It Is Never Out Of Season; So That At All Times Of The Year
The Valley Is Frequented By The
Neighboring Indians who come to gather it.
It is collected chiefly by the women, who employ for the purpose canoes
From
ten to fourteen feet in length, about two feet wide and nine inches deep,
and tapering from the middle, where they are about twenty inches wide.
They are sufficient to contain a single person and several bushels
of roots, yet so very light that a woman can carry them with ease.
She takes one of these canoes into a pond where the water is as high
as the breast, and by means of her toes separates from the root this bulb,
which on being freed from the mud rises immediately to the surface
of the water, and is thrown into the canoe. In this manner these patient
females remain in the water for several hours, even in the depth of winter.
This plant is found through the whole extent of the valley in which we
now are, but does not grow on the Columbia farther eastward."
[1] In the Chinook jargon "Wappatoo" stands for potato.
The natives of this inland region, the explorers found,
were larger and better-shaped than those of the sea-coast,
but they were nearly all afflicted with sore eyes.
The loss of one eye was common, and not infrequently total
blindness was observed in men of mature years, while blindness
was almost universal among the old people.
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