Museum acquires stone Chinook plank house marker

During one of our Wahkiakum County Historical Society meetings last Fall/Winter, Ralph Keyser asked the board to look at the storage lean-to during the meeting. There is only natural light that comes through the semi-transparent panels so the eyes have to adjust to low light. We made our way towards the back of the building looking at different things as Ralph pointed them out. One of our board members, Roberta (Elliott) Trotter a Chinookan tribal member spotted a carved stone sitting on a lower shelf of a small wooden stand. She asked why this was in a storage area and none of us knew but it was probably because past board members weren’t sure what to do with it. We lifted the heavy rock up where we could see it and Ms. Trotter thought at first that it was a Chinookan stone called Tsagiglalal or She Who Watches with her “beautiful broad face, with luminous eyes and wide smile, her tongue thrust out, inscribed on rimrock at the easternmost edge of the Chinook land. Coyote, their myth age trickster-hero, put her there to watch the people. “She Who Watches” they called her. She became a symbol of conscience and of death. “She sees you when you come,” they said, “she sees you when you go.”

Over the coming months Ms. Trotter determined that our carved stone did not have the same characteristics as Tsagiglalal but was not able to find anything like ours either. She thought we should try to find a professional who could help in the identity of our carved rock but it is always difficult when there are not funds available to pay for said services. In the mean time Darrel Trotter and Brian Elliott made a stand from old growth cedar that was from the Pillar Rock/Altoona area.

Through contacts, we were referred to Mike Taylor of CultureWatch Northwest. The same photos were sent to him and he forwarded them onto Dr. James Keyser in Portland. The 65+ pound carved rock was hauled to Mr. Taylor’s office along Fort Vancouver Officer’s Row in Vancouver and, Dr. Keyser met us there.

Mr. Taylor removed her from the vehicle and put her in the cedar stand in the full sunlight and took photos. About an hour later Dr. Keyser arrived. The two men had not seen another carving or Indian drawing like her in their travels around the Pacific Northwest. They felt sure that she could be called Guardian of Altoona but needed to find the Chinookan language name, which was e-mailed soon after. The result is what is on display at the Wahkiakum County Historical Society Saturdays and Sundays from 1-4 p.m.

Mike Taylor of CultureWatch Northwest provided the following information:

This rare carved stone figure is believed to have stood outside a Chinook Indian longhouse in the vicinity of Altoona. The figure probably represents a mythological character important in the Chinookan spiritual belief structure. Such carved figures, in stone or wood, were erected outside longhouses to protect the occupants from evil spirits and influences.

Note the tapered lower end of the stone which would have been buried in the earth, securing the stone in an upright position near the front of the house.

There is triangular ribbed carving on the back of the figure. In several other examples of Chinookan carving this shape represents the exaggerated tail of an animal such as a beaver or mountain sheep, providing another indication that perhaps the human-like face on the front of the stone is not actually human, but a protective spirit figure.