I am obliged therefore, to believe, that either the Chinooks emigrated from the Atlantic, or that the Choctaws came from the West side of the Rocky Mountains; and I regret exceedingly that I have not been able as yet, to compare the languages of these two tribes, in which I should expect to find some decided resemblance. They might, however, have been near neighbours, and practicing a copied custom where there was no resemblance in their language.
Whilst among the Choctaws I wrote down from the lips of one of their chiefs, the following tradition, which seems strongly to favour the supposition that they came from a great distance in the West, and probably from beyond the Rocky Mountains:—Tradition. “The Choctaws, a great many winters ago, commenced moving from the country where they then lived, which was a great distance to the West of the great river, and the mountains of snow; and they were a great many years on their way. A great medicine-man led them the whole way, by going before with a red pole, which he stuck in the ground every night where they encamped. This pole was every morning found leaning to the East; and he told them that they must continue to travel to the East, until the pole would stand upright in their encampment, and that there the Great Spirit had directed that they should live. At a place which they named Nah-ne-wa-ye (the sloping hill); the pole stood straight up, where they pitched their encampment, which was one mile square, with the men encamped on the outside, and the women and children in the centre; which is the centre of the old Choctaw nation to ‘this day.’”
In the vicinity of the mouth of the Columbia, there are, besides the Chinooks, the Klick-a-tacks, Cheehaylas, Na-as, and many other tribes, whose customs are interesting, and of whose manufactures, my Museum contains many very curious and interesting specimens, from which I have inserted a few outlines in [plate 210]½, to which the reader will refer. Letter d, is a correct drawing of a Chinook canoe—e, a Na-as war-canoe, curiously carved and painted—f, two dishes or ladles for baling their canoes—g, a Stikeen mask, curiously carved and painted, worn by the mystery-men when in councils, for the purpose of calling up the Great or Evil Spirits to consult an the policy of peace or war—h, custom of the Na-as women of wearing a block of wood in the under lip, which is almost as unaccountable as the custom of flattening the head. Letter i, is a drawing of the block, and the exact dimensions of one in the Collection, taken out of the lip of a deceased Na-as woman—k, “wapito diggers,” instruments used by the women for digging the wapito, a bulbous root, much like a turnip, which the French Traders call pomme blanche, and which I have before described. Letter l, pau-to-mau-gons, or po-ko-mo-kons, war-clubs, the one made by the Indians from a piece of native copper, the other of the bone of the sperm whale. Letter n, two very curiously carved pipes, made of black slate and highly polished.
Besides these, the visitor will find in the Collection a great number of their very ingenious articles of dress; their culinary, war, and hunting implements, as well as specimens of their spinning and weaving, by which they convert dog’s hair and the wool of the mountain-sheep into durable and splendid robes, the production of which, I venture to say, would bid defiance to any of the looms in the American or British Factories.
The Indians who inhabit the rugged wildernesses of the Rocky Mountains, are chiefly the Blackfeet and Crows, of whom I have heretofore spoken, and the Shoshonees or Snakes, who are a part of the Camanchees, speaking the same language, and the Shoshokies or root diggers, who inhabit the southern parts of those vast and wild realms, with the Arapahoes and Navahoes, who are neighbours to the Camanchees on the West, having Santa Fe on the South, and the coast of California on the West. Of the Shoshonees and Shoshokies, all travellers who have spoken of them, give them a good character, as a kind and hospitable and harmless people; to which fact I could cite the unquestionable authorities of the excellent Rev. Mr. Parker, who has published his interesting Tour across the Rocky Mountains—Lewis and Clarke—Capt. Bonneville and others; and I allege it to be a truth, that the reason why we find them as they are uniformly described, a kind and inoffensive people, is, that they have not as yet been abused—that they are in their primitive state, as the Great Spirit made and endowed them with good hearts and kind feelings, unalloyed and untainted by the vices of the money-making world.
To the same fact, relative to the tribes on the Columbia river, I have been allowed to quote the authority of H. Beaver, a very worthy and kind Reverend Gentleman of England, who has been for several years past living with these people, and writes to me thus:—
“I shall be always ready, with pleasure, to testify my perfect accordance with the sentiments I have heard you express, both in your public lectures, and private conversation, relative to the much-traduced character of our Red brethren, particularly as it relates to their honesty, hospitality and peaceableness, throughout the length and breadth of the Columbia. Whatever of a contrary disposition has at any time, in those parts, been displayed by them, has, I am persuaded been exotic, and forced on them by the depravity and impositions of the white Traders.”
[18] Besides these, there are a number of other skulls in the Collection, most interesting specimens, from various tribes.