three in diameter. The Indians go out among the lilies in canoes, and gather the bowls or pods while green, spread them out in the sun, and when cured they are beaten with sticks until the seeds fall out. These are put in sacks and carried home, cached (buried in cellars) until required for use. Then the seeds are thrown into a shallow basket, with live coals of fire, and roasted, after which it is ground by hand on flat rocks.
It is a nutritious food, and, when properly prepared, not unpalatable. The Klamaths use it in soups, and often prepare it by mixing like flour into cakes, which they bake in the ashes. This article of wo-cus is abundant, available, and altogether sufficient to furnish subsistence for all the Indians in Oregon. To this wo-cus field the natives have for generations past gone for supplies, and in the mean time to exchange slaves, gamble, and hold great councils. Many stirring scenes have been enacted at this place that would furnish foundation for romantic story or bloody tragedy.
The lakes of Klamath are great resorts for the feathery tribes, which come with the spring and sojourn through the summer. The people luxuriate on the eggs of these wild fowls. They go out into the tall tule (grass) in canoes, and collect them in large quantities. “The egg season” lasts until the hatching season is over, the Indians cooking unhatched birds, and eating them with as much avidity and as little thought of indecency as New England people cook and eat clams, oysters, or herrings.
The young fowls are captured in nets. The arrangement is quite cunning, and, although primitive
in construction, evinces some inventive genius. A circular net is made three feet in diameter, and to the outer edge are attached eight or ten small rods of half-inch diameter, and about fifteen inches in length; three inches from the lower end, which is sharpened to a point, the net is attached. The upper end of the rods are bevelled on one side, and inserted into a rude socket, in the end of a shaft ten feet long.
Armed with this trap, the hunter crawls on the ground until he is within safe distance of the mother-bird and her little flock, when, suddenly springing up, the old birds, geese or ducks, as the case may be, fly away, while the little ones flee toward the water. The Indian launches the shaft with the net attached in such a way that the net spreads to its utmost size, the sharpened points of the rods pierce the ground, and, the upper end having left the socket on the shaft, stand in circular row, holding the net and contents to the ground.
The Klamath mode of taking fish is peculiar to the Indians of this lake country. A canoe-shaped basket is made, with covering of willow-work at each end, leaving a space of four feet in the middle top of the basket. This basket is carried out into the tules that adjoin the lakes, and sunk to the depth of two or three feet. The fishermen chew dried fish eggs and spit them in the water over the basket, until it is covered with the eggs, and then retire a short distance, waiting until the whitefish come in large numbers over the basket, when the fishermen cautiously approach the covered ends, and raise it suddenly, until the upper edge is above the water, and thus
entrap hundreds of fish, that are about eight inches in length. These are transferred to the hands of the squaws, and by them are strung on ropes or sticks and placed over fires until cured, without salt, after which they are stored for winter use. This fish is very oily and nutritious, and makes a valuable food. Indeed, this country is more than ordinarily fruitful, and abounds in resources suited to Indian life.
The lakes are well supplied with various kinds of trout. They are taken in many ways; mostly, however, with hook and line. I remember, on one occasion, going to a small slough making out of the lake among the tules. Being prepared with American equipment of lines and flies, I was sanguine of success; but I was doomed to disappointment so far as catching trout with fly-hooks was concerned. I finally succeeded in capturing a pocketful of large black army-crickets. The first venture with this bait was rewarded by a fine trout of six pounds’ weight. In one hour and a half I had twenty-four fish, whose aggregate weight was one hundred and four pounds. They were mostly golden trout, a species peculiar to Klamath lake. They are similar to other trout, except in the rich golden color of their bodies, and in the shape of their fins. Silver trout are sometimes caught also, they taking their name from their silver sides and the color of their flesh. Lake trout, another species, are very dark; they are sharp biters, and very game when hooked. Salmon trout, as the name indicates, resemble salmon in every way; so much so that none but an expert could distinguish the two.
Still another kind of the trout family are also in abundance, called dog trout. They live on the