Multnomah people

According to archaeologists, the villages in the area were home to approximately 3,400 people year-round, and as many as 8,000 during fishing and wappato-harvesting seasons (wappato is a marsh-grown plant like a potato or onion and a staple food).

With only a few Multnomah left by the year 1910, the remaining people were transferred to the Grand Ronde Community which is also located in the Northwest of Oregon.

The Multnomah people shared Sauvie Island with other Chinook tribes under the collective name The Cathlascans.

Other Native American tribes in the Columbia River Valley area spoke of him in their oral history, while Oregon historians dismissed him as just a myth.

[11] Ann Fulton, a history professor at Portland State University, found and collected much of what is known of Chief Multnomah from many written stories.

[11] In 1792, Captain George Vancouver and his crew did not encounter Chief Multnomah along their expedition, according to their records, however, later in 1805 when Lewis and Clark reached Sauvie Island they wrote of the “mulknomah” people.

The houses of the Multnomah, like the other Chinookan peoples, were largely longhouses made of Western Redcedar planks.

The size of a home depended on the wealth of the owner, with the larger houses furnishing living quarters for up to 100 people.

The Multnomah diet included salmon, eels, sturgeon, elk, water birds and especially wapato.

In one legend described in Jeanne Eder's The Bridge of Gods, the name for the Multnomah people came from a dispute between two brothers.

[12] According to Eder's version of the story, the Great Spirit, who maintained no physical form, took care of the world's people.

The Chief wouldn't allow it, but when the daughter saw the sickness affect her loved ones, she willingly left in the middle of the night to go to the top of the cliff overlooking the Columbia River.

[11] Located in Portland, Oregon, Washington Park features a statue of Chief Multnomah called Coming of the White Man.

The inspiration and the name of this sculpture comes from Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition across the United States.

The men described the village of Native Americans who were known as “mulknomahs” encamped on Sauvie Island, and they originally referred to the now Willamette River as the Mulknoma.