THE CHINOOKS constitute the fourth division of the Columbian group.

Originally the name was restricted to a tribe on the north bank of the

Columbia between Gray Bay and the ocean; afterwards, from a similarity

in language and customs, it was applied to all the bands on both sides

of the river, from its mouth to the Dalles.[338] It is employed in this

work to designate all the Oregon tribes west of the Cascade Range,

southward to the Rogue River or Umpqua Mountains. This family lies

between the Sound Indians on the north and the Californian group on the

south, including in addition to the tribes of the Columbia, those of the

Willamette Valley and the Coast. All closely resemble each other in

manners and customs, having also a general resemblance to the northern

families already described, springing from their methods of obtaining

food; and although probably without linguistic affinities, except along

the Columbia River, they may be consistently treated as one family--the

last of the great coast or fish-eating divisions of the Columbian group.

Among the prominent tribes, or nations of the Chinook family may be

mentioned the following: the _Watlalas_ or upper Chinooks, including the

bands on the Columbia from the Cascades to the Cowlitz, and on the lower

Willamette; the lower Chinooks from the Cowlitz to the Pacific

comprising the _Wakiakums_ and _Chinooks_ on the north bank, and the

_Cathlamets_ and _Clatsops_ on the south; the _Calapooyas_ occupying the

Valley of the Willamette, and the _Clackamas_ on one of its chief

tributaries of the same name; with the _Killamooks_ and _Umpquas_ who

live between the Coast Range[339] and the ocean.

With respect to the present condition of these nations, authorities

agree in speaking of them as a squalid and poverty-stricken race, once

numerous and powerful, now few and weak. Their country has been settled

by whites much more thickly than regions farther north, and they have

rapidly disappeared before the influx of strangers. Whole tribes have

been exterminated by war and disease, and in the few miserable remnants

collected on reservations or straggling about the Oregon towns, no

trace is apparent of the independent, easy-living bands of the remote

past.[340] It is however to be noted that at no time since this region

has been known to Europeans has the Indian population been at all in

proportion to the supporting capacity of the land, while yet in a state

of nature, with its fertile soil and well-stocked streams and forests.

[Sidenote: CHINOOK PHYSIQUE.]

In physique the Chinook can not be said to differ materially from the

Nootka. In stature the men rarely exceed five feet six inches, and the

women five feet. Both sexes are thick-set, but as a rule loosely built,

although in this respect they had doubtless degenerated when described

by most travelers. Their legs are bowed and otherwise deformed by a

constant squatting position in and out of their canoes. Trained by

constant exposure with slight clothing, they endure cold and hunger

better than the white man, but to continued muscular exertion they soon

succumb. Physically they improve in proportion to their distance from

the Columbia and its fisheries; the Calapooyas on the upper Willamette,

according to early visitors, presenting the finest specimens.[341]

Descending from the north along the coast, Hyperboreans, Columbians,

and Californians gradually assume a more dusky hue as we proceed

southward. The complexion of the Chinooks may be called a trifle darker

than the natives of the Sound, and of Vancouver; though nothing is more

difficult than from the vague expressions of travelers to determine

shades of color.[342] Points of resemblance have been noted by many

observers between the Chinook and Mongolian physiognomy, consisting

chiefly in the eyes turned obliquely upward at the outer corner. The

face is broad and round, the nose flat and fat, with large nostrils, the

mouth wide and thick-lipped, teeth irregular and much worn, eyes black,

dull and expressionless; the hair generally black and worn long, and the

beard carefully plucked out; nevertheless, their features are often

regular.[343]

[Sidenote: HEAD-FLATTENING PHENOMENON.]

It is about the mouth of the Columbia that the custom of flattening the

head seems to have originated. Radiating from this centre in all

directions, and becoming less universal and important as the distance is

increased, the usage terminates on the south with the nations which I

have attached to the Chinook family, is rarely found east of the Cascade

Range, but extends, as we have seen, northward through all the coast

families, although it is far from being held in the same esteem in the

far north as in its apparently original centre. The origin of this

deformity is unknown. All we can do is to refer it to that strange

infatuation incident to humanity which lies at the root of fashion and

ornamentation, and which even in these later times civilization is not

able to eradicate. As Alphonso the Wise regretted not having been

present at the creation--for then he would have had the world to suit

him--so different ages and nations strive in various ways to remodel and

improve the human form. Thus the Chinese lady compresses the feet, the

European the waist, and the Chinook the head. Slaves are not allowed to

indulge in this extravagance, and as this class are generally of

foreign tribes or families, the work of ethnologists in classifying

skulls obtained by travelers, and thereby founding theories of race is

somewhat complicated; but the difficulty is lessened by the fact that

slaves receive no regular burial, and hence all skulls belonging to

bodies from native cemeteries are known to be Chinook.[344] The Chinook

ideal of facial beauty is a straight line from the end of the nose to

the crown of the head. The flattening of the skull is effected by

binding the infant to its cradle immediately after birth, and keeping it

there from three months to a year. The simplest form of cradle is a

piece of board or plank on which the child is laid upon its back with

the head slightly raised by a block of wood. Another piece of wood, or

bark, or leather, is then placed over the forehead and tied to the plank

with strings which are tightened more and more each day until the skull

is shaped to the required pattern. Space is left for lateral expansion;

and under ordinary circumstances the child's head is not allowed to

leave its position until the process is complete. The body and limbs are

also bound to the cradle, but more loosely, by bandages, which are

sometimes removed for cleansing purposes. Moss or soft bark is generally

introduced between the skin and the wood, and in some tribes comfortable

pads, cushions, or rabbit-skins are employed. The piece of wood which

rests upon the forehead is in some cases attached to the cradle by

leather hinges, and instances are mentioned where the pressure is

created by a spring. A trough or canoe-shaped cradle, dug out from a

log, often takes the place of the simple board, and among the rich this

is elaborately worked, and ornamented with figures and shells. The child

while undergoing this process, with its small black eyes jammed half out

of their sockets, presents a revolting picture. Strangely enough,

however, the little prisoner seems to feel scarcely any pain, and

travelers almost universally state that no perceptible injury is done to

the health or brain. As years advance the head partially but not

altogether resumes its natural form, and among aged persons the effects

are not very noticeable. As elsewhere, the personal appearance of the

women is of more importance than that of the men, therefore the female

child is subjected more rigorously and longer to the compressing

process, than her brothers. Failure properly to mould the cranium of her

offspring gives to the Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy and

undutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of

their young companions;[345] so despotic is fashion. A practice which

renders the Chinook more hideous than the compression of his skull is

that of piercing or slitting the cartilage of the nose and ears, and

inserting therein long strings of beads or hiaqua shells, the latter

being prized above all other ornaments. Tattooing seems to have been

practiced, but not extensively, taking usually the form of lines of dots

pricked into the arms, legs, and cheeks with pulverized charcoal.

Imitation tattooing, with the bright-colored juices of different

berries, was a favorite pastime with the women, and neither sex could

resist the charms of salmon-grease and red clay. In later times,

however, according to Swan, the custom of greasing and daubing the body

has been to a great extent abandoned. Great pains is taken in dressing

the hair, which is combed, parted in the middle, and usually allowed to

hang in long tresses down the back, but often tied up in a queue by the

women and girls, or braided so as to hang in two tails tied with

strings.[346]

[Sidenote: CHINOOK DRESS.]

For dress, skins were much more commonly used in this region than among

other coast families; particularly the skins of the smaller animals, as

the rabbit and woodrat. These skins, dressed and often painted, were

sewed together so as to form a robe or blanket similar in form and use

to the more northern blanket of wool, which, as well as a similar

garment of goose-skin with the feathers on, was also made and worn by

the Chinooks, though not in common use among them. They prefer to go

naked when the weather permits. Skins of larger animals, as the deer and

elk, are also used for clothing, and of the latter is made a kind of

arrow-proof armor for war; another coat of mail being made of sticks

bound together. Females almost universally wear a skirt of cedar

bark-fibre, fastened about the waist and hanging to the knees. This

garment is woven for a few inches at the top, but the rest is simply a

hanging fringe, not very effectually concealing the person. A substitute

for this petticoat in some tribes is a square piece of leather attached

to a belt in front; and in others a long strip of deer-skin passed

between the thighs and wound about the waist. A fringed garment, like

that described, is also sometimes worn about the shoulders; in cold

weather a fur robe is wrapped about the body from the hips to the

armpits, forming a close and warm vest; and over all is sometimes thrown

a cape, or fur blanket, like that of the men, varying in quality and

value with the wealth of the wearer. The best are made of strips of

sea-otter skin, woven with grass or cedar bark, so that the fur shows on

both sides. Chiefs and men of wealth wear rich robes of otter and other

valuable furs. The conical hat woven of grass and bark, and painted in

black and white checks or with rude figures, with or without a brim, and

fastened under the chin, is the only covering for the head.[347]

[Sidenote: DWELLINGS OF THE CHINOOKS.]

The Chinooks moved about less for the purpose of obtaining a supply of

food, than many others, even of the coast families, yet the accumulation

of filth or--a much stronger motive--of fleas, generally forced them to

take down their winter dwellings each spring, preserving the materials

for re-erection on the same or another spot. The best houses were built

of cedar planks attached by bark-fibre cords to a frame, which consisted

of four corner, and two central posts and a ridge pole. The planks of

the sides and ends were sometimes perpendicular, but oftener laid

horizontally, overlapping here in clapboard fashion as on the roof. In

some localities the roof and even the whole structure was of cedar bark.

These dwellings closely resembled those farther north, but were somewhat

inferior in size, twenty-five to seventy-five feet long, and fifteen to

twenty-five feet wide, being the ordinary dimensions. On the Columbia

they were only four or five feet high at the eaves, but an equal depth

was excavated in the ground, while on the Willamette the structure was

built on the surface. The door was only just large enough to admit the

body, and it was a favorite fancy of the natives to make it represent

the mouth of an immense head painted round it. Windows there were none,

nor chimney; one or more fireplaces were sunk in the floor, and the

smoke escaped by the cracks, a plank in the roof being sometimes moved

for the purpose. Mats were spread on the floor and raised berths were

placed on the sides, sometimes in several tiers. Partitions of plank or

matting separated the apartments of the several families. Smaller

temporary huts, and the permanent homes of the poorer Indians were built

in various forms, of sticks, covered with bark, rushes, or skins. The

interior and exterior of all dwellings were in a state of chronic

filth.[348]

[Sidenote: FISHERIES OF THE CHINOOKS.]

The salmon fisheries of the Columbia are now famous throughout the

world. Once every year innumerable multitudes of these noble fish enter

the river from the ocean to deposit their spawn. Impelled by instinct,

they struggle to reach the extreme limits of the stream, working their

way in blind desperation to the very sources of every little branch,

overcoming seeming impossibilities, and only to fulfill their destiny

and die; for if they escape human enemies, they either kill themselves

in their mad efforts to leap impassable falls, or if their efforts are

crowned with success, they are supposed never to return to the ocean.

