern sloughs near Graveyard Point (see Photograph 29) of Coalbank (see Photograph 30) and

Isthmus (see Photograph 31) and the commencement of the Coos River (Roye 1979:51). As previously

mentioned, modifications occurred to the bay with U.S. settlement, but prior to Euro-American settlement, the

ecosystem provided an abundant landscape for flora and fauna alike and still is recognized for the resources

reflected in this landscape. Additionally, the area is still known for plants such as huckleberries, shore pine,

cedar, sedges, tule (see Photograph 31), etc., fish (salmon, smelt, flounder, lamprey, etc.), shellfish (gapers,

razors, cockles, butter, etc.), crab (red rock and Dungeness), hunting (deer), and birds (duck, osprey, egret,

heron, eagle, etc.), which are listed in Appendix C. Boat transportation (motorized and non-motorized),

aesthetics (dunes, large bay, subtidal area, etc.), expansive views (BLM boat ramp, North bend Airport,

CTCLUSI Administration, etc.) and coastal weather patterns also define the area.

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Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me TCP

Coos Co., OR

Name of Property

County and State

The Coos community is culturally and wholly tied to their interrelationship with nature and the landscape. This

connection has developed over thousands of years. Those who lived during the time of great change to the

bay, between roughly 75 and 125 years ago, are the voices that help give light to history. Coos traditional

stories (see Appendix B) document many landmark features, place names, and gathering locations that tribal

members re-told and passed down through the generations; many of which are still used and recounted today.

Despite historic losses of many subsistence resources, Coos Bay is still vital to the perpetuation of Coos

traditional practices (see Photograph 32), ceremonies and lifeways. There are many other important Coos

places, sites and gathering areas that extend beyond the TCP boundary; however, the estuary and adjacent

lands represent the core of this nomination.

Lower Bay

The Lower Bay (see Figures 7, 15, 23) starts at the ocean entrance to Coos Bay and includes prominent

features such as Coos Head at the south jetty, Fossil Point, Laxai

, Nikkawwaha and Hanisich

in the old City of Empire that is incorporated into the city of Coos Bay

Historic events and features such as Confederated Tribes of Coos Lower Umpqua and

Siuslaw (CTCLUSI) Tribal Hall, Stagecoach line and lifesaving station as well as myth tale sites, other village

sites of the Coos are part of the Lower Bay. Cape Arago Highway runs north and south down into Charleston

along the edge of the bay water. The North Spit, now a stabilized feature, encloses this section of the bay from

the ocean through the expansive dune and wetland formation. Abundant resources on the North Spit include

traditional plant resources such as sedge, eelgrass, tule, spruce, bog blueberry, yellow sand verbena,

strawberry and cranberry. These resources all reside on the North Spit as well as shellfish, duck and fish

habitats. This area is still used for cultural practices such as plant harvesting and processing, canoeing,

storytelling and ceremony.

Significant features within the Lower Bay include several cultural places, fishing and gathering areas, villages,

and myth tale sites that are important to the Coos people. These features have been preserved through

ethnographic studies (see Appendix A) and through being passed down orally from one generation to the next.

Kweyeis Xwamtat Qaimisich/Mountain Going Down to the Bar/Coos Head (see Figure 7) (see Photograph

1) is a bluff located at the entrance of the Coos Bay estuary. A dominant portion of this bluff and surrounding

land is owned by the CTCLUSI. Prior to Tribal ownership, the central parcel was a federal military site

beginning in 1875 and last managed by the Air National Guard until it was surplused and transferred to

CTCLUSI in 2005. It overlooks the North Spit and an expansive sandy beach to the south. Prior to federal

ownership, this area was used as a viewpoint for the Coos people, is associated with the conclusion of the

Orca Story (see Appendix B) and was likely used as a ceremonial location. Below the bluff is a tunnel, or

Xitlxaldich (this word translates to “becoming daylight”, which refers to the dim light in the tunnel).

In 1884, Coos Head was placed in

the ownership of the U.S. Army where public access was permitted until 1957, when the U.S. Navy assumed

management authority. In 2005, CTCLUSI regained ownership of the property and is currently planning several

development options for the property, which include a cultural gathering area, viewing area, trails for

recreation, government offices and interpretative areas. Contributing features of the property for the TCP

nomination would include plants and viewsheds important to the ongoing use by Tribal members. Noncontributing features are historic military use buildings and areas on adjacent federal lands.

Mhmnuu / Fossil Point (see Figure 7) is a Point just south of Pigeon Point, or Tarheel Point. (See Photograph

6). The site, partly owned by the CTCLUSI and partially privately owned, is a large sandstone ledge of fossil

remains at Barview. Various private, university and county ownership surrounds the point and sub-tidal areas.

The upland area near Fossil Point was

where Tarheel, a determined

Coos cultural leader, lived with his family prior to his removal to the Coast Reservation (see Appendix E, photo

8). The area contains the only naturally occurring rock in the bay and is exposed to continual tidal action. The

fossil remains are well-preserved species of fossils that include Pliocene mollusks, as well as Pliocene skulls

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Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me TCP

Coos Co., OR

Name of Property

County and State

and bones of whales and sea lions. Fish and shellfish are preserved there as well in brown sandstone (Steere

1955:41; Fisher 2018). Because of the nature of this location, there is a diversity of species found at few other

locations; in the algal bed and kelp bed there is a habitat for invertebrates and fishes and a significant

spawning site for herring. Fossil Point is the setting of the myth text “The Dangerous Fish Which Poisoned

People and Things and Turned them to Stone” (see Appendix B). Coos oral informant Annie Miner Peterson

dictated the text, which was then printed in Coos and in English, and is called the Coos Narrative and

Ethnologic Texts (Harrington 1942).

Today, Fossil Point continues to be a traditional crabbing and shellfish gathering area for tribal members,

which dominate the contributing features for the site. Fossil formations also contribute as features for their

natural and cultural value. The upland areas around Fossil Point have seen some housing development (noncontributing features) while the lowland area has remained largely unchanged.

Laxai Cove and Village (see Figure 7) is a small cove located on the east side of Coos Bay between Fossil

Point on the south and Pigeon Point (Tarheel Point) on the north (see Photograph 8). The ownership of this

area is mainly private with submerged state jurisdiction. It is also the location for the myth story “He Eats

Human Children” an oral literary text of several paragraphs dictated in 1933 by Coos elder Annie Miner

Peterson (See Appendix B). The account was an admonitory tale to counsel children to stay close to home and

not to go out to play at night. Today only a sandstone knob remains at Laxai as a reminder of the Ogres who

kidnapped children (Jacobs 1939

). Presently, the upland area has seen some development, while the

lowland area remains how it was during prehistoric times. As with Fossil Point to the south, this area is a wellused shellfish gathering area with resource habitats similar to adjacent sites. Features contributing to the

village and cove include the surrounding shellfish and fish gathering areas, aquatic plant and seaweed

gathering areas (see Photograph 6), nearby myth tale features

Kiwe’et and Nikkawwaha (see Figure 7, 23) are recognized as a traditional story location

Nikkawwaha

named after the

horsetail plant

also the location of the 1855 Oregon Coast Treaty Council and temporary

reservation where from November 1855, until January 1856, Special Indian Agent Socrates Scholfield held the

Coos Indians prior to their removal to the Coast Reservation at Fort Umpqua. Fifty-three Coos men signed the

unratified treaty of August 1855, negotiated by Joel Palmer, Superintendent of Indian Affairs (Palmer 1855).

Scholfield served as the Special Agent at this site from October 1855, to April 1856 (Scholfield 1856). Later in

the 1910s, this site was the gathering place for the Coos tribe’s annual August meetings, and where the tribe

selected a successor to chief Bobby Burns (Anonymous 1913c).

In 1861 James Lawson, of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, established a triangulation station for his

surveys of the bay

In the immediate vicinity of the station is the only appearance of a

bluff along this prairie shoreline.

Kiwe’et, meaning point or peninsula (see Appendix A), is situated between Nikkawwaha, to the south, and

Hanisich, to the north. Jim Buchanan provided a story related to this place about a canoe maker who was

murdered and beheaded by someone from the sky and avenged by his son called “The Revenge of the Sky

People.”

Contributing features of this

location include the village, burials, traditional stories and historic landmark features as well as traditional use

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and cultural areas (see Appendix C) such as shellfish gathering areas, viewsheds and associated

archaeological features (see Table 2). Residences, yards, gardens, and outbuildings are not associated with

the contributing features.

Hanisich (see Figure 7) was one of the most prolific of the Coos villages located at what is now Empire. This

area overlooks the lower estuary, North Spit and the Hollering Place.

(Harrington 1942). Chief Daloose Jackson, a significant Coos Chief and cultural knowledge holder lived and

father of Lottie Evanoff, a prominent Coos informant, prior to the removal and relocation of the Coos from Coos

Bay (see Appendix E, photo 14). Jefferson Harney (see Appendix E, photo 6), a Hanis Coos and influential

leader, was born at Q’aimisiich prior to removal.

It is the location of a Coos creation story, “Mi'laq Chanigha” (See Appendix B) that tells

how the land was created from blue clay discs thrown down by two young men carrying arrows from the sky

world.

Today, the area is covered by concrete and is zoned mixed use domestic and commercial. An interpretive sign

describes the village site and the encounter between Coos People from Hanisich and the ship wrecked army

soldiers of the Captain Lincoln, who survived until their rescue by trading for resources such as food with the

Coos people at Hanisich. Down near the water is a boat ramp and dock that is heavily used by Coos tribal

members for crabbing and fishing and occasional seaweed harvesting, such as bull kelp and nori (Porphyra

varieties) (see Appendix C)(see Figure 23). Contributing features to this village

Q’aimisiich, presence of blue clay, the viewshed and “soundshed”

associated with Elk’elch or “Hollering Place” across the bay. Non-contributing features include historic and nonhistoric existing structures, docks and parking areas.

Tribal Hall Property and Tribal Administration (see Figure 15) are important fixtures in government and

cultural practice today. The Tribal Hall Property is the location of Tribal Hall significant building that was listed

on the National Register of Historic Places on March 29, 1989 and is located on Tribal reservation land in Coos

Bay

(see Figure 23)(see Photograph 12). In 1940, a small 6.1 acre lot was established

and held by the US government for use by the Tribes, and in 1941 the Civilian Conservation Corps, Indian

Divisions (CCC, ID) erected a tribal hall on the reservation. The Property has been a place of continued

government, social gathering and cultural activities, and currently houses the tribal museum, in addition to it

serving as a spiritual location for all CTCLUSI tribal members (National Register # 89000202). The Tribal Hall

complex includes other culturally important structures, such as the plank house constructed in 2001

(Photograph 6 and 8) and a sweat lodge that are heavily used by CTCLUSI members and contribute to this

TCP. The natural resources (see Appendix C) and buildings, specifically the plank house (see Photograph 11)

and sweat lodge, are used to perpetuate the culture and cultural government programming of CTCLUSI, which

contribute to the TCP.

Kwonait, CTCLUSI Administration (see Figure 15), implement the objectives of the Tribe, under Tribal Council,

to provide cultural programming, environmental and resource protection, health services and benefits, housing,

investment, and economic resources through a wide range of programming. The Departments under the

administration are grounded in culture awareness and focused on protection and enhancement of health, land,

water, for the benefit of current and future generations. The viewshed of the Lower Bay is the most noteworthy

contributing feature, along with cultural plants (see Appendix C) and government functions.

Wa’alach (see Figure 7) (see Photograph 9, 10 and Appendix E, photo 15) is

the birth place of Jim Buchanan, a

prominent Coos informant for Coos places and stories.

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The Tribe acquired Wa’alach in the early 1990s from the City of Coos Bay,

it has remained unchanged for the past 100 years

Near-by residences and non-archeological resources are not

contributing.

Jilch’ ala, Stone Hammer Baby, and Utter Rocks (See Figure 7) are rock outcroppings located in the

channel northwest of Empire (now part of west Coos Bay). The Utter Rocks one time were visible and

dangerous to mariners are still visible on navigational charts. The rocks were specifically in the channel

between Barrett’s Landing and Henderson Marsh on the North Spit opposite the village of Wa’alach

One notable rock associated among Utter rocks, likely impacted by channel

modification, was told to be the top of a rock person’s head that started off as a child’s rock hammer baby doll

turned to life. This myth tale, “Stone Hammer Baby,” as dictated by Annie Miner Peterson, a very influential

told of the

Coos tribal member and cultural knowledge holder, in 1933 to Jacobs (Jacobs 1939

origin of these rocks (Utter Rocks) and was recounted as an admonition by elders to Coos children. (See

Appendix B). While the contributing features themselves have likely been impacted to some degree by channel

dredging, they still exist in navigation charts, and the viewsheds and feeling of the place are retained. To go

look for the Stone Hammer Baby is like looking for a mythological character. Any underwater features that are

still intact would be contributing even if they cannot be seen above the lowest tide. The altered channel itself

does not contribute to the TCP although if altered could further affect this area through increased erosion,

removal of what may be left of the stones, and further damage to the association and feeling of this place to

Tribal members.

