Coquelle Thompson, Athabaskan Witness

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Lionel Youst and William R. Seaburg recount the compelling life story of Coquelle Thompson, an Upper Coquille Athabaskan Indian little known except by the Siletz Reservation community and a handful of visiting academics. Thompson's life spanned nearly a century, from 1849 to 1946. During his lifetime, he worked along the Oregon coast as farmer, hunting/fishing guide, teamster, tribal policeman, and, perhaps most importantly, he served as an expert witness on Upper Coquille and reservation life and culture for anthropologists.While captain of the tribal police, Thompson was assigned to investigate the Warm House Dance, the Siletz Indian Reservation version of the famous Ghost Dance, which had spread among the Indians of many tribes during the latter 1800s. Thompson became a proselytizer for the Warm House Dance, helping to carry its message and performance from Siletz along the Oregon coast as far south as Coos Bay.Thompson lived through the conclusion of the Rogue River Indian War of 1855-56 and his tribe's subsequent removal from southern Oregon to the Siletz Reservation. During his lifetime, the Siletz Reservation went from one million acres to seventy-seven individual allotments and four sections of tribal timber. The reservation was legislated out of existence less than a decade after he died.Youst and Seaburg also examine the works of six anthropologists who interviewed Thompson over the years: J. Owen Dorsey, Cora Du Bois, Philip Drucker, Elizabeth Derr Jacobs, Jack Marr, and John Peabody Harrington.