their names and numbers. The na. tions next to the Chilts are,

The Clamoitomish, of twelve houses, and two hundred and sixty souls. The Potoashees, of ten houses, and two hundred souls.

The Pailsk, of ten houses, and two hundred souls.

The Quinults, of sixty houses, and one thousand souls.

The Chillates, of eight houses, and one hundred and fifty souls.

The Calasthorte, of ten houses, and two hundred souls.

The Quinnechant, consisting of two thousand souls.

BURIAL OF THEIR DEAD.

The Chinnooks, Clatsops, and most of the adjoining nations, dispose of the dead in canoes. For this purpose a scaffold is erected, by fixing perpendicularly in the ground four long pieces of split timber. These are placed two by two, just wide enough apart to admit the canoe, and sufficiently long to support its two extremities. The boards are connected by a bar of wood run through them at the height of six feet, on which is placed a small cance, containing the body of the deceased, carefully wrapped in a robe of dressed skins, with a paddle, and some articles belonging to the deceased, by his side. Over this canoe is placed one of a larger size, reversed, with its gunwale resting on the crossbars, so as to cover the body completely. One or more large mats of rushes or flags are then rolled round the canoes, and the whole secured by cords, usually made of the bark of the white cedar. On these crossbars are hung different articles of clothing, or culinary utensils. The method practised by the Killamucks differs somewhat from this; the body being deposited in an oblong box of plank, which, with the paddle and other articles, is placed in a canoe, rest. ing on the ground.

IMPLEMENTS.

The implements used in hunting by the Clatsops, Chinnooks, and other neighbouring nations, are the gun, bow and arrow, deadfall, pits, saares, and spears or gigs. The guns are generally old American or British muskets repaired for this trade; and al. though there are some good pieces among them they are constantly out of order, as the Indians have not been sufficiently accustomed to arms to understand the management of them. The powder is kept in small japanned

tin flasks, in which the traders sell it; and when the ball or shot fails they make use of gravel or pieces of metal from their pots, without being sensible of the injury done to their guns. These arms are reserved for hunting elk, and the few deer and bears in this neighbourhood; but as they have no rifles they are not very successful hunters. The most common weapon is the bow and arrow, with which every man is provided, even though he carries a gun, and which is used in every kind of hunting. The bow is extremely neat, and being very thin and flat, possesses great elasticity. It is made of the heart of the white cedar, about two feet and a half in length, two inches wide at the centre, whence it tapers to the width of half an inch at the extremities; and the back is covered with the sinews of elk, fastened on by means of a glue. made from the sturgeon. The string is formed of the same sinews. The arrow generally consists of two parts; the first is about twenty inches long, and formed of light white pine, with the feather at one end, and at the other a circular hole, which receives the second part, formed of some harder wood, and about five inches long, and secured in its place by means of sinews. The barb is either stone, or else of iron or copper, in which latter place, the angle is more obtuse than any we have seen. If, as sometimes happens, the arrow is formed of a single piece, the whole is of a more durable wood, but the form just described is preferred: because, as much of the game consists of wild fowl, on the ponds, it is desirable that they should be constructed so as to float, if they fall into the water. These arrows are kept in a quiver of elk or young bear skin, opening not at the ends, as the common quivers, but at the sides; which, for those who hunt in canoes, is much more convenient.

THEIR CANOES.

The industry of the Indians is not confined to household utensils: the great proof of their skill is the con struction of their canoes. In a country, indeed, where so much of the intercourse between different tribes is carried on by water, the ingenuity of the people would naturally direct itself to the improvement of canoes, which would adually become, from a mere safe conveyance, an elegant ornament. We have accordingly seen, on the Co.

lumbia,

lumbia, canoes of many forms, beginning with the simple boats near the mountains, to those more highly de. corated, because more useful, nearer the mouth of the Columbia. Below the grand cataract there are four forms of canoes: the first and smallest is about fifteen feet long, and calculated for one or two persons: it is, indeed, by no means remarkable in its structure, and is chiefly employed by the Cathlamahs and Wahkiacums among the marshy islands. The second is from twenty to thirty-five feet long, about two and a half or three feet in the beam, and two feet in the hold. It is chiefly remarkable in having the bowsprit, which rises to some height above the bow, formed by tapering gradually from the sides into a sharp point. Canoes of this shape are common to all the nations below the grand rapids.

