Читать книгу The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes - Hubert Howe Bancroft, Hubert Howe Bancroft - Страница 5

Habitat of the Columbian Group – Physical Geography – Sources of Food-Supply – Influence of Food and Climate – Four extreme Classes – Haidahs – Their Home – Physical Peculiarities – Clothing – Shelter – Sustenance – Implements – Manufactures – Arts – Property – Laws – Slavery – Women – Customs – Medicine – Death – The Nootkas – The Sound Nations – The Chinooks – The Shushwaps – The Salish – The Sahaptins – Tribal Boundaries

The term Columbians, or, as Scouler228 and others have called them, Nootka-Columbians, is, in the absence of a native word, sufficiently characteristic to distinguish the aboriginal nations of north-western America between the forty-third and fifty-fifth parallels, from those of the other great divisions of this work. The Columbia River, which suggests the name of this group, and Nootka Sound on the western shore of Vancouver Island, were originally the chief centres of European settlement on the North-west Coast; and at an early period these names were compounded to designate the natives of the Anglo-American possessions on the Pacific, which lay between the discoveries of the Russians on the north and those of the Spaniards on the south. As a simple name is always preferable to a complex one, and as no more pertinent name suggests itself than that of the great river which, with its tributaries, drains a large portion of this territory, I drop 'Nootka' and retain only the word 'Columbian.'229 These nations have also been broadly denominated Flatheads, from a custom practiced more or less by many of their tribes, of compressing the cranium during infancy;230 although the only Indians in the whole area, tribally known as Flatheads, are those of the Salish family, who do not flatten the head at all.

COLUMBIAN FAMILIES.

In describing the Columbian nations it is necessary, as in the other divisions, to subdivide the group; arbitrarily this may have been done in some instances, but as naturally as possible in all. Thus the people of Queen Charlotte Islands, and the adjacent coast for about a hundred miles inland, extending from 55° to 52° of north latitude, are called Haidahs from the predominant tribe of the islands. The occupants of Vancouver Island and the opposite main, with its labyrinth of inlets from 52° to 49°, I term Nootkas. The Sound Indians inhabit the region drained by streams flowing into Puget Sound, and the adjacent shores of the strait and ocean; the Chinooks occupy the banks of the Columbia from the Dalles to the sea, extending along the coast northward to Gray Harbor, and southward nearly to the Californian line. The interior of British Columbia, between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, and south of the territory occupied by the Hyperborean Carriers, is peopled by the Shushwaps, the Kootenais, and the Okanagans. Between 49° and 47°, extending west from the Cascade to the Rocky Mountains, chiefly on the Columbia and Clarke Fork, is the Salish or Flathead family. The nations dwelling south of 47° and east of the Cascade range, on the Columbia, the lower Snake, and their tributary streams, may be called Sahaptins, from the name of the Nez Percé tribes.231 The great Shoshone family, extending south-east from the upper waters of the Columbia, and spreading out over nearly the whole of the Great Basin, although partially included in the Columbian limits, will be omitted in this, and included in the Californian Group, which follows. These divisions, as before stated, are geographic rather than ethnographic.232 Many attempts have been made by practical ethnologists, to draw partition lines between these peoples according to race, all of which have proved signal failures, the best approximation to a scientific division being that of philologists, the results of whose researches are given in the third volume of this series; but neither the latter division, nor that into coast and inland tribes – in many respects the most natural and clearly defined of all233– is adapted to my present purpose. In treating of the Columbians, I shall first take up the coast families, going from north to south, and afterward follow the same order with those east of the mountains.

HOME OF THE COLUMBIANS.

No little partiality was displayed by the Great Spirit of the Columbians in the apportionment of their dwelling-place. The Cascade Mountains, running from north to south throughout their whole territory, make of it two distinct climatic divisions, both highly but unequally favored by nature. On the coast side – a strip which may be called one hundred and fifty miles wide and one thousand miles long – excessive cold is unknown, and the earth, warmed by Asiatic currents and watered by numerous mountain streams, is thickly wooded; noble forests are well stocked with game; a fertile soil yields a great variety of succulent roots and edible berries, which latter means of subsistence were lightly appreciated by the indolent inhabitants, by reason of the still more abundant and accessible food-supply afforded by the fish of ocean, channel, and stream. The sources of material for clothing were also bountiful far beyond the needs of the people.

Passing the Cascade barrier, the climate and the face of the country change. Here we have a succession of plains or table-lands, rarely degenerating into deserts, with a good supply of grass and roots; though generally without timber, except along the streams, until the heavily wooded western spurs of the Rocky Mountains are reached. The air having lost much of its moisture, affords but a scanty supply of rain, the warming and equalizing influence of the ocean stream is no longer felt, and the extremes of heat and cold are undergone according to latitude and season. Yet are the dwellers in this land blessed above many other aboriginal peoples, in that game is plenty, and roots and insects are at hand in case the season's hunt prove unsuccessful.

Ethnologically, no well-defined line can be drawn to divide the people occupying these two widely different regions. Diverse as they certainly are in form, character, and customs, their environment, the climate, and their methods of seeking food may well be supposed to have made them so. Not only do the pursuit of game in the interior and the taking of fish on the coast, develop clearly marked general peculiarities of character and life in the two divisions, but the same causes produce grades more or less distinct in each division. West of the Cascade range, the highest position is held by the tribes who in their canoes pursue the whale upon the ocean, and in the effort to capture Leviathan become themselves great and daring as compared with the lowest order who live upon shell-fish and whatever nutritious substances may be cast by the tide upon the beach. Likewise in the interior, the extremes are found in the deer, bear, elk, and buffalo hunters, especially when horses are employed, and in the root and insect eaters of the plains. Between these four extreme classes may be traced many intermediate grades of physical and intellectual development, due to necessity and the abilities exercised in the pursuit of game.

The Columbians hitherto have been brought in much closer contact with the whites than the Hyperboreans, and the results of the association are known to all. The cruel treacheries and massacres by which nations have been thinned, and flickering remnants of once powerful tribes gathered on government reservations or reduced to a handful of beggars, dependent for a livelihood on charity, theft, or the wages of prostitution, form an unwritten chapter in the history of this region. That this process of duplicity was unnecessary as well as infamous, I shall not attempt to show, as the discussion of Indian policy forms no part of my present purpose. Whatever the cause, whether from an inhuman civilized policy, or the decrees of fate, it is evident that the Columbians, in common with all the aborigines of America, are doomed to extermination. Civilization and savagism will not coalesce, any more than light and darkness; and although it may be necessary that these things come, yet are those by whom they are unrighteously accomplished none the less culpable.

Once more let it be understood that the time of which this volume speaks, was when the respective peoples were first known to Europeans. It was when, throughout this region of the Columbia, nature's wild magnificence was yet fresh; primeval forests unprofaned; lakes, and rivers, and rolling plains unswept; it was when countless villages dotted the luxuriant valleys; when from the warrior's camp-fire the curling smoke never ceased to ascend, nor the sounds of song and dance to be heard; when bands of gaily dressed savages roamed over every hill-side; when humanity unrestrained vied with bird and beast in the exercise of liberty absolute. This is no history; alas! they have none; it is but a sun-picture, and to be taken correctly must be taken quickly. Nor need we pause to look back through the dark vista of unwritten history, and speculate, who and what they are, nor for how many thousands of years they have been coming and going, counting the winters, the moons, and the sleeps; chasing the wild game, basking in the sunshine, pursuing and being pursued, killing and being killed. All knowledge regarding them lies buried in an eternity of the past, as all knowledge of their successors remains folded in an eternity of the future. We came upon them unawares, unbidden, and while we gazed they melted away. The infectious air of civilization penetrated to the remotest corner of their solitudes. Their ignorant and credulous nature, unable to cope with the intellect of a superior race, absorbed only its vices, yielding up its own simplicity and nobleness for the white man's diseases and death.

HAIDAH NATIONS.

In the Haidah family I include the nations occupying the coast and islands from the southern extremity of Prince of Wales Archipelago to the Bentinck Arms in about 52°. Their territory is bounded on the north and east by the Thlinkeet and Carrier nations of the Hyperboreans, and on the south by the Nootka family of the Columbians. Its chief nations, whose boundaries however can rarely be fixed with precision, are the Massets, the Skiddegats, and the Cumshawas, of Queen Charlotte Islands; the Kaiganies, of Prince of Wales Archipelago; the Chimsyans, about Fort Simpson, and on Chatham Sound; the Nass and the Skeenas, on the rivers of the same names; the Sebassas, on Pitt Archipelago and the shores of Gardner Channel; and the Millbank Sound Indians, including the Hailtzas and the Bellacoolas, the most southern of this family. These nations, the orthography of whose names is far from uniform among different writers, are still farther subdivided into numerous indefinite tribes, as specified at the end of this chapter.

The Haidah territory, stretching on the mainland three hundred miles in length, and in width somewhat over one hundred miles from the sea to the lofty Chilkoten Plain, is traversed throughout its length by the northern extension of the Cascade Range. In places its spurs and broken foot-hills touch the shore, and the very heart of the range is penetrated by innumerable inlets and channels, into which pour short rapid streams from interior hill and plain. The country, though hilly, is fertile and covered by an abundant growth of large, straight pines, cedars, and other forest trees. The forest abounds with game, the waters with fish. The climate is less severe than in the middle United States; and notwithstanding the high latitude of their home, the Haidahs have received no small share of nature's gifts. Little has been explored, however, beyond the actual coast, and information concerning this nation, coming from a few sources only, is less complete than in the case of the more southern Nootkas.

PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE HAIDAHS.

