While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Kusan Family. A small linguistic stock former
formerly occupying villages on Coos r. and bay, and on lower
Coquille river, Oregon. (see Powell in 7th Rep.
B. A. E., 89, 1891). The name is from that of the tribe,
Coos or Kusa, which is said to be taken from one of the Rogue
River dialects in which it means 'lake,' 'lagoon,' or 'inland
bay.' Within historic times there have been 4 villages in this
region in which the Kusan language was spoken. It is probable
that at an earlier period the family extended much farther
Inland along the tributaries of Coos bay, but had been gradually
forced into the contracted area on the coast by the pressure of
the Athapascan
tribes on the south and east and the Yakonan on the north. The
stock is now practically extinct; the few survivors, for he
greater part of mixed blood, are on the
Siletz
Reservation in Oregon, whither they went after ceding their
lands by (unconfirmed) treaty of 1855. Practically nothing is
known of the customs of this people, but there is no reason to
suppose that they differed markedly from their neighbors on the
north. The social unit was apparently the village, and there is
no trace of a clan or gentile system other than the
relationships naturally arising in a locally restricted group.
It is interesting to note also that the practice of deforming
the head was not current among the Kusan, although prevalent
among the Yakonan, their northern neighbors. The Kusan villages
known to have existed are: Melukitz, north side of Coos Bay;
Anasitch, south side of Coos Bay; Mulluk (speaking a different
dialect), north side of Coquille River; Nasumi, south side of
Coquille River.
