Yakama, North American tribe of the Sahaptian language family and of the Plateau region culture area.

Formerly called the Yakima, they once occupied considerable territory on the Yakima and Columbia rivers in eastern Washington. They now live with other tribes on the Yakama Indian Reservation in the south-central part of the state, near the city of Yakima.

They call themselves Waptailmim ("people of the narrows") in allusion to their principal village, which was situated at the narrows of the Yakima River, near present-day Union Gap.

Originally, they were salmon fishers, root diggers, berry pickers, hunters, and active traders. Occasionally they crossed the Rocky Mountains to hunt buffalo on the Great Plains.

Their first contact with European settlers was through traders and missionaries.

In 1855 the Yakama, along with many other tribes, signed a treaty with the United States that ceded most of their land to the federal government, guaranteed their fishing rights, and forbade them to own slaves.

Isaac Stevens, who was governor of the Washington territory, negotiated the treaty, and placed Native Americans on reservations in order to give land to white settlers.

The Yakama's dissatisfaction with the treaty led to the Yakima Wars (1855-1858). The U.S. army defeated the Yakama and their allies in the Battle of Four Lakes in 1858, and the Treaty of 1855 was then implemented.

The chief occupations of the modern Yakama are farming and livestock raising.

In 1990, 7850 people in the United States claimed to be of Yakama descent.

In 1993 the tribal council voted to change the spelling of the tribe's name from "Yakima" to "Yakama," the spelling that appears on the 1855 treaty.

This bag is an example of the Plateau beadwork done by the Yakama people in the early 20th century. It is brown velvet with cotton and wool trade cloth, buckskin, and glass beads. The two horses depicted are an Appaloosa and a pinto. The bag was used to carry the bones used in a Native American gambling game called slahal, the bone or stick game. Ray Fowler/Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum

"Yakama," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.