Favorable natural conditions have produced in the Haidahs a tall, comely, and well-formed race, not inferior to any in North-western America;234 the northern nations of the family being generally superior to the southern,235 and having physical if not linguistic affinities with their Thlinkeet neighbors, rather than with the Nootkas. Their faces are broad, with high cheek bones;236 the eyes small, generally black, though brown and gray with a reddish tinge have been observed among them.237 The few who have seen their faces free from paint pronounce their complexion light,238 and instances of Albino characteristics are sometimes found.239 The hair is not uniformly coarse and black, but often soft in texture, and of varying shades of brown, worn by some of the tribes cut close to the head.240 The beard is usually plucked out with great care, but moustaches are raised sometimes as strong as those of Europeans;241 indeed there seems to be little authority for the old belief that the North-western American Indians were destitute of hair except on the head.242 Dr Scouler, comparing Chimsyan skulls with those of the Chinooks, who are among the best known of the north-western nations, finds that in a natural state both have broad, high cheek-bones, with a receding forehead, but the Chimsyan skull, between the parietal and temporal bones, is broader than that of the Chinook, its vertex being remarkably flat.243 Swollen and deformed legs are common from constantly doubling them under the body while sitting in the canoe. The teeth are frequently worn down to the gums by eating sanded salmon.244

HAIDAH DRESS AND ORNAMENT.

The Haidahs have no methods of distortion peculiar to themselves, by which they seek to improve their fine physique; but the custom of flattening the head in infancy obtains in some of the southern nations of this family, as the Hailtzas and Bellacoolas,245 and the Thlinkeet lip-piece, already sufficiently described, is in use throughout a larger part of the whole territory. It was observed by Simpson as far south as Millbank Sound, where it was highly useful as well as ornamental, affording a firm hold for the fair fingers of the sex in their drunken fights. These ornaments, made of either wood, bone, or metal, are worn particularly large in Queen Charlotte Islands, where they seem to be not a mark of rank, but to be worn in common by all the women.246 Besides the regular lip-piece, ornaments, various in shape and material, of shell, bone, wood, or metal, are worn stuck in the lips, nose, and ears, apparently according to the caprice or taste of the wearer, the skin being sometimes, though more rarely, tattooed to correspond.247 Both for ornament and as a protection against the weather, the skin is covered with a thick coat of paint, a black polish being a full dress uniform. Figures of birds and beasts, and a coat of grease are added in preparation for a feast, with fine down of duck or goose – a stylish coat of tar and feathers – sprinkled over the body as an extra attraction.248 When the severity of the weather makes additional protection desirable, a blanket, formerly woven by themselves from dog's hair, and stained in varied colors, but now mostly procured from Europeans, is thrown loosely over the shoulders. Chiefs, especially in times of feasting, wear richer robes of skins.249 The styles of dress and ornament adopted around the forts from contact with the whites need not be described. Among the more unusual articles that have been noticed by travelers are, "a large hat, resembling the top of a small parasol, made of the twisted fibres of the roots of trees, with an aperture in the inside, at the broader end" for the head, worn by a Sebassa chief; and at Millbank Sound, "masks set with seals' whiskers and feathers, which expand like a fan," with secret springs to open the mouth and eyes.250 Mackenzie and Vancouver, who were among the earliest visitors to this region, found fringed robes of bark-fibre, ornamented with fur and colored threads. A circular mat, with an opening in the centre for the head, was worn as a protection from the rain; and war garments consisted of several thicknesses of the strongest hides procurable, sometimes strengthened by strips of wood on the inside.251

HAIDAH HOUSES.

The Haidahs use as temporary dwellings, in their frequent summer excursions for war and the hunt, simple lodges of poles, covered, among the poorer classes by cedar mats, and among the rich by skins. Their permanent villages are usually built in strong natural positions, guarded by precipices, sometimes on rocks detached from the main land, but connected with it by a narrow platform. Their town houses are built of light logs, or of thick split planks, usually of sufficient size to accommodate a large number of families. Poole mentions a house on Queen Charlotte Islands, which formed a cube of fifty feet, ten feet of its height being dug in the ground, and which accommodated seven hundred Indians. The buildings are often, however, raised above the ground on a platform supported by posts, sometimes carved into human or other figures. Some of these raised buildings seen by the earlier visitors were twenty-five or thirty feet from the ground, solidly and neatly constructed, an inclined log with notches serving as a ladder. These houses were found only in the southern part of the Haidah territory. The fronts were generally painted with figures of men and animals. There were no windows or chimney; the floors were spread with cedar mats, on which the occupants slept in a circle round a central fire, whose smoke in its exit took its choice between the hole which served as a door and the wall-cracks. On the south-eastern boundary of this territory, Mackenzie found in the villages large buildings of similar but more careful construction, and with more elaborately carved posts, but they were not dwellings, being used probably for religious purposes.252

FOOD OF THE HAIDAHS.

Although game is plentiful, the Haidahs are not a race of hunters, but derive their food chiefly from the innumerable multitude of fish and sea animals, which, each variety in its season, fill the coast waters. Most of the coast tribes, and all who live inland, kill the deer and other animals, particularly since the introduction of firearms, but it is generally the skin and not the flesh that is sought. Some tribes about the Bentinck channels, at the time of Mackenzie's visit, would not taste flesh except from the sea, from superstitious motives. Birds that burrow in the sand-banks are enticed out by the glare of torches, and knocked down in large numbers with clubs. They are roasted without plucking or cleaning, the entrails being left in to improve the flavor. Potatoes, and small quantities of carrots and other vegetables, are now cultivated throughout this territory, the crop being repeated until the soil is exhausted, when a new place is cleared. Wild parsnips are abundant on the banks of lakes and streams, and their tender tops, roasted, furnish a palatable food; berries and bulbs abound, and the inner tegument of some varieties of the pine and hemlock is dried in cakes and eaten with salmon-oil. The varieties of fish sent by nature to the deep inlets and streams for the Haidah's food, are very numerous; their standard reliance for regular supplies being the salmon, herring, eulachon or candle-fish, round-fish, and halibut. Salmon are speared; dipped up in scoop-nets; entangled in drag-nets managed between two canoes and forced by poles to the bottom; intercepted in their pursuit of smaller fish by gill-nets with coarse meshes, made of cords of native hemp, stretched across the entrance of the smaller inlets; and are caught in large wicker baskets, placed at openings in weirs and embankments which are built across the rivers. The salmon fishery differs little in different parts of the Northwest. The candle-fish, so fat that in frying they melt almost completely into oil, and need only the insertion of a pith or bark wick to furnish an excellent lamp, are impaled on the sharp teeth of a rake, or comb. The handle of the rake is from six to eight feet long, and it is swept through the water by the Haidahs in their canoes by moonlight. Herring in immense numbers are taken in April by similar rakes, as well as by dip-nets, a large part of the whole take being used for oil. Seals are speared in the water or shot while on the rocks, and their flesh is esteemed a great delicacy. Clams, cockles, and shell-fish are captured by squaws, such an employment being beneath manly dignity. Fish, when caught, are delivered to the women, whose duty it is to prepare them for winter use by drying. No salt is used, but the fish are dried in the sun, or smoke-dried by being hung from the top of dwellings, then wrapped in bark, or packed in rude baskets or chests, and stowed on high scaffolds out of the reach of dogs and children. Salmon are opened, and the entrails, head, and back-bone removed before drying. During the process of drying, sand is blown over the fish, and the teeth of the eater are often worn down by it nearly even with the gums. The spawn of salmon and herring is greatly esteemed, and besides that obtained from the fish caught, much is collected on pine boughs, which are stuck in the mud until loaded with the eggs. This native caviare is dried for preservation, and is eaten prepared in various ways; pounded between two stones, and beaten with water into a creamy consistency; or boiled with sorrel and different berries, and moulded into cakes about twelve inches square and one inch thick by means of wooden frames. After a sufficient supply of solid food for the winter is secured, oil, the great heat-producing element of all northern tribes, is extracted from the additional catch, by boiling the fish in wooden vessels, and skimming the grease from the water or squeezing it from the refuse. The arms and breast of the women are the natural press in which the mass, wrapped in mats, is hugged; the hollow stalks of an abundant sea-weed furnish natural bottles in which the oil is preserved for use as a sauce, and into which nearly everything is dipped before eating. When the stock of food is secured, it is rarely infringed upon until the winter sets in, but then such is the Indian appetite – ten pounds of flour in the pancake-form at a meal being nothing for the stomach of a Haidah, according to Poole – that whole tribes frequently suffer from hunger before spring.253

The Haidah weapons are spears from four to sixteen feet long, some with a movable head or barb, which comes off when the seal or whale is struck; bows and arrows; hatchets of bone, horn, or iron, with which their planks are made; and daggers. Both spears and arrows are frequently pointed with iron, which, whether it found its way across the continent from the Hudson-Bay settlements, down the coast from the Russians, or was obtained from wrecked vessels, was certainly used in British Columbia for various purposes before the coming of the whites. Bows are made of cedar, with sinew glued along one side. Poole states that before the introduction of fire-arms, the Queen Charlotte Islanders had no weapon but a club. Brave as the Haidah warrior is admitted to be, open fair fight is unknown to him, and in true Indian style he resorts to night attacks, superior numbers, and treachery, to defeat his foe. Cutting off the head as a trophy is practiced instead of scalping, but though unmercifully cruel to all sexes and ages in the heat of battle, prolonged torture of captives seems to be unknown. Treaties of peace are arranged by delegations from the hostile tribes, following set forms, and the ceremonies terminate with a many days' feast.254 Nets are made of native wild hemp and of cedar-bark fibre; hooks, of two pieces of wood or bone fastened together at an obtuse angle; boxes, troughs, and household dishes, of wood; ladles and spoons, of wood, horn, and bone. Candle-fish, with a wick of bark or pith, serve as lamps; drinking vessels and pipes are carved with great skill from stone. The Haidahs are noted for their skill in the construction of their various implements, particularly for sculptures in stone and ivory, in which they excel all the other tribes of Northern America.255

HAIDAH MANUFACTURES.

