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ATHLAMET on the Columbia
was, from time immemorial, tfie
center of the Indian people on
the Lower River. The Indian
lingered longer and the Indian blood is
more conspicuous there now than at any
other place on the Lower Columbia. Chi
nook was only 'a mud beach, a mere fish
ing station,- but Cathlamet was an Indian
town before Gray sailed into the River
or Lewis and Clark passed by on their
way to the sea. Here at thelast gathered
and passed away the Cathlamets, Wah
kiakums, .Chinooks and Cowellskles. It
was early recognized as an Indian center,
and is the only place of the Fish Indians
to which Kamlakln condescended to send
his messengers when he was organizing
the Indian War of 1S5. At Its best it was
the largest Indian settlement on the
Columbia River west of the Cascades, and
from the Indian stories must have num
bered in the town Itself from COO to 1000
people. Like all Indian towns It changed
population rapidly, and when the whites
first knew it probably had 300 or 400 in
habitants. Sauvle's Island occasionally
had more. Indians, but they were there
only temporarily, digging .wapatoes.
Queen Sally, of Cathlamet, was the oldest
living Indian on the Lower Columbia in
the late 50s and early 60s, and her memory
went back easily to the days of Lewis
and Clark when she was a young woman
old enough to be married, which, with
the Indians, meant about 14 years old.
Seventy years Is extreme old age for an
Indian, and especially for an Indian wo
man, but Queen Sally was all of this.
Judging from her looks she might have
been anywhere in the centuries, for never
was a more wrinkled, smoke-begrimed,
wizened old creature. Princess Angeline,
of Seattle, was a blooming young beauty
beside her.
LcTvis and Clark at Cathlamet.
It gave one a far-away feeling, in re
gard to the event not warranted by the
years that had passed, when from the
cliffs above Cathlamet she pointed out the
spot where the canoes of Lewis and Clark
were first seen. She said the Indians had
been on the watch for them for several
days, as news had come by Indian post
of the strangers from the East Lewis
u
. -i . -
apwiM Yj-o cawywer
and Clark with their party came in the
afternoon or evening, and were met, by
the Indians In their canoes at or a little
above the modern town of Cathlamet and
escorted to the Indian village, which was
then on the slough below Cathlamet at
about tho point where the saw mill now
is. How long they stayed here she could
not clearly tell. It was evident that she
confused, their westward and eastward
trips and also their Winter stay at Clat
sop with their stay at the Cathlamet
village. Twenty-five miles to wandering
Indians is a bagatelle of too little im
portance to be considered in fixing a lo
cality. It was a time of feasting, wonder
ment and council making. Lewi3 and
Clark were doubtless weary of Indians by
this time, but the strange sights they saw
will never be seen again.
The village was built of cedar houses,
3 Oor 40 feet long and 15 or 20 feet wide.
How they managed to split and cut out
the cedar planks sometimes 20 and 30 feet
I long, two to three feet wide and three to
six inches thick, of which these houses
were built with the tools they had. Is a
wonder. With wedges made of elkhorn
and chisels made of beaver teeth, with
j flinty rocks and with fire, they, in soma
I way, and at a great expenditure of labor,
cut out the boards. The houses were well
built, an opening was left along the ridge
j pole for the smoke to escape, and there
j were cracks In tho walls, but, excepting
tnls ana tne door, there were no openings.
Unless destroyed by fire these houses
would stand for ages, as the cedar was al
most indestructible. Each house was
fitted to accommodate several families.
Along the sides, which might, be six or
eight feet high, and along the rear wall
were built beds like steamer bunks, one
above the other. Prom these bunks the
floor of earth extended out like a platform
four or five feet to a depression of a
foot or two along the center of the lodge,
which was reserved for the fire place.
Strange Bnrlal Canoe.
Fully inhabited by Indian men, women
children and dogs, lighted up by the
smoky fires, the lodge Interior looked like
a witches cave. Men and women in all
conditions as to toilet lay sprawled on the
earth platform about the fire. In tho
bunks amid dilapidated furs, were number
PORTLAND, OREGON. SDNDAT MORNING, NOVEMBER 10, 1901.
less half-naked children and coyote-looking
dogs. Along the celling hung dried'
salmon and strings of dried clams and'
roots. The smoke circled everywhere, and
gave a misty look of vastness to the room,
and through all like a solid atmosphere
was the smell, ' the awful smell of the
Indian lodge. Fires in an Indian village
or an occasional abandonment were re
curring necessities In Indian life. Flesh
and blood, even of the Indian variety,
could not long abide In one Indian en
campment. From this as well as from the
necessity of getting food, it came about
that the Lower River Indian lived In his
village for only small portions, of the
year. It is safe to say that Lewis and
Clark either found a lodge that had been
little used or slept away from the vil
lage. No sane white man. except under
dire necessity, ever slept in a fully popu
lated Indian lodge that had been used
continuously for any length of time. One
of the strange sights that Lewis and
Clark saw about this Wahkiakum vil
lage of Cathlamet were the burial canoes.
