The Tolowa (Taa-laa-wa) Dee-ni'
of
Smith River Rancheria
Our Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni' (Tolowa People) homeland is host to the tallest trees on earth, the K'vsh-chu (Redwood). So awe inspiring are these K'vsh-chu, they mark a seminal role in our world view and religion.
Our Taa-laa-waa-dvn (Tolowa Aboriginal-Homeland) lays along the Pacific coast between the water sheds of WilsonCreek, SmithRiver, in California and the Winchuck, Chetco, Pistol, Rogue, Elk, SixesRivers and inland up the Rogue River throughout the ApplegateRiver drainage in Oregon. Our Taa-laa-waa-dvn roughly covers what are Curry, Del Norte and JosephineCounties. Our tribal neighbors are or were the Coquille to the north, the Umpqua and Taklema to the north east, the Shasta and Karuk to the east and the Yurok to the south. At the end of the Holocaust our surviving populations were divided and sent to several reservations established in California and the OregonTerritory.
Our Waa-tr'vslh-'a~ (Religion) centers on the act of Genesis and the Nee-dash Ceremony Genesis occurred at Yan'-daa-k'vt, the Center of the World. At Yan'-daa-k'vt, the Creators completed creation, set forth life and the first human beings.
Our language is a member of the Athabaskan, or Na-Dene language family. The Athabaskan, or Na-Dene, languages are spoken from northwestern Canada and Alaska south to the Rio Grande. Fellow peoples who speak Athabaskan are the Apache, Ahtna, Hupa, Haida, Koyukon, Navaho, Siletz, Tlingit and Wailaki et al.
Our use of the sea and the land produced us rich material culture. Our homes were subterranean rectangular single pitch structures built from redwood, cedar and pine planks.
We traveled by foot and in carved redwood canoes on rivers, streams, lagoons, bays and on the open sea. Our sea going canoes were over forty-feet long and eight feet wide.
Our tr'vt (currency-dentalia) was formalized units of ten dentalia shell strands. All legal disputes were resolved with tr'vt and other valuable items. These items included woodpecker scalps, obsidian blades, sea lion tusks and ceremonial regalia that leveled-up all forms of social, spiritual and economic transactions and disputes. In some extreme cases humans were transacted to level-up a dispute.
Our population plummeted from ten thousand individuals to a mere few hundred during the four years of the Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni' Holocaust that occurred from 1853-56. At the end of the Holocaust one thousand thirty-seven of our people were interred north of our Taa-laa-waa-dvn on the Coast Reservation at Siletz. More of us were interred on military concentration camps along the Klamath and Smith's River and at WilsonCreek. A small number of us managed to hide out in the homeland and cling to life. We lived at Agness, Cushing Creek, Elk Creek, Gasquet, Gold Beach, Harbor, Nii~-lii~-chvn-dvn (Ne-le-chun-dun), Pebble Beach, Port Orford, Shdvn-das-'a~ (The Island) and Wagon Wheel.
Our Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni' homeland was bisected into the State of California and the Oregon Territory, then further transected into Klamath-Del Norte, Curry, Josephine and Coos counties; then reduced to a seventeen thousand acre reservation in 1862; then reduced to a one-hundred-sixty acre Rancheria in 1906; and then due to Federal Termination in 1960, down to the sole Jane Hostatlas trust allotment at Nii~-lii~-chvn-dvn of eleven acres. In 1983, the Tillie Hardwick Case reversed Federal Termination and restored our Tolowa Dee-ni' nation and government of the Smith River Rancheria.
Today, our population has surpassed one thousand members. Hundreds of other Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni' descendants are enrolled in tribes throughout the northwest coast. We Tolowa Dee-ni' remaining in the homeland today continue to pursue a livelihood in our ancient home. The survival of our language, religion and us that had endured the European fire storm of contact that enacted obliteration and subjugation upon us remains a miracle. Despite that fact that our social was fabric ripped apart by; genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced acculturation and assimilation, boarding schools, religious prohibition, sterilization, the expropriation of our lands and resources and finally termination, we are rebuilding our nation. We are pursuing economic development, building social programs, supporting language, continuing ceremony, and acquiring land to meet our mission statement:
Honoring Our Past;
Serving Our Tribal Family;
Protecting Our Culture and Independence;
And Controlling our Future.