Xiila'los or North Spit (See Figure 7) (see Photograph 2) is a large spit consisting of sand dunes that

separate the bay from the Pacific Ocean. The southern portion of the spit may have formed in the later

Holocene, with further advances resulting from jetty construction at the bay entrance starting in 1892. A photo

from 1920 captures a sand bar with no visible vegetation (see Appendix E, photo 11). North of the spit is an

extensive body of dunes of which some may date to the Pleistocene. The dunes constitute one of the largest

dune sheets in North America and reach north for nearly sixty miles along the Oregon Coast (Proctor et al.

1980; Schultz 1990). These deposits of sand lie in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area (ODNRA),

while the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages most of the North Spit. The ODNRA, created by

Congress in 1972, is managed by the Siuslaw National Forest. The Army Corps of Engineers has management

responsibility for the North Jetty and river and harbor projects in Coos Bay. Because Coos Bay is navigable, a

large part of the bay is administered by the Department of Oregon State Lands, though the state has sold

tidelands for docks, sawmills, and commercial development.

The presence or absence of the spit may have changed through time as well as the location of the mouth or

entrance of the Bay indicated possibly at other location. For instance Jim Buchanan provided Qaimisani or

“river mouth” as the name at Jarvis landing because tribal elders said it had been the outlet of the bay (see

Appendix A). There may be a buried slough near the mouth of the bay that extended north, and other records

indicate that the lower bay used to be a lake created when sand was blown in and blocked the channel

(Harrington 1942; Whereat, et al. 2011:44). The shifting nature of the sands and channel through time has

revealed some sites and buried others. Today due to the anthropogenic stabilization of the sand dunes with

European beach grass, many villages and associated cultural items such as canoes have been buried. While

the North Spit has a mixed use of both recreation and isolated commercial industry, tribal members continue to

gather traditional foods and basketry material from the plentiful resources on the spit. Contributing resources

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on the North Spit are predominately those found in Appendix C as it is still an important gathering site for Coos.

Additionally, historic or prehistoric features, including viewsheds,

and associated features identified in Figure 7 and Appendix A would

be contributing elements. Noncontributing features are existing industrial and recreational development and

non-native plants.

Elk’elch or “Hollering Place” (See Figure 7), is located on the North Spit across from Empire. It was named

“Hollering Place” because it was a place where one could holler for a canoe if transportation was needed from

the North Spit to another area. Traditional stories tell that canoes would cross the bay from modern day Empire

to retrieve someone from the spit. Like, Hanisich, the soundshed and viewshed strongly contribute to this area.

Heart of the Bay

The Heart of the Bay (See Figure 8-10) includes submerged lands, tidal and freshwater wetlands, filled

wetlands, sloughs, uplands, pre-contact and modern gathering areas, and archeological evidence that indicate

the earlier presence of prehistoric villages and burials, as well as historic burials. Presently, much of the area

to the south of the bay has been urbanized, and includes: the city of North Bend; the Southwest Oregon

Regional Airport; the McCullough Memorial Bridge (see Photograph 3, 20), which connects Highway 101 over

the channel; and the Trans Pacific Parkway, a paved road that crosses the North Slough on a berm, and

extends north of Jordan Cove to serve industrial sites on the North Spit and recreation sites in the Oregon

Dunes National Recreation Area (ODNRA). Additionally, a functioning railroad travels from northern Highway

101, across to Jordan Cove via a freight train bridge (see Photograph 3), and through North Bend. This railroad

is known as the Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad that has been in operation from 1916 through present

day. Peter Jordan, who grew up at Jordan Cove, recalled in his 1931 testimony that in the 1870s, there were

“plenty of ducks, plenty of clams, plenty of sturgeon, geese, swans, pelican, elk, deer, and bear; now today

there is practically none” (U.S. Court of Claims 1931:128). Jordan was but just one who witnessed the dramatic

change in landscape and natural resource abundance reduction from what he once knew due to railroad

construction and later mill development. Today, the tribal members make use of the plentiful resources that are

available, but with knowledge that resource quantity, quality (contaminant concerns) and accessibility has

changed over time. The Heart of the Bay remains integral to Coos culture today is, and despite the more

industrial use of this area, many feel strongly connected to this area, and in essence, represents the spirit and

heart of the Coos Tribe.

The Heart of the Bay itself includes Jordan Cove (referred to as Q’alya

Kuunatich), North

Slough (Ch’hli’ya’ich or going out place), Point between North Slough and Haynes (Ha’yim dibinch) and

Haynes Inlet (see Photograph 13 and 14), and east and west areas surrounding Pony Slough

Hlwahich, Hattsa, and Da'nis)(see Appendix A and Figure 8). Its main features are the cove itself and large

sloughs and inlets. Fish weir systems start to be more prominent as you move up the bay, though Jordan Cove

due to its location and abundant fish habitat probably would have had several weir systems associated with the

Kuunatich. Additionally, the area would have provided access to uplands for canoe logs or

hunting as well as to nearby villages.

Significant features within the Heart of the Bay include features important to the Coos through time: precontact, historic and current significance. This is and has been a high use area because of its central location

in the bay (for transportation and views), for upland and in-water resources as well; it is important to note that

historic occupancy by Coos women validates the unique and important cultural and natural features present.

This remains an area where Coos cultural places, fishing and gathering areas, villages, and myth tale sites is

still noteworthy and retains its integrity in both physical and spiritual realms for the Coos.

Henderson Marsh is on the North Spit, close to the Heart of the Bay, between Coos Bay and the Pacific

Ocean, and appears on the earliest maps as a large, vegetated wetland. These maps show an open channel

to the bay, and accounts describe abundant driftwood on the bay ward portion of the marsh, indicating tidal

influence (Lawson 1863). This setting provided habitat for a great variety of fish, waterfowl, furbearers, and

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game, along with many wetland plants that were used by indigenous communities who lived in small villages

all along the spit on the west and north side of the bay and often traded with early fur trappers and traders. In

1864, John L. and Nancy Henderson built a claim cabin and ran cattle in Henderson Marsh. A short distance to

the south at Barrett’s Landing, later known as Jarvis Landing, Henry H. Barrett and his Coos Indian wife, Cora,

operated a stage landing providing transportation between Coos Bay and the Umpqua (see Figure 15 and 16).

The Barrett’s were married in Empire City in 1858. Cora, because she was married to a settler, was permitted

to stay in Coos Bay following the removal of the tribe starting in 1855 and interlinking the pre-contact era

through the historic period to present day Coos and demonstrating her relevance in CTCLUSI history. Their

property was selected for its resources and accessibility via the bay and northward route which were important

not only for the stagecoach but to tribal lifeways. The Barrett’s’ horses grazed in the marshes of the North Spit

(Beckham 2015a:38-40). Dredge material from the bay and boiler ash have been placed here and in the

surrounding uplands of the marsh- while these don’t contribute to the TCP they may contain secondary

deposits of cultural resources. The contributing features of this area include the upland forest, adjacent

gathering locations (see Appendix C and Figure 24), and landform and viewsheds up to the lakes and across

the bay that remain treasured by tribal members today.

Kuunatich and Q’alya or Jordan Cove, (see Figure 8, 9 and Photograph 3) is situated on the north side of

the turning of the bay, midway between the harbor entrance and the upper bay, and has a view of both these

areas. A viewpoint like this is very important in both trade and defense of village sites. The Jordan Cove area is

a natural inlet of approximately 95 acres, east of the North Spit and south of the ODNRA. It was the primary

access location for Native Americans to the travel corridor into the Oregon dunes and wetland, lake, and forest

habitat extending north twenty miles to the Umpqua River as well as access to the upper bay. Like the rest of

the TCP, this area has been continuously used by the Coos people from time immemorial to the present as a

domestic, burial, ceremonial, gathering, canoe landing and meeting area. Kuunatich, a

(see

Appendix A), has been identified by multiple Coos informants. During the contact period, Coos women married

into both the Jordan and Barrett family and those families homesteaded in this area, likely because of its high

cultural value and resources. This connection is still very strong and continues today and, as an example, five

of seven current CTCLUSI Council members have the surname Jordan or Barrett prominent in their family tree.

At Jordan Cove, the freshwater wetlands extend going north, sustaining beaver, otter, fisher, ducks and geese,

pigeons, amphibians, and reptiles such as turtles (see Photograph 4). Yellow pond lily is abundant in the lakes

and produces an edible seed (see Appendix C). The bogs surrounding the lakes are excellent sources of bog

blueberries and extensive huckleberry patches grow on the dunes beneath the pines; all important resources

still utilized (see Figure 24). Jordan Lake is the southernmost in a chain of dune lakes extending twenty miles

north to the Umpqua River. Tidal marshes are typically only submerged during high tides, particularly in

conjunction with periods of high runoff from nearby uplands, most likely to occur during fall, winter and spring.

Jordan Point, originally stabilized with driftwood (Lawson 1863a), a 1924 photo captures open dune with

intermittent forests and other sparse flora (see Appendix E, photo 17). Historically the area was covered with

some low-level profiles of dredged material and in 1960, it became the site of Menasha Corporation’s

paperboard mill and later Weyerhaeuser in 1981. In 2003, Weyerhaeuser decommissioned the mill. Remnants

of the facility that remain intact include some paved roads, concrete slabs, some of the foundation around the

loading dock, a storage tank, railroad spur, and a fenced electrical transformer site adjacent to Jordan Cove

Road. The freshwater lake and beach of Jordan Cove were not impacted by the pulp and paper operations.

Immediately to the north are the intact dune fields of the ODNRA, which also includes many lakes and

marshes occupying the interdunal valleys or troughs. These changes have not significantly altered the

historically flat features of the cove area or the forested area to the west of Jordan Cove.

Today, much of the area is in private ownership, owned in part by the Port of Coos Bay, but also includes

federal public lands managed by the BLM, and to the north by the U.S. Forest Service. It was historically

occupied by forested and un-forested dune ridges and associated wetlands in low-lying areas. Much of the

historical landscape has been modified over the past 50-60 years for industrial development. Changes to the

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area include the 1914 construction of the railroad right-of-way that extends along the west bank of North

Slough and across Jordan Point to a railroad bridge crossing Coos Bay to North Bend, Oregon. In 1959, a

railroad spur was constructed, crossing Jordan Point north of Jordan Cove running west to the North Spit. A

(Kuunatich

is located near to Q’alya, but due to sand movement, fill

and unmonitored ground disturbance, confirmation of the location of Kuunatich has been difficult to confirm.

Nearby are locations used by tribal members for basket material gathering, shellfish harvest, fishing, and

canoeing (see Photographs 17, 18); however, threat of contamination has kept some tribal members from

utilizing this area for first foods and/or resources for fear of exposure to hazardous chemicals. Contributing

features are the distinctive cove,

viewsheds (although altered viewsheds exist

and are non-contributing), traditional plants and adjacent fishing areas and secondary cultural deposits.

Existing bridges, buildings, adjacent chip piles, dock, barges and similar are not contributing.

Ch’hli’ya’ich (going out place) or North Slough (see Figure 9 and Photograph 4) is situated between the

dunes to the east and by a hill on the west, Xwitsxuut ntsestl’aq’eheich (deer bathing place). The Slough is

named for a time when a whale got stuck up the slough and then made its way back out again. There is also a

point here, Ha’yim dibinch, which separates the Slough and Haynes Inlet. The Slough is east and north of

Jordan Ranch, an important congregation location for tribal members, especially those traveling to and from

the cranberry bogs, referred to as Kwissaluqwa and named the pitcher plant or Darlingtonia that is found there.

In May 1885, Charles D. and Thomas H. McFarlin of Massachusetts purchased fifty acres on North Slough

about four miles north of Jordan Cove. They imported cranberry cuttings, laid out their bogs, and set in the

ground approximately 28,000 plants per acre. Their first commercial harvest was in October 1887. By 1893, an

estimated sixty to 100 Indians from Coos Bay were involved in the cranberry harvests in the height of operation

(see Appendix E, photo 10). They camped at Jordan Cove and moved back and forth along North Slough to

the McFarlin place (Beckham 1973:53-55). Contributing features are traditional plants for basket making

including tule and triangle sedge, food or medicine, culturally important birds (feathers used for regalia), first

foods such as fish (see Appendix C) naturally occurring in the slough, landforms, hills, dunes, and places with

associated named places (see Appendix A) as well as fish weirs (see Table 1). Non-contributing features

include the highway, commercial oyster farms and existing buildings or residential features.

Haynes Inlet (See Figure 9) is an expansive slough in length and width further east in the Heart of the Bay that

contains minor sloughs with traditional names, Qetl’diiye-“getting longer” or Palouse Slough and Ha’lais“getting in canoe place,” or Larson Slough.

High resource extraction that

included both fish, clams, and native oysters would have been found in these areas. The area is currently used

for commercial oysters and recreational clamming (on the south side).

Lone Rock (see Photograph 24), a noted navigational aid in the inlet, is positioned in the mud flats on the south

side of Haynes Inlet. Alec observed: “Huckleberry bushes etc. on that & madrone on that rock.”

(Harrington1942). While Informants were not able to recall the name of the rock, its stature indicates it likely

had a name and possibly played a role in geography and navigation.

The residences, oyster farming operations and roads do not contribute.

