It Is Frequently Mixed With Marl, And With
Marine Substances In A State Of Decomposition.
This kind of soil
extends to a considerable depth, as may be perceived in the deep
cuts made by ravines, and by the beds of rivers.
The vegetation
in these valleys is much more abundant than near the coast; in
fact, it is these fertile intervals, locked up between rocky
sierras, or scooped out from barren wastes, that population must
extend itself, as it were, in veins and ramifications, if ever
the regions beyond the mountains should become civilized.
CHAPTER XL.
Natives in the Neighborhood of Astoria- Their Persons and
Characteristics. - Causes of Deformity - Their Dress. - Their
Contempt of Beards- Ornaments- Armor and Weapons.-Mode of
Flattening the Head.- Extent of the Custom.- Religious Belief.-
The Two Great Spirits of the Air and of the Fire.- Priests or
Medicine Men.- The Rival Idols.- Polygamy a Cause of Greatness-
Petty Warfare.- Music, Dancing, Gambling.- Thieving a Virtue.-
Keen Traders- Intrusive Habits - Abhorrence of Drunkenness-
Anecdote of Comcomly.
A BRIEF mention has already been made of the tribes or hordes
existing about the lower part of the Columbia at the time of the
settlement; a few more particulars concerning them may be
acceptable. The four tribes nearest to Astoria, and with whom the
traders had most intercourse, were, as has heretofore been
observed, the Chinooks, the Clatsops, the Wahkiacums, and the
Cathlamets. The Chinooks reside chiefly along the banks of a
river of the same name, running parallel to the sea-coast,
through a low country studded with stagnant pools, and emptying
itself into Baker's Bay, a few miles from Cape Disappointment.
This was the tribe over which Comcomly, the one-eyed chieftain,
held sway; it boasted two hundred and fourteen fighting men.
Their chief subsistence was on fish, with an occasional regale of
the flesh of elk and deer, and of wild-fowl from the neighboring
ponds.
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