The cedar-fibre and wild hemp were prepared for use by the women by beating on the rocks; they were then spun with a rude distaff and spindle, and woven on a frame into the material for blankets, robes, and mats, or twisted by the men into strong and even cord, between the hand and thigh. Strips of otter-skin, bird-feathers, and other materials, were also woven into the blankets. Dogs of a peculiar breed, now nearly extinct, were shorn each year, furnishing a long white hair, which, mixed with fine hemp and cedar, made the best cloth. By dyeing the materials, regular colored patterns were produced, each tribe having had, it is said, a peculiar pattern by which its matting could be distinguished. Since the coming of Europeans, blankets of native manufacture have almost entirely disappeared. The Bellacoolas made very neat baskets, called zeilusqua, as well as hats and water-tight vessels, all of fine cedar-roots. Each chief about Fort Simpson kept an artisan, whose business it was to repair canoes, make masks, etc.256

The Haidah canoes are dug out of cedar logs, and are sometimes sixty feet long, six and a half wide, and four and a half deep, accommodating one hundred men. The prow and stern are raised, and often gracefully curved like a swan's neck, with a monster's head at the extremity. Boats of the better class have their exteriors carved and painted, with the gunwale inlaid in some cases with otter-teeth. Each canoe is made of a single log, except the raised extremities of the larger boats. They are impelled rapidly and safely over the often rough waters of the coast inlets, by shovel-shaped paddles, and when on shore, are piled up and covered with mats for protection against the rays of the sun. Since the coming of Europeans, sails have been added to the native boats, and other foreign features imitated.257

TRADE AND GOVERNMENT.

Rank and power depend greatly upon wealth, which consists of implements, wives, and slaves. Admission to alliance with medicine-men, whose influence is greatest in the tribe, can only be gained by sacrifice of private property. Before the disappearance of sea-otters from the Haidah waters, the skins of that animal formed the chief element of their trade and wealth; now the potatoes cultivated in some parts, and the various manufactures of Queen Charlotte Islands, supply their slight necessities. There is great rivalry among the islanders in supplying the tribes on the main with potatoes, fleets of forty or fifty canoes engaging each year in the trade from Queen Charlotte Islands. Fort Simpson is the great commercial rendezvous of the surrounding nations, who assemble from all directions in September, to hold a fair, dispose of their goods, visit friends, fight enemies, feast, and dance. Thus continue trade and merry-making for several weeks. Large fleets of canoes from the north also visit Victoria each spring for trading purposes.258

Very little can be said of the government of the Haidahs in distinction from that of the other nations of the Northwest Coast. Among nearly all of them rank is nominally hereditary, for the most part by the female line, but really depends to a great extent on wealth and ability in war. Females often possess the right of chieftainship. In early intercourse with whites the chief traded for the whole tribe, subject, however, to the approval of the several families, each of which seemed to form a kind of subordinate government by itself. In some parts the power of the chief seems absolute, and is wantonly exercised in the commission of the most cruel acts according to his pleasure. The extensive embankments and weirs found by Mackenzie, although their construction must have required the association of all the labor of the tribe, were completely under the chief's control, and no one could fish without his permission. The people seemed all equal, but strangers must obey the natives or leave the village. Crimes have no punishment by law; murder is settled for with relatives of the victim, by death or by the payment of a large sum; and sometimes general or notorious offenders, especially medicine-men, are put to death by an agreement among leading men.259 Slavery is universal, and as the life of the slave is of no value to the owner except as property, they are treated with extreme cruelty. Slaves the northern tribes purchase, kidnap, or capture in war from their southern neighbors, who obtain them by like means from each other, the course of the slave traffic being generally from south to north, and from the coast inland.260

Polygamy is everywhere practiced, and the number of wives is regulated only by wealth, girls being bought of parents at any price which may be agreed upon, and returned, and the price recovered, when after a proper trial they are not satisfactory. The transfer of the presents or price to the bride's parents is among some tribes accompanied by slight ceremonies nowhere fully described. The marriage ceremonies at Millbank Sound are performed on a platform over the water, supported by canoes. While jealousy is not entirely unknown, chastity appears to be so, as women who can earn the greatest number of blankets win great admiration for themselves and high position for their husbands. Abortion and infanticide are not uncommon. Twin births are unusual, and the number of children is not large, although the age of bearing extends to forty or forty-six years. Women, except in the season of preparing the winter supply of fish, are occupied in household affairs and the care of children, for whom they are not without some affection, and whom they nurse often to the age of two or three years. Many families live together in one house, with droves of filthy dogs and children, all sleeping on mats round a central fire.261

HAIDAH GAMBLERS.

The Haidahs, like all Indians, are inveterate gamblers, the favorite game on Queen Charlotte Islands being odd and even, played with small round sticks, in which the game is won when one player has all the bunch of forty or fifty sticks originally belonging to his opponent. Farther south, and inland, some of the sticks are painted with red rings, and the player's skill or luck consists in naming the number and marks of sticks previously wrapped by his antagonist in grass. All have become fond of whisky since the coming of whites, but seem to have had no intoxicating drink before. At their annual trading fairs, and on other occasions, they are fond of visiting and entertaining friends with ceremonious interchange of presents, a suitable return being expected for each gift. At these reception feasts, men and women are seated on benches along opposite walls; at wedding feasts both sexes dance and sing together. In dancing, the body, head, and arms are thrown into various attitudes to keep time with the music, very little use being made of the legs. On Queen Charlotte Islands the women dance at feasts, while the men in a circle beat time with sticks, the only instruments, except a kind of tambourine. For their dances they deck themselves in their best array, including plenty of birds' down, which they delight to communicate to their partners in bowing, and which they also blow into the air at regular intervals, through a painted tube. Their songs are a simple and monotonous chant, with which they accompany most of their dances and ceremonies, though Mackenzie heard among them some soft, plaintive tones, not unlike church music. The chiefs in winter give a partly theatrical, partly religious entertainment, in which, after preparation behind a curtain, dressed in rich apparel and wearing masks, they appear on a stage and imitate different spirits for the instruction of the hearers, who meanwhile keep up their songs.262

After the salmon season, feasting and conjuring are in order. The chief, whose greatest authority is in his character of conjurer, or tzeetzaiak as he is termed in the Hailtzuk tongue, pretends at this time to live alone in the forest, fasting or eating grass, and while there is known as taamish. When he returns, clad in bear-robe, chaplet, and red-bark collar, the crowd flies at his approach, except a few brave spirits, who boldly present their naked arms, from which he bites and swallows large mouthfuls. This, skillfully done, adds to the reputation of both biter and bitten, and is perhaps all the foundation that exists for the report that these people are cannibals; although Mr Duncan, speaking of the Chimsyans in a locality not definitely fixed, testifies to the tearing to pieces and actual devouring of the body of a murdered slave by naked bands of cannibal medicine-men. Only certain parties of the initiated practice this barbarism, others confining their tearing ceremony to the bodies of dogs.263

MAGICIANS AND MEDICINE-MEN.

None of these horrible orgies are practiced by the Queen Charlotte Islanders. The performances of the Haidah magicians, so far as they may differ from those of the Nootkas have not been clearly described by travelers. The magicians of Chatham Sound keep infernal spirits shut up in a box away from the vulgar gaze, and possess great power by reason of the implicit belief on the part of the people, in their ability to charm away life. The doctor, however, is not beyond the reach of a kinsman's revenge, and is sometimes murdered.264 With their ceremonies and superstitions there seems to be mixed very little religion, as all their many fears have reference to the present life. Certain owls and squirrels are regarded with reverence, and used as charms; salmon must not be cut across the grain, or the living fish will leave the river; the mysterious operations with astronomical and other European instruments about their rivers caused great fear that the fisheries would be ruined; fogs are conjured away without the slightest suspicion of the sun's agency.265 European navigators they welcome by paddling their boats several times round the ship, making long speeches, scattering birds' down, and singing.266 Ordinary presents, like tobacco or trinkets, are gladly received, but a written testimonial is most highly prized by the Haidahs, who regard writing as a great and valuable mystery. They have absolutely no methods of recording events. Although living so constantly on the water, I find no mention of their skill in swimming, while Poole states expressly that they have no knowledge of that art.267

Very slight accounts are extant of the peculiar methods of curing diseases practiced by the Haidahs. Their chief reliance, as in the case of all Indian tribes, is on the incantations and conjurings of their sorcerers, who claim supernatural powers of seeing, hearing, and extracting disease, and are paid liberally when successful. Bark, herbs, and various decoctions are used in slight sickness, but in serious cases little reliance is placed on them. To the bites of the sorcerer-chiefs on the main, eagle-down is applied to stop the bleeding, after which a pine-gum plaster or sallal-bark is applied. On Queen Charlotte Islands, in a case of internal uneasiness, large quantities of sea-water are swallowed, shaken up, and ejected through the mouth for the purpose, as the natives say, of 'washing themselves inside out.'268

HAIDAH BURIALS.

Death is ascribed to the ill will and malign influence of an enemy, and one suspected of causing the death of a prominent individual, must make ready to die. As a rule, the bodies of the dead are burned, though exceptions are noted in nearly every part of the territory. In the disposal of the ashes and larger bones which remain unburned, there seems to be no fixed usage. Encased in boxes, baskets, or canoes, or wrapped in mats or bark, they are buried in or deposited on the ground, placed in a tree, on a platform, or hung from a pole. Articles of property are frequently deposited with the ashes, but not uniformly. Slaves' bodies are simply thrown into the river or the sea. Mourning for the dead consists usually of cutting the hair and blackening anew the face and neck for several months. Among the Kaiganies, guests at the burning of the bodies are wont to lacerate themselves with knives and stones. A tribe visited by Mackenzie, kept their graves free from shrubbery, a woman clearing that of her husband each time she passed. The Nass Indians paddle a dead chief, gaily dressed, round the coast villages.269

The Haidahs, compared with other North American Indians, may be called an intelligent, honest, and brave race, although not slow under European treatment to become drunkards, gamblers, and thieves. Acts of unprovoked cruelty or treachery are rare; missionaries have been somewhat successful in the vicinity of Fort Simpson, finding in intoxicating liquors their chief obstacle.270

THE NOOTKAS.