Hlwahich

Hattsa

see Figure 8 and 9) would have been situated in close proximity to the North

Bend Airport, which began in 1936 as a Work Project Administration Project (W.P.A.) and was used as an

auxiliary air facility until 1947 (SWCA Environmental Consultants 2006). There is a slough, Hltehs, now called

Pony Sough, that lies directly across the Bay, due South, from Jordan Cove. Portions of this area have

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historically been covered by fill, primarily along the northern extent of the airport property to build the runways

and further southwest in the former mudflats of Pony Slough where Pony Village Mall is now situated.

However, there remains a remarkably intact viewshed of the bay and North Spit/Jordan Cove area present

from this location. Archaeological features (see Table 2), place names (see Appendix A), traditionally utilized

plant populations (see Appendix C), viewsheds and burial areas associated with Hattsa all contribute to the

TCP. It is also possible that additional contributing features such as weirs and other archeological features are

present beneath the filled in adjacent airport and slough lands. Non-contributing features include the airport

runway, tower, parking lot and roads, as well as existing associated buildings.

Da'nis (see Figure 8, 9 and area to the South in Photograph 3)

North Bend, Oregon located directly across Coos Bay to the southeast of Jordan Cove the most northern point

of the peninsula. Southeast of Da'nis was a place known as Hemis Gahaqich, which was used in the historic

period as a ferry landing, it was across from Glasgow

(see

Appendix A).

That neighborhood was apparently a favorite place or

home for them” (Sengstacken 1942:119-120). In 1935, the Oregon Department of Transportation set the

abutments of the McCullough Bridge (see Photograph 20)

Da’nis is surrounded by industrial areas, a large and well-used park, and other natural spaces with panoramic

views of the bay and Kentuck Slough, Qa’latl. The beaches on the peninsula are used regularly during summer

as soft landings for the CTCLUSI canoes, as they are brought into the estuary for cultural activities. Near

Da’nis, there are

(see Table 2). Contributing

features include

viewsheds around the base of the bridge in

all directions, access to water and traditional plant resources. Non-contributing features include the bridge,

roads, residences, and parks that do not contain archaeological features.

Upper Bay

The Upper Bay (See Figures 9,10,11,12) extends from Qdet, previously known as Jordan Point (now known as

Glasgow), and straightens out upriver, passing Kentuck Slough or Qa’latl (to the east), and commercial

facilities next to the water and downtown Coos Bay (to the west). The Coos History Museum, next to Isthmus

Slough, holds several Coos made baskets made during historic times from material gathered around the bay

and serves as an education tool and repository of knowledge and therefore, is considered as a contributing

element. Highway 101 runs along the edge of the bay and continues down south running parallel to the Central

Oregon and Pacific Railroad, which continues from North Bend through Coos Bay. Further south on the east

side past Qa’latl, there resides Wil’lench and other small inlets leading to the narrowing of Coos River at

Graveyard Point (see place names noted in red on Figures 7, 8, and 9). Isthmus Slough, Catching and Coal

Bank are clustered together across from Graveyard Point. Isthmus Slough flows for nearly 40 miles in two

major forks out of the Coast Range. The Coos people utilized significant amounts of fish weirs, and the Upper

Bay, like the Heart of the Bay, contains hundreds of fish weirs, many of which are still visible today. This part of

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the bay includes many commercial and noncommercial shellfish harvesting areas. In prehistory and early

historic times, it was a popular and important travel corridor known as “Overland.”

Qdet or Glasgow and Qa’latl or Kentuck Slough (see Figure 8 and 9) are two landscape features that

distinguish this area. Qdet, a landform that sticks out into the bay and

Qa'latl (see Photographs 27 and 28) is a slough and intertidal area

The higher elevations around the slough are known for

their mention in a popular Coos traditional story about the tsunami, which occurred in 1700 AD leaving canoes

in tree tops (see Appendix B). The fish weirs, viewsheds, place names, story landforms and traditional plants

associated tidal wetlands and inundated areas are all features that contribute to the ongoing importance of this

place to tribal members for canoeing (see Photograph 26) as well as traditional food and resources (see

Appendix C).

Nearby Willanch reflects its Coos roots in its name, Wil’lench or “good weather place”

Long ago, it was not safe to visit the valley of Wule’ench Slough. There was some kind of big animal up

there. It would kill people. It would holler from a distance making this strange “u ghghgh u ghghgh”

(gh=inhale) noise that could be heard from far away. The only escape was to get in the creek and get

away. By land, it could follow a person’s tracks.

Then a great fire came in waves over the ocean. Glasgow did not burn, but many places, including

Wule’ench, did. When the ashes got cold, some people went there. There was something with big jaws

in a tree, dead. No one ever heard that monster again. Since then, it has been safe to go through the

valley.

Shuuhtlits’ (see Figure 10), near Dewey’s Rock or Haiwalli,

referred to as

“shudlitc” by Melville Jacobs comes from the Hanis verb shuuhtl describing a brush fire means. The “Burned

over Place” is located where the present Engles furniture store resides. The area later became known as

Dewey’s Rock, from a large rock that used to be just offshore. Most of this rock was blasted away, and the

remainder used as a foundation for a mill boiler (Whereat, et al. 2011). Daloose Jackson, the last hereditary

Hanis Coos Chief, and his family lived in a float house at Dewey’s Rock (Youst 1997). Haiwalli, which means

bundle of meat, was given this name because it was prayer site, giving good luck those who would place a

bundle of salmon here and is still marked as culturally significant to the tribe.

Malukwich, Sqwatl’iiya and Walamtii tl’da are contributing places on the west side of the Upper Bay (see

Figure 10 and 11). Malukwich was named for red ochre deposits, which was an important clay for Coos

traditional practice. Sqwatl’iiya

near deep water

Nearby Walamtii tl’da,

salamander land was a place with many creeks. The burial site of Daloose Jackson’s at

is also contributing as a location still visited by tribal members today. The natural features, including clay and

mineral deposits, contribute also to the traditional and continued cultural importance of this area. The

residences or commercial development of this area would not contribute to the significance.

Graveyard Point (see Figure 11) was a highly significant fishery for the Hanis; the weirs were located at the

point where the Coos River flowed into the bay (Beckham and Minor 2016). At Graveyard Point, the river

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wraps around the point flowing from up the Coos River (See Photograph 29). It was also the starting location of

“Coos Orca Story” myth tale story (see Appendix B).

my father

Went up to that place every summer, & since he was a chief would merely look on as his

Men were catching salmons there. My father never mentioned the name of the place,

Saying merely we are going up to our father’s home. So I never got to hear the place.

Others may know it.

Harrington incorrectly recorded that Lottie Evanoff called said that this location was known as “Takimiya”

meaning blackfish (Beckham 1977) and in 1965 Charlotte L. Mahaffy (1965:12). While the original name of this

place was lost, Lottie did speak of a homestead in this area at Graveyard Point that “near the forks of north and

south coos rivers

In 1964, Stephen Dow Beckham (1977) had two diary entries from interviews with Mr. Herman Larson about

Graveyard Point:

Also he noted that when dredging at Graveyard point when he built the dike road along Coos River that

he discovered

weirs that ran all

across the river at this point.

Drove over to the Christensen ranch at Graveyard Point to seek permission to go down into the field

along the bottomlands where the herons and cranes nest in the large trees on the knoll, but the bulls

were in that field. Young Mrs. C. said that they have their garden in the field by the river on the old

kitchen midden—what a rich garden place. Yesterday when weeding the carrots she found a marvelous

arrowhead which was perfect in form. We then met old Mrs. C., aged 83 years. She took us into the old

McIntosh house—where she was born, and showed us a few arrowheads that they had found in the

fields—they were obsidian spear points! Sure the Coos Indians must have traded for them…..

She told us that one time (I think in 1945) when the dikes broke in the fields that the water and logs tore

thru across the pasture. The gap opened to about 80 feet and mud and water churned thru the point.

Then Indian baskets and several sorts of woven articles boiled up in the flood as it cut thru part of the

midden in their field.

Sometime in the 1970s or 1980s, a culvert was placed through the dike in the vicinity of one of the shell

middens and burial site. The City of North Bend currently owns the mainly pasture property and the Tribe is

working with the City for the protection of the two midden locations and burials on the property. The agricultural

use does not contribute nor do the residences in this area to the significance of the application.

Qaltat, Q’atl’iixas, La’oltl, Kwusu: Upper Bay Sloughs and upstream Coos River places,

with traditional importance to the Coos. Kwil’wittl’ach is the area between Graveyard Point

and Coos-Millicoma fork. This area was a fish camp spot for Coos during salmon runs. Qaltat or Coalbank

Slough is meaningful to the CTCLUSI as both a traditionally named place and CTCLUSI owned parcel

recognized for cultural and environmental values (see Figures 11, 27; Photograph 30 and Appendix A). Other

important activities associated with Q’atl’iixas, and Kwusu (see Appendix A and Figure 27-29) are fishing,

shellfish gathering, upland resources and birds of cultural significance (see Appendix C) all of which are

contributing features due to their untethered connection to Coos cultural practices. Fish weirs present in this

area are also contributing, representing a way of life for the Coos still central to Coos identity. Some villages,

Jim Buchanan identified a few in this area near Catching Slough, did not have known locations like Buu’ich,

La’oltl and Hantqat’. Isthmus Slough was also a named place Gwsuu.

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In addition, there are also a few named places which do not have locations such as Kumis (possibly a name for

Graveyard Point, comes from the word for salmon gristle, k’um) and Nuk’wiinich. Elqnihich is the village at the

forks for the Millicoma and South Fork Coos River, also known as Milukwume (see Figure 12 and Appendix A).

Named places, natural landmarks as well as aquatic and subtidal plants contribute to the TCP. Modern

residences, roads and development do not contribute to this application.

Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me (see Figure 3 and 4) in its entirety, describes an area in Coos Bay that has

defined Coos culture through time. In spite of construction projects, wetlands reclamation, dredging and filling,

and industrial development, the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property area in this

nomination retains many of its natural and cultural features. It meets the test that it could be recognized by

tribal ancestors were they to visit the area today. Ethnographic records indicate Coos Bay has always been a

good place to live. The record shows the prolific resources supported many Coos villages

(see Appendix A). The villages tell an important story of this area for the Coos that was almost lost

by removal, assimilation, and death. The shoreline retains many natural areas with access to recreation,

fishing, clamming and plant gathering. Also important, at the center of the TCP, is the bay. The river itself, a

transportation route, the first highway, a way to get to resources and villages up and down the bay. The

animals and plants that rely on the bay are at the core of Coos cultural identity. There are culturally important

areas spanning from the Lower Bay to the narrowing of the Coos River that tell stories about Coos culture

through names places or myths.

The location of the largest documented assemblage of fish weirs and fish traps on the Northwest Coast of the

United States are positioned north and east of Jordan Cove and extends down into the Upper Bay (Tveskov

2003). The weirs and traps are in the tidelands of North Slough, Haynes Inlet, mouth of Larson Inlet, and at the

mouth of Kentuck Slough. These water-saturated objects have associated with them fish clubs, gaffs, basketry,

adzes, spears, stone tools and other objects used in fishing and fish-processing. Because these are watersaturated, alkaline settings, the preservation of organic materials is remarkable; although, acidic conditions

may have affected some objects. The only visible disruptions of this historic landscape are the berm for

Highway 101 crossing the mouth of Haynes Inlet, the McCullough Bridge over Coos Bay for Highway 101, and

the berm for the North Spit access road crossing the entrance of North Slough. Ninety-five percent of the

extensive intertidal acreage containing the weirs and traps remains as it was centuries ago. It is not changed

nor is it significantly altered by piling, docks, tide gates, or other historic era changes.

There has been loss of important features within the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property,

loss of access to resources or degradation of resources; however, the community today embraces the

remaining resources and appreciates the opportunity to still live in alignment with a traditional way of life and

retain a strong sense of connection to these places.

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8. Statement of Significance

Applicable National Register Criteria

(Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property

for National Register listing.)

Areas of Significance

(Enter categories from instructions.)

Archaeology

X A

Property is associated with events that have made a

significant contribution to the broad patterns of our

history.

Agriculture

X B

Property is associated with the lives of persons

significant in our past.

Conservation

Commerce

Ethnic Heritage – Native American

X D

Property embodies the distinctive characteristics

of a type, period, or method of construction or

represents the work of a master, or possesses high

artistic values, or represents a significant

and distinguishable entity whose components lack

individual distinction.

Government

Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information

important in prehistory or history.

Time immemorial to present

Social History

Transportation

Period of Significance

Significant Dates

Criteria Considerations

Historic Dates listed below

(Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.)

Property is:

Owned by a religious institution or used for religious

purposes.

removed from its original location.

a birthplace or grave.

a cemetery.

a reconstructed building, object, or structure.

a commemorative property.

less than 50 years old or achieving significance

within the past 50 years.

Significant Person

(Complete only if Criterion B is marked above.)

Hanis and Miluk Coos Indians – See list below

Cultural Affiliation (if applicable)

Coos (Hanis and Miluk speaking bands)

Architect/Builder

N/A

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Significant Dates: Historical (See Appendix E for Full Timeline)

1700, January 26th, a 9.0 Earthquake caused a tsunami, that flooded the coastal communities, potentially

associated with the myth tale ma'atl, or the flood.

