MillArd (miller) Collins

Miller Collins was a Mii-k’wvn-nu (Mikwanu) speaker of Tututni with ancestry from the Lower Rogue River area along the southern Oregon coast. He spent most of his life on the Siletz Reservation, where he worked as a logger and general laborer. Miller was a source of knowledge about the history of the Rogue River region and southern Oregon coast, including the events surrounding the Rogue River Indian Wars. Archival language materials from Miller and his family members have helped preserve and revitalize Tututni, the northern dialect of Nuu-wee-ya’.

Family Origins

Millard Collins (who went by Miller) was born on the Siletz Reservation in 1883. His parents were George Collins and Maggie (James) Collins, who met and married on the Coast (Siletz) Reservation after their communities were removed from their homelands in southern Oregon. 

Miller’s father, George Collins, was born around 1845. He came from the village of Mii-k’wvn-nuu-dvn, which was located along the Rogue River about 18 miles upstream from the river’s mouth. Miller’s father was ten or eleven years old when his family’s village was burned by American soldiers on March 26, 1856. Later that year, George and his family were transported from Port Orford to the Coast (Siletz) Reservation. Miller’s mother, Maggie, was born around 1847 into the Sv-k’wee-che’ (Sixes) band, which had lived along the Oregon coast between present-day Port Orford and the Sixes River.

Miller’s father George does not appear on the Siletz Indian Census Rolls after 1887, when Miller was about four years old. This could mean that George passed away (there were many disease epidemics on the reservation at this time), or that he left the reservation and didn’t return. Miller’s mother Maggie remarried two more times in Miller’s childhood, but both marriages ended in divorce. Miller had an older brother, Edward Collins, who was born in 1881. An orphaned cousin named Chauncey David or Chauncey Adams lived with Maggie and the boys off and on. 

Miller was close with his Collins relatives throughout his life, especially his uncle, Peter Collins, and Peter’s wife, Ada (Jim) Collins. Peter and Ada carried forward their knowledge of Nuu-wee-ya’ and their traditions to their descendants in a time period when many of our people felt pressured to assimilate into white society. Eddie Collins, a grandson of Ada and Peter, remembered Ada as a proud woman who spoke Nuu-wee-ya’ all the time without caring what other people thought. The Collins family kept a traditional sweathouse, located along a creek near their home.

Miller was also a nephew of Jim Bensell (who was Ida Bensell’s husband and the younger brother of George and Peter Collins) and a nephew of Jakie Johnson.

School, Work, and Travel

Miller got into mischief from time to time as a young man. When he was about 14 years old, he and two friends (Tipton Shellhead and Alec Spencer) broke into the government store at the Siletz agency and stole some goods. The boys were caught and sent to the local Toledo jail until they were released on bail; the charges against them were later dismissed. 

In 1898, Miller and his brother Edward were enrolled at the Salem Indian School (later renamed Chemawa Indian School (oregonencyclopedia.org)). In their younger years, they may have attended the Siletz Indian Boarding school, where most school-age children on the reservation went. By the 1890s, it was becoming common to send children away to Salem for school. Boarding schools were intended to prepare Indian children to assimilate into white society, enforcing a strict “English-only” environment and punishing students if they spoke their family languages at school.

In school, Miller would have learned vocational skills like farming and carpentry and would have helped maintain the school grounds. Many students also participated in athletics and music programs. Clippings from The Weekly Chemawa American share that Miller composed songs at school, and that he was one of the best public speakers in his grade. (Many years later, the linguist John Harrington also described Miller as an elegant speaker). Miller attended school with other Siletz students including Art Bensell Sr, Archie Johnson, Julian Jim, Lena Charlie, Clara Depoe, Tipton Shellhead, Alec Spencer, Louis Klamath, and Miller’s cousin Alvena Collins.

After graduating and returning to Siletz, Miller found work as a logger and also performed general labor on local farms. At one point, Miller played on a baseball team with other young men in Siletz, posting a challenge in the Lincoln County Leader for any willing teams in Lincoln County to come play against them. Besides Miller, the other team members were his brother Ed, his cousin Chauncey David, Frank Lane, Frank Micek, Clay Arden, Roy Butterfield, Louis Klamath, Joe Dick, and Roy Bryant. 

When Miller was about 20 years old, he married Susia West, the daughter of John and Nettie (Jim) West. Susie was a speaker of Galice, and Miller adopted Galice as his primary mode of speech in their home. Years later when Miller was interviewed by linguists, he sometimes needed prompting from his aunt Ada Collins and cousin Daisy (Collins) Fuller to help him remember the Mikwanu forms of words because they weren't as fresh in his mind. The linguist Morris Swadesh recorded Miller in 1953, and Ada’s and Daisy’s voices can be heard in the background as the three family members consult each other. He was also recorded in 1962 by Joe Pierce.

The linguist John Harrington interviewed Miller Collins in 1942 and described him as a Shaker preacher who traveled to Oregon, California, and Alaska. It’s difficult to find records about this part of Miller’s life, but many of our people belonged to the Indian Shaker Church in the early twentieth century and would visit other churches in the region. Miller had close family ties to the Indian Shakers–his uncle, Jakie Johnson, was the leader who established the Indian Shaker Church in Siletz. Miller was also related to Ida Bensell, one of the longest-attending Siletz members. Miller lived for a time with his cousin Cora and her husband, Whitney Samuels (Ida Bensell’s younger brother), who were both involved members of the church.

