The Clatsop (Lower Chinook: ) are a Chinookan-speaking Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In the early 19th century they inhabited an area of the northwestern coast of present-day Oregon from the mouth of the Columbia River south to Tillamook Head, Oregon. Today, Clatsop descendants are members of the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, as well as the unrecognized Chinook Indian Nation and Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes.
Etymology
The name Clatsop comes from , meaning "those who have pounded salmon". It was originally the name of a single settlement, later applied to the tribe as a whole.
Clatsop has also been spelled Clapsott, Clapsot, Clotsop, Cladsap, Clatsap, Clatsup, Klatsup, and Latsop.
The Clatsop were also called by the Lower Chinook and Kathlamet , meaning "where there is pounded salmon", deriving from the main Clatsop village, .
Classification
The Clatsop are a Chinookan people. Alongside the Willapa Chinook and the Chinook proper, they are one of the Lower Chinook, a cultural-geographical and linguistic grouping of Chinookans whose villages were at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Columbia River in Chinook is called or , 'great water'. In Chinook Jargon, it is called .
Territory
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Clatsop occupied an area on the south bank of the Columbia River stretching from Point Adams to Youngs Bay. They also had villages on the Pacific coast stretching from Point Adams to Tillamook Head.
To the north of the Clatsop, across the Columbia River, were the villages of the Chinook, and to the east were the Kathlamet, another Chinookan people. To the south, past Tillamook Head, was the territory of the Nehalem, a Salishan-speaking group to which the Clatsop have strong ties.
{| class="wikitable"
|+List of known Clatsop villages
!Name
!Anglicization(s)
!Location
!Notes
!References
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|Nakutat
|In the vicinity of Seaside
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|-
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|Necanicum
|In the vicinity of Seaside
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|-
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|Neacoxi, Neahcoxie
|In the vicinity of Seaside
|The name means "place of little pines"
|
By the late 19th century, traditional Clatsop society as it was at the beginning of the century was all but gone. Many Clatsop by this point had merged with their southern neighbors, the Tillamook, and adopted the Tillamook language.
Culture and society
The Clatsop had designated headmen but were socially flexible. Individual families affiliated with one another in small villages and seasonal camps located near food sources.
Language
The Clatsop spoke a dialect of the Lower Chinookan language, which is now extinct. Most Clatsops spoke Chinook Jargon by the time Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery made contact with them. Some spoke Nehalem, reflecting intermarriage and cohabitation with that tribe.
Chinook Jargon is a trade language and was once used throughout much of the Pacific Northwest. Many place names in the area come from the Chinook Jargon, for example, Ecola Creek and Park — "whale".
Successor groups
Chinook Indian Nation
The Chinook Indian Nation is an unrecognized group which claims descent from the Clatsop people. In January 2001, the Chinook Indian Nation gained official federal recognition through an executive order by President Bill Clinton. The Chinook's legal status was reversed by the Bush administration soon after taking office. The bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 2004–2006 provided renewed interest in the status of the Clatsop and Chinook.
Clatsop-Nehalem
The Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes are an unrecognized group who claim descent from the Clatsop people. The Confederated Tribes have approximately 200 members. The confederation formed between the Clatsop and their southern neighbors, the Salishan-speaking Nehalem.
In May 2020, the North Coast Land Conservancy transferred of its Neawanna Point Habitat Preserve, located on the north Oregon coast, to the Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes. The area, located between Seaside and Gearhart, Oregon, consists of saltmarsh and Sitka spruce forest on the Necanicum Estuary at the north end of Seaside. The Neawanna and the Neacoxie creeks meet the Necanicum River, which flows to the Pacific. The Clatsop had known this area by the name ' or "place of little pines".
Others
Other tribes in the region, such as the Quinault, Siletz,