What took place near Cathlamet must have taken place all over Western Oregon. Panic-stricken for the time the native people wandered about for several years, and fragments only of the ancient tribes returned to their old seats.
With this dispersion came an almost total disappearance of the tribal bonds and relationships. Every little settlement became a law to itself, and in Western Oregon there were no sharply defined tribal ties or boundaries. These peoples, as the white men came in, were gradually given the names of the localities in which they were found, or, as often happened, the locality was given the name of the principal Indian man who was found there, and afterwards the resident people were known by the same name. Thus, Wahkiakum was a chief of the