The Nootkas, the second division of the Columbian group, are immediately south of the Haidah country; occupying Vancouver Island, and the coast of the main land, between the fifty-second and the forty-ninth parallels. The word nootka is not found in any native dialect of the present day. Captain Cook, to whom we are indebted for the term, probably misunderstood the name given by the natives to the region of Nootka Sound.271 The first European settlement in this region was on the Sound, which thus became the central point of early English and Spanish intercourse with the Northwest Coast; but it was soon abandoned, and no mission or trading post has since taken its place, so that no tribes of this family have been less known in later times than those on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The chief tribes of the Nootka family, or those on whose tribal existence, if not on the orthography of their names authors to some extent agree, are as follows.272 The Nitinats, Clayoquots, and Nootkas, on the sounds of the same names along the west coast of Vancouver Island; the Quackolls and Newittees,273 in the north; the Cowichins, Ucletas, and Comux, on the east coast of Vancouver and on the opposite main; the Saukaulutuchs274, in the interior of the island; the Clallums,275 Sokes, and Patcheena, on the south end; and the Kwantlums and Teets,276 on the lower Fraser River. These tribes differ but little in physical peculiarities, or manners and customs, but by their numerous dialects they have been classed in nations. No comprehensive or satisfactory names have, however, been applied to them as national divisions.277

Between the Nootka family and its fish-eating neighbors on the north and south, the line of distinction is not clearly marked, but the contrast is greater with the interior hunting tribes on the east. Since their first intercourse with whites, the Nootkas have constantly decreased in numbers, and this not only in those parts where they have been brought into contact with traders and miners, but on the west coast, where they have retained in a measure their primitive state. The savage fades before the superior race, and immediate intercourse is not necessary to produce in native races those 'baleful influences of civilization,' which like a pestilence are wafted from afar, as on the wings of the wind.278

NOOTKA PHYSIQUE.

The Nootkas are of less than medium height, smaller than the Haidahs, but rather strongly built; usually plump, but rarely corpulent;279 their legs, like those of all the coast tribes, short, small, and frequently deformed, with large feet and ankles;280 the face broad, round, and full, with the usual prominent cheek-bone, a low forehead, flat nose, wide nostrils, small black eyes, round thickish-lipped mouth, tolerably even well-set teeth; the whole forming a countenance rather dull and expressionless, but frequently pleasant.281 The Nootka complexion, so far as grease and paint have allowed travelers to observe it, is decidedly light, but apparently a shade darker than that of the Haidah family.282 The hair, worn long, is as a rule black or dark brown, coarse, and straight, though instances are not wanting where all these qualities are reversed.283 The beard is carefully plucked out by the young men, and this operation, repeated for generations, has rendered the beard naturally thin. Old men often allow it to grow on the chin and upper lip.

NOOTKA HAIR AND BEARD.

To cut the hair short is to the Nootka a disgrace. Worn at full length, evened at the ends, and sometimes cut straight across the forehead, it is either allowed to hang loosely from under a band of cloth or fillet of bark, or is tied in a knot on the crown. On full-dress occasions the top-knot is secured with a green bough, and after being well saturated with whale-grease, the hair is powdered plentifully with white feathers, which are regarded as the crowning ornament for manly dignity in all these regions. Both sexes, but particularly the women, take great pains with the hair, carefully combing and plaiting their long tresses, fashioning tasteful head-dresses of bark-fibre, decked with beads and shells, attaching leaden weights to the braids to keep them straight. The bruised root of a certain plant is thought by the Ahts to promote the growth of the hair.284

The custom of flattening the head is practiced by the Nootkas, in common with the Sound and Chinook families, but is not universal, nor is so much importance attached to it as elsewhere; although all seem to admire a flattened forehead as a sign of noble birth, even among tribes that do not make this deformity a sign of freedom. Among the Quatsinos and Quackolls of the north, the head, besides being flattened, is elongated into a conical sugar-loaf shape, pointed at the top. The flattening process begins immediately after birth, and is continued until the child can walk. It is effected by compressing the head with tight bandages, usually attached to the log cradle, the forehead being first fitted with a soft pad, a fold of soft bark, a mould of hard wood, or a flat stone. Observers generally agree that little or no harm is done to the brain by this infliction, the traces of which to a great extent disappear later in life. Many tribes, including the Aht nations, are said to have abandoned the custom since they have been brought into contact with the whites.285

NOOTKA FACE-PAINTING.

The body is kept constantly anointed with a reddish clayey earth, mixed in train oil, and consequently little affected by their frequent baths. In war and mourning the whole body is blackened; on feast days the head, limbs, and body are painted in fantastic figures with various colors, apparently according to individual fancy, although the chiefs monopolize the fancy figures, the common people being restricted to plain colors. Solid grease is sometimes applied in a thick coating, and carved or moulded in alto-rilievo into ridges and figures afterwards decorated with red paint, while shining sand or grains of mica are sprinkled over grease and paint to impart a glittering appearance. The women are either less fond of paint than the men, or else are debarred by their lords from the free use of it; among the Ahts, at least of late, the women abandon ornamental paint after the age of twenty-five. In their dances, as in war, masks carved from cedar to represent an endless variety of monstrous faces, painted in bright colors, with mouth and eyes movable by strings, are attached to their heads, giving them a grotesquely ferocious aspect.286 The nose and ears are regularly pierced in childhood, with from one to as many holes as the feature will hold, and from the punctures are suspended bones, shells, rings, beads, or in fact any ornament obtainable. The lip is sometimes, though more rarely, punctured. Bracelets and anklets of any available material are also commonly worn.287

The aboriginal dress of the Nootkas is a square blanket, of a coarse yellow material resembling straw matting, made by the women from cypress bark, with a mixture of dog's hair. This blanket had usually a border of fur; it sometimes had arm-holes, but was ordinarily thrown over the shoulders, and confined at the waist by a belt. Chiefs wore it painted in variegated colors or unpainted, but the common people wore a coarser material painted uniformly red. Women wore the garment longer and fastened under the chin, binding an additional strip of cloth closely about the middle, and showing much modesty about disclosing the person, while the men often went entirely naked. Besides the blanket, garments of many kinds of skin were in use, particularly by the chiefs on public days. In war, a heavy skin dress was worn as a protection against arrows. The Nootkas usually went bareheaded, but sometimes wore a conical hat plaited of rushes, bark, or flax. European blankets have replaced those of native manufacture, and many Indians about the settlements have adopted also the shirt and breeches.288

DWELLINGS OF THE NOOTKAS.

The Nootkas choose strong positions for their towns and encampments. At Desolation Sound, Vancouver found a village built on a detached rock with perpendicular sides, only accessible by planks resting on the branches of a tree, and protected on the sea side by a projecting platform resting on timbers fixed in the crevices of the precipice. The Nimkish tribe, according to Lord, build their homes on a table-land overhanging the sea, and reached by ascending a vertical cliff on a bark-rope ladder. Each tribe has several villages in favorable locations for fishing at different seasons. The houses, when more than one is needed for a tribe, are placed with regularity along streets; they vary in size according to the need or wealth of the occupants, and are held in common under the direction of the chief. They are constructed in the manner following. A row of large posts, from ten to fifteen feet high, often grotesquely carved, supports an immense ridge-pole, sometimes two and a half feet thick and one hundred feet long. Similar but smaller beams, on shorter posts, are placed on either side of the central row, distant from it fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five feet, according to the dimensions required. This frame is then covered with split cedar planks, about two inches thick, and from three to eight feet wide. The side planks are tied together with bark, and supported by slender posts in couples just far enough apart to receive the thickness of the plank. A house like this, forty by one hundred feet, accommodates many families, each of which has its allotted space, sometimes partitioned off like a double row of stalls, with a wide passage in the middle. In the centre of each stall is a circle of stones for a fire-place, and round the walls are raised couches covered with mats. In rainy weather, cracks in the roof and sides are covered with mats. No smoke or window holes are left, and when smoke becomes troublesome a roof-plank is removed. The entrance is at one end. These dwellings furnish, according to Nootka ideas, a comfortable shelter, except when a high wind threatens to unroof them, and then the occupants go out and sit on the roof to keep it in place. Frequently the outside is painted in grotesque figures of various colors. Only the frame is permanent; matting, planks, and all utensils are several times each year packed up and conveyed in canoes to another locality where a frame belonging to the tribe awaits covering. The odor arising from fish-entrails and other filth, which they take no pains to remove, appears to be inoffensive, but the Nootkas are often driven by mosquitos to sleep on a stage over the water.289

FOOD OF THE NOOTKAS.

The Nootkas, like the Haidahs, live almost wholly on the products of the sea, and are naturally expert fishermen. Salmon, the great staple, are taken in August and September, from sea, inlet, and river, by nets, spears, pots or baskets, and even by hooks. Hooks consist of sharp barbed bones bound to straight pieces of hard wood; sea-wrack, maple-bark, and whale-sinew furnish lines, which in salmon-fishing are short and attached to the paddles. The salmon-spear is a forked pole, some fifteen feet long, the detachable head having prongs pointed with fish-bone or iron, and the fish in deep water is sometimes attracted within its reach by a wooden decoy, forced down by a long pole, and then detached and allowed to ascend rapidly to the surface. Spearing is carried on mostly by torch-light. A light-colored stone pavement is sometimes laid upon the bottom of the stream, which renders the fish visible in their passage over it. Nets are made of nettles or of wild flax, found along Fraser River. They are small in size, and used as dip-nets, or sunk between two canoes and lifted as the fish pass over. A pot or basket fifteen to twenty feet long, three to five feet in diameter at one end, and tapering to a point at the other, is made of pine splinters one or two inches apart, with twig-hoops; and placed, large end up stream, at the foot of a fall or at an opening in an embankment. The salmon are driven down the fall with poles, and entering the basket are taken out by a door in the small end. This basket is sometimes enclosed in another one, similar but of uniform diameter, and closed at one end. Fences of stakes across the river oblige the salmon to enter the open mouth in their passage up, and passing readily through an opening left in the point of the inner basket, they find themselves entrapped. In March, herring appear on the coast in great numbers, and in April and May they enter the inlets and streams, where they are taken with a dip-net, or more commonly by the fish-rake – a pole armed with many sharp bones or nails. Early in the season they can be taken only by torch-light. Halibut abound from March to June, and are caught with hooks and long lines, generally at some distance from shore. For all other fish, European hooks were early adopted, but the halibut, at least among the Ahts, must still be taken with the native hook. Many other varieties of fish, caught by similar methods, are used as food, but those named supply the bulk of the Nootka's provision. In May or June, whales appear and are attacked in canoes by the chief, with the select few from each tribe who alone have the right to hunt this monarch of the sea. The head of their harpoon is made of two barbed bones and pointed with muscle-shell; it is fastened to a whale-sinew line of a few feet in length, and this short line to a very long bark rope, at one end of which are seal-skin air-bags and bladders, to keep it afloat. The point is also fastened to a shaft from ten to twenty-five feet in length, from which it is easily detached. With many of these buoys in tow the whale cannot dive, and becomes an easy prey. Whale-blubber and oil are great delicacies, the former being preferred half putrid, while the oil with that of smaller denizens of the sea preserved in bladders, is esteemed a delicious sauce, and eaten with almost everything. Sea-otters and seals are also speared, the former with a weapon more barbed and firmly attached to the handle, as they are fierce fighters; but when found asleep on the rocks, they are shot with arrows. Seals are often attracted within arrow-shot by natives disguised as seals in wooden masks.

