Tilicum

[Andy Horton]

Hello,

I made a mistake with my previous message. I did not realise there was a
Chinook tribe as I tried to find a list of tribes and match them up with
the languages (it this is possible). Of course (or maybe), any one word
like "tilicum" could be common to several tribes and languages. This was
the first find on the search for Tilicum, after discovering a captive
Killer Whale, Orca, of the same name. 

http://164.116.21.67/spokan/gibbs/gib_toc.php

The old chief Tow-e-toks preserved a paper on which some one made a sort of
calendar or record of the days of the week. He expressed great anxiety
lest, as it was nearly worn out, he should be unable to distinguish the
Sundays, and requested me to prepare him a new one. He added that he was in
great fear of death, and constantly "talked to the Chief above." As will
readily be imagined, the remarkable features of this mountain scenery, and
the neighborhood of the great snow peaks - Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams
-give a color to the legends of the Klikatats. They, in common with the
other Oregon tribes, seem to have had no distinct religious ideas previous
to those introduced by the whites, nor any conception of a Supreme Being.
Their mythology consists of vague and incoherent tales, in most of which
Ta-la-pus, or the prairie wolf, figures as a supernatural power. Besides
him there are other agents, among whom a race denominated the "Elip
Tilicum," from two jargon words signifying " first people," or "people
before," figure prominently. Though trifling in themselves, yet, as
specimens of what may be considered the unwritten literature of the
Indians, they may not be uninteresting - the more especially as the belief
in the existence of' those giants seems to be of universal currency
throughout Oregon. The following are among them: 

Then I found another list of tribes including Chinook:

The flattening of the head is practiced by at least ten or twelve distinct
tribes of the lower country, the Klikatats, Kalapooyahs, and Multnomahs, of
the Wallammet, and its vicinity; the Chinooks, Klatsaps, Klatstonis,
Kowalitsks, Katlammets, Killemooks, and Chekalis of the lower Columbia and
its tributaries, and probably by others both north and south. The tribe
called Flatheads, or Salish, who reside near the sources of the Oregon,
have long since abolished this custom. 

Cheers

Andy Horton.