This fishery has always been the chief and an inexhaustible source of

food for the Chinooks, who, although skillful fishermen, have not been

obliged to invent a great variety of methods or implements for the

capture of the salmon, which rarely if ever have failed them. Certain

ceremonies must, however, be observed with the first fish taken; his

meat must be cut only with the grain, and the hearts of all caught must

be burned or eaten, and on no account be thrown into the water or be

devoured by a dog. With these precautions there is no reason to suppose

that the Chinook would ever lack a supply of fish. The salmon begin to

run in April, but remain several weeks in the warmer waters near the

mouth, and are there taken while in their best condition, by the Chinook

tribe proper, with a straight net of bark or roots, sometimes five

hundred feet long and fifteen feet deep, with floats and sinkers. One

end of the net is carried out into the river at high water, and drawn in

by the natives on the shore, who with a mallet quiet the fish and

prevent them from jumping over the net and escaping. Farther up,

especially at the Cascades and at the falls of the Willamette, salmon

are speared by natives standing on the rocks or on planks placed for the

purpose; scooped up in small dip-nets; or taken with a large unbaited

hook attached by a socket and short line to a long pole. There is some

account of artificial channels of rocks at these places, but such

expedients were generally not needed, since, beside those caught by the

Chinooks, such numbers were cast on the rocks by their own efforts to

leap the falls, that the air for months was infected by the decaying

mass; and many of these in a palatable state of decay were gathered by

the natives for food. Hooks, spears, and nets were sometimes rubbed with

the juice of certain plants supposed to be attractive to the fish. Once

taken, the salmon were cleaned by the women, dried in the sun and smoked

in the lodges; then they were sometimes powdered fine between two

stones, before packing in skins or mats for winter use. The heads were

always eaten as favorite portions during the fishing season. Next to the

salmon the sturgeon was ranked as a source of food. This fish, weighing

from two hundred to five hundred pounds, was taken by a baited hook,

sunk about twenty feet, and allowed to float down the current; when

hooked, the sturgeon rises suddenly and is dispatched by a spear, lifted

into the canoe by a gaff-hook, or towed ashore. The Chinooks do not

attack the whale, but when one is accidentally cast upon the shore, more

or less decayed, a season of feasting ensues and the native heart is

glad. Many smaller varieties of fish are taken by net, spear, hook, or

rake, but no methods are employed meriting special description. Wild

fowl are snared or shot; elk and deer are shot with arrows or taken in

a carefully covered pit, dug in their favorite haunts. As to the methods

of taking rabbits and woodrats, whose skins are said to have been so

extensively used for clothing, I find no information. Nuts, berries,

wild fruits and roots are all used as food, and to some extent preserved

for winter. The Wapato, a bulbous root, compared by some to the potatoe

and turnip, was the aboriginal staple, and was gathered by women wading

in shallow ponds, and separating the root with their toes.[349] Boiling

in wooden kettles by means of hot stones, was the usual manner of

cooking, but roasting on sticks stuck in the sand near the fire was also

common. Clam-shells and a few rude platters and spoons of wood were in

use, but the fingers, with the hair for a napkin, were found much more

convenient table ware.[350] In all their personal habits the Chinooks

are disgustingly filthy, although said to be fond of baths for health

and pleasure. The Clatsops, as reported by one visitor, form a partial

exception to this rule, as they occasionally wash the hands and

face.[351]

[Sidenote: WEAPONS OF THE CHINOOKS.]

Their chief weapons are bows and arrows, the former of which is made of

cedar, or occasionally, as it is said, of horn and bone; its elasticity

is increased by a covering of sinew glued on. The arrow-head is of bone,

flint, or copper, and the shaft consists of a short piece of some hard

wood, and a longer one of a lighter material. The bows are from two and

a half to four feet long; five styles, differing in form and curve, are

pictured by Schoolcraft. Another weapon in common use was a double-edged

wooden broad-sword, or sharp club, two and a half or three feet long;

spears, tomahawks, and scalping knives are mentioned by many travelers,

but not described, and it is doubtful if either were ever used by these

aborigines.[352] I have already spoken of their thick arrow-proof

elk-skin armor, and of a coat of short sticks bound together with grass;

a bark helmet is also employed of sufficient strength to ward off arrows

and light blows. Ross states that they also carry a circular elk-skin

shield about eighteen inches in diameter. Although by no means a

blood-thirsty race, the Chinook tribes were frequently involved in

quarrels, resulting, it is said, from the abduction of women more

frequently than from other causes. They, like almost all other American

tribes, make a free use of war paint, laying it on grotesquely and in

bright colors; but unlike most other nations, they never resorted to

treachery, surprise, night attacks, or massacre of women and children.

Fighting was generally done upon the water. When efforts to settle

amicably their differences, always the first expedient, failed, a party

of warriors, covered from head to foot with armor, and armed with bows,

arrows, and bludgeons, was paddled by women to the enemies' village,

where diplomatic efforts for peace were renewed. If still unsuccessful,

the women were removed from danger, and the battle commenced, or, if the

hour was late, fighting was postponed till the next morning. As their

armor was arrow-proof and as they rarely came near enough for

hand-to-hand conflict, the battles were of short duration and

accompanied by little bloodshed; the fall of a few warriors decided the

victory, the victors gained their point in the original dispute, the

vanquished paid some damages, and the affair ended.[353]

[Sidenote: IMPLEMENTS, MANUFACTURES, BOATS.]

Troughs dug out of one piece of cedar, and woven baskets served this

people for dishes, and were used for every purpose. The best baskets

were of silk grass or fine fibre, of a conical form, woven in colors so

closely as to hold liquids, and with a capacity of from one to six

gallons. Coarser baskets were made of roots and rushes, rude spoons of

ash-wood, and circular mats did duty as plates. Wapato diggers used a

curved stick with handle of horn; fish-hooks and spears were made of

wood and bone in a variety of forms; the wing-bone of the crane supplied

a needle. With regard to their original cutting instruments, by which

trees were felled for canoes or for planks which were split off by

wedges, there is much uncertainty; since nearly all authorities state

that before their intercourse with Europeans, chisels made of 'old

files,' were employed, and driven by an oblong stone or a spruce-knot

mallet. Pipe-bowls were of hard wood fitted to an elder stem, but the

best ones, of stone elegantly carved, were of Haidah manufacture and

obtained from the north.[354] To kindle a fire the Chinook twirls

rapidly between the palms a cedar stick, the point of which is pressed

into a small hollow in a flat piece of the same material, the sparks

falling on finely-frayed bark. Sticks are commonly carried for the

purpose, improving with use. Besides woven baskets, matting is the chief

article of Chinook manufacture. It is made by the women by placing side

by side common bulrushes or flags about three feet long, tying the ends,

and passing strings of twisted rushes through the whole length,

sometimes twenty or thirty feet, about four inches apart, by means of a

bone needle.[355]

Chinook boats do not differ essentially, either in material, form, or

method of manufacture, from those already described as in use among the

Sound family. Always dug out of a single log of the common white cedar,

they vary in length from ten to fifty feet, and in form according to the

waters they are intended to navigate or the freight they are to carry.

In these canoes lightness, strength, and elegance combine to make them

perfect models of water-craft. Lewis and Clarke describe four forms in

use in this region, and their description of boats, as of most other

matters connected with this people, has been taken with or without

credit by nearly all who have treated of the subject. I cannot do better

than to give their account of the largest and best boats used by the

Killamooks and other tribes on the coast outside the river. "The sides

are secured by cross-bars, or round sticks, two or three inches in

thickness, which are inserted through holes just below the gunwale, and

made fast with cords. The upper edge of the gunwale itself is about

five-eighths of an inch thick, and four or five in breadth, and folds

outwards, so as to form a kind of rim, which prevents the water from

beating into the boat. The bow and stern are about the same height, and

each provided with a comb, reaching to the bottom of the boat. At each

end, also, are pedestals, formed of the same solid piece, on which are

placed strange grotesque figures of men or animals, rising sometimes to

the height of five feet, and composed of small pieces of wood, firmly

united, with great ingenuity, by inlaying and mortising, without a spike

of any kind. The paddle is usually from four feet and a half to five

feet in length; the handle being thick for one-third of its length, when

it widens, and is hollowed and thinned on each side of the centre, which

forms a sort of rib. When they embark, one Indian sits in the stern, and

steers with a paddle, the others kneel in pairs in the bottom of the

canoe, and sitting on their heels, paddle over the gunwale next to them.

In this way they ride with perfect safety the highest waves, and venture

without the least concern in seas where other boats or seamen could not

live an instant." The women are as expert as the men in the management

of canoes.[356]

[Sidenote: CHINOOK PROPERTY AND TRADE.]

The Chinooks were always a commercial rather than a warlike people, and

are excelled by none in their shrewdness at bargaining. Before the

arrival of the Europeans they repaired annually to the region of the

Cascades and Dalles, where they met the tribes of the interior, with

whom they exchanged their few articles of trade--fish, oil, shells, and

Wapato--for the skins, roots, and grasses of their eastern neighbors.

The coming of ships to the coast gave the Chinooks the advantage in this

trade, since they controlled the traffic in beads, trinkets and weapons;

they found also in the strangers ready buyers of the skins obtained from

the interior in exchange for these articles. Their original currency or

standard of value was the hiaqua shell from the northern coast, whose

value was in proportion to its length, a fathom string of forty shells

being worth nearly double a string of fifty to the fathom. Since the

white men came, beaver-skins and blankets have been added to their

currency. Individuals were protected in their rights to personal

property, such as slaves, canoes, and implements, but they had no idea

of personal property in lands, the title to which rested in the tribe

for purposes of fishing and the chase.[357]

In decorative art this family cannot be said to hold a high place

compared with more northern nations, their only superior work being the

modeling of their canoes, and the weaving of ornamental baskets. In

carving they are far inferior to the Haidahs; the Cathlamets, according

to Lewis and Clarke, being somewhat superior to the others, or at least

more fond of the art. Their attempts at painting are exceedingly

rude.[358]

Little can be said of their system of government except that it was

eminently successful in producing peaceful and well regulated

communities. Each band or village was usually a sovereignty, nominally

ruled by a chief, either hereditary or selected for his wealth and

popularity, who exerted over his tribe influence rather than authority,

but who was rarely opposed in his measures. Sometimes a league existed,

more or less permanent, for warlike expeditions. Slight offenses against

usage--the tribal common law--were expiated by the payment of an amount

of property satisfactory to the party offended. Theft was an offense,

but the return of the article stolen removed every trace of dishonor.

Serious crimes, as the robbery of a burial-place, were sometimes

punished with death by the people, but no special authorities or

processes seem to have been employed, either for detection or

punishment.[359]

Slavery, common to all the coast families, is also practiced by the

Chinooks, but there is less difference here perhaps than elsewhere

between the condition of the slaves and the free. Obtained from without

the limits of the family, towards the south or east, by war, or more

commonly by trade, the slaves are obliged to perform all the drudgery

for their masters, and their children must remain in their parents'

condition, their round heads serving as a distinguishing mark from

freemen. But the amount of the work connected with the Chinook household

is never great, and so long as the slaves are well and strong, they are

liberally fed and well treated. True, many instances are known of slaves

murdered by the whim of a cruel and rich master, and it was not very

uncommon to kill slaves on the occasion of the death of prominent

persons, but wives and friends are also known to have been sacrificed on

similar occasions. No burial rights are accorded to slaves, and no care

taken of them in serious illness; when unable to work they are left to

die, and their bodies cast into the sea or forest as food for fish or

beast. It was not a rare occurrence for a freeman to voluntarily subject

himself to servitude in payment of a gambling-debt; nor for a slave to

be adopted into the tribe, and the privilege of head-flattening accorded

to his offspring.[360]

[Sidenote: MARITAL RELATIONS OF THE CHINOOKS.]