Clams and other shell-fish, which are collected in great numbers by the women, are cooked, strung on cypress-bark cords, and hung in the houses to dry for winter use. Fish are preserved by drying only, the use of salt being unknown. Salmon, after losing their heads and tails, which are eaten in the fishing season, are split open and the back-bone taken out before drying; smaller fry are sometimes dried as they come from their element; but halibut and cod are cut up and receive a partial drying in the sun. The spawn of all fish, but particularly of salmon and herring, is carefully preserved by stowing it away in baskets, where it ferments. Bear, deer, and other land animals, as well as wild fowl, are sometimes taken for food, by means of rude traps, nets, and covers, successful only when game is abundant, for the Nootkas are but indifferent hunters. In the time of Jewitt, three peculiarities were observable in the Nootka use of animal food, particularly bear-meat. When a bear was killed, it was dressed in a bonnet, decked with fine down, and solemnly invited to eat in the chief's presence, before being eaten; after partaking of bruin's flesh, which was appreciated as a rarity, the Nootka could not taste fresh fish for two months; and while fish to be palatable must be putrid, meat when tainted was no longer fit for food. The Nootka cuisine furnished food in four styles; namely, boiled – the mode par excellence, applicable to every variety of food, and effected, as by the Haidahs, by hot stones in wooden vessels; steamed – of rarer use, applied mostly to heads, tails, and fins, by pouring water over them on a bed of hot stones, and covering the whole tightly with mats; roasted – rarely, in the case of some smaller fish and clams; and raw – fish-spawn and most other kinds of food, when conveniences for cooking were not at hand. Some varieties of sea-weed and lichens, as well as the camass, and other roots, were regularly laid up for winter, while berries, everywhere abundant, were eaten in great quantities in their season, and at least one variety preserved by pressing in bunches. In eating, they sit in groups of five or six, with their legs doubled under them round a large wooden tray, and dip out the food nearly always boiled to a brothy consistency, with their fingers or clam-shells, paying little or no attention to cleanliness. Chiefs and slaves have trays apart, and the principal meal, according to Cook, was about noon. Feasting is the favorite way of entertaining friends, so long as food is plentiful; and by a curious custom, of the portion allotted them, guests must carry away what they cannot eat. Water in aboriginal days was the only Nootka drink; it is also used now when whisky is not to be had.290

NOOTKA BATTLES AND BOATS.

Lances and arrows, pointed with shell, slate, flint, or bone, and clubs and daggers of wood and bone, were the weapons with which they met their foes; but firearms and metallic daggers, and tomahawks, have long since displaced them, as they have to a less degree the original hunting and fishing implements.291 The Nootka tribes were always at war with each other, hereditary quarrels being handed down for generations. According to their idea, loss of life in battle can be forgotten only when an equal number of the hostile tribe are killed. Their military tactics consist of stratagem and surprise in attack, and watchfulness in defense. Before engaging in war, some weeks are spent in preparation, which consists mainly of abstinence from women, bathing, scrubbing the skin with briers till it bleeds, and finally painting the whole body jet-black. All prisoners not suitable for slaves are butchered or beheaded. In an attack the effort is always made to steal into the adversary's camp at night and kill men enough to decide the victory before the alarm can be given. When they fail in this, the battle is seldom long continued, for actual hand-to-hand fighting is not to the Nootka taste. On the rare occasions when it is considered desirable to make overtures of peace, an ambassador is sent with an ornamented pipe, and with this emblem his person is safe. Smoking a pipe together by hostile chiefs also solemnizes a treaty.292

Nootka boats are dug out each from a single pine-tree, and are made of all sizes from ten to fifty feet long, the largest accommodating forty or fifty men. Selecting a proper tree in the forest, the aboriginal Nootka fells it with a sort of chisel of flint or elk-horn, three by six inches, fastened in a wooden handle, and struck by a smooth stone mallet. Then the log is split with wooden wedges, and the better piece being selected, it is hollowed out with the aforesaid chisel, a mussel-shell adze, and a bird's-bone gimlet worked between the two hands. Sometimes, but not always, fire is used as an assistant. The exterior is fashioned with the same tools. The boat is widest in the middle, tapers toward each end, and is strengthened by light cross-pieces extending from side to side, which, being inserted after the boat is soaked in hot water, modify and improve the original form. The bow is long and pointed, the stern square-cut or slightly rounded; both ends are raised higher than the middle by separate pieces of wood painted with figures of birds or beasts, the head on the bow and the tail on the stern. The inside is painted red; the outside, slightly burned, is rubbed smooth and black, and for the whale fishery is ornamented along the gunwales with a row of small shells or seal-teeth, but for purposes of war it is painted with figures in white. Paddles are neatly made of hard wood, about five and a half feet long with a leaf-shaped blade of two feet, sharp at the end, and used as a weapon in canoe-fighting. A cross-piece is sometimes added to the handle like the top of a crutch.293

In addition to the implements already named are chests and boxes, buckets, cups and eating-troughs, all of wood, either dug out or pinned together; baskets of twigs and bags of matting; all neatly made, and many of the articles painted or carved, or ornamented with shell work. As among the Haidahs, the dried eulachon is often used as a lamp.294 The matting and coarser kinds of cloth are made of rushes and of pine or cedar bark, which after being soaked is beaten on a plank with a grooved instrument of wood or bone until the fibres are separated. The threads are twisted into cords between the hand and thigh; these cords, hung to a horizontal beam and knotted with finer thread at regular intervals, form the cloth. Thread of the same bark is used with a sharpened twig for a needle. Intercourse with Europeans has modified their manufactures, and checked the development of their native ingenuity.295

PROPERTY OF THE NOOTKAS.

Captain Cook found among the Ahts very "strict notions of their having a right to the exclusive property of everything that their country produces," so that they claimed pay for even wood, water, and grass. The limits of tribal property are very clearly defined, but individuals rarely claim any property in land. Houses belong to the men who combine to build them. Private wealth consists of boats and implements for obtaining food, domestic utensils, slaves, and blankets, the latter being generally the standard by which wealth or price is computed. Food is not regarded as common property, yet any man may help himself to his neighbor's store when needy. The accumulation of property beyond the necessities of life is considered desirable only for the purpose of distributing it in presents on great feast-days, and thereby acquiring a reputation for wealth and liberality; and as these feasts occur frequently, an unsuccessful man may often take a fresh start in the race. Instead of being given away, canoes and blankets are often destroyed, which proves that the motive in this disposal of property is not to favor friends, but merely to appear indifferent to wealth. It is certainly a most remarkable custom, and one that exerts a great influence on the whole people. Gifts play an important part in procuring a wife, and a division of property accompanies a divorce. To enter the ranks of the medicine-men or magicians, or to attain rank of any kind, property must be sacrificed; and a man who receives an insult or suffers any affliction must tear up the requisite quantity of blankets and shirts, if he would retain his honor.296 Trade in all their productions was carried on briskly between the different Nootka tribes before the coming of the whites. They manifest much shrewdness in their exchanges; even their system of presents is a species of trade, the full value of each gift being confidently expected in a return present on the next festive occasion. In their intertribal commerce, a band holding a strong position where trade by canoes between different parts may be stopped, do not fail to offer and enforce the acceptance of their services as middlemen, thereby greatly increasing market prices.297

The system of numeration, sufficiently extensive for the largest numbers, is decimal, the numbers to ten having names which are in some instances compounds but not multiples of smaller numbers. The fingers are used to aid in counting. The year is divided into months with some reference to the moon, but chiefly by the fish-seasons, ripening of berries, migrations of birds, and other periodical events, for which the months are named, as: 'when the herrings spawn,' etc. The unit of measure is the span, the fingers representing its fractional parts.298 The Nootkas display considerable taste in ornamenting with sculpture and paintings their implements and houses, their chief efforts being made on the posts of the latter, and the wooden masks which they wear in war and some of their dances; but all implements may be more or less carved and adorned according to the artist's fancy. They sometimes paint fishing and hunting scenes, but generally their models exist only in imagination, and their works consequently assume unintelligible forms. There seems to be no evidence that their carved images and complicated paintings are in any sense intended as idols or hieroglyphics. A rude system of heraldry prevails among them, by which some animal is adopted as a family crest, and its figure is painted or embroidered on canoes, paddles, or blankets.299

NOOTKA ART AND GOVERNMENT.

To the Nootka system of government the terms patriarchal, hereditary, and feudal have been applied. There is no confederation, each tribe being independent of all the rest, except as powerful tribes are naturally dominant over the weak. In each tribe the head chief's rank is hereditary by the male line; his grandeur is displayed on great occasions, when, decked in all his finery, he is the central figure. At the frequently recurring feasts of state he occupies the seat of honor; presides at all councils of the tribe, and is respected and highly honored by all; but has no real authority over any but his slaves. Between the chief, or king, and the people is a nobility, in number about one fourth of the whole tribe, composed of several grades, the highest being partially hereditary, but also, as are all the lower grades, obtainable by feats of valor or great liberality. All chieftains must be confirmed by the tribe, and some of them appointed by the king; each man's rank is clearly defined in the tribe, and corresponding privileges strictly insisted on. There are chiefs who have full authority in warlike expeditions. Harpooners also form a privileged class, whose rank is handed down from father to son. This somewhat complicated system of government nevertheless sits lightly, since the people are neither taxed nor subjected to any laws, nor interfered with in their actions. Still, long-continued custom serves as law and marks out the few duties and privileges of the Nootka citizen. Stealing is not common except from strangers; and offenses requiring punishment are usually avenged – or pardoned in consideration of certain blankets received – by the injured parties and their friends, the chiefs seeming to have little or nothing to do in the matter.300

NOOTKA SLAVERY AND MARRIAGE.