1828 Daloose Jackson is born at Hanisich; Jedidiah Smith’s fur trapping party, reaches Coos Bay

1852, The Coos Indians greeted unexpected visitors when the Captain Lincoln wrecked on the North Spit

of Coos Bay. Its survivors camped for weeks in the sand dunes.

1855, Summer, the Coast Treaty was negotiated between the Coos and the Federal Indians Agents,

including Joel Palmer, to allow for the peaceful acquisition and settlement of the Confederated Tribes

ancestral lands. This treaty is never ratified.

1856, Coos People rounded up and placed on a reservation at Empire for a short time.

1856, Coos People moved to new Umpqua Reservation near the U.S. Army’s Fort Umpqua.

1860, Coos People were marched 60 miles up the coast to the Alsea sub-agency of the Great Coast

reservation on the Yachats River.

1860s and 1870s, Barrett Homestead and stagecoach line.

1875, The Alsea reservation, of the Coast Reservation, is terminated.

1876, The Alsea Reservation is opened for American Settlement.

1877, December, The Coos People are released from Yachats and try to return to Coos Bay.

1878-~1890, Coos Peoples return to Coos Bay after staying with Siuslaw people.

1891, Coos off-reservation allotments are awarded (Dawes Act 1887).

1907, Death of last hereditary Chief Daloose Jackson (buried at Marshfield Cemetery, Coos Bay)

1917, Beginning of the Coos et al. vs. U.S.A. Indian claims lawsuit.

1935, Construction of the McCulloch Bridge (Highway 101).

1938, May 2, Coos (or Kowes) Bay, Lower Umpqua (or Kalawatset), and Siuslaw Indian Tribes Vs. The

United States of America, No. K-345. Decided in favor of the USA.

1930s and 1940s, informant interviews for James Buchanan, Annie M Peterson, Lottie Evanoff, Frank

Drew.

1954, Termination of the Tribes of Western Oregon, PL 588.

1984, October 17, Restoration of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw peoples.

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Significant Persons: Coos Indians

Annie Miner Peterson (Hanis Coos): (1860-1939) Informant for several studies, linguistic informant

Daloose Jackson (Coos): (1828-1906) Chief, leadership role

Don Whereat (Coos): (1924-2013) Author, historian

Frank Drew (Coos): (1867-1951) Informant for several studies, linguistic informant

James (Jim) Buchanan (Coos): (born between 1845 and 1848 died approx.1933) Informant for several

studies, linguistic informant

Jefferson Harney (Coos): (1849- unknown) Tribal leader of importance

Lottie Evanoff (Coos): (1870-1944) Informant for several studies, linguistic informant

Tarheel (Coos): (unknown birth/death) Well-known, master of ceremonies

Cora Barrett (Coos): (abt. 1845- unknown) Hanis Coos, married and remained in Coos Bay, Stagecoach

line

Jane Jordan (Coos): (abt.1840-1890) Hanis Coos, married James Jordan and remained in Coos Bay

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Period of Significance (justification)

The Coos people have continually lived around the Coos Bay estuary since time immemorial through today;

making use of the resource rich area of the bay and continuing their traditional lifeways.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Criteria Considerations (explanation, if necessary)

The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property also meets criteria considerations A, C, D, and

G. Criteria consideration A is met for the association with traditional cultural values, as the Coos people have

continued to practice and perform religious ceremonies

since time immemorial at various sites around the Coos Bay estuary. Criteria

consideration C is met since the knowledge of traditional practices, language, place names, and the continued

connection of place has been perpetuated by numerous Coos tribal members, leaders, Coos informants and

knowledge holders, and Tribal members who were not removed to reservations and who were born and/or died

within the boundaries of the TCP and members who have helped perpetuate Coos lifeways and traditions.

Criteria consideration D is met, as with

the remains of

Ancestors, who should be protected in their final resting places. Lastly, criteria consideration G is met because

the Coos people have continually lived on the landscape and utilized the same resources within the same

areas since time immemorial and demonstrated continued use today that has been documented in recent

interviews with Tribal elders and Tribal weavers.

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Statement of Significance Summary Paragraph (Provide a summary paragraph that includes level of significance, applicable criteria,

justification for the period of significance, and any applicable criteria considerations).

The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property historic district is a significant area to the Coos

Indians since Time immemorial through the present. This significance is demonstrated through documentation

in the ethnogeography and ethnobotany of the Coos Indians; the location of numerous, permanent villages

(See Appendix A and Table

cultural practices on the margins of

Coos Bay; as the location of the largest assemblage of fish weirs and fish traps on the Northwest Coast of the

United States and opportunities provided for travel, resource access and cultural practice offered by the river

itself that still function today. This area is significant not only for its local level of significance due to the

resources it provided to the Coos people but also at the statewide level of significance as Tribes from outside

the area would travel to Coos Bay to trade for various plant and animal resources that were in abundance in

and around the estuary. The Lower Bay contains one of the largest Coos villages at Empire (Hanisich),

the treaty signing location, major shellfish gathering areas still utilized by tribal

members, myth tale locations, important fossil resources, ceremonial practices

The

historic residential site of tribal member Jane Jordan,

– these tribal members (Jane and Cora) who married

into Euro-American families (Jordan and Barrett) are significant because they were not removed to

reservations up north and continued traditional Coos cultural practices within their homeland; as a travel hub;

and as an area used for extensive estuarine and land resource collection and processing from time

immemorial to the present. Moving up the bay to the Upper Bay there are other notable villages and burial

areas, as well as myth tale sites ( for example the Orca Myth Tale, see Appendix B), ceremonial sites, and

traditional fishing locations still used today, as well as complexes of weir systems containing hundreds of weirs.

The area is significant under National Register Criteria A, B, and D. The period of significance for the Q’alya ta

Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property historic district is time immemorial to present, as it has been

continually occupied and traditionally used by Coos people since time immemorial. It is the setting for

traditional oral literary accounts (see St. Clair 1909; Frachtenberg 1913; Jacobs 1939, 1940) and is associated

with living tribal members, tribal sovereignty, and their ancestors. The connection, as well as continuity of

traditional commodities and practice use areas, for example, berry-picking sites, basketry and regalia materials

locations, medicinal plant areas, traditional fishing, shellfish and hunting areas, plant gathering locations and

ceremonial sites, supports significance under Criteria A. Specifically under Criteria A, the TCP has statewide

level of significance in the areas of Agriculture and Commerce for its association with trade commodities and

trading and trade routes with Tribes from outside.

The TCP is locally significant under Criteria A, for Conservation, Government, Social History, and

Transportation. The events in Coos culture and history, from pre-contact to present, through traditional stories

and oral histories that explain the lifeways of the Coos people important to social history. Ethnographers and

linguists also captured this history from the tongues of our ancestors and their resilient relationship of the tribal

community to resources in Coos Bay and the importance of cultural and natural resources for the Coos people.

The recent interviews with tribal members conclude that these practices are still alive here locally. The stories

and histories provided outline the significance of the bay as a transportation network that connected people to

all of the resources within the TCP and the historic stagecoach line. In 1917, the tribes banded together as the

CTCLUSI and established a formal elected government that still exists today with central offices in Coos Bay.

Further, the Tribal Government Administration recognized the importance of the preservation and conservation

of natural and cultural resources and acts to conserve and protect those resources. The TCP is locally

significant under Criterion B, for Ethnic Heritage, as there are numerous tribal members who helped to

document and retain a cultural presence on the landscape, thus maintaining that connection to place. The area

around the Coos Bay estuary contains numerous archaeological sites (along the shoreline as well as

submerged sites, estuarine fish weirs and traps with preservation of water-saturated objects and artifacts to

nearly 1,000 B.P.) many of which have not been radiocarbon dated or surveyed and thus are likely to yield

additional information important in prehistory. Thus, the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural

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Property historic district is significant under Criteria D, in the area of Archaeology, for its statewide level of

significance. Additional interviews with Tribal members may yield additional information about cultural sites,

economy, and how they continue to use resources within their environment and this may aid in our

understanding of what we are observing in the archaeological record. Lastly, the TCP meets criteria

considerations A, C, D, and G.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Narrative Statement of Significance (Provide at least one paragraph for each area of significance.)

Criterion A: Traditional Cultural Values and events

The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians (CTCLUSI) are comprised of three

tribes consisting of four bands. The Coos people have two different bands, each having their own language,

Hanis Coos and Miluk Coos. The Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw spoke different dialects of the same language.

Originally, these three tribes occupied 1.6 million acres of the Oregon coast, including the Siuslaw watershed,

and the Umpqua and Coos estuaries extending into the Coast Range valleys. Our ancestors were the

stewards and caretakers of all these lands and waters referred to as Ancestral Territory, since time

immemorial. Our Tribes did not ever cede title to this land as no treaty was ever ratified and no compensation

ever paid to us. Our lands and waters gave our culture to us over the span of millennia. This happened by

observing the natural world around us for thousands of years. Our culture became symbiotic with the local

area. Many ceremonies, while spiritual in nature, fill a biological need in the area. The Coos ancestral lands are

centered on the Coos Estuary where there was an abundance of resources so rich it allowed the people to stay

relatively localized year round. The Miluk Coos Territory was located from South Slough, near the entrance of

the Coos Bay, south to Coquille River and surrounding areas. Hanis-speakers lived from Rocky Point and

South Slough near the entrance of Coos Bay north to Tenmile Lake. Their territory included the estuary of

Coos Bay and its tributary rivers east to the crest of the Coast Range Mountains. The Coos Tribe thus traces to

both Miluk Coos as well as the Hanis Coos (Zenk 1990a:572; Beckham 2015a:1).

During interviews with Indians residing at the mouth of the Columbia River during the winter of 1805-06,

William Clark and Meriwether Lewis enumerated, as best they could, the tribes of the coasts of Oregon and

Washington. Their “Fort Clatsop Miscellany” identified the “Kil-la-wats” [Lower Umpqua] and, residing on the

seacoast to the south, the “Cook-koo-oose Nations.” Their note for this later tribe reads: “I saw Several

prisoners from this nation with the Clatsops and Kilamox, they are much fairer than the common Indians of this

quarter, and do not flatten their heads” (Moulton 1990a:476, 485). At that time, the explorers estimated a

population of 1,500 Coos Indians (Moulton 1990a:476,485; Beckham 2015a:1).

Around 1824 smallpox hit Coos Bay area and wiped out entire villages around the bay and Tenmile Lakes

(Youst 1997: 8), those who survived were had faces marked with this story (Whereat et al. 2011: 35). Some

twelve years after more disease, likely measles, lowered populations again (Youst 1997: 9). These diseases

may have prevailed over time into the late 19th century as was noted by John P. Harrington in 1942 when he

spoke with Lottie Evanoff, a Coos significant person. There were likely more deaths related to these diseases

and others that lessened the number of Coos as stories passed down tell of the Coos River being densely

populated, so much so that some mornings the River was invisible from the many “campfires” (Whereat et al.

2011: 35).

The first recorded contact with the Coos tribe occurred in 1826 when a Hudson’s Bay Company brigade led by

Alexander Roderick McLeod arrived on the north shore of Coos Bay. On November 11, 1826, McLeod wrote:

“Fine weather, about midday encamped on the bank of an inlet [North Slough] connected with the main river,

river Cahourz, in this neighborhood the hopes of getting a few beaver suggest the propriety of making a stay”

(Davies and Johnson 1961 [volume 23]:168,191-193). While McLeod’s party found few furs,

and that the Indians were engaged in fishing (Beckham 2015a:3).

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The second group of Euro-Americans to document contact with our ancestors, Jedidiah Smith’s fur trapping

party, reached Coos Bay on July 8, 1828. Harrison Rogers, a diarist, wrote: “The river at its mouth is about 1

mi[le] wide, the ind[ians] very numerous they call themselves Kakoosh. They commenced trading shell and

scale fish, raspberries, strawberries and two other kinds of berries that I am unacquainted with, also some fur

skins” (Maloney 1940 [volume 41](3):317-318). Smith’s party crossed the South Slough and proceeded north

along the beach. They found several villages with plank houses and Indians eager to trade foodstuffs and furs

(Beckham 2015a:3).

Euro-American settlement began around Coos Bay in 1853 with the arrival of investors in the Coos Bay

Commercial Company from the Rogue Valley via the Umpqua and south along the shore to the harbor.

Members of this joint stock company founded Empire City at a Coos village on the east side of the lower

estuary. With the opening of coal mines, the discovery of gold in the black sands near the mouth of the

Coquille River, and the prospect of logging and lumbering, the process of displacement of the native peoples

commenced immediately (Beckham 2015a:4). By the mid-1850s, growing numbers of European-American

settlers had arrived in the region. At the same time, the Oregon tribal population had been decimated by

disease and only a small fraction survived. Despite the human misery they had to endure, our ancestors

continued in their roles as stewards of the land until the late mid-1850s.

We will never know the true scale of mortality or crimes committed against our ancestors, but it is clear that our

Tribe was physically and spiritually exhausted by the late summer of 1855. The Rogue Indian Wars to the

south had brought concern and attention to indigenous residents throughout the area. The Coos People were

rounded up and held, first at Empire and then at Fort Umpqua with their Lower Umpqua neighbors. Oregon

was recognized as a state in 1859 and this was the same year that the Coos and Lower Umpqua people were

removed from their lands to the Great Coast Reservation at Alsea Sub-Agency, under force of arms and an

unratified treaty – a treaty of peace and land cession that our ancestors signed in good faith which the Senate

failed to ratify and the United States Government refused to honor (Kappler 1904[1]:890-891; Beckham

2015a:15). Our ancestors endured starvation, disease, isolation, exposure to extreme weather, and the cruelty

of a succession of sub-agents from the United States.

