ida bensell

Ida Bensell is remembered as a culture bearer and master basketry artist who helped preserve our peoples’ language and traditions. She lived to see the age of 104, influencing five generations of our people in her lifetime. She was a descendant of the Yuu-k’wi (Euchre) and Sv-k’wee-che’ (Sixes) bands and a fluent speaker of Tututni, the northern dialect of Nuu-wee-ya’.

Family Origins

Ida was born in Otis, a small town along the Salmon River on the Siletz Reservation, in 1878. (Some sources say she was born in Taft, along Siletz Bay). All of Ida’s grandparents had been forcibly removed to the Coast (Siletz) Reservation from communities along the southern Oregon coast in 1856. Her parents, Bill and Nina Samuels, were born on the reservation in the early years following removal.

Her father William “Bill” Samuels (1860-1931) was the son of Sachet Samuels. Bill was born in Otis, and his family was from the Yuu-k’wi band, which had historically lived along Euchre Creek about 9 miles north of the mouth of the Rogue River, near present-day Ophir. Ida’s mother, Nina, was from the Sv-k’wee-che’ (Sixes) band, which had lived along the coast between present-day Port Orford and the Sixes River. Nina was a sister of Jakie Johnson and a cousin of Ella Ben.

When Ida was a little girl, she learned language and basketry from her mother and other Native women in Otis and Taft. She spent time sitting with these older women and watching them weave large storage bins to hold smoked salmon and eel for the winter months. Looking back as an elder, Ida remembered with humor how none of the women would give her spruce roots, which are time-intensive to gather and process, for practice. Over time, as Ida watched the women work and began making her own little baskets, the women began to say to each other, “She’s going to be a good weaver” [1]. Ida remembered these early teachings for her whole life, and she passed them down to her daughters and many other people in her community. 

Early Life and Adulthood

Ida grew up in what is sometimes called the Assimilation Era, when a series of government programs and policies attempted to dissolve Indian land holdings and assimilate our people into white society. When Ida was about 6 years old, she was sent to the boarding school at Siletz, where students were strictly forbidden from “talking Indian.” These schools were widely adopted in the 1880s and 1890s, with the mission to separate Indian children from family, language, and culture, in order to help them “progress” to white American values and lifestyles. Along with educational basics, training in domestic arts, and moral instruction, one of the central skills the schools promoted was the adoption of English. 

At this time, there were still at least eight distinct languages, each with its own variety of dialects, being spoken on the Siletz Reservation in some capacity, but language fluency dwindled as the older generations began to pass away. By 1895, the superintendent of the Siletz boarding school reported with pride that many children in the school could not speak their family’s languages at all. Nevertheless, Ida retained the knowledge of and continued to speak her family’s language through these years.

Ida left the Siletz boarding school around age 15. In 1896, she married James Bensell (1860-1948), when she was 17 or 18 years old. Jim was a farmer and was descended from the Mii-k’wvn-nu (Mikwanu) band of the Lower Rogue River area. Jim and Ida raised twelve children together in the early twentieth century, when life on the reservation was very hard and the mortality rate was high. The soil and climate on the reservation were not well-suited for farming, and at times the Bensell family supplemented their income with hop-picking and other seasonal agricultural work in the Willamette Valley. Ida also gathered weaving materials from the wooded areas around her home to make baskets to sell for income.

Ida was a devoted member of the Indian Shaker Church at Siletz. Even before the Shakers established a congregation in Siletz in 1926, she traveled by boat from Siletz with her father, her brother Whitney Samuels, and one of her sons to Lincoln City to attend services. Ida also went annually to large Indian Shaker conventions in Mud Bay, Washington, where the religious movement had first been established. Her uncle, Jakie Johnson, was the leader of the Siletz Shakers for many years, and Ida was close friends with Ethel Gardipee, another church leader from the Siletz community. Ida regularly visited the Indian Shaker Church in Smith River, California, where she enjoyed conversing with other Nuu-wee-ya’ speakers, including her friend Amelia Brown.

By the time Ida was an elder, she was one of only a handful of fluent speakers of Nuu-wee-ya’. From the 1930s on, linguists and anthropologists sought her expertise to better understand the complexities of our language’s dialects, grammar, and history. Ida enjoyed speaking her language and sharing what she knew with linguists, sometimes sitting with them for several hours at a time as they recorded her words or wrote down what she told them. Elizabeth Jacobs’s notebooks contain over 3000 lines of Nuu-wee-ya’ words and phrases that Ida shared with her in 1933 and 1934.