Slavery is practiced by all the tribes, and the slave-trade forms an important part of their commerce. Slaves are about the only property that must not be sacrificed to acquire the ever-desired reputation for liberality. Only rich men – according to some authorities only the nobles – may hold slaves. War and kidnapping supply the slave-market, and no captive, whatever his rank in his own tribe, can escape this fate, except by a heavy ransom offered soon after he is taken, and before his whereabouts becomes unknown to his friends. Children of slaves, whose fathers are never known, are forever slaves. The power of the owner is arbitrary and unlimited over the actions and life of the slave, but a cruel exercise of his power seems of rare occurrence, and, save the hard labor required, the material condition of the slave is but little worse than that of the common free people, since he is sheltered by the same roof and partakes of the same food as his master. Socially the slave is despised; his hair is cut short, and his very name becomes a term of reproach. Female slaves are prostituted for hire, especially in the vicinity of white settlements. A runaway slave is generally seized and resold by the first tribe he meets.301

THE NOOTKA FAMILY.

The Nootka may have as many wives as he can buy, but as prices are high, polygamy is practically restricted to the chiefs, who are careful not to form alliances with families beneath them in rank. Especially particular as to rank are the chiefs in choosing their first wife, always preferring the daughters of noble families of another tribe. Courtship consists in an offer of presents by the lover to the girl's father, accompanied generally by lengthy speeches of friends on both sides, extolling the value of the man and his gift, and the attractions of the bride. After the bargain is concluded, a period of feasting follows if the parties are rich, but this is not necessary as a part of the marriage ceremony. Betrothals are often made by parents while the parties are yet children, mutual deposits of blankets and other property being made as securities for the fulfillment of the contract, which is rarely broken. Girls marry at an average age of sixteen. The common Nootka obtains his one bride from his own rank also by a present of blankets, much more humble than that of his rich neighbor, and is assisted in his overtures by perhaps a single friend instead of being followed by the whole tribe. Courtship among this class is not altogether without the attentions which render it so charming in civilized life; as when the fond girl lovingly caresses and searches her lover's head, always giving him the fattest of her discoveries. Wives are not ill treated, and although somewhat overworked, the division of labor is not so oppressive as among many Indian tribes. Men build houses, make boats and implements, hunt and fish; women prepare the fish and game for winter use, cook, manufacture cloth and clothing, and increase the stock of food by gathering berries and shell-fish; and most of this work among the richer class is done by slaves. Wives are consulted in matters of trade, and in fact seem to be nearly on terms of equality with their husbands, except that they are excluded from some public feasts and ceremonies. There is much reason to suppose that before the advent of the whites, the Nootka wife was comparatively faithful to her lord, that chastity was regarded as a desirable female quality, and offenses against it severely punished. The females so freely brought on board the vessels of early voyagers and offered to the men, were perhaps slaves, who are everywhere prostituted for gain, so that the fathers of their children are never known. Women rarely have more than two or three children, and cease bearing at about twenty-five, frequently preventing the increase of their family by abortions. Pregnancy and childbirth affect them but little. The male child is named at birth, but his name is afterwards frequently changed. He is suckled by the mother until three or four years old, and at an early age begins to learn the arts of fishing by which he is to live. Children are not quarrelsome among themselves, and are regarded by both parents with some show of affection and pride. Girls at puberty are closely confined for several days, and given a little water but no food; they are kept particularly from the sun or fire, to see either of which at this period would be a lasting disgrace. At such times feasts are given by the parents. Divorces or separations may be had at will by either party, but a strict division of property and return of betrothal presents is expected, the woman being allowed not only the property she brought her husband, and articles manufactured by her in wedlock, but a certain proportion of the common wealth. Such property as belongs to the father and is not distributed in gifts during his life, or destroyed at his death, is inherited by the eldest son.302

From the middle of November to the middle of January, is the Nootka season of mirth and festivity, when nearly the whole time is occupied with public and private gaiety. Their evenings are privately passed by the family group within doors in conversation, singing, joking, boasting of past exploits, personal and tribal, and teasing the women until bed-time, when one by one they retire to rest in the same blankets worn during the day.303 Swimming and trials of strength by hooking together the little fingers, or scuffling for a prize, seem to be the only out-door amusements indulged in by adults, while the children shoot arrows and hurl spears at grass figures of birds and fishes, and prepare themselves for future conflicts by cutting off the heads of imaginary enemies modeled in mud.304 To gambling the Nootkas are passionately addicted, but their games are remarkably few and uniform. Small bits of wood compose their entire paraphernalia, sometimes used like dice, when the game depends on the side turned up; or passed rapidly from hand to hand, when the gamester attempts to name the hand containing the trump stick; or again concealed in dust spread over a blanket and moved about by one player that the rest may guess its location. In playing they always form a circle seated on the ground, and the women rarely if ever join the game.305 They indulge in smoking, the only pipes of their own manufacture being of plain cedar, filled now with tobacco by those who can afford it, but in which they formerly smoked, as it is supposed, the leaves of a native plant – still mixed with tobacco to lessen its intoxicating properties. The pipe is passed round after a meal, but seems to be less used in serious ceremonies than among eastern Indian nations.306

NOOTKA AMUSEMENTS.

But the Nootka amusement par excellence is that of feasts, given by the richer classes and chiefs nearly every evening during 'the season.' Male and female heralds are employed ceremoniously to invite the guests, the house having been first cleared of its partitions, and its floor spread with mats.307 As in countries more civilized, the common people go early to secure the best seats, their allotted place being near the door. The élite come later, after being repeatedly sent for; on arrival they are announced by name, and assigned a place according to rank. In one corner of the hall the fish and whale-blubber are boiled by the wives of the chiefs, who serve it to the guests in pieces larger or smaller, according to their rank. What can not be eaten must be carried home. Their drink ordinarily is pure water, but occasionally berries of a peculiar kind, preserved in cakes, are stirred in until a froth is formed which swells the body of the drinker nearly to bursting.308 Eating is followed by conversation and speech-making, oratory being an art highly prized, in which, with their fine voices, they become skillful. Finally, the floor is cleared for dancing. In the dances in which the crowd participate, the dancers, with faces painted in black and vermilion, form a circle round a few leaders who give the step, which consists chiefly in jumping with both feet from the ground, brandishing weapons or bunches of feathers, or sometimes simply bending the body without moving the feet. As to the participation of women in these dances, authorities do not agree.309 In a sort of conversational dance all pass briskly round the room to the sound of music, praising in exclamations the building and all within it, while another dance requires many to climb upon the roof and there continue their motions. Their special or character dances are many, and in them they show much dramatic talent. A curtain is stretched across a corner of the room to conceal the preparations, and the actors, fantastically dressed, represent personal combats, hunting scenes, or the actions of different animals. In the seal-dance naked men jump into the water and then crawl out and over the floors, imitating the motions of the seal. Indecent performances are mentioned by some visitors. Sometimes in these dances men drop suddenly as if dead, and are at last revived by the doctors, who also give dramatic or magic performances at their houses; or they illuminate a wax moon out on the water, and make the natives believe they are communing with the man in the moon. To tell just where amusement ceases and solemnity begins in these dances is impossible.310 Birds' down forms an important item in the decoration at dances, especially at the reception of strangers. All dances, as well as other ceremonies, are accompanied by continual music, instrumental and vocal. The instruments are: boxes and benches struck with sticks; a plank hollowed out on the under side and beaten with drum-sticks about a foot long; a rattle made of dried seal-skin in the form of a fish, with pebbles; a whistle of deer-bone about an inch long with one hole, which like the rattle can only be used by chiefs; and a bunch of muscle-shells, to be shaken like castanets.311 Their songs are monotonous chants, extending over but few notes, varied by occasional howls and whoops in some of the more spirited melodies, pleasant or otherwise, according to the taste of the hearer.312 Certain of their feasts are given periodically by the head chiefs, which distant tribes attend, and during which take place the distributions of property already mentioned. Whenever a gift is offered, etiquette requires the recipient to snatch it rudely from the donor with a stern and surly look.313

MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS.

Among the miscellaneous customs noticed by the different authorities already quoted, may be mentioned the following. Daily bathing in the sea is practiced, the vapor-bath not being used. Children are rolled in the snow by their mothers to make them hardy. Camps and other property are moved from place to place by piling them on a plank platform built across the canoes. Whymper saw Indians near Bute Inlet carrying burdens on the back by a strap across the forehead. In a fight they rarely strike but close and depend on pulling hair and scratching; a chance blow must be made up by a present. Invitations to eat must not be declined, no matter how often repeated. Out of doors there is no native gesture of salutation, but in the houses a guest is motioned politely to a couch; guests are held sacred, and great ceremonies are performed at the reception of strangers; all important events are announced by heralds. Friends sometimes saunter along hand in hand. A secret society, independent of tribe, family, or crest, is supposed by Sproat to exist among them, but its purposes are unknown. In a palaver with whites the orator holds a long white pole in his hand, which he sticks occasionally into the ground by way of emphasis. An animal chosen as a crest must not be shot or ill-treated in the presence of any wearing its figure; boys recite portions of their elders' speeches as declamations; names are changed many times during life, at the will of the individual or of the tribe.

CUSTOMS AND CANNIBALISM.