In spite of the removals in 1856 to Fort Umpqua and 1859 to the Alsea Sub Agency, an Indian presence

remained on the North Spit. Indian women married to Euro-American settlers were permitted to stay in the area

rather than forced to move to a reservation. For example, in the 1860s James T. Jordan, his Coos wife, Jane,

and their children settled on Jordan Cove. Their residency in the cove was sufficiently enduring to fix their

surname on three features: Jordan Cove, Jordan Point, and Jordan Lake (Beckham 2015a:27). There, Jane

and her children were able to continue to harvest the same traditional foods as our shared ancestors: bog

blueberries, huckleberries, clams, crabs, and oysters. They may have also fished for salmon and speared

flounders in the Jordan Cove tide pools.

In 1875, after nearly 20 years, from the time of first removal in 1856, imprisonment starvation, death and

disease and relocation, enough was enough. The Alsea Sub-Agency was illegally closed and tribal people

were told to move north to what is now known as the Siletz Reservation (Beckham 2015a:17). However, many

refused to move north and instead moved back to their homelands with nothing, preferring the familiar

landscapes and rivers to the misery of another reservation. Tribal people are place based meaning the land

defines who they were and reflects their identity. Some returned to the old locations of our villages and camps,

including those located within the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property. During the years

of our captivity, the majority of our ancestral villages and camps and processing areas, fishing sites had

become town sites or had been farmed and logged. The land base and culture of the tribe was traumatized

through the loss of our families, damage to our places and, forced assimilation resulting from the loss of our

homelands and economic base. Nevertheless, the Coos people retained their identity as Native People. In

1917, the tribe officially banded together as the CTCLUSI and established a formal elected government that

still exists today.

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When our Tribes were forcibly removed from our homelands, much was left behind. Ethnographic informants in

the early twentieth century identified numerous named Coos villages and places (see Appendix A). Annie

Miner Peterson, Lottie Evanoff, Frank Drew, and Jim Buchanan were among those who spoke to

ethnographers and linguists such as John P. Harrington and Melville Jacobs. Not only did they name villages

and burial areas and/or cemeteries but also, they documented much of what we know today about our

traditional language, medicines, ceremony, crafts, food, stories, oral literature (myths) and people (see

Appendix C). Our Tribe has been able to retain our connection to our ancestral homelands because of these

tribal members who survived this transition. In fact, in his field notes, Melville Jacobs recorded seventy-one

local traditional sites in the 1930s and John Peabody Harrington noted thirty-four in the 1940’s noted (Beckham

2015a:1).

In the 1930s, Coos elders provided Land Claims testimony, which confirmed an extensive ethnogeography in

the Coos Bay region. When combined with Harrington’s (1942) field notes, this testimony verifies that our

ancestors made extensive use of the North Spit, Jordan Point, and Jordan Cove. At least one named village,

Kuunatich, was located at the Cove and/or Jordan Point.

These known villages

are only a small comprehension of what our Tribe knows will be found at Jordan Cove, including

the resting places of our ancestors

(Beckham 2015a:11-12).

During their testimony, Coos elders also identified specific geographical locations as the loci of mythic events

recounted in their oral literature (Jacobs 1940a). Coos ancestors operated extensive fish weirs in the

immediate vicinity of Jordan Cove. They also travelled back and forth through the Jordan Cove dunes to

nearby natural resources, including weaving materials such as tule, triangle sedge, and spruce root, and

important sources of traditional foods, such as bog blueberries, huckleberries, and lupine. The dunes

immediately north of Jordan Cove were a region of extensive wetlands and are habitat for ducks and geese, as

well as the occasional deer and elk, and nearby mudflats provided native oysters and four varieties of native

clams (Beckham 2015a 11-12). Most of these resources are still present at Jordan Cove and nearby and

continue to be utilized by Tribal members.

In 1941, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) held a small parcel for use by the tribes in the city of Coos Bay. The

CCC erected a Tribal Hall that included an assembly hall, kitchen, offices, and medical clinic. Despite the

Tribes’ continued existence, the U.S. government terminated their federal recognition in 1954 (Public Law

588). Although this was another difficult hit for the tribe, they refused to accept the termination of their own

existence as a Confederation of Tribes.

In 1984, after three decades of hard work, 125 years of struggle and sacrifice, federal recognition was rightly

restored by Congress (Public Law 98-481). At the time of restoration, we, CTCLUSI, had only our Tribal Hall on

six acres and three other slivers of land totaling less than eight acres, very different from our original territory of

1.6 million acres. Since restoration, the tribe has continued the work of reconstructing our fragmented land

base and culture, and this Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property nomination is no doubt a

part of this reconstruction.

Since restoration, our people have worked tirelessly to rebuild our relationship with our lands, resources, and

distinct Tribal cultures. We continue our cultural roles of stewards and caretakers of the lands and resources

that were once solely managed by our ancestors, including Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me, the area lands,

waters, and all our aboriginal homelands.

We acknowledge that parts of our ancestral homeland have already been impacted by development, including

Jordan Cove itself, without any fanfare or outcry from the Tribe. However, this was not by choice. Historically,

the Tribe did not have any opportunity to be included in those conversations and decisions, often because we

were a terminated tribe trying to regain federal recognition. We did not obtain federal restoration until 1984,

long after many of our culturally sensitive areas had been lost to us. For example, when Coos Bay was first

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dredged in 1899 (Army Corps 1899: 3207-3209) and commencing regular dredging, the Tribe was not

recognized as a formal government, nor was there adequate cultural resource protections that would allow our

voices to be heard. Given the negative historic impacts to many of our resources since the removal of our

ancestors, the protection that which remains today is critical to our connection and use of the Bay and

surrounding uplands.

The CTCLUSI embraces our traditional lessons and lifeways to protect, inform, and enhance the lives of our

people, the health of our environment, and the sustainability of our community. We do this by striving to ensure

the economic, environmental, cultural, and social needs of the Tribe are secured and sustained through

implementation of holistic natural resource management strategies. We have also built a modern system of

government and administration, with thriving commercial operations, which employ hundreds of tribal members

and non-members in living-wage jobs across our five-county service area in southwestern Oregon.

Archaeological and ethnohistorical data confirm that the village and related cultural resources at Jordan Cove

were integral to settlement and subsistence activities in the aboriginal and early historic periods. In other

words, Jordan Cove was vital to our ancestors’ survival. Today, villages, sacred sites, cultural resources, and

other historical sites important to the Tribes are scattered across this entire region and can be found on both

public lands as well as private property. Jordan Cove is no exception. Vulnerable cultural resources and

archaeological sites, including burials, are known to exist within the Jordan Cove area (Beckham 2015a:29, 3132, 54, 56-57).

Tribal members report continuity of use within the Jordan Cove area not just into the historic era, following

contact with Euro-Americans in the nineteenth century, but continually from time immemorial into the present

day. This use demonstrates integration of tribal members into the dominant culture and market economy, in

addition to continuity of traditional activities that contributed to commerce (state level under criteria A). One

example is duck hunting (

2016:3), with Bluebill [Greater Scaup] ducks often being sold to local

restaurants in the pre-World War II years (

2016:1). Also in the pre-World War II years, over a

hundred tribal people worked near Jordan Cove picking cranberries or logging while still maintaining traditional

ways of life. Cranberry picking just north of the Jordan Ranch was an important source of employment and

“one of the only ways that the native people would get hired because they hadn’t had schooling or training to

do much else in the area after the white people settled on our land” (

2016:3) so it was a place where

2016:8-9;

2016:8). This wage labor was an

native people found work (

2016:8;

activity that often involved entire families, and for some, “my family tells wonderful stories about picking

cranberries…it was one way of getting…money by the Indian people” and that “cranberry picking originally was

that the adults would wade and pick cranberries and that the little kids had little cranberry baskets, if you will, or

little scoopers. And some of the cranberries that would come off to the side the kids would go around and

scoop those up”, and cranberry picking was “a huge focal point for my family and probably many of our other

tribal people” and some, like the “Elliott families…actually made some of the cranberry scoops in those

days…out of their traditional nets, in their traditional…styles” (

2016:8).

Part of continuing our cultural role is protecting those resources that we depend on for our physical, mental,

and spiritual health and remembering those who survived the removal and became informants of Coos

traditions. The CTCLUSI seeks to perpetuate tribal identity through the sense of place by continuing the

traditions of protecting, preserving, and enhancing ancestral coastal waters and lands where the tribe once

gathered and celebrated the resources, and continue to gather, harvest and practice these ceremonial

traditions.

The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property is a significant place in the pre and post-contact

history and culture of the Coos people and, as such, is “associated with one or more events important in the

defined historic context” (NPS 1995: 12). These events range from the naming of places in the Coos

languages, the location of vital subsistence activities, 1855 treaty signing location at Nikkawwaha, myth tale

loci, gathering locations and homesteads, the operation of the stagecoach line, prehistoric and

expansive viewsheds, and several gathering and fishing

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locations,

and continued use by the Tribe today. The ethnogeography,

including toponyms for gathering locations, villages, myth sites, language documentation, spiritual and/or

burials sites, cultural practices including ethnobotanical information connects current Tribal members to their

past.

Coos Named Places in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Property- Social History (local)

The Coos people maintain an extensive oral history about Coos Bay. In addition, there is an extensive ethnohistorical body of knowledge, which parallels and enhances the oral history. We have identified 64 places in

the bay that have traditional Coos names, based on prehistoric and historic village sites, or if the location is

associated with cultural practices and oral history (see Appendix A). The oral histories document important

events in history and history for the Coos culture and suggest ways in which align within the Coos cultural

traditions. The oral traditions are important parts of the Coos cultural traditions and correlate to modern

gathering areas or labeled as ceremonial by tribal members (see Appendix C).

The testimony in 1931 and in 1942 of Coos elders confirmed an extensive ethnogeography and ethnobotany of

the Coos Bay region.

Patricia Whereat Phillips, Coos tribal member, linguist and ethnobotanist, has developed an enumeration of the

toponyms identifying many places in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property (see

Appendix A). The informants included several Coos elders from Harrington’s interviews, Lottie Evanoff, fullblood daughter of Hanis chief Daloose; Frank Drew, Coos tribal interpreter from the 1910s to the 1940s; and

James Buchanan. Buchanan was present at the 1855 unratified treaty council, the Yachats Council of 1875,

and testified in 1931. Other informants were Agnes Johnson, Coos, who worked with anthropologist Philip

Drucker; and Laura “Lollie” (Hotchkiss) Metcalf, Coos, who was an informant for Morris Swadesh, a linguist

trained at the University of Chicago and Yale University.

John Peabody Harrington conducted extensive fieldwork among the Coos people in the early 1940s.

Harrington collected many original Coos place names and where they were located. The Harrington 1942 field

notes are quite extensive and include numerous reels of microfilm and thousands of slides. The field notes

describe a rich, well-known cultural landscape, where elders of the Coos Tribe retained the meanings of the

Coos names. Many of these elders were quite old and learned about Coos Bay from their parents when they

arrived as young and middle aged adults from Yachats after 17 years of forced exile. The Coos people clearly

maintained their culture so that when they returned they were able to immediately tap into the rich wealth of

knowledge of the resources of the bay, and used and maintained the original Coos place names and their geolocation in the bay.

The toponym table lists Coos place names in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property

area compiled by Patricia Whereat- Phillips from Coos ancestors and elders; many of these properties had

continual use into the historic period by members of the tribe and early settlers on Coos Bay. Today, some of

these locations are still used for gathering, while other locations, which would still be used for gathering,

harvesting, and hunting or for spiritual purposes, are privately owned. In some cases, development or pollution

has also negatively affected traditional practice patterns.

Native place-names demonstrate tribal presence, as testaments to tribal history and culture and show the

connection between the tribal community and their homeland. The retention of place names in Native

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American languages can be associated with family oral histories and traditional tribal stories. Place-names

describe resources in the area, relationships with the land, and the experiences of the people with the land.

Many place-names in the Coos languages have been identified in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional

Cultural Property conveying a familiarity that contributes to the cultural significance of the landscape to the

tribal community. The place-names have special meaning to the people who live near these traditional use

sites, as they contain a wealth of historical and ecological information and illustrates the dependence on the

land and the resources contained on the land by the indigenous people (Hunn 1990). Many sites with placenames have cultural and/or significance to the tribal communities.

Coos Bay is part of the traditional homelands of the Hanis speaking Coos peoples, while the Miluk speaking

Coos people lived in the South Slough and south to the Coquille River. Robert Boyd (1999) has estimated the

pre-Euromerican settlement population of Hanis Coos in Coos Bay at 2,250 individuals. Oral histories of the

Coos peoples have noted Whiskey Run or Cut Creek as their southern boundary, the point between North and

South Tenmile Lake as their northern boundary, and the crest of the Coast Range as their eastern boundary.

Many oral histories collected from the Coos Indians (those of anthropologists Melville Jacobs, John P.

