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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 222 of 362
Words from 67080 to 67417
of 110166
