Hoxie augustus Simmons

Hoxie Simmons was a tribal historian and leader from the Siletz community. He was a fluent speaker of Nuu-wee-ya' from the Tal-dash-dvn (Galice) band. Hoxie had extensive knowledge about the culture and history of the Upper Rogue River area, where the easternmost speakers of Nuu-wee-ya’ lived until their removal to reservations. Today, he is considered the primary source of information about Galice language, stories, songs, and traditions. He served his people in many roles for over 50 years, sharing testimony on behalf of his community and passing on his knowledge to the generations who came after him.

Family Origins

Hoxie Simmons was born in 1872 in Kings Valley, a mill town about 40 miles east of Siletz. He had Galice and Upper Rogue River ancestry from his mother, Lydia, who was the niece of a Galice Creek headman. One of Hoxie’s great-grandmothers was from the area now known as Agness. Hoxie’s mother was around 6 years old when she and her family were forcibly removed from their home along Galice Creek in southern Oregon to the Coast (Siletz) Reservation. 

Hoxie’s father was Samuel Nelson Hauxhurst, the son of early white settler Webley Hauxhurst and his wife, Mary. Mary was the daughter of Chief Staywich or Staymire of the Yamhill Kalapuya people. Hoxie’s father passed away when Hoxie was 5 or 6 years old. Some early records list Hoxie Simmons’s birth name as Augustus, but he was known throughout his life as Hoxie–a shortened version of Hauxhurst, his birth father’s last name. 

Hoxie’s mother, Lydia, remarried to Thomas Simmons, an Applegate Indian who was sometimes called “Old Simmons,” and Hoxie took his stepfather’s last name. Hoxie remembered his stepfather as a wonderful storyteller and as a source of knowledge in his youth. Many of the stories and knowledge of history and geography that Hoxie shared with our community and with non-Native researchers were passed down to him from his stepfather. 

Early Life and Marriage

By the time Hoxie was born in the 1870s, federal Indian policy had shifted from the removal and extermination of Native populations to a new philosophy of assimilating them into white society. Over the course of Hoxie’s lifetime, a series of new government programs and regulations pressed our people to abandon their traditions, arts, spiritual practices, clothing, and other cultural markers in order to better assimilate into white American culture. 

The Dawes Act (1887) | National Archives or General Allotment Act divided the Siletz Reservation into individual pieces in an attempt to discourage the community’s traditional lifeways and to promote farming and individual property ownership. As a young man, Hoxie worked on a surveyor team as one of the “chain men,” running lengths of chain to measure and divide the Siletz Reservation into grids for individual allotments. He filed an allotment along Rock Creek, where many community members with Galice ancestry had settled after the forced removals of the 1850s. 

In 1896, Hoxie married Elizabeth “Lizzie” Smith, who was the daughter of “Molala Kate” Chantal. Molala Kate Chantal (1844?-1938) (oregonencyclopedia.org) and the half-sister of Johnny Williams (Kate and Johnny were both Hoxie’s and Lizzie’s neighbors for a time). Hoxie and Lizzie raised five children together at the turn of the century, when the population on the reservation had dropped to an all-time low of around 500 people. Hoxie worked several professions over the years, including farming, general labor, and logging. He also picked ferns and peeled chittum bark to sell for income.

Community Service and Advocacy

Hoxie Simmons was a dedicated advocate for his community. Locally, he was a delegate for political conventions, and he helped organize some of the local fairs. In 1921, he served as the Chairman of a committee that compiled a tribal roll of those who were eligible for a settlement payment. In 1922, he was chosen by the Siletz community to help with a developing legal case, led by George Wasson Sr., seeking payment for the Indian lands ceded to the U.S. government via the unratified Coast Treaty of 1855. Hoxie worked with Arthur Bensell Sr., Russell Adams, Norman Strong, and Archie Johnson to gather history and supporting evidence for their claims–and although this bold case was later rejected, their work laid a foundation for future legal challenges that were successful.     

When the community was suffering from poor living conditions in the 1930s, Hoxie appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs to share testimony and to request help. He was one of the community leaders in the 1940s who petitioned (unsuccessfully) for the Interior Secretary to allow the Siletz Tribe to manage their own affairs. He was a rallying leader in the land claims case Rogue River Tribe of Indians v United States along with George Wasson Sr. and other tribal advocates. He was one of the elders who shared testimony on behalf of his community in the land claims case Tillamook Tribe of Indians v. United States in 1955, recalling the corrupt practices that he had witnessed as a young man during the allotment period, when 80 percent of the Siletz Reservation was opened to non-Native settlement. 

Many people in the Siletz community remember colorful stories about Hoxie. He was outgoing and social, with a striking appearance and a deep, booming voice that can still be heard on surviving audio recordings today. He had a good sense of humor–for example, during his otherwise serious testimony before the Indian Claims Commission, he included a subtle fishing joke. While describing how the plentiful salmon runs along Rock Creek had sustained his family when his children were young, Hoxie reported that his son used to “catch hundreds and catch hundreds” of salmon before breakfast–and then, without breaking composure, he clarified, “--that is, fifty.” [1]

Language and Cultural Expertise

Hoxie Simmons is remembered as an authority on Tal-dash-dvn  (Galice), which he learned from his mother and other family members. He likely also heard Daa-kuu-be’ (Applegate) in his childhood home from his stepfather. These two related forms of our language were spoken in southern Oregon along Galice Creek and the Applegate River, in the Upper Rogue River area northwest of present-day towns like Grants Pass and Ashland. Galice and Applegate are part of what is sometimes called the eastern dialect of Nuu-wee-ya'. 