But the canoes most used by the Columbia Indians, from the Chilluckittequaws inclusive, to the ocean, are about thirty or thirty-five feet long. The bow, which looks more like the stern of our boats, is higher than the other end, and is ornamented with a sort of comb, an inch in thickness, cut out of the same log which forms the canoe, and extending nine or eleven inches from the bowsprit to the bottom of the boat. The stern is nearly rounded off, and gradually as cends to a point. This canoe is very light and convenient; for though it will contain ten or twelve persons, it may be carried with great ease by four.

The fourth and largest species of canoe we did not meet till we reached tide water, near the grand rapids below, in which place they are found among all the nations, especially the Killamucks, and others residing on the sea-coast. They are upwards of fifty feet long, and will carry from eight to ten thousand pounds weight, or from twenty to thirty persons.

NATION OF THE COAST.

The Killamucks, Clatsops, Chinpooks, and Cathlamahs, the four neigh bouring nations with whom we have had most intercourse, preserve a general resemblance in person, dress, and manners. They are commonly of a diminutive stature, badly shaped, and their appearance by no means prepossessing. They have broad thick flat feet, thick ankles, and crooked legs: the last of which deformities is to be ascribed, in

603

part, to the universal practice of squatting, or sitting on the calves of their legs and heels, and also to the tight bandages of beads and strings worn round the ankles, by the women, which prevent the circulation of the blood, and render the legs, of the females particularly, ill-shaped and swollen. The complexion is the usual copper

coloured brown of the North American tribes, though the complexion is rather lighter than that of the Indians of the Missouri, and the frontier of the United States: the mouth is wide and the lips thick; the nose of a moderate size, fleshy, wide at the extremities, with large nostrils, and generally low between the eyes, though there are rare instances of high aquiline noses; the eyes are generally black, though we occasionally see them of a dark yellowish brown, with a black pupil.

FLATTING THE HEAD,

The most distinguishing part of their physiognomy is the peculiar flatness and width of their forehead, a peculiarity which they owe to one of those customs by which nature is sacrificed to fantastic ideas of beauty. custom, indeed, of flattening the head by artificial pressure during infancy, prevails among all the nations we have seen west of the Rocky mountains.

The

But wherever it may have begun, the practice is now universal among these nations. Soon after the birth of her child, the mother, anxious to procure for her infant the recommendation of a broad forehead, places it in the compressing machine, where it is kept for ten or twelve months; though the females remain longer than the boys. The operation is so gradual, that it is not attended with pain; but the impression is deep and permanent. The heads of the children, when they are released from the bandage, are not more than two inches thick about the upper edge of the forehead, and still thinner above: nor with all its efforts can nature ever restore its shape; the heads of grown persons being often in a straight line from the nose to the top of the forehead.

CAMING.

The natural vice of all these people is an attachment for games of hazard, which they pursue with a strange and ruinous avidity. The games are of two kinds. In the first, one of the company assumes the office of banker, and plays against the rest. He takes a small stone, about the size of a bean,

which he shifts from one hand to the other with great dexterity, repeating at the same time a song adapted to the game, and which serves to divert the attention of the company, till having agreed on the stake, he holds out his hands, and the antagonist wins or Joses as he succeeds or fails at guessing in which hand the stone is. After the banker has lost his money, or whenever he is tired, the stone is transferred to another, who in turn challenges the rest of the company. The other game is something like the play of ninepins: two pins are placed on the floor, about the distance of a foot from each other, and a small hole made behind them. The players then go about ten feet from the hole, into which they try to roll a small piece resembling the men used at draughts; if they succeed in putting it into the hole, they win the stake; if the piece rolls between the pins, but does not go into the hole, nothing is won or lost; but the wager is wholly lost if the checquer rolls outside of the pins. Entire days are wasted at these games, which are often continued through the night round the blaze of their fires, till the last article of clothing, or even the last blue bead, is won from the desperate adventurer.

INDIAN TRADE.