In sorcery, witchcraft, prophecy, dreams, evil spirits, and the transmigration of souls, the Nootkas are firm believers, and these beliefs enable the numerous sorcerers of different grades to acquire great power in the tribes by their strange ridiculous ceremonies. Most of their tricks are transparent, being deceptions worked by the aid of confederates to keep up their power; but, as in all religions, the votary must have some faith in the efficacy of their incantations. The sorcerer, before giving a special demonstration, retires apart to meditate. After spending some time alone in the forests and mountains, fasting and lacerating the flesh, he appears suddenly before the tribe, emaciated, wild with excitement, clad in a strange costume, grotesquely painted, and wearing a hideous mask. The scenes that ensue are indescribable, but the aim seems to be to commit all the wild freaks that a maniac's imagination may devise, accompanied by the most unearthly yells which can terrorize the heart. Live dogs and dead human bodies are seized and torn by their teeth; but, at least in later times, they seem not to attack the living, and their performances are somewhat less horrible and bloody than the wild orgies of the northern tribes. The sorcerer is thought to have more influence with bad spirits than with good, and is always resorted to in the case of any serious misfortune. New members of the fraternity are initiated into the mysteries by similar ceremonies. Old women are not without their traditional mysterious powers in matters of prophecy and witchcraft; and all chiefs in times of perplexity practice fasting and laceration. Dreams are believed to be the visits of spirits or of the wandering soul of some living party, and the unfortunate Nootka boy or girl whose blubber-loaded stomach causes uneasy dreams, must be properly hacked, scorched, smothered, and otherwise tormented until the evil spirit is appeased.314 Whether or not these people were cannibals, is a disputed question, but there seems to be little doubt that slaves have been sacrificed and eaten as a part of their devilish rites.315

The Nootkas are generally a long-lived race, and from the beginning to the failing of manhood undergo little change in appearance. Jewitt states that during his captivity of three years at Nootka Sound, only five natural deaths occurred, and the people suffered scarcely any disease except the colic. Sproat mentions as the commonest diseases; bilious complaints, dysentery, a consumption which almost always follows syphilis, fevers, and among the aged, ophthalmia. Accidental injuries, as cuts, bruises, sprains, and broken limbs, are treated with considerable success by means of simple salves or gums, cold water, pine-bark bandages, and wooden splints. Natural pains and maladies are invariably ascribed to the absence or other irregular conduct of the soul, or to the influence of evil spirits, and all treatment is directed to the recall of the former and to the appeasing of the latter. Still, so long as the ailment is slight, simple means are resorted to, and the patient is kindly cared for by the women; as when headache, colic, or rheumatism is treated by the application of hot or cold water, hot ashes, friction, or the swallowing of cold teas made from various roots and leaves. Nearly every disease has a specific for its cure. Oregon grape and other herbs cure syphilis; wasp-nest powder is a tonic, and blackberries an astringent; hemlock bark forms a plaster, and dog-wood bark is a strengthener; an infusion of young pine cones or the inside scrapings of a human skull prevent too rapid family increase, while certain plants facilitate abortion. When a sickness becomes serious, the sorcerer or medicine-man is called in and incantations begin, more or less noisy according to the amount of the prospective fee and the number of relatives and friends who join in the uproar. A very poor wretch is permitted to die in comparative quiet. In difficult cases the doctor, wrought up to the highest state of excitement, claims to see and hear the soul, and to judge of the patient's prospects by its position and movements. The sick man shows little fortitude, and abandons himself helplessly to the doctor's ridiculous measures. Failing in a cure, the physician gets no pay, but if successful, does not fail to make a large demand. Both the old and the helplessly sick are frequently abandoned by the Ahts to die without aid in the forest.316

NOOTKA BURIAL.

After death the Nootka's body is promptly put away; a slave's body is unceremoniously thrown into the water; that of a freeman, is placed in a crouching posture, their favorite one during life, in a deep wooden box, or in a canoe, and suspended from the branches of a tree, deposited on the ground with a covering of sticks and stones, or, more rarely, buried. Common people are usually left on the surface; the nobility are suspended from trees at heights differing, as some authorities say, according to rank. The practice of burning the dead seems also to have been followed in some parts of this region. Each tribe has a burying-ground chosen on some hill-side or small island. With chiefs, blankets, skins, and other property in large amounts are buried, hung up about the grave, or burned during the funeral ceremonies, which are not complicated except for the highest officials. The coffins are often ornamented with carvings or paintings of the deceased man's crest, or with rows of shells. When a death occurs, the women of the tribe make a general howl, and keep it up at intervals for many days or months; the men, after a little speech-making, keep silent. The family and friends, with blackened faces and hair cut short, follow the body to its last resting-place with music and other manifestations of sorrow, generally terminating in a feast. There is great reluctance to explain their funeral usages to strangers; death being regarded by this people with great superstition and dread, not from solicitude for the welfare of the dead, but from a belief in the power of departed spirits to do much harm to the living.317

CHARACTER OF THE NOOTKAS.

The Nootka character presents all the inconsistencies observable among other American aborigines, since there is hardly a good or bad trait that has not by some observer been ascribed to them. Their idiosyncrasies as a race are perhaps best given by Sproat as "want of observation, a great deficiency of foresight, extreme fickleness in their passions and purposes, habitual suspicion, and a love of power and display; added to which may be noticed their ingratitude and revengeful disposition, their readiness for war, and revolting indifference to human suffering." These qualities, judged by civilized standards censurable, to the Nootka are praiseworthy, while contrary qualities are to be avoided. By a strict application, therefore, of 'put yourself in his place' principles, to which most 'good Indians' owe their reputation, Nootka character must not be too harshly condemned. They are not, so far as physical actions are concerned, a remarkably lazy people, but their minds, although intelligent when aroused, are averse to effort and quickly fatigued; nor can they comprehend the advantage of continued effort for any future good which is at all remote. What little foresight they have, has much in common with the instinct of beasts. Ordinarily, they are quiet and well behaved, especially the higher classes, but when once roused to anger, they rage, bite, spit and kick without the slightest attempt at self-possession. A serious offense against an individual, although nominally pardoned in consideration of presents, can really never be completely atoned for except by blood; hence private, family, and tribal feuds continue from generation to generation. Women are not immodest, but the men have no shame. Stealing is recognized as a fault, and the practice as between members of the same tribe is rare, but skillful pilfering from strangers, if not officially sanctioned, is extensively carried on and much admired; still any property confided in trust to a Nootka is said to be faithfully returned. To his wife he is kind and just; to his children affectionate. Efforts for their conversion to foreign religions have been in the highest degree unsuccessful.318

THE SOUND INDIANS.

The Sound Indians, by which term I find it convenient to designate the nations about Puget Sound, constitute the third family of the Columbian group. In this division I include all the natives of that part of Washington which lies to the west of the Cascade Range, except a strip from twenty-five to forty miles wide along the north bank of the Columbia. The north-eastern section of this territory, including the San Juan group, Whidbey Island, and the region tributary to Bellingham Bay, is the home of the Nooksak, Lummi, Samish and Skagit nations, whose neighbors and constant harassers on the north are the fierce Kwantlums and Cowichins of the Nootka family about the mouth of the Fraser. The central section, comprising the shores and islands of Admiralty Inlet, Hood Canal, and Puget Sound proper, is occupied by numerous tribes with variously spelled names, mostly terminating in mish, which names, with all their orthographic diversity, have been given generally to the streams on whose banks the different nations dwelt. All these tribes may be termed the Nisqually nation, taking the name from the most numerous and best-known of the tribes located about the head of the sound. The Clallams inhabit the eastern portion of the peninsula between the sound and the Pacific. The western extremity of the same peninsula, terminating at Cape Flattery, is occupied by the Classets or Makahs; while the Chehalis and Cowlitz nations are found on the Chehalis River, Gray Harbor, and the upper Cowlitz. Excepting a few bands on the headwaters of streams that rise in the vicinity of Mount Baker, the Sound family belongs to the coast fish-eating tribes rather than to the hunters of the interior. Indeed, this family has so few marked peculiarities, possessing apparently no trait or custom not found as well among the Nootkas or Chinooks, that it may be described in comparatively few words. When first known to Europeans they seem to have been far less numerous than might have been expected from the extraordinary fertility and climatic advantages of their country; and since they have been in contact with the whites, their numbers have been reduced, – chiefly through the agency of small-pox and ague, – even more rapidly than the nations farther to the north-west.319

These natives of Washington are short and thick-set, with strong limbs, but bow-legged; they have broad faces, eyes fine but wide apart; noses prominent, both of Roman and aquiline type; color, a light copper, perhaps a shade darker than that of the Nootkas, but capable of transmitting a flush; the hair usually black and almost universally worn long.320

All the tribes flatten the head more or less, but none carry the practice to such an extent as their neighbors on the south, unless it be the Cowlitz nation, which might indeed as correctly be classed with the Chinooks. By most of the Sound natives tattooing is not practiced, and they seem somewhat less addicted to a constant use of paint than the Nootkas; yet on festive occasions a plentiful and hideous application is made of charcoal or colored earth pulverized in grease, and the women appreciate the charms imparted to the face by the use of vermilion clay. The nose, particularly at Cape Flattery, is the grand centre of facial ornamentation. Perforating is extravagantly practiced, and pendant trinkets of every form and substance are worn, those of bone or shell preferred, and, if we may credit Wilkes, by some of the women these ornaments are actually kept clean.

SOUND DRESS AND DWELLINGS.

The native garment, when the weather makes nakedness uncomfortable, is a blanket of dog's hair, sometimes mixed with birds' down and bark-fibre, thrown about the shoulders. Some few fasten this about the neck with a wooden pin. The women are more careful in covering the person with the blanket than are the men, and generally wear under it a bark apron hanging from the waist in front. A cone-shaped, water-proof hat, woven from colored grasses, is sometimes worn on the head.321

Temporary hunting-huts in summer are merely cross-sticks covered with coarse mats made by laying bulrushes side by side, and knotting them at intervals with cord or grass. The poorer individuals or tribes dwell permanently in similar huts, improved by the addition of a few slabs; while the rich and powerful build substantial houses, of planks split from trees by means of bone wedges, much like the Nootka dwellings in plan, and nearly as large. These houses sometimes measure over one hundred feet in length, and are divided into rooms or pens, each house accommodating many families. There are several fire-places in each dwelling; raised benches extend round the sides, and the walls are often lined with matting.322

FOOD OF THE SOUND INDIANS.