Not only were the Chinooks a peaceable people in their tribal

intercourse, but eminently so in their family relations. The young men

when they married brought their wives to their father's home, and thus

several generations lived amicably in their large dwellings until forced

to separate by numbers, the chief authority being exercised not by the

oldest but by the most active and useful member of the household.

Overtures for marriage were made by friends of the would-be bridegroom,

who offered a certain price, and if accepted by the maiden's parents,

the wedding ceremony was celebrated simply by an interchange and

exhibition of presents with the congratulations of invited guests. A man

might take as many wives as he could buy and support, and all lived

together without jealousy; but practically few, and those among the rich

and powerful, indulged in the luxury of more than one wife. It has been

noticed that there was often great disparity in the ages of bride and

groom, for, say the Chinooks, a very young or very aged couple lack

either the experience or the activity necessary for fighting the battles

of life. Divorce or separation is easily accomplished, but is not of

frequent occurrence. A husband can repudiate his wife for infidelity, or

any cause of dissatisfaction, and she can marry again. Some cases are

known of infidelity punished with death. Barrenness is common, the

birth of twins rare, and families do not usually exceed two children.

Childbirth, as elsewhere among aboriginals, is accompanied with but

little inconvenience, and children are often nursed until three or five

years old. They are carried about on the mother's back until able to

walk; at first in the head-flattening cradle, and later in wicker

baskets. Unmarried women have not the slightest idea of chastity, and

freely bestow their favors in return for a kindness, or for a very small

consideration in property paid to themselves or parents. When married,

all this is changed--female virtue acquires a marketable value, the

possessorship being lodged in the man and not in the woman. Rarely are

wives unfaithful to their husbands; but the chastity of the wife is the

recognized property of the husband, who sells it whenever he pleases.

Although attaching no honor to chastity, the Chinook woman feels

something like shame at becoming the mother of an illegitimate child,

and it is supposed to be partly from this instinct, that infanticide and

abortion are of frequent occurrence. At her first menstruation a girl

must perform a certain penance, much less severe, however, than among

the northern nations. In some tribes she must bathe frequently for a

moon, and rub the body with rotten hemlock, carefully abstaining from

all fish and berries which are in season, and remaining closely in the

house during a south wind. Did she partake of the forbidden food, the

fish would leave the streams and the berries drop from the bushes; or

did she go out in a south wind, the thunder-bird would come and shake

his wings. All thunder-storms are thus caused. Both young children and

the old and infirm are kindly treated. Work is equally divided between

the sexes; the women prepare the food which the men provide; they also

manufacture baskets and matting; they are nearly as skillful as the men

with the canoe, and are consulted on all important matters. Their

condition is by no means a hard one. It is among tribes that live by the

chase or by other means in which women can be of little service, that

we find the sex most oppressed and cruelly treated.[361]

[Sidenote: CHINOOK FEASTS AND FESTIVITIES.]

Like all Indians, the Chinooks are fond of feasting, but their feasts

are simply the coming together of men and women during the fishing

season with the determination to eat as much as possible, and this

meeting is devoid of those complicated ceremonies of invitation,

reception, and social etiquette, observed farther north; nor has any

traveler noticed the distribution of property as a feature of these

festivals. Fantastically dressed and gaudily decked with paint, they are

wont to jump about on certain occasions in a hopping, jolting kind of

dance, accompanied by songs, beating of sticks, clapping of hands, and

occasional yells, the women usually dancing in a separate set. As few

visitors mention their dances, it is probable that dancing was less

prevalent than with others. Their songs were often soft and pleasing,

differing in style for various occasions, the words extemporized, the

tunes being often sung with meaningless sounds, like our tra-la-la. Swan

gives examples of the music used under different circumstances. Smoking

was universal, the leaves of the bear-berry being employed, mixed in

later times with tobacco obtained from the whites. Smoke is swallowed

and retained in the stomach and lungs until partial intoxication ensues.

No intoxicating drink was known to them before the whites came, and

after their coming for a little time they looked on strong drink with

suspicion, and were averse to its use. They are sometimes sober even

now, when no whisky is at hand. But the favorite amusement of all the

Chinook nations is gambling, which occupies the larger part of their

time when not engaged in sleeping, eating, or absolutely necessary

work. In their games they risk all their property, their wives and

children, and in many instances their own freedom, losing all with

composure, and nearly always accompanying the game with a song. Two

persons, or two parties large or small, play one against the other; a

banking game is also in vogue, in which one individual plays against all

comers. A favorite method is to pass rapidly from hand to hand two small

sticks, one of which is marked, the opponent meanwhile guessing at the

hand containing the marked stick. The sticks sometimes take the form of

discs of the size of a silver dollar, each player having ten; these are

wrapped in a mass of fine bark-fibre, shuffled and separated in two

portions; the winner naming the bunch containing the marked or trump

piece. Differently marked sticks may also be shuffled or tossed in the

air, and the lucky player correctly names the relative position in which

they shall fall. A favorite game of females, called _ahikia_, is played

with beaver-teeth, having figured sides, which are thrown like dice; the

issue depends on the combinations of figures which are turned up. In all

these games the players squat upon mats; sticks are used as counters;

and an essential point for a successful gambler is to make as much noise

as possible, in order to confuse the judgment of opponents. In still

another game the players attempt to roll small pieces of wood between

two pins set up a few inches apart, at a distance of ten feet, into a

hole in the floor just beyond. The only sports of an athletic nature are

shooting at targets with arrows and spears, and a game of ball in which

two goals are placed a mile apart, and each party--sometimes a whole

tribe--endeavors to force the ball past the other's goal, as in

foot-ball, except that the ball is thrown with a stick, to one end of

which is fixed a small hoop or ring.[362] Children's sports are

described only by Swan, and as rag babies and imitated Catholic

baptisms were the favorite pastimes mentioned, they may be supposed not

altogether aboriginal.

[Sidenote: CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS.]

Personal names with the Chinooks are hereditary, but in many cases they

either have no meaning or their original signification is soon

forgotten. They are averse to telling their true name to strangers, for

fear, as they sometimes say, that it may be stolen; the truth is,

however, that with them the name assumes a personality; it is the shadow

or spirit, or other self, of the flesh and blood person, and between the

name and the individual there is a mysterious connection, and injury

cannot be done to one without affecting the other; therefore, to give

one's name to a friend is a high mark of Chinook favor. No account is

kept of age. They are believers in sorcery and secret influences, and

not without fear of their medicine-men or conjurers, but, except perhaps

in their quality of physicians, the latter do not exert the influence

which is theirs farther north; their ceremonies and tricks are

consequently fewer and less ridiculous. Inventions of the whites not

understood by the natives are looked on with great superstition. It was,

for instance, very difficult at first to persuade them to risk their

lives before a photographic apparatus, and this for the reason before

mentioned; they fancied that their spirit thus passed into the keeping

of others, who could torment it at pleasure.[363] Consumption, liver

complaint and ophthalmia are the most prevalent Chinook maladies; to

which, since the whites came, fever and ague have been added, and have

killed eighty or ninety per cent. of the whole people, utterly

exterminating some tribes. The cause of this excessive mortality is

supposed to be the native method of treatment, which allays a raging

fever by plunging the patient in the river or sea. On the Columbia this

alleviating plunge is preceded by violent perspiration in a vapor bath;

consequently the treatment has been much more fatal there than on the

coast where the vapor bath is not in use. For slight ills and pains,

especially for external injuries, the Chinooks employ simple remedies

obtained from various plants and trees. Many of these remedies have been

found to be of actual value, while others are evidently quack nostrums,

as when the ashes of the hair of particular animals are considered

essential ingredients of certain ointments. Fasting and bathing serve to

relieve many slight internal complaints. Strangely enough, they never

suffer from diseases of the digestive organs, notwithstanding the greasy

compounds used as food. When illness becomes serious or refuses to yield

to simple treatment, the conclusion is that either the spirits of the

dead are striving to remove the spirit of the sick person from the

troubles of earth to a happier existence, or certain evil spirits prefer

this world and the patient's body for their dwelling-place. Then the

doctor is summoned. Medical celebrities are numerous, each with his

favorite method of treatment, but all agree that singing, beating of

sticks, indeed a noise, however made, accompanied by mysterious passes

and motions, with violent pressure and kneading of the body are

indispensable. The patient frequently survives the treatment. Several

observers believe that mesmeric influences are exerted, sometimes with

benefit, by the doctors in their mummeries.[364]

[Sidenote: CHINOOK BURIAL RITES.]

When the Chinook dies, relatives are careful to speak in whispers, and

indulge in no loud manifestations of grief so long as the body remains

in the house. The body is prepared for final disposition by wrapping it

in blankets, together with ornaments and other property of a valuable

but not bulky nature. For a burial place an elevated but retired spot

near the river bank or on an island is almost always selected, but the

methods of disposing of the dead in these cemeteries differ somewhat

among the various tribes. In the region about the mouth of the Columbia,

the body with its wrappings is placed in the best canoe of the deceased,

which is washed for the purpose, covered with additional blankets, mats,

and property, again covered, when the deceased is of the richer class,

by another inverted canoe, the whole bound together with matting and

cords, and deposited usually on a plank platform five or six feet high,

but sometimes suspended from the branches of trees, or even left on the

surface of the ground. The more bulky articles of property, such as

utensils, and weapons, are deposited about or hung from the platform,

being previously spoiled for use that they may not tempt desecrators

among the whites or foreign tribes; or, it may be that the sacrifice or

death of the implements is necessary before the spirits of the

implements can accompany the spirit of the owner. For the same purpose,

and to allow the water to pass off, holes are bored in the bottom of the

canoe, the head of the corpse being raised a little higher than the

feet. Some travelers have observed a uniformity in the position of the

canoe, the head pointing towards the east, or down the current of the

stream. After about a year, the bones are sometimes taken out and

buried, but the canoe and platform are never removed. Chiefs' canoes are

often repainted. Farther up both the Columbia and Willamette Rivers,

excavations of little depth are often made, in which bodies are

deposited on horizontal boards and covered over with a slightly

inclining roof of heavy planks or poles. In these vaults several tiers

of corpses are often placed one above another. At the Cascades,

depositories of the dead have been noticed in the form of a roofed

inclosure of planks, eight feet long, six feet wide, and five feet high,

with a door in one end, and the whole exterior painted. The Calapooyas

also buried their dead in regular graves, over which was erected a

wooden head-board. Desecration of burial places is a great crime with

the Chinook; he also attaches great importance to having his bones rest

in his tribal cemetery wherever he may die. For a long time after a

death, relatives repair daily at sunrise and sunset to the vicinity of

the grave to sing songs of mourning and praise. Until the bones are

finally disposed of, the name of the deceased must not be spoken, and

for several years it is spoken only with great reluctance. Near

relatives often change their name under the impression that spirits will

be attracted back to earth if they hear familiar names often repeated.

