All now wear civilized dress, and live in houses. Many can read and write, and many of their children attend the reservation schools.
“Among the Makahs, many of the younger Indians are turning their attention to farming and raising stock, and many of them have fine gardens. They still catch a great many fish, sending them to market in Seattle by steamer, and have caught and shipped as high as 10,000 pounds in one day. There are few places with so large a population where so little crime is committed.”
All the reservations on the Sound have now been allotted, and the Indians are living on their respective allotments. A considerable number have taken up farms under the homestead laws, or purchased lands from the whites, and are farming successfully. Such Indians are frequently seen driving into the towns with good wagons and teams, as well dressed as the average white rancher, and accompanied ofttimes by their wives and children.
“Practically all these Indians dress as civilized men and women, and live in houses, some of which are good, comfortable, and roomy, fully equal to the average farm dwellings in prosperous communities of whites, and from these they grade down to the most squalid shacks imaginable. Under the influence of the teachers, and the example of the more advanced Indians and the better class of white neighbors, there is slow but sure improvement in this particular.”
During the fall hundreds of them congregate on the hop-fields, where they supply the most reliable hop-pickers, whole families—men, women, and children—diligently working together. After this harvest crowds of them flock into the towns, and lay in stores of clothing and provisions for the winter before returning home.[11]
The Riverside Press
Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass, U.S.A.
Footnotes
[1] The flat roof on the convent and most of the buildings in Mexico afforded strong positions for defense, being surrounded by parapets, known as azoteas, formed by carrying the walls some four feet above the roofs. The convent azotea was lined with infantry.