Takelma
| Names of Takelma groups: Takelma
and Latgawa
Region: Southwestern Oregon # of speakers: extinct
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 |
| Names of Takelma groups: Takelma
and Latgawa
Region: Southwestern Oregon # of speakers: extinct
|
|
Takelma: "those living alongside [the Rogue]
river"
Latgawa: "those living in the uplands"
(Ruby and Brown, p. 235)
"TAKELMA A small linguistic family comprising two separate tribes: the Takelma on the east side of the Klamath and Coast Mountains in the middle Rogue River area around Grants Pass, Oregon; and the Latgawa in the upper Rogue River area around Jacksonville, Oregon. Their houses were small brush shelters in summer and constructed of split sugar pine boards for winter. They decorated their costumes with dentalia shells, and tattooing was common. They also had cultural traits from California, and they prized obsidian and Shasta basket hats. They resented intrusions on their lands and were involved in the so-called 'Rogue Wars' of the 1850s, after which the U.S. Army decided to send the remaining Takelma and Latgawa to the Grand Ronde Reservation many miles to the north, where they arrived both overland and by sea. The Takelma probably numbered in excess of 1,000 in 1800 but later figures incorporate them in a mixed group known as 'Upper Rogue River'. Two groups of 'Rogue River' were returned from Grand Ronde in 1937, numbering 58 and 46." (Johnson, p. 178)
"In 1905 there were reportedly only three or four elderly women on the Siletz who spoke the Takelman language, and spoke its upland dialect. By the early twentieth century any evidence of Takelma tribal entity had disappeared. Until then the few survivors had communicated mainly in the Chinook jargon, broken English or some Athapaskan dialect. In the late 1970s archaeologists excavated Takelma village sites before they were covered by the waters behind a dam on the Applegate, a Rogue Tributary." (Ruby and Brown, p. 23
Despite often being classified as a Kalapuyan language, one expert believes "Takelma a is a language isolate. Takelma has often considered to be in a Takelman (or Takelma-Kalapuyan) language family together with the Kalapuyan languages. However, a recent paper by Kendall & Tarpent (1998) finds this relationship to unfounded. However, there is much hopeful speculation that Takelma (along with Kalapuyan and other language groups) may be part of a proposed Penutian super-family. The fruits of this research will be available some time in the future."