Chiefs are supposed to die through the evil influence of another person,

and the suspected, though a dear friend, was formerly often sacrificed.

The dead bodies of slaves are never touched save by other slaves.[365]

[Sidenote: CHINOOK CHARACTER.]

There is little difference of opinion concerning the character of the

Chinooks. All agree that they are intelligent and very acute in trade;

some travelers have found them at different points harmless and

inoffensive; and in a few instances honesty has been detected. So much

for their good qualities. As to the bad, there is unanimity nearly as

great that they are thieves and liars, and for the rest each observer

applies to them a selection of such adjectives as lazy, superstitious,

cowardly, inquisitive, intrusive, libidinous, treacherous, turbulent,

hypocritical, fickle, etc. The Clatsops, with some authors, have the

reputation of being the most honest and moral; for the lowest position

in the scale all the rest might present a claim. It should however be

said in their favor that they are devotedly attached to their homes, and

treat kindly both their young children and aged parents; also that not a

few of their bad traits originated with or have been aggravated by

contact with civilization.[366]

THE INLAND FAMILIES, constituting the fifth and last division of the

Columbians, inhabit the region between the Cascade Range and the eastern

limit of what I term the Pacific States, from 52° 30´ to 45° of north

latitude. These bounds are tolerably distinct; though that on the south,

separating the eastern portions of the Columbian and Californian groups,

is irregular and marked by no great river, mountain chain, or other

prominent physical feature. These inland natives of the Northwest

occupy, in person, character, and customs, as well as in the location of

their home, an intermediate position between the coast people already

described--to whom they are pronounced superior in most respects--and

the Rocky Mountain or eastern tribes. Travelers crossing the Rocky

Mountains into this territory from the east, or entering it from the

Pacific by way of the Columbia or Fraser, note contrasts on passing the

limits, sufficient to justify me in regarding its inhabitants as one

people for the purposes aimed at in this volume.[367] Instead,

therefore, of treating each family separately, as has been done with

the coast divisions of the group, I deem it more convenient, as well as

less monotonous to the reader, to avoid repetition by describing the

manners and customs of all the people within these limits together,

taking care to note such variations as may be found to exist. The

division into families and nations, made according to principles already

sufficiently explained, is as follows, beginning again at the north:

[Sidenote: THE SHUSHWAPS.]

THE SHUSHWAPS, our first family division, live between 52° 30´ and 49°

in the interior of British Columbia, occupying the valleys of the

Fraser, Thompson, and Upper Columbia rivers with their tributary streams

and lakes. They are bounded on the west by the Nootkas and on the north

by the Carriers, from both of which families they seem to be distinct.

As national divisions of this family may be mentioned the Shushwaps

proper, or _Atnahs_,[368] who occupy the whole northern portion of the

territory; the _Okanagans_,[369] in the valley of the lake and river of

the same name; and the _Kootenais_,[370] who inhabit the triangle

bounded by the Upper Columbia, the Rocky Mountains, and the 49th

parallel, living chiefly on Flatbow river and lake. All three nations

might probably be joined with quite as much reason to the Salish family

farther south, as indeed has usually been done with the Okanagans; while

the Kootenais are by some considered distinct from any of their

adjoining nations.

THE SALISH FAMILY dwells south of the Shushwaps, between 49° and 47°,

altogether on the Columbia and its tributaries. Its nations, more

clearly defined than in most other families, are the _Flatheads_,[371]

or Salish proper, between the Bitter Root and Rocky Mountains on

Flathead and Clarke rivers; the _Pend d'Oreilles_,[372] who dwell about

the lake of the same name and on Clarke River, for fifty to seventy-five

miles above and below the lake; the _Coeurs d'Alêne_,[373] south of the

Pend d'Oreilles, on Coeur d'Alêne Lake and the streams falling into it;

the _Colvilles_,[374] a term which may be used to designate the

variously named bands about Kettle Falls, and northward along the

Columbia to the Arrow Lakes; the _Spokanes_,[375] on the Spokane River

and plateau along the Columbia below Kettle Falls, nearly to the mouth

of the Okanagan; and the _Pisquouse_,[376] on the west bank of the

Columbia between the Okanagan and Priest Rapids.

[Sidenote: THE SAHAPTIN FAMILY.]

THE SAHAPTIN FAMILY, the last of the Columbian group, is immediately

south of the Salish, between the Cascade and Bitter Root mountains,

reaching southward, in general terms, to the forty-fifth parallel, but

very irregularly bounded by the Shoshone tribes of the Californian

group. Of its nations, the _Nez Percés_,[377] or Sahaptins proper, dwell

on the Clearwater and its branches, and on the Snake about the forks;

the _Palouse_[378] occupy the region north of the Snake about the mouth

of the Palouse; the south banks of the Columbia and Snake near their

confluence, and the banks of the lower Walla Walla are occupied by the

_Walla Wallas_;[379] the _Yakimas_ and _Kliketats_[380] inhabit the

region north of the Dalles, between the Cascade Range and the Columbia,

the former in the valley of the Yakima, the latter in the mountains

about Mt. Adams. Both nations extend in some bands across into the

territory of the Sound family. The natives of Oregon east of the Cascade

Range, who have not usually been included in the Sahaptin family, I will

divide somewhat arbitrarily into the _Wascos_, extending from the

mountains eastward to John Day River, and the _Cayuse_,[381] from this

river across the Blue Mountains to the Grande Ronde.

[Sidenote: PHYSIQUE OF THE INLAND TRIBES.]

The inland Columbians are of medium stature, usually from five feet

seven to five feet ten inches, but sometimes reaching a height of six

feet; spare in flesh, but muscular and symmetrical; with well-formed

limbs, the legs not being deformed as among the Chinooks by constant

sitting in the canoe; feet and hands are in many tribes small and well

made. In bodily strength they are inferior to whites, but superior, as

might be expected from their habits, to the more indolent fish-eaters on

the Pacific. The women, though never corpulent, are more inclined to

rotundity than the men. The Nez Percés and Cayuses are considered the

best specimens, while in the north the Kootenais seem to be superior to

the other Shushwap nations. The Salish are assigned by Wilkes and Hale

an intermediate place in physical attributes between the coast and

mountain tribes, being in stature and proportion superior to the

Chinooks, but inferior to the Nez Percés.[382] Inland, a higher order of

face is observed than on the coast. The cheek-bones are still high, the

forehead is rather low, the face long, the eyes black, rarely oblique,

the nose prominent and frequently aquiline, the lips thin, the teeth

white and regular but generally much worn. The general expression of the

features is stern, often melancholy, but not as a rule harsh or

repulsive. Dignified, fine-looking men, and handsome young women have

been remarked in nearly all the tribes, but here again the Sahaptins

bear off the palm. The complexion is not darker than on the coast, but

has more of a coppery hue. The hair is black, generally coarse, and worn

long. The beard is very thin, and its growth is carefully prevented by

plucking.[383]

[Sidenote: HEAD-FLATTENING IN THE INTERIOR.]

The custom of head-flattening, apparently of seaboard origin and growth,

extends, nevertheless, across the Cascade barrier, and is practiced to a

greater or less extent by all the tribes of the Sahaptin family. Among

them all, however, with the exception perhaps of the Kliketats, the

deformity consists only of a very slight compression of the forehead,

which nearly or quite disappears at maturity. The practice also extends

inland up the valley of the Fraser, and is found at least in nearly all

the more western tribes of the Shushwaps. The Salish family do not

flatten the skull.[384] Other methods of deforming the person, such as

tattooing and perforating the features are as a rule not employed; the

Yakimas and Kliketats, however, with some other lower Columbia tribes,

pierce or cut away the septum of the nose,[385] and the Nez Percés

probably derived their name from a similar custom formerly practiced by

them. Paint, however, is used by all inland as well as coast tribes on

occasions when decoration is desired, but applied in less profusion by

the latter. The favorite color is vermilion, applied as a rule only to

the face and hair.[386] Elaborate hair-dressing is not common, and both

sexes usually wear the hair in the same style, soaked in grease, often

painted, and hanging in a natural state, or in braids, plaits, or

queues, over the shoulders. Some of the southern tribes cut the hair

across the forehead, while others farther north tie it up in knots on

the back of the head.[387]

The coast dress--robes or blankets of bark-fibre or small skins--is

also used for some distance inland on the banks of the Columbia and

Fraser, as among the Nicoutamuch, Kliketats, and Wascos; but the

distinctive inland dress is of dressed skin of deer, antelope, or

mountain sheep; made into a rude frock, or shirt, with loose sleeves;

leggins reaching half-way up the thigh, and either bound to the leg or

attached by strings to a belt about the waist; moccasins, and rarely a

cap. Men's frocks descend half-way to the knees; women's nearly to the

ankles. Over this dress, or to conceal the want of some part of it, a

buffalo or elk robe is worn, especially in winter. All garments are

profusely and often tastefully decorated with leather fringes, feathers,

shells, and porcupine quills; beads, trinkets and various bright-colored

cloths having been added to Indian ornamentation since the whites came.

A new suit of this native skin clothing is not without beauty, but by

most tribes the suit is worn without change till nearly ready to drop

off, and becomes disgustingly filthy. Some tribes clean and whiten their

clothing occasionally with white earth, or pipe-clay. The buffalo and

most of the other large skins are obtained from the country east of the

mountains.[388]

[Sidenote: INLAND DWELLINGS.]

The inland dwelling is a frame of poles, covered with rush matting, or

with the skins of the buffalo or elk. As a rule the richest tribes and

individuals use skins, although many of the finest Sahaptin houses are

covered with mats only. Notwithstanding these nations are rich in

horses, I find no mention that horse-hides are ever employed for this or

any other purpose. The form of the lodge is that of a tent, conical or

oblong, and usually sharp at the top, where an open space is left for

light and air to enter, and smoke to escape. Their internal condition

presents a marked contrast with that of the Chinook and Nootka

habitations, since they are by many interior tribes kept free from

vermin and filth. Their light material and the frequency with which

their location is changed contributes to this result. The lodges are

pitched by the women, who acquire great skill and celerity in the work.

Holes are left along the sides for entrance, and within, a floor of

sticks is laid, or more frequently the ground is spread with mats, and

skins serve for beds. Dwellings are often built sufficiently large to

accommodate many families, each of which in such case has its own

fireplace on a central longitudinal line, a definite space being

allotted for its goods, but no dividing partitions are ever used. The

dwellings are arranged in small villages generally located in winter on

the banks of small streams a little away from the main rivers. For a

short distance up the Columbia, houses similar to those of the Chinooks

are built of split cedar and bark. The Walla Wallas, living in summer in

the ordinary mat lodge, often construct for winter a subterranean abode

by digging a circular hole ten or twelve feet deep, roofing it with

poles or split cedar covered with grass and mud, leaving a small opening

at the top for exit and entrance by means of a notched-log ladder. The

Atnahs on Fraser River spend the winter in similar structures, a simple

slant roof of mats or bark sufficing for shade and shelter in summer.

