
Surrounded by a Wealth of Natural Resources
Posted by:
Volcanoguy
N 43° 06.869 W 124° 26.058
10T E 383309 N 4774526
Coquille Indian sign at Coquille Point in Bandon.
Waymark Code: WM8161
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 01/07/2010
Views: 2
Coquille Point is on the western edge of Bandon at the end of 15th Street. The point is within Kronenberg County Park. There is a interpretive trail with 8 signs developed in cooperation with the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge which includes all the offshore islands. Most of the signs deal with wildlife but two signs deal with historical information.
Marker Name: Surrounded by a Wealth of Natural Resources
Marker Text: This area, rich in natural resources, once supported many Coquille (pronounced co-kwell) Indian sites and villages. The ocean, river, and estuary provided food aplenty: fish, shellfish, waterfowl, and marine mammals. The forests supplied food like deer and elk, and wood for fires, shelter, canoes, clothing, and tools. Although the old villages are gone, the Coquille Tribe continues to live in its ancestral area.
Different Sites Fulfilled Different Needs
Most villages and sites were located along the river and estuary, close to food. Villages of large plank houses provided shelter for the winter. Na-Su-Ce-Tum, located in what is now downtown Bandon, was the largest of seven major villages along the tidewater reaches of the Coquille River estuary. Other camps were located near seasonally available food sources, such as roots, berries, or salmon.
Coquille Point, known as Dal-Me-Ce-Tum, served as a lighthouse for the Coquilles. Returning from ocean fishing trips, they relied on a fire burning atop the Point to guide their canoes to the mouth of the river.
Archaeological investigations at Coquille Point reveal that people came here to make tools from chert and quartz rocks they found on the beach. What are the clues? Hundreds of stone flakes left over from making tools, and rocks burned by fires used to heat the tools to make them less brittle.
One important site -- Sae-Tsik-Na, or Grandmother Rock -- is gone. Destroyed in the late 1800s to build the Bandon jetties, the huge monolith once stood at the mouth of the river. It was, and still is, a sacred spot for the Coquille. According to legend, the rock was a grandmother and granddaughter who were turned to stone for disobeying tribal taboos.
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