The Cayuse are a Native American tribe in what is now the state of
Oregon in the United States. The Cayuse tribe shares a reservation and
government in northeastern Oregon with the Umatilla and the Walla
Walla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation. The reservation is located near Pendleton, Oregon, at the
base of the Blue Mountains.The Cayuse called themselves the Liksiyu in
the Cayuse language. Originally located in present-day northeastern
Oregon and southeastern Washington, they lived adjacent to territory
occupied by the Nez Perce and had close associations with them. Like
the Plains tribes, the Cayuse placed a high premium on warfare and
were skilled horsemen. They developed the Cayuse pony. The Cayuse
ceded most of their traditional territory to the United States in 1855
by treaty and moved to the Umatilla Reservation, where they have
formed a confederated tribe.According to Haruo Aoki (1998), the Cayuse
called themselves "Liksiyu" in their language. Their name Cayuse was
derived from the French word "cailloux," meaning stones or rocks,
adopted by early French Canadian trappers of the area. The name may
have referred to the rocky area the tribe inhabited or it may have
been an imprecise rendering of the name they called themselves. The
tribe has been closely associated with the neighboring Nez Percé and
Walla Walla. The Cayuse language is an isolate, independent of the
neighboring Sahaptin-speaking peoples. The Cayuse population was about
500 in the eighteenth century.The Cayuse were a seminomadic tribe and
maintained summer and winter villages on the Snake, Tucannon, Walla
Walla, and Touchet rivers in Washington, and along the Umatilla, Grand
Ronde, Burnt, Powder, John Day River, and from the Blue Mountains to
the Deschutes River in Oregon. Historian Verne Ray has identified
seventy-six traditional Cayuse Village sites, most temporary, seasonal
sites; five separate villages in the Walla Walla Valley and seven
Cayuse Bands scattered throughout Eastern Oregon and Washington. The
Walla Walla River Cayuse Band was called the Pa'cxapu. Other sources
name only three distinct regional bands within the Cayuse at the time;
two centered on the Umatilla River; the third on the Walla Walla
River. Cayuse people Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter