They
Were Altogether Primitive In Their Habits, And Seemed To Cling To
The Usages Of Savage Life, Even When Possessed Of The Aids Of
Civilization.
They had axes among them, yet they generally made
use of a stone mallet wrought into the shape of a bottle, and
wedges of elk horn, in splitting their wood.
Though they might
have two or three brass kettles hanging, in their lodges, yet
they would frequently use vessels made of willow, for carrying
water, and would even boll their meat in them, by means of hot
stones. Their women wore caps of willow neatly worked and
figured.
As Carriere, the Canadian straggler, did not make his appearance
for two or three days after the encampment in the valley two men
were sent out on horseback in search of him. They returned,
however, without success. The lodges of the Snake Indians near
which he had been seen were removed, and the could find no trace
of him. Several days more elapsed, yet nothing was seen or heard
of him, or the Snake horseman, behind whom he had been last
observed. It was feared, therefore, that he had either perished
through hunger and fatigue; had been murdered by the Indians; or,
being left to himself, had mistaken some hunting tracks for the
trail of the party, and been led astray and lost.
The river on the banks of which they were encamped, emptied into
the Columbia, was called by the natives the Eu-o-tal-la, or
Umatilla, and abounded with beaver. In the course of their
sojourn in the valley which it watered, they twice shifted their
camp, proceeding about thirty miles down its course, which was to
the west. A heavy fall of rain caused the river to overflow its
banks, dislodged them from their encampment, and drowned three of
their horses which were tethered in the low ground.
Further conversation with the Indians satisfied them that they
were in the neighborhood of the Columbia. The number of the white
men who they said had passed down the river, agreed with that of
M'Lellan, M'Kenzie, and their companions, and increased the hope
of Mr. Hunt that they might have passed through the wilderness
with safety.
These Indians had a vague story that white men were coming to
trade among them; and they often spoke of two great men named Ke-
Koosh and Jacquean, who gave them tobacco, and smoked with them.
Jacquean, they said, had a house somewhere upon the great river.
Some of the Canadians supposed they were speaking of one Jacquean
Finlay, a clerk of the Northwest Company, and inferred that the
house must be some trading post on one of the tributary streams
of the Columbia. The Indians were overjoyed when they found this
band of white men intended to return and trade with them. They
promised to use all diligence in collecting quantities of beaver
skins, and no doubt proceeded to make deadly war upon that
sagacious, but ill-fated animal, who, in general, lived in
peaceful insignificance among his Indian neighbors, before the
intrusion of the white trader.
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