In spring time they abandon their regular dwellings and resort in small companies to the various sources of food-supply. Fish is their chief dependence, though game is taken in much larger quantities than by the Nootkas; some of the more inland Sound tribes subsisting almost entirely by the chase and by root-digging. Nearly all the varieties of fish which support the northern tribes are also abundant here, and are taken substantially by the same methods, namely, by the net, hook, spear, and rake; but fisheries seem to be carried on somewhat less systematically, and I find no account of the extensive and complicated embankments and traps mentioned by travelers in British Columbia. To the salmon, sturgeon, herring, rock-cod, and candle-fish, abundant in the inlets of the sound, the Classets, by venturing out to sea, add a supply of whale-blubber and otter-meat, obtained with spears, lines, and floats. At certain points on the shore tall poles are erected, across which nets are spread; and against these nets large numbers of wild fowl, dazzled by torch-lights at night, dash themselves and fall stunned to the ground, where the natives stand ready to gather in the feathery harvest. Vancouver noticed many of these poles in different localities, but could not divine their use. Deer and elk in the forests are also hunted by night, and brought within arrow-shot by the spell of torches. For preservation, fish are dried in the sun or dried and smoked by the domestic hearth, and sometimes pounded fine, as are roots of various kinds; clams are dried on strings and hung up in the houses, or occasionally worn round the neck, ministering to the native love of ornament until the stronger instinct of hunger impairs the beauty of the necklace. In the better class of houses, supplies are neatly stored in baskets at the sides. The people are extremely improvident, and, notwithstanding their abundant natural supplies in ocean, stream, and forest, are often in great want. Boiling in wooden vessels by means of hot stones is the ordinary method of cooking. A visitor to the Nooksaks thus describes their method of steaming elk-meat: "They first dig a hole in the ground, then build a wood fire, placing stones on the top of it. As it burns, the stones become hot and fall down. Moss and leaves are then placed on the top of the hot stones, the meat on these, and another layer of moss and leaves laid over it. Water is poured on, which is speedily converted into steam. This is retained by mats carefully placed over the heap. When left in this way for a night, the meat is found tender and well cooked in the morning." Fowls were cooked in the same manner by the Queniults.323

I find no mention of other weapons, offensive or defensive, than spears, and bows and arrows. The arrows and spears were usually pointed with bone; the bows were of yew, and though short, were of great power. Vancouver describes a superior bow used at Puget Sound. It was from two and a half to three feet long, made from a naturally curved piece of yew, whose concave side became the convex of the bow, and to the whole length of this side a strip of elastic hide or serpent-skin was attached so firmly by a kind of cement as to become almost a part of the wood. This lining added greatly to the strength of the bow, and was not affected by moisture. The bow-string was made of sinew.324 The tribes were continually at war with each other, and with northern nations, generally losing many of their people in battle. Sticking the heads of the slain enemy on poles in front of their dwellings, is a common way of demonstrating their joy over a victory. The Indians at Port Discovery spoke to Wilkes of scalping among their warlike exploits, but according to Kane the Classets do not practice that usage.325 Vancouver, finding sepulchres at Penn Cove, in which were large quantities of human bones but no limb-bones of adults, suspected that the latter were used by the Indians for pointing their arrows, and in the manufacture of other implements.326

MANUFACTURES OF PUGET SOUND.

The Sound manufactures include only the weapons and utensils used by the natives. Their articles were made with the simplest tools of bone or shell. Blankets were made of dog's hair, – large numbers of dogs being raised for the purpose, – the wool of mountain sheep, or wild goats, found on the mountain slopes, the down of wild-fowl, cedar bark-fibre, ravellings of foreign blankets, or more commonly of a mixture of several of these materials. The fibre is twisted into yarn between the hand and thigh, and the strands arranged in perpendicular frames for weaving purposes. Willow and other twigs supply material for baskets of various forms, often neatly made and colored. Oil, both for domestic use and for barter, is extracted by boiling, except in the case of the candle-fish, when hanging in the hot sun suffices; it is preserved in bladders and skin-bottles.327

Canoes are made by the Sound Indians in the same manner as by the Nootkas already described; being always dug out, formerly by fire, from a single cedar trunk, and the form improved afterwards by stretching when soaked in hot water. Of the most elegant proportions, they are modeled by the builder with no guide but the eye, and with most imperfect tools; three months' work is sufficient to produce a medium-sized boat. The form varies among different nations according as the canoe is intended for ocean, sound, or river navigation; being found with bow or stern, or both, in various forms, pointed, round, shovel-nosed, raised or level. The raised stern, head-piece, and stern-post are usually formed of separate pieces. Like the Nootkas, they char and polish the outside and paint the interior with red. The largest and finest specimen seen by Mr. Swan was forty-six feet long and six feet wide, and crossed the bar into Shoalwater Bay with thirty Queniult Indians from the north. The paddle used in deep water has a crutch-like handle and a sharp-pointed blade.328

TRADE AND GOVERNMENT OF THE SOUND INDIANS.

In their barter between the different tribes, and in estimating their wealth, the blanket is generally the unit of value, and the hiaqua, a long white shell obtained off Cape Flattery at a considerable depth, is also extensively used for money, its value increasing with its length. A kind of annual fair for trading purposes and festivities is held by the tribes of Puget Sound at Bajada Point, and here and in their other feasts they are fond of showing their wealth and liberality by disposing of their surplus property in gifts.329

The system of government seems to be of the simplest nature, each individual being entirely independent and master of his own actions. There is a nominal chief in each tribe, who sometimes acquires great influence and privileges by his wealth or personal prowess, but he has no authority, and only directs the movements of his band in warlike incursions. I find no evidence of hereditary rank or caste except as wealth is sometimes inherited.330 Slaves are held by all the tribes, and are treated very much like their dogs, being looked upon as property, and not within the category of humanity. For a master to kill half a dozen slaves is no wrong or cruelty; it only tends to illustrate the owner's noble disposition in so freely sacrificing his property. Slaves are obtained by war and kidnapping, and are sold in large numbers to northern tribes. According to Sproat, the Classets, a rich and powerful tribe, encourage the slave-hunting incursions of the Nootkas against their weaker neighbors.331

Wives are bought by presents, and some performances or ceremonies, representative of hunting or fishing scenes, not particularly described by any visitor, take place at the wedding. Women have all the work to do except hunting and fishing, while their lords spend their time in idleness and gambling. Still the females are not ill-treated; they acquire great influence in the tribe, and are always consulted in matters of trade before a bargain is closed. They are not overburdened with modesty, nor are husbands noted for jealousy. Hiring out their women, chiefly however slaves, for prostitution, has been a prominent source of tribal revenue since the country was partially settled by whites. Women are not prolific, three or four being ordinarily the limit of their offspring. Infants, properly bound up with the necessary apparatus for head-flattening, are tied to their cradle or to a piece of bark, and hung by a cord to the end of a springy pole kept in motion by a string attached to the mother's great toe. Affection for children is by no means rare, but in few tribes can they resist the temptation to sell or gamble them away.332

AMUSEMENTS OF THE SOUND INDIANS.

Feasting, gambling, and smoking are the favorite amusements; all their property, slaves, children, and even their own freedom in some cases are risked in their games. Several plants are used as substitutes for tobacco when that article is not obtainable. If any important differences exist between their ceremonies, dances, songs and feasts, and those of Vancouver Island, such variations have not been recorded. In fact, many authors describe the manners and customs of 'North-west America' as if occupied by one people.333 There is no evidence of cannibalism; indeed, during Vancouver's visit at Puget Sound, some meat offered to the natives was refused, because it was suspected to be human flesh. Since their acquaintance with the whites they have acquired a habit of assuming great names, as Duke of York, or Jenny Lind, and highly prize scraps of paper with writing purporting to substantiate their claims to such distinctions. Their superstitions are many, and they are continually on the watch in all the commonest acts of life against the swarm of evil influences, from which they may escape only by the greatest care.334

CHARACTER OF THE SOUND INDIANS.

Disorders of the throat and lungs, rheumatism and intermittent fevers, are among the most prevalent forms of disease, and in their methods of cure, as usual, the absurd ceremonies, exorcisms, and gesticulations of the medicine-men play the principal part; but hot and cold baths are also often resorted to without regard to the nature or stage of the malady.335 The bodies of such as succumb to their diseases, or to the means employed for cure, are disposed of in different ways according to locality, tribe, rank, or age. Skeletons are found by travelers buried in the ground or deposited in a sitting posture on its surface; in canoes or in boxes supported by posts, or, more commonly, suspended from the branches of trees. Corpses are wrapped in cloth or matting, and more or less richly decorated according to the wealth of the deceased. Several bodies are often put in one canoe or box, and the bodies of young children are found suspended in baskets. Property and implements, the latter always broken, are deposited with or near the remains, and these last resting-places of their people are religiously cared for and guarded from intrusion by all the tribes.336 All the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Nootka character perhaps have been noted by travelers among the Indians of the Sound, but none of these peculiarities are so clearly marked in the latter people. In their character, as in other respects, they have little individuality, and both their virtues and vices are but faint reflections of the same qualities in the great families north and south of their territory. The Cape Flattery tribes are at once the most intelligent, bold, and treacherous of all, while some of the tribes east and north-east of the Sound proper have perhaps the best reputation. Since the partial settlement of their territory by the whites, the natives here as elsewhere have lost many of their original characteristics, chiefly the better ones. The remnants now for the most part are collected on government reservations, or live in the vicinity of towns, by begging and prostitution. Some tribes, especially in the region of Bellingham Bay, have been nominally converted to Christianity, have abandoned polygamy, slavery, head-flattening, gambling, and superstitious ceremonies, and pay considerable attention to a somewhat mixed version of church doctrine and ceremonies.337

THE CHINOOKS.

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 Range339 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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:

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.

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 Palouse378 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 Kliketats380 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 manœuvres 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

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

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

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

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.

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