The Okanagans construct their lodges over an excavation in the ground

several feet deep, and like many other nations, cover their matting in

winter with grass and earth.[389]

[Sidenote: FOOD OF THE INLAND NATIONS.]

The inland families eat fish and game, with roots and fruit; no nation

subsists without all these supplies; but the proportion of each consumed

varies greatly according to locality. Some tribes divide their forces

regularly into bands, of men to fish and hunt, of women to cure fish and

flesh, and to gather roots and berries. I have spoken of the coast

tribes as a fish-eating, and the interior tribes as a hunting people,

attributing in great degree their differences of person and character to

their food, or rather to their methods of obtaining it; yet fish

constitutes an important element of inland subsistence as well. Few

tribes live altogether without salmon, the great staple of the

Northwest; since those dwelling on streams inaccessible to the salmon by

reason of intervening falls, obtain their supply by annual migrations to

the fishing-grounds, or by trade with other nations. The principal

salmon fisheries of the Columbia are at the Dalles, the falls ten miles

above, and at Kettle Falls. Other productive stations are on the Powder,

Snake, Yakima, Okanagan, and Clarke rivers. On the Fraser, which has no

falls in its lower course, fishing is carried on all along the banks of

the river instead of at regular stations, as on the Columbia. Nets,

weirs, hooks, spears, and all the implements and methods by which fish

are taken and cured have been sufficiently described in treating of the

coast region; in the interior I find no important variations except in

the basket method in use at the Chaudières or Kettle Falls by the

Quiarlpi tribe. Here an immense willow basket, often ten feet in

diameter and twelve feet deep, is suspended at the falls from strong

timbers fixed in crevices of the rocks, and above this is a frame so

attached that the salmon in attempting to leap the fall strike the

sticks of the frame and are thrown back into the basket, in the largest

of which naked men armed with clubs await them. Five thousand pounds of

salmon have thus been taken in a day by means of a single basket. During

the fishing-season the Salmon Chief has full authority; his basket is

the largest, and must be located a month before others are allowed to

fish. The small nets used in the same region have also the peculiarity

of a stick which keeps the mouth open when the net is empty, but is

removed by the weight of the fish. Besides the salmon, sturgeon are

extensively taken in the Fraser, and in the Arrow Lakes, while trout and

other varieties of small fish abound in most of the streams. The

fishing-season is the summer, between June and September, varying a

month or more according to locality. This is also the season of trade

and festivity, when tribes from all directions assemble to exchange

commodities, gamble, dance, and in later times to drink and fight.[390]

[Sidenote: HUNTING BY SHUSHWAPS, SALISH, AND SAHAPTINS.]

The larger varieties of game are hunted by the natives on horseback

wherever the nature of the country will permit. Buffalo are now never

found west of the Rocky Mountains, and there are but few localities

where large game has ever been abundant, at least since the country

became known to white men. Consequently the Flatheads, Nez Percés, and

Kootenais, the distinctively hunting nations, as well as bands from

nearly every other tribe, cross the mountains once or twice each year,

penetrating to the buffalo-plains between the Yellowstone and the

Missouri, in the territory of hostile nations. The bow and arrow was the

weapon with which buffalo and all other game were shot. No peculiar

cunning seems to have been necessary to the native hunter of buffalo; he

had only to ride into the immense herds on his well-trained horse, and

select the fattest animals for his arrows. Various devices are mentioned

as being practiced in the chase of deer, elk, and mountain sheep; such

as driving them by a circle of fire on the prairie towards the concealed

hunters, or approaching within arrow-shot by skillful manipulations of

a decoy animal; or the frightened deer are driven into an ambush by

converging lines of bright-colored rags so placed in the bushes as to

represent men. Kane states that about the Arrow Lakes hunting dogs are

trained to follow the deer and to bring back the game to their masters

even from very long distances. Deer are also pursued in the winter on

snow-shoes, and in deep snow often knocked down with clubs. Bear and

beaver are trapped in some places; and, especially about the northern

lakes and marshes, wild fowl are very abundant, and help materially to

eke out the supply of native food.[391]

[Sidenote: FOOD AND ITS PREPARATION.]

Their natural improvidence, or an occasional unlucky hunting or fishing

season, often reduces them to want, and in such case the resort is to

roots, berries, and mosses, several varieties of which are also gathered

and laid up as a part of their regular winter supplies. Chief among the

roots are the camass, a sweet, onion-like bulb, which grows in moist

prairies, the couse, which flourishes in more sterile and rocky spots,

and the bitter-root, which names a valley and mountain range. To obtain

these roots the natives make regular migrations, as for game or fish.

The varieties of roots and berries used for food are very numerous; and

none seem to grow in the country which to the native taste are

unpalatable or injurious, though many are both to the European.[392]

Towards obtaining food the men hunt and fish; all the other work of

digging roots, picking berries, as well as dressing, preserving, and

cooking all kinds of food is done by the women, with some exceptions

among the Nez Percés and Pend d'Oreilles. Buffalo-meat is jerked by

cutting in thin pieces and drying in the sun and over smouldering fires

on scaffolds of poles. Fish is sun-dried on scaffolds, and by some

tribes on the lower Columbia is also pulverized between two stones and

packed in baskets lined with fish-skin. Here, as on the coast, the heads

and offal only are eaten during the fishing-season. The Walla Wallas are

said usually to eat fish without cooking. Roots, mosses, and such

berries as are preserved, are usually kept in cakes, which for eating

are moistened, mixed in various proportions and cooked, or eaten without

preparation. To make the cakes simply drying, pulverizing, moistening,

and sun-drying usually suffice; but camas and pine-moss are baked or

fermented for several days in an underground kiln by means of hot

stones, coming out in the form of a dark gluey paste of the proper

consistency for moulding. Many of these powdered roots may be preserved

for years without injury. Boiling by means of hot stones and roasting on

sharp sticks fixed in the ground near the fire, are the universal

methods of cooking. No mention is made of peculiar customs in eating; to

eat often and much is the aim; the style of serving is a secondary

consideration.[393] Life with all these nations is but a struggle for

food, and the poorer tribes are often reduced nearly to starvation; yet

they never are known to kill dogs or horses for food. About the missions

and on the reservations cattle have been introduced and the soil is

cultivated by the natives to considerable extent.[394]

[Sidenote: PERSONAL HABITS IN THE INTERIOR.]

In their personal habits, as well as the care of their lodges, the

Cayuses, Nez Percés, and Kootenais, are mentioned as neat and cleanly;

the rest, though filthy, are still somewhat superior to the dwellers on

the coast. The Flatheads wash themselves daily, but their dishes and

utensils never. De Smet represents the Pend d'Oreille women as untidy

even for savages.[395] Guns, knives and tomahawks have generally taken

the place of such native weapons as these natives may have used against

their foes originally. Only the bow and arrow have survived intercourse

with white men, and no other native weapon is described, except one

peculiar to the Okanagans,--a kind of Indian slung-shot. This is a small

cylindrical ruler of hard wood, covered with raw hide, which at one end

forms a small bag and holds a round stone as large as a goose-egg; the

other end of the weapon is tied to the wrist. Arrow-shafts are of hard

wood, carefully straightened by rolling between two blocks, fitted by

means of sinews with stone or flint heads at one end, and pinnated with

feathers at the other. The most elastic woods are chosen for the bow,

and its force is augmented by tendons glued to its back.[396]

[Sidenote: THE INLAND NATIONS AT WAR.]

The inland families cannot be called a warlike race. Resort to arms for

the settlement of their intertribal disputes seems to have been very

rare. Yet all are brave warriors when fighting becomes necessary for

defense or vengeance against a foreign foe; notably so the Cayuses, Nez

Percés, Flatheads and Kootenais. The two former waged both aggressive

and defensive warfare against the Snakes of the south; while the latter

joined their arms against their common foes, the eastern Blackfeet, who,

though their inferiors in bravery, nearly exterminated the Flathead

nation by superiority in numbers, and by being the first to obtain the

white man's weapons. Departure on a warlike expedition is always

preceded by ceremonious preparation, including councils of the wise,

great, and old; smoking the pipe, harangues by the chiefs, dances, and a

general review, or display of equestrian feats and the manoeuvres of

battle. The warriors are always mounted; in many tribes white or

speckled war-horses are selected, and both rider and steed are gaily

painted, and decked with feathers, trinkets, and bright-colored cloths.

The war-party in most nations is under the command of a chief

periodically elected by the tribe, who has no authority whatever in

peace, but who keeps his soldiers in the strictest discipline in time of

war. Stealthy approach and an unexpected attack in the early morning

constitute their favorite tactics. They rush on the enemy like a

whirlwind, with terrific yells, discharge their guns or arrows, and

retire to prepare for another attack. The number slain is rarely large;

the fall of a few men, or the loss of a chief decides the victory. When

a man falls, a rush is made for his scalp, which is defended by his

party, and a fierce hand-to-hand conflict ensues, generally terminating

the battle. After the fight, or before it when either party lacks

confidence in the result, a peace is made by smoking the pipe, with the

most solemn protestations of goodwill, and promises which neither party

has the slightest intention of fulfilling. The dead having been scalped,

and prisoners bound and taken up behind the victors, the party starts

homeward. Torture of the prisoners, chiefly perpetrated by the women,

follows the arrival. By the Flatheads and northern nations captives are

generally killed by their sufferings; among the Sahaptins some survive

and are made slaves. In the Flathead torture of the Blackfeet are

practiced all the fiendish acts of cruelty that native cunning can

devise, all of which are borne with the traditional stoicism and taunts

of the North American Indian. The Nez Percé system is a little less

cruel in order to save life for future slavery. Day after day, at a

stated hour, the captives are brought out and made to hold the scalps of

their dead friends aloft on poles while the scalp-dance is performed

about them, the female participators meanwhile exerting all their

devilish ingenuity in tormenting their victims.[397]

The native saddle consists of a rude wooden frame, under and over which

is thrown a buffalo-robe, and which is bound to the horse by a very

narrow thong of hide in place of the Mexican _cincha_. A raw-hide

crupper is used; a deer-skin pad sometimes takes the place of the upper

robe, or the robe and pad are used without the wooden frame. Stirrups

are made by binding three straight pieces of wood or bone together in

triangular form, and sometimes covering all with raw-hide put on wet; or

one straight piece is suspended from a forked thong, and often the

simple thong passing round the foot suffices. The bridle is a rope of

horse-hair or of skin, made fast with a half hitch round the animal's

lower jaw. The same rope usually serves for bridle and lariat. Sharp

bones, at least in later times, are used for spurs. Wood is split for

the few native uses by elk-horn wedges driven by bottle-shaped stone

mallets. Baskets and vessels for holding water and cooking are woven of

willow, bark, and grasses. Rushes, growing in all swampy localities are

cut of uniform length, laid parallel and tied together for matting.

Rude bowls and spoons are sometimes dug out of horn or wood, but the

fingers, with pieces of bark and small mats are the ordinary table

furniture. Skins are dressed by spreading, scraping off the flesh, and

for some purposes the hair, with a sharp piece of bone, stone, or iron

attached to a short handle, and used like an adze. The skin is then

smeared with the animal's brains, and rubbed or pounded by a very

tedious process till it becomes soft and white, some hides being

previously smoked and bleached with white clay.[398]

[Sidenote: PREPARATION OF SKINS. RIVER-BOATS.]