The great emporium is the Falls, where all the neighbouring nations assemble. The inhabitants of the Columbian plains, after having passed the winter near the mountains, come down as soon as the snow has left the valleys, and are occupied in collecting and drying roots, till about the month of May. They then crowd to the river, and fixing themselves on its north side, to avoid the incursions of the Snake Indians, continue fishing, till about the 1st of September, when the salmon are no longer fit for use. They then bury their fish and return to the plains, where they remain ga. thering quamash, till the snow obliges them to desist. They come back to the Columbia, and taking their store of fish, retire to the foot of the moun tains, and along the creeks, which supply timber for houses, and pass the winter in hunting deer or elk, which, with the aid of their fish, enables them 10 subsist till, in the spring, they resume the circle of their employments. During their residence on the river, from May to September, or rather before they begin the regular fishery,

they go down to the Falls, carrying! with them skins, mats, silk grass, rushes, and chappelell bread. They are here overtaken by the Chopunnish, and other, tribes of the Rocky mountains, who descend the Kooskooskee : and Lewis's river, for the purpose of, selling bear-grass, horses, quamash,: and a few skins which they have obtained by hunting, or in exchange for horses, with the Tushepaws.

At the Falls, they find the Chilluckittequaws, Eneeshurs, Echeloots, and Skilloots, which last serve as intermediate traders or carriers between the inhabitants above and below the Falls. These tribes prepare pounded fish for the market; and the nations below bring wappatoo roots, the fish of the sea coast, berries, and a va riety of trinkets and small articles which they have procured from the whites.

The trade then begins. The Chopunnish, and Indians of the Rocky mountains, exchange the articles which they have brought for wappatoo, pounded fish, and beads. The Indians of the plains, being their own fishermen, take only wappatoo, horses, beads, and other articles, procured. from Europeans. The Indians, how. ever, from Lewis's river to the Falls, consume as food or fuel all the fish which they take; so that the whole stock for exportation is prepared by, the nations between the Towahna, hiooks and the Falls, and amounts, as nearly as we could estimate, to about thirty thousand weight, chiefly salmon, above the quantity which they use themselves, or barter with the more eastern Indians. This is now carried down the river by the Indians at the Falls, and is consumed among the nations at the mouth of the Columbia, who in return give the fish of the seacoast, and the articles which they obtain from the whites. The neighbour. ing people catch large quantities of salmon and dry them, but they do not understand or practice the art of drying and pounding it in the manner used at the Falls, and being very fond of it, are forced to purchase it at high prices. This article, indeed, and the wappatoo, form the principal subjects of trade with the people of our immediate vicinity. The traffic is wholly carried on by water; there are even no roads or paths through the country, except across the portages which connect the creeks.

EUROPEAN

EUROPEAN VISITS. But the circumstance which forms the soul of their trade, is the visit of the whites. They arrive generally about the month of April, and either remain until October, or return at that time; during which time, having no establishment on shore, they anchor on the north side of the bay, at the place already described, which is a spacious and commodious harbour, perfectly secure from all except the south and south-east winds; and, as they leave it before winter, they do not suffer from these winds, which, during that season, are the most usual and the most vioJent. This situation is recommended by its neighbourhood to fresh water and wood, as well as to excellent timber for repairs. Here they are immediately visited by the tribes along the sea-coast, by the Cathlamahs, and lastly by the Skilloots, that numerous and active people, who skirt the river between the marshy islands and the grand rapids, as well as the Coweliskee, and who carry down the fish prepared by their immediate neighbours the Chilluckittequaws, Eneeshurs, and Echeeloots, residing from the grand rapids to the Falls, as well as all the articles which they have procured in barter at the market in May. The accumulated trade of the Columbia nów consists of dressed and undressed skins of elk, sea otter, the common otter, beaver, common fox, spuck, and tiger cat. The articles of less importance, are a small quantity of dried or pounded salmon, the biscuits made of the chappelell roots, and some of the manufactures of the neighbourhood. In return they receive guns (which are principally old British or American muskets), powder, ball and shot, copper and brass kettles, brass tea-kettles, and coffee-pots, blankets, from two to three points, coarse scarlet and blue cloth, plates and strips of sheet copper and brass, large brass wire, knives, tobacco, fish hooks, buttons, and a considerable quantity of sailors' hats, trowsers, coats, and shirts. But, as we have had occasion to remark more than once, the objects of foreign trade which are the most desired, are the common cheap blue or white beads, of about fifty or seventy to the penny-weight, which are strung on strands a fathom in length, and sold by the yard or the length of both arms: of these the MONTHLY MAG. No. 257.

