What facts do we have concerning the people who lived in the early Yachats area? Lottie Evenoff lived in the Yachats area at the Alsea Sub-Agency. Her father was Chief Jackson of the Coos Tribe. She related that her father said to her “The Indian People of the Yahach area spoke Alsea and were light complected. The Alsea people were more like the Tillamook than the Coos. And the Indian houses in Yahach were pits in the ground, only the roofs were sticking out.’13 These depictions are similar to the Indian people who lived in the region around Alsea Bay. Trade among the southern and northern bands was common. The Alsea Indians brought dried fish from Yahach to the Coos villages. “The Coos would give the Yahuch clothes. The Siuslaw also traded with the Yahuch. The Siuslaw would come as far north as Yahach Creek, there they would dam the creek with rocks to capture salmon.”14 The Yahuch and Coos would play the “shinny game” during trading visits. Philip Drucker and other researchers, including Robert Kentta and Don Whereat, identified a variety of games the local Indians played. These games are also discussed in Leo Frachtenberg’s Alsea Texts and Myths including shinny ball. It required teams, a ball, clubs, and a playing field.15 Whereat found a map by Frank Drew, in Harrington’s Field Notes. This map showed a ?shinny field” located along the beach, south of the mouth of the Yachats River.16 What happened to the Indians whose home was Yachats? Evenoff states, “The Indians who lived in the Yachats area were gone before the Alsea Sub-Agency was established in 1860. Disease was likely the culprit for the Indians’ disappearance.”17 Evenoff relates that when her father, Chief Jackson, was a boy, there was a smallpox epidemic. The Alsea Indians would run from the sweat houses to the ocean attempting to cure themselves but “all the Alsea died in Yahatc.” This led to the total annihilation of the village(s) in the Yachats area. Furthermore Evenoff stated that there was a “large ancient cemetery” located where the town of Yachats is now located.’8 In the early 1860s, when the Coos and Umpqua were forcibly marched by the United States Army from their homeland in the south to the Yachats River, they came across a hut filled with bodies. This discovery was related by Lottie Evenoff in Harrington’s Field Notes. “Just south of Silver Salmon Creek is where the caving-in Indians houses were. The Indians died right in their houses, all died without exception.”9 When Lottie Evenoff was asked by Harrington where the caving-in Indian houses were, she described the area north of Yachats, close to what is now the north end of the 804 trail, where the rocks end and the beach begins.20 This is where Starr Creek meets the ocean. A map obtained by Hazel Miller of Yachats and given to Janice Gerdemann, also of Yachats, indicates the present Starr Creek was once called Salmon Creek, Is today’s Starr Creek also the past’s Silver Salmon Creek? (See Map 2 on the following page,)21
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? Last Modified : 12/28/04
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