On the lower Columbia the Wascos, Kliketats, Walla Wallas, and other

tribes use dug-out boats like those of the coast, except that little

skill or labor is expended on their construction or ornamentation; the

only requisite being supporting capacity, as is natural in a country

where canoes play but a small part in the work of procuring food.

Farther in the interior the mountain tribes of the Sahaptin family, as

the Cayuses and Nez Percés, make no boats, but use rude rafts or

purchase an occasional canoe from their neighbors, for the rare cases

when it becomes necessary to transport property across an unfordable

stream. The Flatheads sew up their lodge-skins into a temporary boat for

the same purpose. On the Fraser the Nootka dug-out is in use. But on the

northern lakes and rivers of the interior, the Pend d'Oreille, Flatbow,

Arrow, and Okanagan, northward to the Tacully territory, the natives

manufacture and navigate bark canoes. Both birch and pine are employed,

by stretching it over a cedar hoop-work frame, sewing the ends with fine

roots, and gumming the seams and knots. The form is very peculiar; the

stem and stern are pointed, but the points are on a level with the

bottom of the boat, and the slope or curve is upward towards the centre.

Travelers describe them as carrying a heavy load, but easily capsized

unless when very skillfully managed.[399]

[Sidenote: HORSES, PROPERTY, AND TRADE.]

Horses constitute the native wealth, and poor indeed is the family which

has not for each member, young and old, an animal to ride, as well as

others sufficient to transport all the household goods, and to trade for

the few foreign articles needed. The Nez Percés, Cayuses and Walla

Wallas have more and better stock than other nations, individuals often

possessing bands of from one thousand to three thousand. The Kootenais

are the most northern equestrian tribes mentioned. How the natives

originally obtained horses is unknown, although there are some slight

traditions in support of the natural supposition that they were first

introduced from the south by way of the Shoshones. The latter are one

people with the Comanches, by whom horses were obtained during the

Spanish expeditions to New Mexico in the sixteenth century. The horses

of the natives are of small size, probably degenerated from a superior

stock, but hardy and surefooted; sustaining hunger and hard usage better

than those of the whites, but inferior to them in form, action, and

endurance. All colors are met with, spotted and mixed colors being

especially prized.[400]

The different articles of food, skins and grasses for clothing and

lodges and implements, shells and trinkets for ornamentation and

currency are also bartered between the nations, and the annual summer

gatherings on the rivers serve as fairs for the display and exchange of

commodities; some tribes even visit the coast for purposes of trade.

Smoking the pipe often precedes and follows a trade, and some peculiar

commercial customs prevail, as for instance when a horse dies soon after

purchase, the price may be reclaimed. The rights of property are

jealously defended, but in the Salish nations, according to Hale, on the

death of a father his relatives seize the most valuable property with

very little attention to the rights of children too young to look out

for their own interests.[401] Indeed, I have heard of deeds of similar

import in white races. In decorative art the inland natives must be

pronounced inferior to those of the coast, perhaps only because they

have less time to devote to such unproductive labor. Sculpture and

painting are rare and exceedingly rude. On the coast the passion for

ornamentation finds vent in carving and otherwise decorating the canoe,

house, and implements; in the interior it expends itself on the

caparison of the horse, or in bead and fringe work on garments. Systems

of numeration are simple, progressing by fours, fives, or tens,

according to the different languages, and is sufficiently extensive to

include large numbers; but the native rarely has occasion to count

beyond a few hundreds, commonly using his fingers as an aid to his

numeration. Years are reckoned by winters, divided by moons into months,

and these months named from the ripening of some plant, the occurrence

of a fishing or hunting season, or some other periodicity in their

lives, or by the temperature. Among the Salish the day is divided

according to the position of the sun into nine parts. De Smet states

that maps are made on bark or skins by which to direct their course on

distant excursions, and that they are guided at night by the polar

star.[402]

[Sidenote: CHIEFS AND THEIR AUTHORITY.]

War chiefs are elected for their bravery and past success, having full

authority in all expeditions, marching at the head of their forces, and,

especially among the Flatheads, maintaining the strictest discipline,

even to the extent of inflicting flagellation on insubordinates. With

the war their power ceases, yet they make no effort by partiality during

office to insure re-election, and submit without complaint to a

successor. Except by the war chiefs no real authority is exercised. The

regular chieftainship is hereditary so far as any system is observed,

but chiefs who have raised themselves to their position by their merits

are mentioned among nearly all the nations. The leaders are always men

of commanding influence and often of great intelligence. They take the

lead in haranguing at the councils of wise men, which meet to smoke and

deliberate on matters of public moment. These councils decide the amount

of fine necessary to atone for murder, theft, and the few crimes known

to the native code; a fine, the chief's reprimand, and rarely flogging,

probably not of native origin, are the only punishments; and the

criminal seldom attempts to escape. As the more warlike nations have

especial chiefs with real power in time of war, so the fishing tribes,

some of them, grant great authority to a 'salmon chief' during the

fishing-season. But the regular inland chiefs never collect taxes nor

presume to interfere with the rights or actions of individuals or

families.[403] Prisoners of war, not killed by torture, are made slaves,

but they are few in number, and their children are adopted into the

victorious tribe. Hereditary slavery and the slave-trade are unknown.

The Shushwaps are said to have no slaves.[404]

[Sidenote: FAMILY RELATIONS.]

In choosing a helpmate, or helpmates, for his bed and board, the inland

native makes capacity for work the standard of female excellence, and

having made a selection buys a wife from her parents by the payment of

an amount of property, generally horses, which among the southern

nations must be equaled by the girl's parents. Often a betrothal is made

by parents while both parties are yet children, and such a contract,

guaranteed by an interchange of presents, is rarely broken. To give away

a wife without a price is in the highest degree disgraceful to her

family. Besides payment of the price, generally made for the suitor by

his friends, courtship in some nations includes certain visits to the

bride before marriage; and the Spokane suitor must consult both the

chief and the young lady, as well as her parents; indeed the latter may

herself propose if she wishes. Runaway matches are not unknown, but by

the Nez Percés the woman is in such cases considered a prostitute, and

the bride's parents may seize upon the man's property. Many tribes seem

to require no marriage ceremony, but in others an assemblage of friends

for smoking and feasting is called for on such occasions; and among the

Flatheads more complicated ceremonies are mentioned, of which long

lectures to the couple, baths, change of clothing, torch-light

processions, and dancing form a part. In the married state the wife must

do all the heavy work and drudgery, but is not otherwise ill treated,

and in most tribes her rights are equally respected with those of the

husband.

[Sidenote: WOMEN AND CHILDREN.]

When there are several wives each occupies a separate lodge, or at least

has a separate fire. Among the Spokanes a man marrying out of his own

tribe joins that of his wife, because she can work better in a country

to which she is accustomed; and in the same nation all household goods

are considered as the wife's property. The man who marries the eldest

daughter is entitled to all the rest, and parents make no objection to

his turning off one in another's favor. Either party may dissolve the

marriage at will, but property must be equitably divided, the children

going with the mother. Discarded wives are often reinstated. If a

Kliketat wife die soon after marriage, the husband may reclaim her

price; the Nez Percé may not marry for a year after her death, but he is

careful to avoid the inconvenience of this regulation by marrying just

before that event. The Salish widow must remain a widow for about two

years, and then must marry agreeably to her mother-in-law's taste or

forfeit her husband's property.[405] The women make faithful, obedient

wives and affectionate mothers. Incontinence in either girls or married

women is extremely rare, and prostitution almost unknown, being severely

punished, especially among the Nez Percés. In this respect the inland

tribes present a marked contrast to their coast neighbors.[406] At the

first appearance of the menses the woman must retire from the sight of

all, especially men, for a period varying from ten days to a month, and

on each subsequent occasion for two or three days, and must be purified

by repeated ablutions before she may resume her place in the household.

Also at the time of her confinement she is deemed unclean, and must

remain for a few weeks in a separate lodge, attended generally by an old

woman. The inland woman is not prolific, and abortions are not uncommon,

which may probably be attributed in great measure to her life of labor

and exposure. Children are not weaned till between one and two years of

age; sometimes not until they abandon the breast of their own accord or

are supplanted by a new arrival; yet though subsisting on the mother's

milk alone, and exposed with slight clothing to all extremes of weather,

they are healthy and robust, being carried about in a rude cradle on the

mother's back, or mounted on colts and strapped to the saddle that they

may not fall off when asleep. After being weaned the child is named

after some animal, but the name is changed frequently later in

life.[407] Although children and old people are as a rule kindly cared

for, yet so great the straits to which the tribes are reduced by

circumstances, that both are sometimes abandoned if not put to

death.[408]

[Sidenote: GAMES IN THE INTERIOR.]

The annual summer gathering on the river banks for fishing and trade,

and, among the mountain nations, the return from a successful raid in

the enemy's country, are the favorite periods for native

diversions.[409] To gambling they are no less passionately addicted in

the interior than on the coast,[410] but even in this universal Indian

vice, their preference for horse-racing, the noblest form of gaming,

raises them above their stick-shuffling brethren of the Pacific. On the

speed of his horse the native stakes all he owns, and is discouraged

only when his animal is lost, and with it the opportunity to make up

past losses in another race. Foot-racing and target-shooting, in which

men, women and children participate, also afford them indulgence in

their gambling propensities and at the same time develop their bodies by

exercise, and perfect their skill in the use of their native

weapon.[411] The Colvilles have a game, _alkollock_, played with

spears. A wooden ring some three inches in diameter is rolled over a

level space between two slight stick barriers about forty feet apart;

when the ring strikes the barrier the spear is hurled so that the ring

will fall over its head; and the number scored by the throw depends on

which of six colored beads, attached to the hoop's inner circumference,

falls over the spear's head.[412] The almost universal Columbian game of

guessing which hand contains a small polished bit of bone or wood is

also a favorite here, and indeed the only game of the kind mentioned; it

is played, to the accompaniment of songs and drumming, by parties

sitting in a circle on mats, the shuffler's hands being often wrapped in

fur, the better to deceive the players.[413] All are excessively fond of

dancing and singing; but their songs and dances, practiced on all

possible occasions, have not been, if indeed they can be, described.

They seem merely a succession of sounds and motions without any fixed

system. Pounding on rude drums of hide accompanies the songs, which are

sung without words, and in which some listeners have detected a certain

savage melody. Scalp-dances are performed by women hideously painted,

who execute their diabolical antics in the centre of a circle formed by

the rest of the tribe who furnish music to the dancers.[414] All are

habitual smokers, always inhaling the smoke instead of puffing it out

after the manner of more civilized devotees of the weed. To obtain

tobacco the native will part with almost any other property, but no

mention is made of any substitute used in this region before the white

man came. Besides his constant use of the pipe as an amusement or habit,

the inland native employs it regularly to clear his brain for the

transaction of important business. Without the pipe no war is declared,

no peace officially ratified; in all promises and contracts it serves as

the native pledge of honor; with ceremonial whiffs to the cardinal

points the wise men open and close the deliberations of their councils;

a commercial smoke clinches a bargain, as it also opens negotiations of

trade.[415]

[Sidenote: TREATMENT OF HORSES.]