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blue beads, which are called tia commashuck, or chief beads, hold the first rank in their ideas of relative value: the most inferior kind are esteemed beyond the finest wampum, and are temptations which can always seduce them to part with their most valuable effects. Indeed, if the example of civilized life did not completely vindicate their choice, we might wonder at their infatuated attachment to a bauble in itself so worthless. Yet these beads are, perhaps, quite as reasonable objects of research as the precious metals, since they are at once beautiful ornaments for the person, and the great circulating medium of trade with all the nations on the Columbia.

These strangers who visit the Columbia for the purpose of trade or hunting, must be either English or Americans. The Indians inform us that they speak the same language as we do, and indeed the few words which the Indians have learnt from the sailors, such as musket, powder, shot, knife, file, heave the lead, damned rascal, and other phrases of that description, evidently show that the visitors speak the English language. But, as the greater part of them annually arrive in April, and either remain till autumn, or revisit them at that time, which we could not clearly understand, the trade cannot be direct from either England or the United States, since the ships could not return thither during the remainder of the year. When the Indians are asked where these traders go on leaving the Co. lumbia, they always point to the southwest, whence we presume that they do not belong to any establishment at Nootka Sound. The names and description of all these persons who visit them in the spring and autumn are remembered with great accuracy, and we took down, exactly as they were pronounced, the following list: The favourite trader is

Mr. Haley, who visits them in a vessel with three masts, and continues some time. The others are,

Youens, who comes also in a three masted vessel, and is a trader.

Tallamon, in a three masted vessel, but he is not a trader.

Callalamet, in a ship of the same size; he is a trader, and they say has a wooden leg.

Swipton, three masted vessel, trader, 41 Moore,

The trees of a larger growth are very abundant; the whole neighbourhood of the coast is supplied with great quantities of excellent timber. The predominating growth is the fir, of which we have seen several species. There is one singular circumstance attending all the pine of this country, which is, that when consumed it yields not the slightest particle of ashes. The first species grows to an immense size, and is very commonly twentyseven feet in circumference, six feet above the earth's surface: they rise to the height of two hundred and thirty feet, and one hundred and twenty of that height without a limb. We have often found them thirty-six feet in circumference. One of our party mea. sured one, and found it be forty-two feet in circumference, at a point be. yond the reach of an ordinary man.

The second is a much more common species, and constitutes at least one half of the timber in this neighbour hood. It seems to resemble a spruce, rising from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty feet, and is from four to six in diameter, straight, round, and regularly tapering.

The third species resembles in all points the Canadian balsam fir.

It

grows from two and a half to four feet in diameter, and rises to the height of eighty or an hundred feet.

The fourth species in size resembles the second.

The fifth species in size resembles the second, and has a trunk simple, branching, and proliferous.

The sixth species does not differ from what is usually denominated the white pine in Virginia.

The seventh and last species grows in low grounds, and in places frequently overflown by the tide, seldom rising higher than thirty-five feet, and not more than from two and a half to four in diameter.

There is a tree common to the Columbia river, below the entrance of Cataract river, when divested of its foliage, much resembling the ash: this tree is frequently three feet in diameter, and rises from forty to fifty feet: the fruit is a winged seed, some. what resembling that of the maple.

In the same part of the country there is also another growth, resembling the white maple, though much smaller, and is seldom to be seen of more than six or seven inches in diameter. These trees grow in clusters, from fifteen to twenty feet in height, from the same bed of roots, spreading and leaning outwards.

The undergrowth consists of honey. suckles, alder, seven bark or nine bark, huckleberry, a shrub like the quill. wood, a plant like the mountain holly, a green briar, the fern.

QUADRUPEDS.

The quadrupeds of this country from the Rocky mountains to the Pacific Ocean, may be conveniently divided into the domestic and the wild animals. The first embraces the horse and dog only."

The horse appears to be of an excellent race, lofty, elegantly formed, active and durable: many of them appear like fine English coursers; some of them are pied, with large spots of white irregularly scattered, and inter mixed with a dark brown bay: the greater part, however, are of an uniform colour, marked with stars and white feet, and resemble in fleetness and bottom, as well as in form and colour, the best blooded horses of Virginia.

The dog is unusually small, about the size of an ordinary cur: he is usu ally parti-coloured, amongst which,

the