Harrington, Philip Drucker, Nathan Douthit, Leo Frachtenberg, Lionel Youst, Mark Tveskov, Jason Younker,

George Wasson, R. Scott Byram, and 2016-2018 interviews by the CTCLUSI) suggest that the people

remained in the bay the majority of the year, and lived off of the extremely rich quantity and quality of

resources available in the estuary, the many sloughs, surrounding lakes, and in upriver localities. Some people

accessed rich salmon and eel runs in the rivers, lakes, and estuaries to the north and south of them (Tveskov

2000). However, the majority of people interviewed suggested that they did not need to leave the bay at all,

during any time of the year. The people remained in the bay because of the abundance of resources; there

was no need to ever leave except for trade.

The Coos Indians lived in permanent villages with many temporary seasonal encampments for fish, shellfish,

hunting and gathering, and berry picking. Because of the nature of the bay, its many sloughs, and its many

varying degrees of fresh and saltwater areas, there was an immense variety of resource environments. There

was some specialization of resource gathering, as oral histories from families suggest that they would remain

in the bay with their fish and shellfish and would not venture upriver or leave the bay while some individuals

may leave for salmon or eel fisheries, or to fish in the Pacific Ocean. This great number of environments

offered resources year-round. Prime village site locations, like Jordan Cove, a permanent village and seasonal

encampment for people from other villages, offered annual seasonal fishing and shellfish gathering

opportunities in the bay, as well as berry gathering and hunting opportunities on the land. The bay provided a

fast easy mode of transportation (local level criterion). Miluk Coos elder

(Interviewed by his son

(2006)) recounted that his elders said “This location was easy to get to when using the tides to

navigate—you could swing (a canoe) right into the cove on either the incoming or outgoing tides depending on

where you were” (Byram 2006:2-19). The Coos Indians continued to gather there regularly for feasts and other

related activities during the time the Jordan family was living at Jordan Cove.

Jordan Cove, in the Heart of the Bay, is in the traditional homeland of the Hanis-speaking people (Zenk 1990:

572), a division of the Coosan language family. The Heart of the Bay of the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me

Traditional Cultural Property was the homeland of the “Downriver Hanis,” namely the villages occupying the

great bend and nearby areas of Coos Bay but distinct from the Hanis who lived on the upper bay, its sloughs,

on Coos River to the east, and at Ten Mile Lake to the north. Writing in “The Cultural Geography of the Coos

and Coquille,” Mark Tveskov (2001-2002: 33) noted the distinctions:

1Most of the Hanis-speaking informants traced their ancestry to several villages belonging to the

G’ed’itc, or “Downstream” Hanis yetl-ein who lived on either side of Coos Bay between the town of

Empire and the mouth of the Coos River

These informants also provided the names of

several local groups not represented by informants in the ethnographic record. The Sgae’i`itc Hanis, for

example, lived around Ten Mile Lake north of Coos Bay and the Dag’aitc (“Up-River”) Hanis

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lived along the Coos River and Millicoma River

The Sgae’i`itc Hanis were apparently wiped out by smallpox prior to the

American occupation (Harrington 1942[22]:1155).

Jordan Cove and its village have been identified by aboriginal names. In 1931, Tsetehl (known also as James

Buchanan), a Coos, who was born at Wa’alach, testified that Jordan Cove was Kuunatoch or Q’alya, translated

to “put around the neck,” as placing a necklace. Frank Drew, the Coos interpreter in 1931 land claims

depositions, identified the place as Q’alya (U.S. Court of Claims 1931). In 1942 Lottie (Jackson) Evanoff, a

Coos, in interviews with Dr. John P. Harrington of the Smithsonian Institution, provided four Hanis variants for

Jordan Cove and its village: Q’alya, Q’olya, Kuunatiich, and Kunnatich (Harrington 1942:23:903a; 24:51, 205b,

501a) (see Appendix A).

Reservation Land in Empire, now known commonly as the Tribal Hall Reservation of the Confederated Tribes

of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, was held for use by tribes and the city of Empire during the

termination era and was officially taken into trust by the United States for that purpose. The now exclusive

CTCLUSI reservation is located in the Empire District of Coos Bay, approximately one mile east of the lower

Coos estuary. The Tribal Hall, erected on the reservation in 1941, is on the National Register of Historic

Places. It is one of the few remaining examples of a Civilian Conservation Corps, Indian Division (CCCID)

project in Oregon. Coos traditional practices and ceremonies continue on this property today. The Government

(local criterion level) Administrative Offices of the CTCLUSI are located in the Empire District of Coos Bay and

look out over lower Coos Bay, the North Spit, and the nearby Pacific Ocean, and referred to as Kwonait which

translates to the look out place. The viewshed from this property includes about thirty percent of the TCP

identified in this nomination.

Defining Natural Resources as Cultural Resources- conservation (local)

The Bay and resources of Coos Bay, some noted in Appendix C, are still used today for food, ceremony,

regalia, transportation, construction, tools as they were for thousands of years by the Coos and tied to

traditional practices of Coos artists and artisans. For many tribal members, there is no distinction between

natural resources (plant and animal) and cultural resources (

2016:8;

2016:5); they rather see

them as integrated and “closely intertwined” (

2016:7), and that “natural resources inform the cultural

perspective” (

2016:5). One interviewee stated that “Native Americans are one of the most treasured

natural resources this land has” and “would challenge someone to name me something that is a natural

resource that doesn’t have an indigenous, historical tribal use”, since “if you don’t have the natural resources

you can’t have the culture, and if you have the culture and don’t have the natural resources you have nothing

to practice with” (

2016:16). Tribal members express that microorganisms “feed the fish that feeds

the birds and takes care of our health overall and including our air” (

11). To further illustrate the

integration of natural and cultural resources, and of cultural continuity, a tribal member states: “I wear clothes

and I live in a house…but you have to remember where you came from and what, you have to remember all

the time…as a woman I know my ancestors picked cedars and I just did that four days ago. I know I did the

exact same thing” (

2016:12). Lastly, people have noted a change in the quality of the natural

resources used as cultural resources, such as “the sweet grass sedge that we gathered…while it

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brought most of the family,” which was significant because “people…in those days…didn’t travel. To come to

Coos Bay…[it] took a day just to get down here” (

2016:3).

Some stories incorporate tribal members engaging in the traditional hunting and fishing activities in recent

memory. One involves deer hunting, and, according to

is “one of my favorite stories from

Jordan Cove”. The story features a member of the Jordan family who in the 1950s, was hunting and shot a

buck. To his surprise, the buck stood up after being shot, so he shot it again and discovered after he walked to

the body that he had shot two bucks who had been standing next to each other. So he walked back to his

canoe near Jordan Cove, and “rowed back across the bay” to get his cousin to help him dress out and take the

deer home. This story has been maintained and passed down through the family (

2016:5). Others

have mentioned the connection they feel with the remnants of the fish weirs made by their ancestors, and

describe the connection felt as “important” and “pretty powerful” (

2016:5). This ancestral connection to

the area is perpetuated in families, as some were taken there by my grandparents, who had grown up in the

Jordan Cove area (

2016:6) and for the gratitude felt for their “ancestors…here…for thousands and

thousands of years, since the creation story, my family has been here” (

2016, p. 4). Tribal members

were told stories by “

June Jordan [that] when she was a girl that you couldn’t even see the water out

in here, there were so many salmon” (

2016: 2). June Jordan’s stories about the abundance of salmon

are referenced today, just as many stories continue to be passed down to tribal youth so that they can

reimagine their heritage and envision how they can continue the practices today. These stories, and the

recurrent theme of natural resource as a cultural resource inherently also perpetually yields information about

prehistory and history.

Preservation and conservation of cultural resources is the commitment of the cultural and natural resources

department under the Tribal Government Administration. Consultation with federal, state, and local agencies

as well as review of permitted activities within the Coos territory are reviewed by the Tribal Historic

Preservation Office and impacts to these resources are consulted on with the Tribe to avoid, minimize, and

appropriately mitigate for loss of damage of/to these invaluable resources.

Coos Stories in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property (Social History- local)

Traditional stories may be considered sacred and sensitive to the tribal community. Traditional creation stories

provide not only an explanation of creation itself, but also reasons for the placement and appearance of

features within the landscape. In many cases, traditional stories explain natural features, a fact that could make

these features eligible for consideration as historic properties. These traditional stories often take place from a

time before there were people and when animals had human characteristics. Such stories often explain why

certain resources are found in certain places but not others, the way fish travel in the water, why certain plants

grow where they grow, as well as how people relate to each other. While people primarily resided in permanent

villages near fresh water during the winter months, they dispersed far and wide to fish, hunt, and gather during

the summer seasons. Major weirs in the channels at Haynes Inlet in the heart of the bay and Kentuck Slough

and Graveyard Point on the upper bay were a highly significant fishery for the Hanis; the weirs at Graveyard

Point were located at the point where Coos River flowed into the bay (Beckham and Minor 2016). Coos

traditional stories document landmark features, place names, and events, which tribal members transmitted

through the generations.

The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property represents an excellent example of the broad

patterns of history which begin in the pre-contact period when traditional stories are set that inform the tribal

community of their homeland and its formation, of rules governing resource distribution and use, and of the

nature of human relationships. Harry Hull St. Clair (1909:25-41) collected Coos oral texts in 1903, and the

narratives were edited and published by Leo Joachim Frachtenberg as “Traditions of the Coos Indians of

Oregon”. Leo J. Frachtenberg’s Coos Texts (1913) is a compilation of some of the traditional stories of the

Coos. In other collections of stories, narrators “identified specific geographical locations as the loci of mythic

events recounted in their oral literature (Jacobs 1939, 1940). Many of the stories feature animals as characters

who are identified by Coos people interviewed in support of this document, including but not limited to seal,

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whale, deer, elk, otter, oysters, salmon, frog, and rabbit. Also included in the traditional stories are references

to cultural and natural resources mentioned by interviewees in support of this document, including a sweat

lodge and plant resources (Frachtenberg 1913: 63, 113, 117, 119).

Frachtenberg’s Coos Texts (1913) recorded through dictations from Coos elders, is a compilation of some of

the tribe’s traditional oral literature. As with other collections of tales, storytellers identified specific

geographical locations as the loci of mythic events (Jacobs 1940). Some of these tales from the prehistoric

past mention specific, identifiable locations in the Traditional Cultural Property area.

Oral literature within the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property area (See Appendix B):

1) “The Dangerous Fish Which Poisoned People and Things and Turned them to Stone”, is set at Fossil

Point, where the people turned to stone just south of Pigeon Point, or Tarheel Point south of Empire

(Lower Bay- see Figure 7).

2) Laxai, “He Eats Human Children”, counsels children to stay close to home and not to go out to play at

night. It is the cove and village site between Fossil Point and Pigeon Point also known as Tarheel Point

(Lower Bay- see Figure 7, Photograph 8).

3) Mi'laq Chanigha "Arrow young men", located at McGee Springs, Q’aimisiich, near the village of

Hanisich, tells of the land that came from blue clay discs thrown down by two young men carrying

arrows from the sky world (Lower Bay- see Figure7).

4) “Stone Hammer Baby”, Utter Rocks, Jilch’ ala is the story about the mysterious child of the Chief’s

daughter whose body is buried in the mud flats within the channel, leaving only his head visible at low

tide. Utter Rocks are located in the channel northwest of Empire between Barrett’s Landing and

Henderson Marsh on the North Spit opposite of Wa’alach (see Figure 7).

5) "Coos Orca Story" tells of a woman and her newly born son who was taken at Graveyard Point (Upper

Bay- See Figure 11, Photograph 27) to live with the Orca people in the ocean and was discovered at

the beach years later by her brothers at Coos Head (Lower Bay- see Figure 7).

6) “The Woman Who Married Seal” is about a woman who marries a supernatural being who brings luck

and wealth. It takes place near sand islands at or near the Coos Bay bar (Lower Bay- see Figure 7)

before the jetties altered the natural deposition process along the North Spit.

7) “Ma'atl”, the flood, is a story of tsunami, describing the retreat and flooding of the water at Qa’latl, a

mountain located near Glasgow by Kentuck Slough, Qa’latl (Upper Bay- See Figure 10).

Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property as a Spiritual and Ceremonial Site

The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property is recognized as having been used as a prayer

location and for ceremonies (

2016, p.13) as well as an area for camping and celebration (

2016, p.3). During the prehistoric period and in the early historic era until the 1870s, the permanent winter

villages along the east side of the lower bay, at Jordan Cove, on North Slough and Haynes Inlet, and at the

north bend of the bay, were the settings for important religious practices. The details of these practices are

known and have been documented in detail. They included special dances, stories, songs (with vocables or

lyrics), and ceremonial practices.

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Permanent villages along the shore in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property were also

the locations for the public sharing by disclosure and ritual dancing of successful “spirit encounters.” Several

of these practices are recorded. Among them are (1) “A Shaman’s Increase of Power Dance,” (2) “A Male

Shaman Watcher Took Away a Bad Power from a New Shaman,” (3) “What Shamans Could See,” and (4) “A

Shaman Found a Pain-Power Hidden in a Dance House.”