The use of the horse has doubtless been a most powerful agent in molding

inland customs; and yet the introduction of the horse must have been of

comparatively recent date. What were the customs and character of these

people, even when America was first discovered by the Spaniards, must

ever be unknown. It is by no means certain that the possession of the

horse has materially bettered their condition. Indeed, by facilitating

the capture of buffalo, previously taken perhaps by stratagem, by

introducing a medium with which at least the wealthy may always purchase

supplies, as well as by rendering practicable long migrations for food

and trade, the horse may have contributed somewhat to their present

spirit of improvidence. The horses feed in large droves, each marked

with some sign of ownership, generally by clipping the ears, and when

required for use are taken by the lariat, in the use of which all the

natives have some skill, though far inferior to the Mexican _vaqueros_.

The method of breaking and training horses is a quick and an effectual

one. It consists of catching and tying the animal; then buffalo-skins

and other objects are thrown at and upon the trembling beast, until all

its fear is frightened out of it. When willing to be handled, horses are

treated with great kindness, but when refractory, the harshest measures

are adopted. They are well trained to the saddle, and accustomed to be

mounted from either side. They are never shod and never taught to trot.

The natives are skillful riders, so far as the ability to keep their

seat at great speed over a rough country is concerned, but they never

ride gracefully, and rarely if ever perform the wonderful feats of

horsemanship so often attributed to the western Indians. A loose girth

is used under which to insert the knees when riding a wild horse. They

are hard riders, and horses in use always have sore backs and mouths.

Women ride astride, and quite as well as the men; children also learn to

ride about as early as to walk.[416] Each nation has its superstitions;

by each individual is recognized the influence of unseen powers,

exercised usually through the medium of his medicine animal chosen early

in life. The peculiar customs arising from this belief in the

supernatural are not very numerous or complicated, and belong rather to

the religion of these people treated elsewhere. The Pend d'Oreille, on

approaching manhood, was sent by his father to a high mountain and

obliged to remain until he dreamed of some animal, bird, or fish,

thereafter to be his medicine, whose claw, tooth, or feather was worn as

a charm. The howling of the medicine-wolf and some other beasts

forebodes calamity, but by the Okanagans the white-wolf skin is held as

an emblem of royalty, and its possession protects the horses of the

tribe from evil-minded wolves. A ram's horns left in the trunk of a tree

where they were fixed by the misdirected zeal of their owner in

attacking a native, were much venerated by the Flatheads, and gave them

power over all animals so long as they made frequent offerings at the

foot of the tree. The Nez Percés had a peculiar custom of overcoming the

_mawish_ or spirit of fatigue, and thereby acquiring remarkable powers

of endurance. The ceremony is performed annually from the age of

eighteen to forty, lasts each time from three to seven days, and

consists of thrusting willow sticks down the throat into the stomach, a

succession of hot and cold baths, and abstinence from food. Medicine-men

acquire or renew their wonderful powers by retiring to the mountains to

confer with the wolf. They are then invulnerable; a bullet fired at them

flattens on their breast. To allowing their portraits to be taken, or to

the operations of strange apparatus they have the same aversion that has

been noted on the coast.[417] Steam baths are universally used, not for

motives of cleanliness, but sometimes for medical purposes, and chiefly

in their superstitious ceremonies of purification. The bath-house is a

hole dug in the ground from three to eight feet deep, and sometimes

fifteen feet in diameter, in some locality where wood and water are at

hand, often in the river bank. It is also built above ground of willow

branches covered with grass and earth. Only a small hole is left for

entrance, and this is closed up after the bather enters. Stones are

heated by a fire in the bath itself, or are thrown in after being heated

outside. In this oven, heated to a suffocating temperature, the naked

native revels for a long time in the steam and mud, meanwhile singing,

howling, praying, and finally rushes out dripping with perspiration, to

plunge into the nearest stream.[418] Every lodge is surrounded by a pack

of worthless coyote-looking curs. These are sometimes made to carry

small burdens on their backs when the tribe is moving; otherwise no use

is made of them, as they are never eaten, and, with perhaps the

exception of a breed owned by the Okanagans, are never trained to hunt.

I give in a note a few miscellaneous customs noticed by travelers.[419]

[Sidenote: MEDICAL PRACTICE.]

These natives of the interior are a healthy but not a very long-lived

race. Ophthalmia, of which the sand, smoke of the lodges, and reflection

of the sun's rays on the lakes are suggested as the causes, is more or

less prevalent throughout the territory; scrofulous complaints and

skin-eruptions are of frequent occurrence, especially in the Sahaptin

family. Other diseases are comparatively rare, excepting of course

epidemic disorders like small-pox and measles contracted from the

whites, which have caused great havoc in nearly all the tribes. Hot and

cold baths are the favorite native remedy for all their ills, but other

simple specifics, barks, herbs, and gums are employed as well. Indeed,

so efficacious is their treatment, or rather, perhaps, so powerful with

them is nature in resisting disease, that when the locality or cause of

irregularity is manifest, as in the case of wounds, fractures, or

snake-bites, remarkable cures are ascribed to these people. But here as

elsewhere, the sickness becoming at all serious or mysterious, medical

treatment proper is altogether abandoned, and the patient committed to

the magic powers of the medicine-man. In his power either to cause or

cure disease at will implicit confidence is felt, and failure to heal

indicates no lack of skill; consequently the doctor is responsible for

his patient's recovery, and in case of death is liable to, and often

does, answer with his life, so that a natural death among the medical

fraternity is extremely rare. His only chance of escape is to persuade

relatives of the dead that his ill success is attributable to the evil

influence of a rival physician, who is the one to die; or in some cases

a heavy ransom soothes the grief of mourning friends and avengers. One

motive of the Cayuses in the massacre of the Whitman family is supposed

to have been the missionary's failure to cure the measles in the tribe.

He had done his best to relieve the sick, and his power to effect in all

cases a complete cure was unquestioned by the natives. The methods by

which the medicine-man practices his art are very uniform in all the

nations. The patient is stretched on his back in the centre of a large

lodge, and his friends few or many sit about him in a circle, each

provided with sticks wherewith to drum. The sorcerer, often grotesquely

painted, enters the ring, chants a song, and proceeds to force the evil

spirit from the sick man by pressing both clenched fists with all his

might in the pit of his stomach, kneading and pounding also other parts

of the body, blowing occasionally through his own fingers, and sucking

blood from the part supposed to be affected. The spectators pound with

their sticks, and all, including doctor, and often the patient in spite

of himself, keep up a continual song or yell. There is, however, some

method in this madness, and when the routine is completed it is again

begun, and thus repeated for several hours each day until the case is

decided. In many nations the doctor finally extracts the spirit, in the

form of a small bone or other object, from the patient's body or mouth

by some trick of legerdemain, and this once effected, he assures the

surrounding friends that the tormentor having been thus removed,

recovery must soon follow.[420]

Grief at the death of a relative is manifested by cutting the hair and

smearing the face with black. The women also howl at intervals for a

period of weeks or even months; but the men on ordinary occasions rarely

make open demonstrations of sorrow, though they sometimes shed tears at

the death of a son. Several instances of suicide in mourning are

recorded; a Walla Walla chieftain caused himself to be buried alive in

the grave with the last of his five sons. The death of a wife or

daughter is deemed of comparatively little consequence. In case of a

tribal disaster, as the death of a prominent chief, or the killing of a

band of warriors by a hostile tribe, all indulge in the most frantic

demonstrations, tearing the hair, lacerating the flesh with flints,

often inflicting serious injury. The sacrifice of human life, generally

that of a slave, was practiced, but apparently nowhere as a regular part

of the funeral rites. Among the Flatheads the bravest of the men and

women ceremonially bewail the loss of a warrior by cutting out pieces of

their own flesh and casting them with roots and other articles into the

fire. A long time passes before a dead person's name is willingly spoken

in the tribe. The corpse is commonly disposed of by wrapping in ordinary

clothing and burying in the ground without a coffin. The northern tribes

sometimes suspended the body in a canoe from a tree, while those in the

south formerly piled their dead in wooden sheds or sepulchres above

ground. The Okanagans often bound the body upright to the trunk of a

tree. Property was in all cases sacrificed; horses usually, and slaves

sometimes, killed on the grave. The more valuable articles of wealth

were deposited with the body; the rest suspended on poles over and about

the grave or left on the surface of the ground; always previously

damaged in such manner as not to tempt the sacrilegious thief, for their

places of burial are held most sacred. Mounds of stones surmounted with

crosses indicate in later times the conversion of the natives to a

foreign religion.[421]

[Sidenote: INLAND MORALITY.]

In character and in morals,[422] as well as in physique, the inland

native is almost unanimously pronounced superior to the dweller on the

coast. The excitement of the chase, of war, and of athletic sports

ennobles the mind as it develops the body; and although probably not by

nature less indolent than their western neighbors, yet are these natives

of the interior driven by circumstances to habits of industry, and have

much less leisure time for the cultivation of the lower forms of vice.

As a race, and compared with the average American aborigines, they are

honest, intelligent, and pure in morals. Travelers are liable to form

their estimate of national character from a view, perhaps unfair and

prejudiced, of the actions of a few individuals encountered;

consequently qualities the best and the worst have been given by some to

each of the nations now under consideration. For the best reputation the

Nez Percés, Flatheads and Kootenais have always been rivals; their good

qualities have been praised by all, priest, trader and tourist. Honest,

just, and often charitable; ordinarily cold and reserved, but on

occasions social and almost gay; quick-tempered and revengeful under

what they consider injustice, but readily appeased by kind treatment;

cruel only to captive enemies, stoical in the endurance of torture;

devotedly attached to home and family; these natives probably come as

near as it is permitted to flesh-and-blood savages to the traditional

noble red man of the forest, sometimes met in romance. It is the pride

and boast of the Flathead that his tribe has never shed the blood of a

white man. Yet none, whatever their tribe, could altogether resist the

temptation to steal horses from their neighbors of a different tribe, or

in former times, to pilfer small articles, wonderful to the savage eye,

introduced by Europeans. Many have been nominally converted by the

zealous labors of the Jesuit fathers, or Protestant missionaries; and

several nations have greatly improved, in material condition as well as

in character, under their change of faith. As Mr Alexander Ross remarks,

"there is less crime in an Indian camp of five hundred souls than there

is in a civilized village of but half that number. Let the lawyer or

moralist point out the cause."

TRIBAL BOUNDARIES.

The Columbian Group comprises the tribes inhabiting the territory

immediately south of that of the Hyperboreans, extending from the

fifty-fifth to the forty-third parallel of north latitude.

[Sidenote: THE HAIDAH FAMILY.]

In the HAIDAH FAMILY, I include all the coast and island nations of

British Columbia, from 55° to 52°, and extending inland about one

hundred miles to the borders of the Chilcoten Plain, the _Haidah nation_

proper having their home on the Queen Charlotte Islands. 'The Haidah

tribes of the Northern Family inhabit Queen Charlotte's Island.' 'The

Massettes, Skittegás, Cumshawás, and other (Haidah) tribes inhabiting

the eastern shores of Queen Charlotte's Island.' _Scouler_, in _Lond.