As a resident of Siletz, one of the most likely Shaker churches Miller would have visited was the Smith River Indian Shaker Church in northern California. Other communities in the region that he might have visited include Warm Springs, Hupa, Klamath Falls, and Johnson’s Landing. He might also have visited Mud Bay, Washington, where many Shakers made pilgrimages. During church meetings, different people would be picked to give the sermons, and if Miller was a good speaker, it isn’t hard to imagine him delivering a message to a congregation. Our people spoke and prayed in Nuu-wee-ya’ during these meetings in a time period when speaking Native languages in public was discouraged or even punished.

Ancestral Knowledge 

Miller was a source of knowledge about the southern Oregon coast and Rogue River region, where his parents and other relatives had lived as children in the 1840s and 1850s prior to removal. He could give the names in Nuu-wee-ya’ of places like Elk River, Port Orford, Battle Rock, and Humbug Mountain and explain the origins of certain place names. He knew about river travel and what types of canoes should be used for different waterways. He could also describe the names and locations of villages along the Rogue River and the people who lived there. Miller and his aunt, Ada Collins, worked together to share some of this knowledge with John Harrington in 1942. 

Miller could also describe the historical events surrounding the Rogue River Indian Wars and the stories of people who were removed to the Coast (Siletz) Reservation in 1856. He could share which people were transferred north along the coast via Port Orford and which people came to the reservation up through the Willamette Valley and via the Grand Ronde Reservation. He could also describe happenings from the early days of the Coast Reservation. He helped preserve this history in his community many years before non-Native writers were publishing history books that included Native perspectives. 

In 1950, Miller and Ada used their knowledge of the Siletz community’s history to help determine who should receive cash payments from the land claims case Alcea Band of Tillamooks v. United States. This case was led by descendents of the Tillamook, Coquille, Tututni, and Chetco people and sought payment for Indian lands ceded to the U.S. government by the unratified 1855 Coast Treaty. It was the most successful of several western Oregon land claims cases in the mid-20th century.

Legacy

Miller passed away in 1964 at age 80, and he is buried in the Paul Washington Cemetery in Siletz. He spent his elder years living in the home of his aunt, Ada. Although he had no known surviving descendants, he knew and spent time with Ada’s grandchildren, Eddie Collins, William Towner, Jr, George Towner, and Phyllis Collins, along with many other relatives and friends in Siletz.

Miller’s work with linguists has played a special role in the revitalization of Tututni, which is sometimes referred to as the northern dialect of Nuu-wee-ya’. He recorded over 1000 Mikwanu Tututni words and phrases with visiting researchers; today these records are the primary source of information that we have about this form of our language. Several decades after Miller’s passing, Gilbert Towner (a relative of Miller) came across archival recordings of Miller speaking in Nuu-wee-ya’ and was encouraged to study and teach his family’s language. In the 2000s, Gilbert consulted these recordings to develop vocabulary cards and other teaching materials to help pass on Nuu-wee-ya’ to younger generations in the community. 

Works Cited and Consulted

“Chemawa Student Directory.” Chemawa Indian School Research Collection. Willamette University Archives & Special Collections. Salem, Oregon.

“Death of Aged Peter Collins, Siletz Tribe Member, Recalls Past.” June 29, 1940. Corvallis Gazette. Corvallis, Oregon.

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

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

Lincoln County Leader. “Local Notes.” Feb 11, 1897. Toledo, Oregon.

Lincoln County Leader. “Our Siletz Friends.” May 20, 1904. Toledo, Oregon.

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.

McCowen, Karen. “Finding the Words.” Oct 06, 2002. Eugene Register-Guard. Eugene, Oregon.

“Mii-k'wvn-nu.” J.P. Harrington Collection (1942). Nuu-da’ Mv-ne’ Indigenous Language Digital Archive. ILDA Accessed Dec 30, 2024.

“Mii-k'wvn-nuu-dvn.”  J.P. Harrington Collection (1942). Nuu-da’ Mv-ne’ Indigenous Language Digital Archive. ILDA Accessed Dec 30, 2024.

“Millard Collins Social Security Numerical Identification.” United States Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007. Accessed May 20, 2024 through familysearch.com. 

“Miller Collins Death Certificate.” Oregon State Archives, Death Records, 1864-1967. Salem, Oregon. Accessed Nov 15, 2024 through ancestry.com

Papers of John Peabody Harrington. Native American History, Language, and Culture of Alaska/Northwest Coast, Box 59-65, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

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

“Susia West Death Certificate.” Oregon State Archives, Death Records, 1864-1967. Salem, Oregon. Accessed Nov 15, 2024 through ancestry.com

Swadesh, Morris. “On the Penutian Vocabulary Survey.” International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol 20, No. 2, April 1954.

“Tribe Argues Payoff Boundaries.” March 14, 1950. The Oregon Daily Journal. Portland, Oregon.

United States Federal Census, 1900. Census Place: North Salem, Marion, Oregon. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed Nov 15, 2024 through ancestry.com

United States Federal Census, 1910-1950. Census Place: Siletz, Lincoln, Oregon. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed Nov 15, 2024 through ancestry.com

The Weekly Chemawa American. “Left Over Items from Last Issue.” Feb 21, 1902. Salem, Oregon.

The Weekly Chemawa American. “Local and Personal.” Jan 10, 1902. Salem, Oregon.

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

.