This year some of us have been learning to catalog digital images. So far I have cataloged images from the UO Libraries' "Picturing the Cayuse" and "Western Waters" collections. These images fascinate and frustrate me. I feel my depth of knowledge falls so far short of what it should be, particularly with the Native American images. The tribal images are even more challenging because Major Lee Moorhouse had the annoying habit of occasionally using all sorts of props in his photos, even if they were from a completely different tribe or area of the world. But beyond that, each image stretches my knowledge of Pacific Northwest history, my vocabulary, and my understanding of what I see.
Fortunately, mine is not the only cataloging that will be applied to the images of Native Americans with which I work. A sort of parallel cataloging of each image is being done by staff from the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. And Carol Hixson, the coordinator of these digital projects, consults routinely with tribal members and other experts to get feedback and insight into the image descriptions.
All these images fascinate me and make me want to know more about the person, place, group, or objects depicted. As I catalog or browse the digital collections of these photographs, each seems to me imbued with a story waiting to be discovered. In fact, some of the images literally are stories -- a few weeks ago I worked on some articles about the Columbia River which originally appeared in Scientific American.
My curiousity was aroused most recently while working in the Western Waters collection by a photograph of Trevitt Monument, Memaloose Island, which immediately reminded me of the photo of Skulls on wooden burial structure at top of Memaloose Island, Columbia River. The big stone obelisk of the monument struck me as so incongrous in this setting that I was immediately curious to know who Victor Trevitt was, whether he was a Native American or not, and why he had a monument there.
I started my research with a Google search on the names "Victor Trevitt" and "Memaloose". I was a little surprised that Memaloose, now a state park, also has camping. I'm not so sure I would want to camp on an island Lewis and Clark called "the Sepulchar Island", with a name that is said to come from the Chinook Jargon "Memalust": "to die". The island was long used as a resting site for the dead, as stated in a short report on the repatriation of human remains from the area by the Smithsonian in the National Museum of Natural History:
The human remains from both Upper and Lower Memaloose Islands were recovered from mixed, multiple burial contexts. These mixed deposits can be ascribed to traditional mortuary practices in the region involving the use of above-ground charnel houses. Associated funerary objects from the ossuary on Lower Memaloose indicate that the island was in use as a mortuary facility from at least the late 18th century through the mid-19th century. The artifactual evidence is corroborated by early ethnohistoric accounts and oral tradition. Though lacking associated funerary offerings, the remains from Upper Memaloose Island are assumed to date to the same general proto-historic/early historic time period.
So who was Victor Trevitt, and why was a monument to him erected on the site of a traditional native burial ground? From Jan Leininger's History of Mosier website (see "Early Pioneers"), as well as from Howard McKinley Corning's Dictionary of Oregon History I learned that Victor Trevitt was a white man, born in 1827, who had come to Oregon in 1850. A printer, he moved to The Dalles in 1854 where he dabbled in real estate and operated a tavern. He was a member of the first state legislature (chosen as a representative in 1858), and was a state senator from Wasco County 1866-74. His first wife was said to be "the daughter of an Indian chief"; she was said to be buried on Memaloose Island. In any case, it was Trevitt's wish to also be buried among his "Indian friends" who "always kept their word".
Alfred Powers in his History of Oregon Literature quotes Trevitt as saying "I have but one desire after I die, to be laid away on Memaloose Island with the Indians. They are more honest than whites and live up to the light they have. In the resurrection I will take my chances with the Indians."
After he died in San Francisco in 1883, his friends carried out this wish. An article on the web purporting to be from the Oregonian for September 19, 1926 (section 5, page 11) and entitled "City of Dead" Located on Columbia Below Lyle Island Where Indians Buried Dead Described by Mrs. Lulu Crandall of The Dalles has an interesting description of Trevitt's burial. It also gives some examples of the disrespect shown by whites for the native burials -- a disrespect still seen all over the Americas today when it comes to grave looting and artifact plundering.
As an epilog to Victor's tale, Stephenie Flora writes on her oregonpioneers.com website:
While Bonneville Dam was being constructed, the remains of the Indians buried on Memaloose Island were removed to another burial ground. The only grave remaining on the island is that of a white man, whose burial there caused the tribes to stop using the island for their burials. The white man's grave marker was being used as a navigational signal in the 1960s.
A photo of Victor Trevitt has been digitized and can be seen at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center/Wasco County Historical Museum site. Their online photo archive is worth a browse, containing over 1100 images at the time I visited.
The Picturing the Cayuse digitization and cataloging work is coordinated by my
department, Metadata and Digital Library Services, with the assistance of the
Image Services
Center and others in Special
Collections & University Archives. We are working closely with the Tamástslikt
Cultural Institute of the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation. I urge any reader with the slightest
interest in this work or the images to visit these websites and the others cited
on the departmental pages; the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla site has an
especially interesting section
on History & Culture.