The last of these were not destroyed until
late In tho 50s. and when Lewis and
Clark came they were very numerous
about the village and In the Columbia
sloughs between the Elokomon and Ska
mokawa Rivers. The roar of the Co
lumbia River bar, 40 miles to the west
ward, Is clearly heard at Cathlamet. and
It may be due to this that these burial
canoes placed high in the Cottonwood and
balm of Gilead trees were nearly always
placed with their sharp-pointed prows to
the west. With every paddle In place,
with his robes and furs about him and all
his wealth of beads and trinkets at his
feet, the dead Indian lay in his war canoe
waiting for the flood of life which should
some day come in like the tidp from the
sunset ocean. Considering the great value
of these canoes and the toil" it took to
build one, it almost passes belief that
they would be sacrificed o a simple be
lief in tho future life. It is, exactly as
though upon the death of a multl-mll-Honalre
of our day all of his moneys,
stocks and bonds should be buried with
him, his heirs renouncing the use "of all
his accumulations.
The Chinook canoe of the lower river
was a beautiful thins. In Alaska the
Indians had good canoes, but nothing
that for size, model and finish equaled
the Indian canoe of the Columbia. They
were of all sizes, from the one-man hunt
ing canoe that could easily -be carried,
and which required an expert to handle,
to the large cruising canoe 40 or 50 feet
long and five or six feet wide, which could
carry 30 or 40 people and all their equip
ments. The straight up and down lines
of the stern- and the bewitching curve
j of the- bow were very graceful, and tho
; water lines of bow and stern have never
been excelled. The building of one was
the work of years. It was painfully hoi- i
j lowed out with fire and flint and heaven
j tooth chisel, was steamed within with j
j red-hot rocks and water, and stretched
J to exactly the right proportion and kept
in place by stretchers strongly sewed in.
It was swift, beautiful and seaworthy, j
Its only weakness was in the places where j
the cedar tree was cut across the grain l
to give the lines of bow and stern. Here j
in a heavy seaway the canoe would al-
ways "work," and from here the canoe i
would sometimes split from end to end. I
Many a tragedy of the sea was due to t
this Inherent weakness of the dugout '
canoe, for in these and the Alaskan
canoes the Indians traveled the entire '
coast line of the Pacific, from the mouth '
of the Columbia northward to Sitka and
southward to the California line, and even
farther. Old Indians often told "of cling
ing to the broken sides of the canoo when
It had split for hours, andeven days, un
til the surf rolled them ashore.
Physical and Mental Characteristics.
The lowervrlver Indians had no horses
and. no place to use them, but dogs they
had a-plenty- Why they kept them ex
cept as sentries no one ever knew. They
were miserable creatures without courage
or hunting Instincts, but no one could
come within a hundred yards of an In
dian lodge without being discovered, and
in this probably lay their value to the
Indian, for they were not eaten except
In cases of necessity or upon ceremonial
occasions. The Indians In their canoes
were ' fine-looking people. Arms, shoul
ders and backs "were well muscled and
proportioned, and they handled theliv poles
and paddles with grace and skill, but out
side of their canoes the effect was not so
good. They almost uniformly had short. !
squatty legs, sometimes made crooked
by continual squatting In the canoes, and
this gave them a curiously top-heavy ef-
feet. Compared ' with the horse Indians '
of Eastern Oregon and Washington they
looked weak and Insignificant. They were
not as warlike a people as the horse In
dians, and hi a land battle would, bavo
had but a poor chance. Intellectually l
they were superior, and the Eastern In
dians complained that at the Cascades,
where the native peoples met to trade,
they were- uniformly outwitted by
their salt water brethren. Upon the wa
ter they were superior also, and no In
dian of the plains could handle a canoe
as the salt water Indians could. The
women were short, squatty creatures,
with a tendency to grow fat and wrin
kled when they could get food ejiough to
grow fat on. The Wrinkles they ac
quired anyway. From 15 to 20 the Indian
girl was a warm-blodded creature, not at
all bad looking, but after this she aged
rapidly. At 30 was old, and at 40 fit
only to tan buckskins and do heavy work.
In their nntlve state very few of them
lived much beyond 50. Their treatment
by tho Indian men was brutal to a de
gree that white women would hardly re
alize. Nevertheless they had a great deal
of influence, and while an Indian In a
fit of bad temper might In the evening
knock down his tired squaw and leave
her lying In 'the ashes by the fire, the
next morning she would be mistress of tho
household as usual. It was astonishing
what good women the native women were,
and how patiently and honestly they
tolled and suffered for their worthless
husbands. Afterwards when tho white
men came, the chance to marry one of
the King George men or Bostons was to
an Indian woman a chance to enter para
dise. No white husband was ever as bad
as an Indian, and however drunken and
worthless the white man might be con
sidered by his own people, ho was a mar
vel of husbandly virtues In the eyes of
his native wife. Long centuries of op
pression made the Indian woman thankful
for even a poor specimen of a man. Thrice
happy was her lot when she was taken
for wife by a decent white man. In her
inarticulate way she greatly rejoiced and
sacrificed herself for him gladly. There
are many people In Oregon and Washing
ton who have Indian bjood In their veins,
and few, very few, of them have ever had
reason to blush for their Indian moth
ers. Indian Younsrsters.