The linguist Victor Golla consulted with Ida in the 1960s, remembering her as “an intelligent and patient teacher who had no difficulty in—and in fact seemed to relish—providing paradigms.” [2]  Golla’s impression of Ida reflects what we know of her from the Siletz community—she was a respected community leader and teacher who loved to share what she knew with others.

By the 1970s, Ida was the oldest resident in the town of Siletz. When the Siletz Tribe reincorporated their government in the 1970s, community leaders such as Tribal Chairman Art Bensell Jr. (no relation) leaned on Ida’s wisdom and experience. Ida and her daughter, Gladys, lived across the street from the Siletz Tribe’s original office headquarters on Metcalf Avenue, and whenever Art knew he would be called on to give a prayer at a community event, he would run across the street to Ida’s place beforehand to ask her what he should say. 

Ida passed on her extensive knowledge of traditional Siletz basketry techniques to younger generations in the early years of Siletz culture camps. Much of the precious knowledge the community has today about sourcing basketry materials, weaving techniques, and design principles comes from Ida and her daughters. 

The whole Siletz community celebrated her in her elder years, joining her on her 95th birthday with dancing and a potluck luncheon in the Siletz grange hall. Although she had experienced personal tragedy and lived through several eras of dramatic changes in her community, many photographs show her with a joyful smile. 

Legacy

Ida passed away in 1983 at age 104. She is buried in the Paul Washington Cemetery in Siletz with a headstone inscription that reads, “God Took Her Home.” Ida and two of her daughters, Gladys Muschamp and Carrie Streets, are credited with preserving the art of traditional Siletz basketry in the community. 

Ida shared several hundred pages worth of knowledge about our language’s vocabulary and grammar, along with many hours of audio recordings, with non-Native researchers. One of her special legacies within these archival materials is her laughter, which can be heard on many audio tracks as she speaks. These recordings influenced later language students and teachers in our community, who were moved to hear Ida speaking her language with joy and humor. Today, Ida’s knowledge and love of Nuu-wee-ya’ has supported language revitalization efforts across multiple communities.

[1] Capital Journal. “Mother, daughter, keeping an ancient art alive.” Dec 2, 1974. Salem, Oregon.

[2] Victor Golla. “Lower Rogue River (Tututni) Lexicon.” Humboldt State University & UC Davis, 2008.

Works Cited and Consulted

Capital Journal. “Mother, daughter, keeping an ancient art alive.” Dec 2, 1974. Salem, Oregon.

Capital Journal. “Party to fete 95-year old.” Dec 16, 1974. Salem, Oregon.

Capital Journal. “Resurgence of Siletz Identity Has Been Dramatic.” Oct 31, 1975. Salem, Oregon.

Capital Journal. “Siletz Indian Woman Marks 91st Birthday on Dec 25.” Dec 24, 1970. Salem, Oregon.

Indian Census of the United States, 1885-1940. Reel 506 - Indians of North America - Census; Native American Census - Siletz. National Archives and Records Services. Archive.org

Lomawaima, K. Tsianina and L. Tsianina. “Estelle Reel, Superintendent of Indian Schools, 1898-1910: Politics, Curriculum, and Land.” Journal of American Indian Education, Spring 1996.

Myers, Donald. “Siletz restoration stirs hopes, fears.” Nov 10, 1977. Capital Journal. Salem, Oregon.

Sackett, Lee. “The Siletz Indian Shaker Church.” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol 3, No 3, Jul 1973.

Smith, Celia. “Siletz Reservation Began as Exile Place.” Capital Journal. Oct 27, 1975. Salem, Oregon.

Victor Golla. “Lower Rogue River (Tututni) Lexicon.” Humboldt State University & UC Davis, 2008.

Werth, Ted. “Recalling the art of making Siletz baskets in article from 40 years ago.” Siletz News. Aug 2021, originally printed Oct 1984. Siletz, Oregon.

“William Samuels Death Certificate.” Oregon State Archives, Death Records, 1864-1967. Salem, Oregon. Accessed May 01, 2024 through ancestry.com

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