The 21st Century Community Schoolhouse's
Native American Land Management Page
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---The Kalapuya is the tribe that most recently lived in the upper Willamette Valley. For the last 10,000 years, the tribe lived in the area now known as Eugene; it was a popular site for Native Americans because the land was more productive in the activities the tribe did. There were three mutual but different languages the Kalapuya spoke: Tualatin-Yamhill in the northern Willamette Valley, Santiam in central Willamette Valley and Yonkalla in the southern Willamette Valley. |
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| ---Trading
was limited so the tribe did a lot of trading in Lane County. There is strong
evidence of this because of the trails that led north, south, east and west
to the Coast Cascade ranges. Trails also followed along major river corridors. In the 1830’s, there were an estimated 10,000-12,000 Kalapuyans living in the Willamette Valley; the plague that followed the settlers arrival in the 1830’s reduced the population to 600. Today there are no Kalapuyans. |
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| ---In 1851, the U.S and Kalapuyans signed a treaty that would give some of their land to the United States in exchange for a place to stay in the Willamette Valley. Then in 1855-56 the U.S made an inaugurated removal policy. Some Kalapuya were relocated and the ones that lived in the Willamette River watershed went to Grand Rock reservation, which eliminated their presence in the Eugene area. | ||
| ---During the time that the Kalapuyans lived in the Willamette Valley, they altered the landscape by burning prairies in the fall. Many people that explored the Willamette in 1811 saw prairies that were covered with flowers, green grass, oak lining and trees like poplar in the surrounding hills. | ||
| ---The Kalapuyans burned the valley because it helped maintain their food and plants. It provided more seeds and less undergrowth brush. These improvements created a better growth habitat for tarweed, camas, hazelnuts, and acorns, which is what the Kalapuyans mainly ate. Burning also helped to trap deer. The Kalapuyans would lure the deer into a small-contained area that made hunting easy. | ||
| ---By maintaining the habitat in these ways, they saved the Fender’s Blue Butterfly from extinction. | ||
