We Passed At Three Miles
A Small Prairie, Where The River Is Only Three-Quarters Of A Mile
In Width,
And soon after two houses on the left, half a mile
distant from each other; from one of which three
Men came in a
canoe merely to look at us, and having done so returned home.
At eight miles we came to the lower point of an island,
separated from the right side by a narrow channel, on which,
a short distance above the end of the island, is situated
a large village. It is built more compactly than the generality
of the Indian villages, and the front has fourteen houses,
which are ranged for a quarter of a mile along the channel.
As soon as we were discovered seven canoes came out to see us,
and after some traffic, during which they seemed well disposed
and orderly, accompanied us a short distance below."
The explorers now met Indians of a different nation from those whom
they had seen before. The journal says: -
"These people seem to be of a different nation from those we
have just passed; they are low in stature, ill shaped, and all
have their heads flattened. They call themselves Wahkiacum,
and their language differs from that of the tribes above,
with whom they trade for wappatoo-roots. The houses are built
in a different style, being raised entirely above ground,
with the caves about five feet high and the door at the corner.
Near the end, opposite this door, is a single fireplace,
round which are the beds, raised four feet from the floor of earth;
over the fire are hung the fresh fish, which, when dried,
are stowed away with the wappatoo-roots under the beds.
The dress of the men is like that of the people above, but the women
are clad in a peculiar manner, the robe not reaching lower than
the hip, and the body being covered in cold weather by a sort
of corset of fur, curiously plaited and reaching from the arms
to the hip; added to this is a sort of petticoat, or rather
tissue of white cedar bark, bruised or broken into small strands,
and woven into a girdle by several cords of the same material.
Being tied round the middle, these strands hang down as low
as the knee in front, and to the mid-leg behind; they are of
sufficient thickness to answer the purpose of concealment whilst
the female stands in an erect position, but in any other attitude
form but a very ineffectual defence. Sometimes the tissue
is strings of silk-grass, twisted and knotted at the end.
After remaining with them about an hour, we proceeded down the
channel with an Indian dressed in a sailor's jacket for our pilot,
and on reaching the main channel were visited by some Indians
who have a temporary residence on a marshy island in the middle
of the river, where is a great abundance of water-fowl."
The tribe of Indians known as the Wahkiacums has entirely disappeared;
but the name survives as that of one of the counties of Washington
bordering on the Columbia.
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