The children that Lewis and Clark saw
oh tho lower river were odd-looking crea
tures. The babies wero strapped to
boards, but the older ones were cease
lessly active. They were little brown fel
lows with slender legs that upheld and
rapidly carried about a protuberant stom
ach, apparently four sizes too large for
the legs below and the head above. It
Is astonishing how nearly they looked like
the pictures of Brownies In our children's
picture books. Amongst them the rate
of mortality was high, and they grew up
wv ar'iCzmJArt&T. s sfjm &
with the dogs as best they could; were
fed and In a fashion clothed and shel
tered, and that was all. As soon as the
littlo Indian could run about he com
menced to hunt and fish, and In mere
wantonness of slaughter would frequent
the streams and kill and malm the sal
mon coming up to spawn. The little
creek by Cathlamet wa3 a favorite stream
of the Fall salmon, and here the little !
Indians would gather and spear fish unU
they were weary of the sport, and would
then In mere wantoness throw their cap
tures on tho rock3 to spoil. At 13 and
14 the boys would begin seriously to hunt
for game. The old Queen Anne muskets
that they had in early days would be
carefully loaded, not a grain of powder
or a single shot would be wasted, for
these commodities in the early days were
difficult to obtain. In his little one-man
canoe the youth would silently paddle
thrrough the sloughs looking for ducks
and geese, of which there were countless
thousands. He never attempted to shoot
on the wing, and would rarely fire at a
single bird, but would maneuver for
hours to get a chance to fire Into a sit
ting flock at short range.
Economy in Ammunition.
So strongly was the necessity of econ
omy In powder and shot impressed upon
them that a young Indian about 14 years
old, seeing one day a large cougar about
to cross a stream on a log did not Are
at him from the canoe, but crept ashore
and hid himself at the end of the cross
ing log until the cougar, nearly touched
the end of his gun, then he fired, and In
the words of Western Ike. "Blnveod I
hole In that cougar that a bull bat could
a flew through without techlng his wlng3
on either side." Spoken to about the risk
he had taken, the youngster said he
couldn't afford to waste a load of shot,
and had to make sure work. These old
guns missed fire very frequently, and the
little Inalan's economy might have cost
him dear, but to his mind life was
about the cheapest of his possessions: It
had never cost him anything. For large
game shooting they would frequently
make a slug for their muskets by whit
tling out a wooden plug the size of the
Interior of the gun barrel, and with this
make a mold In damp sand. Into which
was poured the melted lead. The result
was a fearful missile. It would not go
straight for 40 yards, but as It was never
fired at such a great distance this made
no difference. By lying In wait or care
ful stalking the Indian would get so closo
to his game that a miss was impossible,
and would then banc away. A bear slain
In this way looked after bl3 decease as
NO. 45.
tt&xwb-
If he hnd been .hit by a section of Mount
Hood In some "Battle of the Gods."
The Hunt for Ellr.
Opposite Cathlamet Is Puget Island
named by Vancouver's exploring party
on Its first trip up, the Columbia, In ITS:!,
and here the Indians hunted out the deer
in tho low, marshy lands along the
sloughs. In the early times, before they
used guns, the hunts were elaborate af
fairs and long lines of skirmishers drove
the frightened deer Into lnclosures or pit
falls, but after the traders came with
guns and gunpowder, the same wary tac
tics and careful stalking were employed
In deer hunting as in the pursuit of other
wild game. Across the river, beyond lt3
two channels and Puget Island, was high
land again, and here is one of the most
beautiful pieces of forest and one of the
most striking slopes In all of the Coast
Mountains. Commencing at Cathlamet
Head, the unbroken slope sweeps easterly
to a point back of Westport, and between
It and the Nehalem River, for miles, the
hunter travels In a great fir forest and up
a gentle slope until he reaches an eleva
tion of about 3000 feet and sees the Co
lumbia River to the north and east, the
Nehalem River to the south and the Pa
cific Ocean to the West. Looking at It
across the river from the hill In Cathlamet
by the Blrnlo house, the sweeping outline
of this long slope presents one of the
most graceful and Impressive scones on
the Lower Columbia.
Here Whollky and Scarborough and all
the mighty hunters of the Lower Colum
bia hunted the elk and tho bear, and tho
long aisles of those magnificent wood3
have seen stirring eights. To watch one
of these thorough hunters track an elk
was always a fresh delight. For hours
he would go uphill and down and out and
In In devious wanderings. Here a little
twig misplaced or a leaf pressed down,
signs too faint for the Inexperienced to
even notice, would tell Wm when and
whore the great beast had passed. No
bloodhound ever followed the track more
persistently. After hours, perhaps, of thl3
kind of work, the signs would grow
clearer and easier to follow, and tho
hunter's eyes would grow keen and hot,
step by step he would increase his speed,
and piece by piece he would drop his
wrappings and clothes. It was said ot
Indian Dick that he rarely had any
clothes, to speak of, on at the death, and
yet so perfect was his woodland Instinct
that he would afterwards retrace his
track for miles and gather up every ar
ticle. THOMAS N. STRONG.