Trails of the Pathfinders

by George Bird Grinnell

After a day or two of rest at Walla Walla, the missionary started down the river in a canoe with three Walla Walla Indians, and before long stopped at a camp of Cayuse Indians, with whom, however, he was unable to communicate. He noticed that all along the river as he passed, the Indians, though of different tribes, seemed to be on good terms with one another, a condition which was inevitable from the fact that all these Indians drew their support from the river, to which they resorted for salmon, and coming there for provisions, could not have afforded to fight, even had they wished to.

At the Dalles, Parker met Captain Wyeth, from Boston, with whom, it will be remembered, Townsend and Nuttall had journeyed westward the year before. A little above the Cascades he met the first Chenooks, which he denominates “the only real Flatheads and Nez Percés, or pierced noses, I have found. They flatten their heads and pierce their noses. The flattening of their heads is not so great a deformity as is generally supposed. From a little above the eyes to the apex or crown of the head there is a depression, but not generally in adult persons very noticeable. The piercing of the nose is more of a deformity, and is done by inserting two small tapering white shells, about two inches long, somewhat in the shape of a thorn, through the lower part of the cartilaginous division of the nose.” While following the trail along the river, he came to a pleasant rise of ground, upon which were several houses of a forsaken village, which were both larger and far better than any he had hitherto seen in any Indian country. They were about sixty feet long and thirty-five wide, the frame work very well constructed, and covered with split planks and cedar bark. These houses thus greatly resemble those seen in recent times on the coast of portions of British Columbia. The next day Mr. Parker reached Fort Vancouver, the Hudson’s Bay post, where Dr. J. McLaughlin, a chief factor of the company, received him very kindly. From here Parker went on down the river, and reached the brig “May Dacre,” of Boston, belonging to the Wyeth Company. Here he met Dr. Townsend, and before long they set sail down the river, and reached Astoria, the far-famed New York of the West.

The Indians of the country beyond the Continental Divide through which Parker passed, he divides into those of the plains, which live in the upper country from the falls of the Columbia to the Rocky Mountains, and those of the lower country, between the shores of the Pacific and the falls of the Columbia River. He observes that the first of these divisions are remarkable for their cleanliness; that they are well supplied with horses, which are very cheap, a good horse selling for not more than enough to purchase a blanket or a few small articles of merchandise. As to their habits, he declares that the Indians of the plains are not lazy, as they are commonly supposed to be, for he rarely saw any of those Indians without their being engaged in some pursuit. To him the Indians appeared as they since have to others—not especially different from other people. They have the same natural propensities, and the same social affections. “They are cheerful and often gay, sociable, kind and affectionate; and anxious to receive instruction in whatever may conduce to their happiness here or hereafter.” They have but few manufactures, and those are the most plain and simple.

He calls attention to the fact that these Indians have no wars among themselves, and appear averse to all wars, not entering into battle except in self-defence. Their only enemies are the Blackfoot Indians, whose country is along the east border of the Rocky Mountains, and who are constantly roaming about in parties on both sides of the mountains in quest of plunder. When the Indians on the West side meet with these war parties they endeavor to avoid an encounter, but if compelled to fight, “show a firm, undaunted, unconquerable spirit, and rush upon their enemies with the greatest impetuosity.” When an enemy is discovered, every horse is driven into camp, and the women take charge of them, while every man seizes his weapons, mounts his horse, and waits, firm and undismayed, to see if hostilities must ensue. Very frequently when the Blackfeet see white men with the Nez Percés and Flatheads, they decline battle, even though they themselves may be far superior in numbers, for they know that the white man can furnish a large supply of ammunition on such occasions. The Nez Percé or Flathead chief will accept the pipe, explaining as he does so that he knows the Blackfeet mean war, although they pretend peace.

The Indians were great gamblers, especially at running horses and in foot-races. Drunkenness was a vice as yet strange to these Indians, but Parker predicted that it would come to them so soon as it was possible to transport liquor to them. He describes the method of doctoring by a medicine man, and the practice of the sudatory or sweat bath. All this is of the plains Indians.

Those of the lower country are of less attractive type than the others. As their subsistence depends almost entirely on fish, they are less well clad, for they have not the same opportunity to obtain skins as the people of the buffalo country. Liquor had been brought into the lower country, and the Indians were slaves to it.

These Indians believe in the immortality of the soul, and that in the future state we shall have the same wants as in this life. Thus, in 1829, the wife of an influential chief of the Chenooks, near Cape Disappointment, killed two female slaves, which should attend her child to the world of spirits, and especially should row her canoe to the Happy Hunting Ground in the South.

As the wealth of the upper Indians is estimated in their horses, so those of the lower country count their property by the number of their wives, slaves, and canoes. Special attention is called to the excellent canoes which they make, and also to the baskets woven so closely as to hold water, and to be used for pails. Of course, they were also used as pots in which to cook fish and mush.

After having spent the winter on the Columbia, Parker set out in May to revisit the Nez Percés. He reached them in a short time, and, as it happened, came to a village just as a little child was being buried. The Indians had prepared a cross to be set up at the grave, very likely having been taught to do so by some Iroquois Indians, of whom there were not a few trapping in the country; and here appears the bigotry of the missionary of that, and indeed of later days as well, for Parker says: “But as I viewed a cross of wood made by men’s hands, of no avail to benefit either the dead or the living, and far more likely to operate as a salve to a guilty conscience, or a stepping stone to idolatry, than to be understood in its spiritual sense to refer to the crucifixion of our sins, I took this, which the Indians had prepared, and broke it to pieces. I then told them we place a stone at the head and foot of the grave only to mark the place; and without a murmur they cheerfully acquiesced, and adopted our custom.”

Parker appears to have regarded the Nez Percé Indians as especially adapted to conversion, and laments that he is unable to speak their language, and thus to communicate with them directly. Parker was an active and conscientious person, and evidently wished to see all he could of the country to which he had been sent. He set out from the Nez Percés for the Colville country, meeting Spokanes, Cayuses, Cœur d’Alenes, and a number of other small tribes. Returning, he was unable to get transportation down the Columbia River, and was obliged to take horses for Fort Okanagan. The journey was long and very dry, and the party suffered more of less from thirst. At Fort Okanagan he took a boat to run down the river four hundred miles to Walla Walla, which he reached in safety. Toward the end of June he took ship for the Sandwich Islands, and in December, 1836, sailed on board the “Phœnix” for his home in the East. After a stormy passage he reached New London, May 18, and five days later, after two years and two months of absence, and journeyings which covered twenty-eight thousand miles, arrived at his home at Ithaca, N. Y.