At a reading I was at a while ago, the author asked the crowd if they knew the name of the people who lived here before civilization. More than a few people responded that “no one lived here,” and that, “Willamette (as in the Willamette river that runs through Portland) means ‘the valley of sickness and death.'” I don’t remember the first time I heard this myth, but I can tell you that I never questioned it. In fact, I’ve even helped spread it. I never seemed to think twice about it, it simply made sense; white people do stupid things like move into mosquito infested valleys. But when the author asked, and I saw so many people respond with this claim, I really began to wonder just where the heck it came from!
Continue reading Willamette; The Valley of an 8,000 Year Old Culture