From McLoughlin and Mills to Ikanum and Inclusion: Broadening the Understanding of tumwata (Oregon City) History through Indigenous Historiography

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Emergent Indigenous place theories are developing effective “gaps analyses” of archaeological and historical datasets caused by the social contexts in which existing dominant culture narratives have been written, interpreted, and projected. Archaeological and historical methodologies for researching and re-centering the stories of historically excluded communities are less well developed. In this paper, we present a decolonizing approach and application to historical and archaeological data as developed by the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Grand Ronde’s understanding of significant places is necessarily "verbed"—that is, centered in practices that are continuously enacted by people of/in that place since time immemorial. Ikanum (traditional stories) and oral histories are the framework for understanding these relationships, both during the millennia of indigenous lifeways and during the last two centuries of Euro-American encroachment and colonization. Using tumwata (Oregon City) as a case study, we outline changes and continuities in practices such as working, meeting, hosting, and exchanging across different periods of history. Emphasizing practice helps amplify and center narratives of those people and communities "hidden in plain sight," resulting in expanded narratives, richer contexts, and more complete and accurate understanding of place in a manner accessible to all.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40128.0