CHINOOK 



By Franz Boas 



§ 1. DISTRIBUTION AND HISTORY 



The Chinookan stock embraces a number of closely related dialects 

 which were spoken along both banks of Columbia river from the 

 Cascades to the sea, and some distance up the Willamette valley. 

 The Chinook were neighbors of tribes belonging to many linguistic 

 stocks. In Shoalwater bay and on the lower course of Columbia 

 river, along its northern bank as far as the Cascade range, they came 

 into contact with tribes of the coast division of the Salishan family. 

 On the upper course of Willapa river they were contiguous to a 

 small Athapascan tribe ; farther to the east they were surrounded by 

 Sahaptin tribes; in the Willamette valley they bordered on the 

 Molala and Kalapuya. On the southern bank of Columbia river, 

 opposite Cowlitz river, lived another Athapascan tribe whose neigh- 

 bors they were; while south of the piouth of Columbia river they 

 bordered on the Tillamuk, an isolated branch of the Coast Salish. 



The language was spoken in two principal dialects, Upper Chinook 

 and Lower Chinook. The former w^as spoken on the upper course of 

 Columbia river, as far west as Gray's Harbor on the north bank and 

 a little above Astoria on the south bank of the river. It was sub- 

 divided into a number of slightly different dialects. The principal 

 representatives are Kathlamet and Clackamas which were spoken 

 on the lower course of the Columbia river and in the Willamette 

 valley, and Wasco and Wishram which were spoken in the region of 

 The Dalles. The Lower Chinook includes the Clatsop dialect on the 

 south bank of the river (from Astoria downward) and the Chinook 

 proper of the north bank from Grays harbor down, and on Shoal- 

 water bay. The last-named dialect is discussed here. 



The name Chinook (Ts.'inu'l-) is the one by which the tribe was 

 known to their northern neighbors, the Chehalis. 



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