An ilkak'mana called Multnomah once lived near the river where New England merchants chopped Portland, Oregon, out of a Douglas-fir forest. With a bow and shield slung behind his back, the chief stood imperiously in Hermon A. MacNeil's 1904 statuette inscribed at its base with his name. Nearby tribes preserved Multnomah in words, but years later many Portlanders believed he was a fake because people who were not Natives romanticized, and denied Indigenous history. This article presents the life of Multnomah and his role to the Indigenous history. It also recounts the history of Indigenous tribes in Portland. (Contains 4 figures and 45 notes.)