Hoxie had extensive knowledge about the culture and history of the Upper Rogue River area, where the easternmost speakers of Nuu-wee-ya’ lived until their removal to reservations. He knew the locations of ancestral villages along Galice Creek, as well as genealogies, traditions, stories, and language of the people who lived there. He could explain the historical relationships and distinctions between Galice and neighboring groups like Applegate, Illinois, Lower Rogue, Shasta, Takelma, and Klamath, preserving memories of the past. Some of Hoxie’s descendants also remember him for his knowledge of traditional dream interpretations. 

He was a good singer who knew many songs in our language, and he could sing them without a drum to keep the tempo. He was also trained as a traditional storyteller, and he could recite a large volume of Galice stories, each 20 to 30 minutes long, from memory. The linguist Melville Jacobs filled about 500 notebook pages with Hoxie’s stories in the 1930s. Hoxie was also visited by non-Native researchers such as John Marr, John Harrington, Harry Hoijer, and Morris Swadesh.

Hoxie cherished the knowledge he had learned from his elders, and he passed on what he knew to younger generations. One of Hoxie’s grandsons, Frank Simmons, remembered that as a child, Hoxie would take him out into the fields to teach him. Frank said that Hoxie would start weeping at times when he sang the old songs, because they made him remember the previous generations and all that they had lost.

Legacy

Hoxie spent his final years in the home of his daughter, Pearl (Simmons) Rilatos, living to see many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He kept a little chair next to his for any young visitors who came by, and he would patiently sit with them and let them talk. He always gave a piece of fruit and a can of pop to any children who visited him–many Siletz kids learned about this and would visit for this reason. Hoxie passed away in 1963 and is buried in the Paul Washington Cemetery in Siletz. He has many descendants who became leaders and caretakers in the Siletz community.

Most of what we know today about Galice language and history comes from Hoxie Simmons. His work with linguists has helped make the Galice dialect one of the best-documented forms of Nuu-wee-ya’, although it is still waiting to be better studied. One insight that Hoxie shared is that in mother’s home village along Galice Creek in southern Oregon, many neighboring communities were able to understand one another even though they spoke different dialects of our language. This perspective, ignored for many years by non-Native researchers, has been valuable to us in the present-day in understanding the nuances of Nuu-wee-ya’ as it developed across the region. 

[1] Wilkinson, Charles. The People Are Dancing Again. University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 2010.

Works Cited and Consulted

Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. “Skookum Tillicum: The Strong People of Siletz.” Pacific Media Productions, Newport, Oregon, 2002.

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

Gray, Dennis. “The Takelma and their Athabaskan Kin: an Ethnographic Synthesis of Southwestern Oregon.” Oregon State University, 1985.

Hoijer, Harry. “Galice Athapaskan: A Grammatical Sketch.” International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol 32, No 4, Oct 1966. 

“Hoxie Simmons Death Certificate.” Oregon State Archives, Death Records, 1864-1967. Salem, Oregon. Accessed May 15, 2024 through ancestry.com

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

Jacobs, Melville. “An Historical Event Text from a Galice Athabaskan in Southern Oregon.” International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol 34, No 3, Oct 1968.

Lincoln County Leader. “Lincoln County Fair Board Holds Meeting.” Aug 12, 1921. Toledo, Oregon. 

Lincoln County Leader. “Siletz” news column. Feb 17, 1922. Toledo, Oregon. (George Wasson court case)

Lincoln County Leader. “Siletz” news column. June 20, 1919. Toledo, Oregon (fair committee appointment)

Lincoln County Leader. “Siletz” news column. May 20, 1921. Toledo, Oregon (tribal roll committee)

Lincoln County Leader. “Siletz” election board appointments. Jan 12, 1906. Toledo, Oregon.

Mills, Elaine L., ed. “A Guide to the Fieldnotes: Native American History, Language, and Culture of Alaska / Northwest Coast.” The Papers of John P. Harrington in the Smithsonian Institution 1907-1957, Volume One. Kraus International Publications. Millwood, NY, 1981.

Morning Oregonian. “Lincoln County for Hermann.” April 6, 1904. Portland, Oregon.

“Samuel Nelson Hauxhurst.” Early Oregonians Database, Oregon State Archives. Accessed Feb 22, 2024. Oregon Secretary of State Archives Division: Early Oregonian Person Profile

Siletz News. “STAHS Spends Afternoon Learning about an Ancestor of Simmons.” November 2019. Siletz, Oregon. 

United States Federal Census, 1900-1950. Census Place: Siletz, Lincoln, Oregon. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed May 15, 2024 through ancestry.com

Wilkinson, Charles. The People Are Dancing Again. University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 2010