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Jordan Cove is still “used for ceremonies…basically personal prayer” (

2016:12), as well as collective

ceremonies and as a place where people can talk “about the old times” and recall that “our people sat right

here” and “did the same thing we’re doing, you know hundreds of years ago, maybe thousands of years

ago…and think that someone did the exact same thing you were doing in antiquity is a little bit overwhelming

and a little bit reassuring you know at the same time” (

2016:12). This knowledge of the direct link

between tribal members and the area that is tied to their ancestors is “really significant” and Tribal members

feel “we’re supposed to be here” (

2016:2). It is noted that “in the old days, any village…could…host

dances (

2016b:20), and since Jordan Cove had was a village site, it would therefore have

also been the focal point for communal dances. Other tribal members have stated that they would like to have

access to the area for spiritual use (

2016:4).

Other places still retain that value and importance to CTCLUSI today, even though some have been altered,

and are recognized for their ceremonial or spiritual value and connection to their ancestors. Ceremony to Coos

families can be with a group or individually. It can be as personal as prayer and offering or be a large gathering

that incorporates songs, regalia, traditional practice, stories, feasting and dance. The places have a religious or

spiritual value despite changes to the area; named places, villages

are

carried in the hearts of the Coos today.

Ancestors within the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Property

tribal members today identify

the entire area as containing the burials of their ancestors, those whose names were unknown to those whose

names were known.

In addition, the history and prehistory of the Jordan Cove area add to its significance, as the location of a

village site and the location of social gatherings and the general area for “canoeing and drumming and

sweating, and learning how to do salmon, and all those things that pertain to their heritage”, thus being integral

to tribal cultural transmission to “their own children” (

2016:2). It is also acknowledged where

“families lived, raised families, died, and buried them [ancestors] there,” and therefore important that the

community “be stewards to take care of it” (

2016:10). In more recent times, families would “would

go out there and…hold meetings and sit because it was so beautiful” (

2016:3), but that the area

had been heavily polluted, affecting the roots that were gathered, and ending frogging and fishing, and

impacting the quality of the groundwater as well as diminishing its desirability as a destination (

2016:6).

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Burials are “a very sensitive issue” and should not be disturbed, as “we’ve always respected our ancestors and

did what we could to keep those places safe and protected. To disturb them [burials] is unhealthy and should

not be tolerated” (

2016:2), and any disturbance of burials makes some tribal members feel “totally

violated” (

2016:3), “horrified” (

2016b:16), and is “very disturbing…[and] really

upsetting...makes me sick...and just heartbroken” (

2016:6) as well as “angry” (

2016:8).

Adverse impacts to burials are “disturbing my family, my ancestors…[and is] unacceptable” (

2016:2),

and the ancestors of today’s tribal members “were grieved over and…they’re not supposed to be disturbed”

(

2016:16). When ancestors are disturbed, it is not something to be taken lightly. It can happen

through natural processes such as erosion and it happens through unnatural means such as ground disturbing

activity. In either case the remains are protected on site and knowledge of the remains held within the Tribal

community and tightly protected by Tribal Councils. The involved Tribe(s) then decide if the remains should

stay on site or can be moved to a more secure location. If this is a construction site all work must stop while

this is happening. If they must to be moved this involves a very thorough Ceremony. Removal is the last

possible option though, as our Ancestors are sacred to us. Preferred handling of remains and funerary objects

will minimize both time and distance of reburial. Another problem of removal is that remains are often

surrounded by other burials so if the ground disturbing continues you are liable to disturb more. This can lead

to a very lengthy and traumatic experience for all involved. It is very upsetting to tribal members to think of any

burials being disturbed, and disturbed burials have sometimes been reburied (

2016:6). Burials are

described as family members, and with many families it is known where they are buried, including members of

the Jordan family (

2016:6). Furthermore, there are “burial sites that are all up and down the spit that

need…protection [and] we as a tribe want to make sure that they’re protected and taken care of” (

2016:4).

Based on the treatment of native graves (

2016:10), some tribal members feel there is a double

standard involved which values the graves of Europeans over those of Natives; “if I went over there and dug

one of those [Euromerican] graves up, they would send me to the penitentiary in Salem. And when they go and

dig one of my people up they should have the same treatment, but they don’t get that kind of treatment. And

that’s the issue” (

2016:10). Some “have heard of our burial grounds being disturbed, specifically

when they were doing construction…it’s…just the disrespect that we’ve been given,

today even, today, it’s still happening and there’s no respect for anything that is left of us being here.

And…they’ve been warned too about it” (

2016:6). Regarding burials, “if they were never disturbed, it

would be the perfect thing. But, we know in the real world, that’s not going to happen. We have to work with

whomever to do our best to- to protect those sites” (

2016:4).

Continued Coos Plant Use in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural PropertyAgriculture (state)

Ethnobotany and gathering (see Appendix C)

The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property is exemplary of the adaptation of the tribal

community to its homeland and its various ecological niches. The testimony of Coos elders in 1931 and the

manuscript field notes of John Peabody Harrington compiled from Coos informants in 1942, confirm extensive

use of the estuarine and upland areas adjacent to the estuary for plant harvesting and material gathering. This

use is documented by archaeological sites, including shell middens and fish weirs and traps in the area, in

addition to residence sites, travel corridors, and place names in the native languages for all of these. This use

continues into the historic era, with the interaction between Native Americans and Euro-Americans beginning

in the mid-nineteenth century with the intermarriage of the two communities, continuing through present day.

Recent interviews with Coos tribal members demonstrate the continued importance of this location to Coos

culture. The testimony of the tribal members of the living community manifest the importance of this site, not

only physically, but what it represents in the historical context.

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Present day use of plants in the TCP boundary is prevalent still today. Plants are used by Tribal members for a

wide variety of purpose including food, medicine, traditional games, instruments, regalia, tattooing, baskets,

construction and other utilities. Tribal members identified a wide range of plants of cultural significance in the

Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property and its environs, used from time immemorial to the

present. Individuals and families still gather traditionally important plants in the area (

2016, p.6;

2016:8). The majority of traditions require plant use, and all the traditions CTCLUSI speaks about and

practice today, have been passed down generations, giving light to the culture of the tribe and how tribal

members’ cultural identity is dependent on their natural surroundings. A survey done by the Confederated

Tribes’ Natural Resource Department “mapped forty-five different plants, medicinal, food, and weaving

materials growing…in the area” (

2016:2). The range is from plants used for food, structures,

basketry, and traditional medicine (

2016:16-18), as well as “pinecones for fire-starter” (

2016:2) and alder (

2016:8), the preferred wood used for smoking food. Continued ethnographic

interviews will yield additional information about traditional plants (see Table 1), their uses, and traditional

family gathering areas and only with permission of private lands.

The willow that grows in the general area is used to build “sweat lodges” (

2016:3, 10), as well as fish

traps (

2016:2). Plants integral to material culture have been recently affected by pollution, and

include those used for “basketry materials…cattail and tule and there’s sedge, juncus, there’s spruce root, you

got all your conifer roots out there, as well as Shore Lupine edible when it’s baked” (

2016:9) and the

increasingly rare “Yellow Sand Verbena” and cinquefoil (

2016:5,

2016:4;

2016:3), and spruce root, sedge, fern, and moss (

2016:2). Spruce and sedge are identified as

important “weaving materials” for basketry, including “ceremonial baskets to food-gathering baskets,” as well

as those used for storage (

2016:2). Eel grass is specifically identified as being “used for basketry,”

as well as being important to the ecosystem as a whole, as it is “very important to wildlife like migratory water

fowl…and a lot of other invertebrates that depend on…eel grass bed for their shelter, and in some cases as

food” (

2016b:17-18).

The dunes portion of the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property is identified as a place to

pick wild blueberries (

2016:1), which were “treasured”. Tribal members annually pick

huckleberries in the area (

2016:1;

2016:4), as well as bog berries (

2016:2), bearberries, and salal (

2016:10). Blackberries and native strawberries are presently used for

“jellies and jams” as well as dried (

2016:11). Mushrooms such as “King Boletes, a pine mushroom

that grows out there underneath…trees” and chanterelles (

2016:3) are often collected by children

with parents and grandparents (

2016:1;

2016:3). Aquatic plants such as “sea asparagus”

have also been identified (

2016:11), as has Seashore Lupine, a “staple food and pretty widely

available” (

2016:5), and lily pads, called ‘wɪllɪts’, whose seeds are eaten after being toasted

and ground (

2016:2). The roots of various species are identified as plant resources gathered and

processed for food, which include Spring Bank Clover (

2016a).

Medicinal plants include, bleeding heart root, “a root out there that you used to get that we used to chew

on…[when] you had a toothache” (

2016:11), as well as “sea-witch, or angelica, which is a medicinal

plant that grows there” (

2016:1), and “chittum” (

2016:10) [Cascara], known for its laxative

properties.

Tribal member

(2016a), author of Ethnobotany of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and

Siuslaw Indians, provides extensive documentation of tribal resource utilization of plant resources. Published

by Oregon State University Press, this 147 page volume includes chapters on Trees, Shrubs, Forbs, Ferns,

Fern Allies, and Moss, Fungi and Seaweed, and has a special section on Basketry which discusses materials

and dyes. Coos knowledge of ethnobotany is extensively documented in this volume: it lists the common name

of the plant, its Latin name, and its identification in Hanis, Miluk, and Siuslaw languages. The volume also

discusses the times of collection, preparation, and uses of plants for foodstuffs, housing, clothing, medicine,

and other uses. Another collection of resources regarding the ethnobotany of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and

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Siuslaw Indians can be found at the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of

California, Berkeley, where approximately 200 examples of Coos basketry are kept.

Illustrative of the ethnobotanical knowledge of the Coos Appendix C lists important plants to Coos culture that

are commonly found in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property:

Important plants are defined as historically and currently gathered by Tribal members within the TCP boundary.

Specific plants sought out at specific locations by Tribal members are bolded in the table and considered

contributing features for the TCP. The Appendix C and contemporary maps set forth to identify contributing

plant resources features.

Plant resources were especially important for traditional and modern basketry-making by members of the

Confederated Tribes. The materials include cattail (Typha), sedge (Carex), spruce root (Picea), cedar (Thuja),

willow (Salix), and eel-grass (Zostera). Alder (Alnus) bark is useful for producing red dyes.

descendant of Jane Jordan, Hanis Coos artist, and graduate of the Pratt Institute, gathers and uses these

materials in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property for her weaving (

2015). She

is one of several tribal basket-makers working in the traditions of their ancestors (see Photograph 32).

During Tribal member interviews (2016-2018), a wide range of plants of cultural significance in the Q’alya ta

Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property and its environs, used from time immemorial to the present

2016,

were identified. Individuals and families still gather traditionally important plants in the area (

2016). A survey done by the Confederated Tribes’ Natural Resource Department “mapped forty-five

different plants, medicinal, food, and weaving materials growing…in the area” (

2016:1). The range

from plants used for food, structures, basketry, and traditional medicine (

2016:16), as well as

“pinecones for fire-starter” (

2016:2) and alder (

2016:8), the preferred wood used for

smoking food.

Fishing and Shellfish Harvest (see Appendix C)

Tribal members prominently use fish and shellfish and as a result, the entire Coos estuary, Kukwis schidii,

represents an important location to the Coos families today. The Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional

Cultural Property is consistently identified as an area where clams and crabs are harvested by Tribal members

(

2016:3;

2016:10). Jordan Cove, the mud flats along the North Spit, and to a lesser extent

the mud flats along the east side of lower Coos Bay were “popular clam digging area back in the old times” and

a “popular clam digging area now” (

2016b:.6;

2016:6). The varieties identified include

razor clams (

2016b:6), gapers and cockles (

2016:1), butter clams (

2016:10), and Empire clams (also known as horse-neck clams), which have “large bodies with large amounts

of granular fat” (

2016:6), and little steamers (

2016, p.3). Clam digging includes outings by

families who harvest “for the freezer” (

2016, p.10), and others whose families visit the area regularly

(

2016:3). Crabs harvested in the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property are often

prepared in “regular bay water,” as that was “the only way to do it” since this has “the exact amount of salt that

you need” and are cooked “right there on the beach” (

2016:5). Tribal members, past and present, also

harvest crabs in the bay. Traditionally tribal members used a wooden rake to pull the crabs from pools left at

low tide. Today they set crab pots as well as collect different crab species at low tide. The Jordan Cove area is

also identified as “a nice rocky area for the herring to spawn” (

2016:1). Due to ongoing clamming

activities upheld by individual tribal members and the CTCLUSI (see Photograph 5, Annual Clam Dig) we have

identified eleven (11) shellfish and crustaceans contributing to the TCP (See Appendix C).

The estuary provides habitat for diverse resident and anadromous fish species in Coos Bay Estuary which is

located within the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me boundary for which nineteen (19) fish were identified as

contributing features by CTCLUSI interviewees and Cultural staff. The fish listed in Appendix C have been

(most have traditional names in Hanis) and continue to be culturally significant Coos Tribal foods. Many

harvesting, cleaning, and cooking techniques have been passed down generations. For example, for

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celebratory or ceremonial events, salmon is cooked on cedar spears that are staked into a sand pit over an

open fire. Parts of annual Salmon Ceremony are held within the TCP boundary. The “natural resource is the

cedar and a cultural resource is the cedar”, which is natural and “how you use it is culture” (

2016:15), and there is no “difference between natural and cultural, every time we have a salmon ceremony it’s

a party, every time we have a gathering for cedar, it turns into a party” (

2016:16). The section

below further depicts this use of a natural resource as a cultural resource, and how this connection, even

today, is inherent to the tribal community.