Geog. Soc., Jour._, vol. xi., p. 219. 'The principal tribes upon it (Q.

Char. Isl.) are the Sketigets, Massets, and Comshewars.' _Dunn's

Oregon_, p. 292. 'Tribal names of the principal tribes inhabiting the

islands:--Klue, Skiddan, Ninstence or Cape St. James, Skidagate,

Skidagatees, Gold-Harbour, Cumshewas, and four others.... Hydah is the

generic name for the whole.' _Poole's Q. Char. Isl._, p. 309. 'The

Cumshewar, Massit, Skittageets, Keesarn, and Kigarnee, are mentioned as

living on the island.' _Ludewig_, _Ab. Lang._, p. 157. The following

bands, viz.: Lulanna, (or Sulanna), Nightan, Massetta, (or Mosette),

Necoon, Aseguang, (or Asequang), Skittdegates, Cumshawas, Skeedans,

Queeah, Cloo, Kishawin, Kowwelth, (or Kawwelth), and Too, compose the

Queen Charlotte Island Indians, 'beginning at N. island, north end, and

passing round by the eastward.' _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. v., p. 489;

and _Kane's Wand._, end of vol. 'The Hydah nation which is divided into

numerous tribes inhabiting the island and the mainland opposite.'

_Reed's Nar._ 'Queen Charlotte's Island and Prince of Wales Archipelago

are the country of the Haidahs; ... including the Kygany, Massett,

Skittegetts, Hanega, Cumshewas, and other septs.' _Anderson_, in _Hist.

Mag._, vol. vii., p. 74. 'Les Indiens Koumchaouas, Haïdas, Massettes, et

Skidegats, de l'île de la Reine Charlotte.' _Mofras_, _Explor._, tom.

ii., p. 337. My Haidah Family is called by Warre and Vavasour _Quacott_,

who with the Newette and twenty-seven other tribes live, 'from Lat. 54°

to Lat. 50°, including Queen Charlotte's Island; North end of

Vancouver's Island, Millbank Sound and Island, and the Main shore.'

_Martin's Hudson's Bay_, p. 80.

The Massets and thirteen other tribes besides the Quacott tribes occupy

Queen Charlotte Islands. _Warre and Vavasour_, in _Martin's Hud. Bay_,

p. 80.

The Ninstence tribe inhabits 'the southernmost portions of Moresby

Island.' _Poole's Q. Char. Isl._, pp. 122, 314-15.

The Crosswer Indians live on Skiddegate Channel. _Downie_, in _B. Col.

Papers_, vol. iii., p. 72.

The _Kaiganies_ inhabit the southern part of the Prince of Wales

Archipelago, and the northern part of Queen Charlotte Island. The

Kygargeys or Kygarneys are divided by Schoolcraft and Kane into the

Youahnoe, Clictass (or Clictars), Quiahanles, Houaguan, (or Wonagan),

Shouagan, (or Showgan), Chatcheenie, (or Chalchuni). _Archives_, vol.

v., p. 489; _Wanderings_, end of vol. The Kygáni 'have their

head-quarters on Queen Charlotte's Archipelago, but there are a few

villages on the extreme southern part of Prince of Wales Archipelago.'

_Dall's Alaska_, p. 411. A colony of the Hydahs 'have settled at the

southern extremity of Prince of Wales's Archipelago, and in the Northern

Island.' _Scouler_, in _Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour._, vol. xi., p. 219. 'Die

Kaigàni (Kigarnies, Kigarnee, Kygànies der Engländer) bewohnen den

südlichen Theil der Inseln (Archipels) des Prinzen von Wales.'

_Radloff_, _Sprache der Kaiganen_, in _Mélanges Russes_, tom. iii.,

livrais. v., p. 569. 'The Kegarnie tribe, also in the Russian territory,

live on an immense island, called North Island.' _Dunn's Oregon_, p.

287. The Hydahs of the south-eastern Alexander Archipelago include 'the

Kassaaus, the Chatcheenees, and the Kaiganees.' _Bendel's Alex. Arch._,

p. 28. 'Called Kaiganies and Kliavakans; the former being near Kaigan

Harbor, and the latter near the Gulf of Kliavakan scattered along the

shore from Cordova to Tonvel's Bay.' _Halleck and Scott_, in _Ind. Aff.

Rept._, 1869, p. 562-4. 'A branch of this tribe, the Kyganies

(Kigarnies) live in the southern part of the Archipel of the Prince of

Wales.' _Ludewig_, _Ab. Lang._, p. 80.

'To the west and south of Prince of Wales Island is an off-shoot of the

Hydah,' Indians, called Anega or Hennegas. _Mahony_, in _Ind. Aff.

Rept._, 1869, p. 575.

The _Chimsyans_ inhabit the coast and islands about Fort Simpson. Ten

tribes of Chymsyans at 'Chatham Sound, Portland Canal, Port Essington,

and the neighbouring Islands.' _Warre and Vavasour_, in _Martin's

Hudson's Bay_, p. 80. 'The Chimsians or Fort Simpson Indians.' _Tolmie_,

in _Lord's Nat._, vol. ii., p. 231. 'Indians inhabiting the coast and

river mouth known by the name of Chyniseyans.' _Ind. Life_, p. 93. The

Tsimsheeans live 'in the Fort Simpson section on the main land.'

_Poole's Q. Char. Isl._, p. 257. Chimpsains, 'living on Chimpsain

Peninsula.' _Scott_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1869, p. 553. The Chimmesyans

inhabit 'the coast of the main land from 55° 30´ N., down to 53° 30´ N.'

_Scouler_, in _Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour._, vol. xi., p. 202; _Ludewig_,

_Ab. Lang._, p. 40. The Chimseeans 'occupy the country from Douglas'

Canal to Nass River.' _Simpson's Overland Journ._, vol. i., p. 206.

Divided into the following bands; Kispachalaidy, Kitlan (or Ketlane),

Keeches (or Keechis), Keenathtoix, Kitwillcoits, Kitchaclaith, Kelutsah

(or Ketutsah), Kenchen Kieg, Ketandou, Ketwilkcipa, who inhabit

'Chatham's Sound, from Portland Canal to Port Essington (into which

Skeena River discharges) both main land and the neighboring islands.'

_Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. v., p. 487; _Kane's Wand._, end of vol. The

Chymsyan connection 'extending from Milbank Sound to Observatory Inlet,

including the Sebassas, Neecelowes, Nass, and other offsets.'

_Anderson_, in _Hist. Mag._, vol. vii. p. 74. Mr. Duncan divides the

natives speaking the Tsimshean language into four parts at Fort Simpson,

Nass River, Skeena River, and the islands of Milbank Sound. _Mayne's B.

C._, p. 250.

The Keethratlah live 'near Fort Simpson.' _Id._, p. 279.

The _Nass_ nation lives on the banks of the Nass River, but the name is

often applied to all the mainland tribes of what I term the Haidah

Family. The nation consists of the Kithateen, Kitahon, Ketoonokshelk,

Kinawalax (or Kinaroalax), located in that order from the mouth upward.

_Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. v., p. 487; _Kane's Wand._, end of vol. Four

tribes, 'Nass River on the Main land.' _Warre and Vavasour_, in

_Martin's Hudson's Bay_, p. 80. 'On Observatory Inlet, lat. 55°.'

_Bryant_, in _Am. Antiq. Soc. Transact._, vol. ii., p. 302. Adjoin the

Sebassa tribe. _Cornwallis' N. El Dorado_, p. 107. About Fort Simpson.

_Dunn's Oregon_, p. 279. The Hailtsa, Haeeltzuk, Billechoola, and

Chimmesyans are Nass tribes. _Ludewig_, _Ab. Lang._, p. 130. See

_Buschmann_, _Brit. Nordamer._, pp. 398-400.

'There is a tribe of about 200 souls now living on a westerly branch of

the Naas near Stikeen River; they are called "Lackweips" and formerly

lived on Portland Channel.' _Scott_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1869, p. 563.

The _Skeenas_ are on the river of the same name, 'at the mouth of the

Skeena River.' _Warre and Vavasour_, in _Martin's Hudson's Bay_, p. 80.

They are the 'Kitsalas, Kitswingahs, Kitsiguchs, Kitspayuchs, Hagulgets,

Kitsagas, and Kitswinscolds.' _Scott_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1869, p.

563.

Keechumakarlo (or Keechumakailo) situated 'on the lower part of the

Skeena River.' _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. v., p. 487; _Kane's Wand._,

end of vol.

The Kitswinscolds live 'between the Nass and the Skeena.' _Scott_, in

_Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1869, p. 563. The Kitatels live 'on the islands in

Ogden's Channel, about sixty miles below Fort Simpson.' _Id._

The _Sebassas_ occupy the shores of Gardner Channel and the opposite

islands. Inhabit Banks Island. _Simpson's Overland Journ._, vol. i., p.

206. The Labassas in five tribes are situated on 'Gardner's Canal, Canal

de Principe, Canal de la Reida.' _Warre and Vavasour_, in _Martin's

Hudson's Bay_, p. 80. Keekheatla (or Keetheatla), on Canal de Principe;

Kilcatah, at the entrance of Gardner Canal; Kittamaat (or Kittamuat), on

the north arm of Gardner Canal; Kitlope on the south arm; Neeslous on

Canal de la Reido (Reina). _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. v., p. 487;

_Kane's Wand._, end of vol. 'In the neighbourhood of Seal Harbour dwell

the Sebassa tribe.' _Cornwallis' N. El Dorado_, p. 106. 'The Shebasha, a

powerful tribe inhabiting the numerous islands of Pitt's Archipelago.'

_Bryant_, in _Am. Antiq. Soc. Transact._, vol. ii., p. 302.

The _Millbank Sound_ tribes are the Onieletoch, Weitletoch (or

Weetletoch), and Kokwaiytoch, on Millbank Sound; Eesteytoch, on Cascade

Canal; Kuimuchquitoch, on Dean Canal; Bellahoola, at entrance of Salmon

River of Mackenzie; Guashilla, on River Canal; Nalalsemoch, at Smith

Inlet, and Weekemoch on Calvert Island. _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. v.,

pp. 487-8; _Kane's Wand._, end of vol. 'The Millbank Indians on Millbank

Sound.' _Bryant_, in _Am. Antiq. Soc. Transact._, vol. ii., p. 302.

The _Bellacoolas_ live about the mouth of Salmon River. '"Bentick's

Arms"--inhabited by a tribe of Indians--the Bellaghchoolas. Their

village is near Salmon River.' _Dunn's Oregon_, p. 267. The Billechoolas

live on Salmon River in latitude 53° 30´. _Buschmann_, _Brit.

Nordamer._, p. 384. The Bellahoolas 'on the banks of the Salmon river.'

_Lord's Nat._, vol. ii., p. 258. 'The Indians at Milbank Sound called

Belbellahs.' _Dunn's Oregon_, p. 271. 'Spread along the margins of the

numerous canals or inlets with which this part of the coast abounds.'

_Scouler_, in _Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour._, vol. xi., p. 224.

'In the neighbourhood of the Fort (McLoughlin) was a village of about

five hundred Ballabollas.' _Simpson's Overland Journ._, vol. i., p. 202.