Cayuse Totally Explained

Everything about Cayuse totally explained

The Cayuse are a Native American tribe in the state of Oregon in the United States. The Cayuse tribe shares a reservation in northeastern Oregon with the Umatilla and the Walla Walla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The reservation is located near Pendleton, Oregon at the base of the Blue Mountains.
The Cayuse call themselves the Tetawken, which means "we, the people". Originally located in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington, they lived adjacent to territory covered by the Nez Perce. Like the Plains tribes, the Cayuse placed a high premium on warfare and were skilled horsemen, often using their horse-riding prowess to intimidate other tribes. Skilled horsemanship proved beneficial to the Indians and the neighboring cowboys who adopted the Cayuse pony. The Cayuse moved to the Umatilla Reservation after signing a treaty with the U.S. federal government in 1855.

History

The Cayuse Indians are a nomadic tribe that occupied territories at the heads of the Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Grande Ronde Rivers and from the Blue mountains to Deschutes River in Washington and Oregon. The tribe has always been closely associated with the neighboring Nez Percé and Walla Walla. They were considered linguistically independent. The Cayuse have always been famous for their bravery and constant battles with the Snake and other tribes, which were weak in numbers. There were few pure-blood Cayuse left in 1851, intermarriage, largely with the neighboring Nez Percé, having been so widespread that even the language was dissipating. In 1855, the Cayuse joined the treaty by which the Umatilla Indian Reservation was formed, and since that time have resided within the reservations limits. Their number is officially reported as 404 in 1904; but this number is misleading, as counting in 1902 failed to discover a single one of pure blood on the reservation and the language almost extinct. The tribe gained wide notoriety in the early days of the white settlement of the territory. In 1838, a mission was established among the Cayuse by Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa, at a site about thirty miles from the city of Walla Walla. In 1847, measles brought by a rapid influx of white settlers killed off a large part of the tribe, and the Cayuse were convinced the missionaries were the cause. This and growing animosity due to cultural differences resulted in the Cayuse attacking the missionaries, murdering Whitman, his wife and twelve others. They captured 54 women and children and held them for ransom. Later they traded the prisoners with the Hudson's Bay Company for guns, blankets and tobacco. They also destroyed the mission. This began the Cayuse War, which they eventually lost, and were forced to share a reservation with the Umatilla while the whites moved to their land.

Lifestyle

The Cayuse Indians were located in the Columbia Basin and were nomadic, even moving day by day. They lived in houses called teepees, which many nomadic tribes used. Cayuse women would have to assemble and disassemble the teepees, either of which process could take an hour. The Cayuse were skilled horsemen, and used horses for catching animals and for their trip over the Rocky Mountains each year to bring a supply of buffalo back to their women and children. The women would use the animal skins for food, shelter and clothing. The men considered bravery to be an important quality, with brave warriors being held in high esteem, the strongest was made chief. The Cayuse had great difficulties when white settlers moved in in large numbers following the discovery of gold in California & Eastern Oregon and the opening of the Oregon Trail in 1842. The culture clash was enormous, and resentment built. As a result, the Whitman Massacre occurred when Cayuse and Umatilla Indians killed Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, two Protestant missionaries, and twelve other travelers residing at their camp. This soon led to the Cayuse War, one of the many in the Indian Wars.

Language

The Cayuse language is a language isolate. It has been proposed in the past that it may be related to Molala, making up a Waiilaptuan family ultimately related to the Penutian stock. This proposal is currently unproven. The language has been extinct since the 19th century.

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