Resource Use: Mammals, Birds and Frogs

Numerous animal species, nine contributing to the TCP- four (4) marine mammals and five (5) birds, Resident

species of the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property are those which have specific cultural

value to the Coos, many of which are mentioned in stories, and some of which are meaningful first foods(see

Appendix C). Resident animals include the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) and the harbor porpoise (Phocoena

phocoena). The sandstone ledges at the south end of the cove at Laxai, or Fossil Point, are a favored haul-out

site for harbor seals, but they are found throughout Coos Bay. Mammals include river otter, raccoon, bobcat,

mink, weasel, fox, coyote, black-tailed deer, striped skunk, beaver, deer mouse, shrew, vole, and black rat

(Roye 1979:41; Phillips 2016a). Non-resident mammals sighted in the bay include California sea lion (Zalophus

californianus), Stellar sea lion (Eumetopias jubata), California gray whales (Eschrichtius gibbosa), and Orca

whales (Orciniis orca). The Coos myth text, “The Girl Who Married an Orca,” tells of a young woman from the

village at Graveyard Point on the upper bay who with her Orca husband moved to the estuary’s mouth

(Appendix B).

Especially important in traditional life of the Coos were the birds of the estuary and sand dune lakes. They

provided meat and eggs. The feathers were used for ceremony, dance wands, and regalia (see Appendix E,

photo 1, 2 and 20). Many of the tribal members still collect feathers found in the estuary to use for regalia or

ceremony and through continued interviews with Tribal members who have family regalia there is more

information being learned about different animals used in different types of ceremonies and regalia. Among the

eighty-four resident species of birds are the whistling swan (Olor columbianus), Canada goose (Branta

canaadensis), green-winged teal (Anas Caolinensis), canvasback duck (Aythya valisineria), blue-winged teal

(Anas discors), shoveler (Spatula clypeata), mallard (Anas platrhynchos), ring-necked duck (Aythya collaris),

and the common merganser (Mergus merganser) (Roye 1979:42-47). Other important birds are ducks, geese,

and pigeons that fly through the area or rest on the bay, on freshwater lakes and ponds, or roost in the dune

forests (

2016:3;

2016:5;

2016:1).

The area thus was used and continues to be used by tribal members for hunting (

2016:1, 14),

especially for deer (

2016:4;

2016:9), which may have been trapped or taken in deadfalls as

well as shot (

2016:7). Tribal members report seeing numerous other species, such as “elk, fox,

bobcat, cougar, bear” (

2016:4), as well as beaver, duck, heron, and white egret (

2016:6).

While large animals and birds are often the focus of hunting, tribal members note, “frogs were in the lily pads

and we would gig frogs there [for] the frog legs” (

2016:2). Seeing these animals is an important

way to know that the ecosystem is still functional. Healthy animals are indicators of healthy ecosystems.

Connection to place

The CTCLUSI never forfeited aboriginal title to their homelands including Coos Bay. The various features

described throughout this document support the connection that the Coos Community has with Coos Bay

through time. These features are important to retaining our practices and beliefs. These resources are

reflective of broad patterns in Coos history. These features, when overlaid (see Figure 4), illustrate the density

of continued cultural use by the Coos. The proximity of the features to the estuary is noteworthy as most

features are inextricably tied to the Bay, the exception being some government offices and ceremonial

locations on Tribal property and the burial location of Chief Daloose Jackson.

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Criterion B: Tribal Members Associated with the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural

Property- Ethnic Heritage (local)

All Tribal members with Coos ancestry including those living, who came before, and those yet to be born are

important to our cultural heritage. Those significantly associated with the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me

Traditional Cultural Property have been important to sustaining Coos practices, knowledge and places for the

Coos community today. For the purpose of this nomination the focus for Criteria B will be on those Coos tribal

members who sustained the tribal existence during the period of initial settlement by Europeans through

termination They are important because they were the informants of the CTCLUSI culture who helped illustrate

cultural traditions and places as well as preserving language that is profoundly situated and significant within

the Q’alya ta Kukwis shichdii me Traditional Cultural Property. The descriptions of the list of people below

indicate how exactly each person was tied to the area, and how they played an important part in yielding

significant information about prehistory and history of the Coos people and their relationship to the land.

Annie Miner Peterson (Coos): Informant for several studies, linguistic informant (see Appx. E, photo 1

and 14) Born at

(see Figure 7) in 1860 to Mótolt (English name Matilda), who was of Hanis and

Lower Coquille decent. Annie was removed along with her mother as an infant to Yachats (Alsea SubAgency). Annie was trilingual, with her first language being Hanis. She learned Miluk as a young girl and

became fluent in English in her early twenties. “She was a controversial figure among some of her peers

and one of her nicknames was tsmixwn, meaning “tricky” or “trickster” (Whereat-Phillips 2016a). Annie was

an ethnographic informant and linguist informant for many studies, recording stories in both Hanis and

Miluk. Along with being affluent in multiple languages, Annie was also a skilled basket weaver, passing

along much of this information during the ethnographic studies she was participating in (Whereat-Phillips

2013) (Youst 1997). She was an informant for Drucker and Jacobs. It is because of Annie’s knowledge and

understanding of Coos Bay that we have retained many placenames (see Appendix A), a foundation of the

Hanis language terms, including first foods (see Appendix C) and several traditional stories (see Appendix

B) and songs (see Appendix E, photo 12) been passed down for generations providing a foundation for the

CTCLUSI language development, ceremony and cultural programing.

Daloose Jackson (Coos): Chief (See Appendix E, photo 14 and 20)

Daloose Jackson, also known as Chief Daloose Jackson, was born sometime around 1827

Hanisich where he lived and was (see Figure 7) the last lineal descendant chief of the Hanis Coos. Chief

Jackson was a fixture in the North Bend area up until the time of his death in January of 1907. Jackson

was taken with his family up to Alsea Sub-Agency where he stayed until its closure. Upon that time, he

returned with his family to North Bend, where they resided in a float house at Dewey’s Rock on the upper

end of the bay. Chief Jackson was very knowledgeable of the Coos County Indians and their territories in

the area, much of this information was passed on to his daughter Lottie Evanoff, who went on to testify on

behalf of the Coos Indians for the 1931 land claims trial. Jackson was also a fixture at meetings that were

held at Pioneer Hotel in Empire, that were facilitated for the purpose of gaining financial backing for the

Coos Bay Indians suit. The death of Chief Daloose Jackson was the ending of an era as he was the last

hereditary Coos Chief. He was instrumental in maintaining cultural practices and connection to place for his

people during the reformation era. Jackson was buried in Coos Bay at the Marshfield Cemetery, a

landmark and spiritual site for the CTCLUSI today. (Youst 1997:133).

Don Whereat (Coos): Author, historian (see Photograph 33)

Donald Whereat was born March 19, 1924, in Marshfield, Ore., to Ruby (Elliott) and Ernest Whereat. He

died Dec. 15, 2013 in Bandon, OR. Don was a Miluk Coos Tribal member and spent much of his youth with

his mother Ruby and his grandmother Frances Elliot on her Indian Allotment along the South Slough. In the

early 1980s, Don was actively involved in assisting the CTCLUSI in their struggle to regain federal

recognition. He spent years living in Coos Bay and was on the CTCLUSI Tribal Council as well as spent

time as the Tribal Historian. Donald worked with many archaeologists, historians, and linguists to author

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(along with other contributors) the book, “Our Culture and History: The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower

Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians” (Whereat et al. 2011). Whereat and his descendant,

have

provided analysis of ethnographic Coos texts, interviews, language and documented them for future

generations. His work as a historian, including his research, articles and books captured and sustained

Coos traditional practices, stories and culture for future generations of Tribal members.

Frank Drew (Coos): Informant for several studies, linguistic informant (see Appendix E, photo 3)

Frank Drew was born at Alsea Sub-Agency; his mom a Hanis Coos Tribal member (

2016a:16).). Frank was fluent in Hanis, Siuslaw, Chinook Jargon and English. Frank worked as a translator

for Leo J. Frachtenberg, a prominent anthropologist of Native American languages (see Appendix E, photo

13). He obtained stories from other Tribal informants and was an informant himself in several ethnographic

and linguistic studies (Jacobs 1932-34;

2013). He lived through an incredibly traumatic

and somber period in the history of Coos people. Fortunately, he provided important accounts of Coos life

and culture that have been critical to the endurance of Coos traditional practices and connection to place

(see Appendix A and B).

James (Jim) Buchanan (Coos): Informant for several studies, linguistic informant (see Appx E, photo 3)

James Buchanan was a Hanis Coos Tribal member, born at the Coos Bay v

(see Figure 7) sometime between 1845 and 1848 and died in 1933. In 1856, James and

many other Coos Indians were removed to Kiwe’et, a point just below Empire (see Figure 7), and later

moved to Fort Umpqua, and again removed in 1860 along with the rest of the Coos and Lower Umpqua to

Yachats. James began working on land claims as early as 1890, and testified on behalf of the Hanis people

at the land claims trial in 1931. James also worked with many anthropologists/linguists to record Traditional

stories and the Hanis language (

, 2013) (see Appendix A and Appendix B). He was

actually the sole informant for Frachtenberg’s Coos Texts, published in 1913. Frachtenberg states that

James was “the only member of the Coos tribe who still remembers and can relate coherently some of the

myths and traditions of the by-gone generations” (Frachtenberg 1913). The stories recorded are ones that

are still told today and language is foundational to CTCLUSI language revitalization projects and the

cultural connection to Coos Bay places and Coos traditional practices.

Jefferson Harney (Coos): Coos leader of importance (see Appendix E, photo 6)

Jefferson Harney was born at the village of Hanisich,

present day city of Empire (see Figure 7). Jeff Harney was considered a Tribal leader and was known as

one of the most influential Tribal people in the area: “…a man with means and a true hope for success in

the attempt to fain the Indians’ rights”. He was also mentioned in the treaty documentation (

2011:

24, 100). Like his peers, Jefferson survived though the extreme adversity of the time, removal and death of

many coastal tribal people. Jefferson and his wife, Jane Harney also Hanis Coos, settled on the North Fork

Siuslaw after the Alsea Sub-Agency closed. They were survived by their daughter, Martha Harney

Johnson, who recorded several words for Morris Swadesh and Jane Sokolow. She was the last living fluent

Hanis speaker when she passed in 1972. His leadership and way of life passed down to his relations and

shared as part of the CTCLUSI history mark him as important to Coos Bay and Coos culture.

Lottie Evanoff (Coos): Informant for several studies, linguistic informant (see Appendix E, photo 4 and 14)

Lottie Evanoff was born at Yaquina Bay on the Yachats Reservation in 1871. Lottie was the daughter of

Chief Daloose Jackson and Fanny, who was of Hanis and Lower Coquille descent. Annie Miner Peterson,

Fanny’s half-sister, was Lottie’s aunt and another well-known Coos informant. Lottie’s father moved their

family back to Coos Bay after the reservation closed down. They resided in a float house at Dewey’s rock,

Shuuhtlits, on the upper end of the bay near North Bend, where they all lived for many years (see Figure

10). Lottie testified on behalf of the Coos people in the 1931 land claims trial as well as worked with

linguists to preserve the Hanis Coos language by reciting stories and discussing important areas to the

Coos people within the bay (Youst 1997). Because Lottie is such a credible source of Hanis places and

Coos cultural heritage the provided maps and table use her as a preferential source (see Appendix A and

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Figures 6-13) .Her reputation among living Tribal members is strong and she has two modern CTCLUSI

canoes that bare her name that are used cultural practices and community activities.

Tarheel (Coos): Well-known, master of ceremonies (see Appendix E, photo 8)

Tarheel grew up

near present day

Barview (see Appendix A). Tarheel’s nickname was Emuk-de-luk or Emuk-de-luc (poor, pitiful young man)

(Whereat 2011:24-25). He received his name after he eluded capture from soldiers who were gathering up

all of the Indians in the area and taking them to Yachats. He spent a week on Valino Island in South Slough

surviving on berries and roots and nearly starved to death (Jacobs 1932-34). He was later captured in 1864

by soldiers and he and his wife along with 30 others were taken to Yachats. After leaving Yachats, he and

his wife returned to the site of his old village where they lived out the remainder of their lives.

The various landmarks around the Bay

and stories of his life distinguish him as an important figure in the Coos’s history and modern life.

Cora Barrett (Coos): Married and remained in Coos Bay, associated with the stagecoach line

Cora was a Hanis Coos woman who remained in Coos Bay and was not removed to Yachats like many of

the Coos people. Cora married and had children with Henry H. Barrett (see Appendix E, photo 7). The

Barrett’s were married in Empire City in 1858, and owned and operated a stage landing and transportation

stagecoach line between Coos Bay and the Siuslaw (see Appendix E, photo 18) (see Figure 14-16). Cora

and her husband utilized the north spit for their transportation line, homestead, and used the marshes on

the North Spit as a grazing area for their horses (Beckham 2015a: 38-40).

Jane Jordan (Coos): Married and re

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