The Ozette Prairies of Olympic National Park - Natural Resources ...

property (with the exception of beach rights, which must be validated by periodic potlatching). Use own-
ership in traditional times was a claim to use that was recognized by members of the community.
Quileute Use-ownership based on building or a continuing improvement on the land. Use ownership in
traditional times was usually based on an individual or family building a structure (e.g. house, smokehouse
or drying rack, fishing weir and, later, a garden or simply by improving part of a prairie by burning
it) and their use ownership was then recognized by others as long as that structure stood. There are
several references to this perspective and practice that make it clear:
A man or family, however, was looked upon as the proprietor of the place on which he built his permanent
fishing, digging or hunting houses. These houses could be inherited. A man wishing to build or settle
on a place asked nobody’s permission provided it was occupied by no one else. All fishing grounds,
whether on the beach or on the river, were the property of a family (who built a weir on it) and no one
else could fish there without the consent of the head of family. The hunting grounds up the several rivers
were also family inheritable and indivisible property. (Frachtenberg 1916:4:57)
The property of the river was more or less assumed by the villagers who had a weir there. No other per-
son would come and exploit it unless he had been granted permission. Moreover, a stranger never dared
to fish in another man’s area…Beaches were not communally owned by the Makah and Quileute. The
individual families owned them…the beaches were inherited like property. If a person wanted to acquire
a new beach he had to give a potlatch and announce his intentions. After the potlatch, the beach became
the family property, and others accepted it as such. (Singh 1966:117)
A very explicit expression of this Quileute canon of claiming ownership of unused lands by improving
them (in this case, opening and maintaining a garden on the land), was given by Pettitt.
In 1915, the Quileute absorbed more knowledge concerning the difference between white ownership of
property and the traditional Indian concept that ownership continued only as long as the property was
used. For several years a number of the Quileute had been planting vegetables on a piece of riverbottom
land within the area belonging to Harvey Smith. When Mr. Smith fenced his land and evicted the Indians
from this gardening area, the Indians felt that they were wronged because the land was not in use when
they took it over. The matter was explained, but not to their satisfaction. (Pettitt 1955:29)
With particular reference to claiming prairie areas, Ram Singh gave this statement:
Each family had an occupancy right in a great prairie such as O’took Prairie or Quileute Prairie. The
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