As an illustration of the improvidence of the Indians generally, the habits of the tribes along the Columbia River may be cited. The Columbia River has often been pointed to as the probable source of a great part of the Indian population of this country, because of the enormous supply of salmon furnished by it and its tributaries. If an abundant and readily obtained supply of food was all that was necessary to insure a large population, and if population always increased up to the limit of food supply, unquestionably the theory of repeated migratory waves of surplus population from the Columbia Valley would be plausible enough. It is only necessary, however, to turn to the accounts of the earlier explorers of this region, Lewis and Clarke, for example, to refute the idea, so far at least as the Columbia Valley is concerned, although a study of the many diverse languages spread over the United States would seem sufficiently to prove that the tribes speaking them could not have originated at a common center, unless, indeed, at a period anterior to the formation of organized language.
The Indians inhabiting the Columbia Valley were divided into many tribes, belonging to several distinct linguistic families. They all were in the same culture status, however, and differed in habits and arts only in minor particulars. All of them had recourse to the salmon of the Columbia for the main part of their subsistence, and all practiced similar crude methods of curing fish and storing it away for the winter. Without exception, judging from the accounts of the above mentioned and of more recent authors, all the tribes suffered periodically more or less from insufficient food supply, although, with the exercise of due forethought and economy, even with their rude methods of catching and curing salmon, enough might here have been cured annually to suffice for the wants of the Indian population of the entire Northwest for several years.
In their ascent of the river in spring, before the salmon run, it was only with great difficulty that Lewis and Clarke were able to provide themselves by purchase with enough food to keep themselves from starving. Several parties of Indians from the vicinity of the Dalles, the best fishing station on the river, were met on their way down in quest of food, their supply of dried salmon having been entirely exhausted.
Nor is there anything in the accounts of any of the early visitors to the Columbia Valley to authorize the belief that the population there was a very large one. As was the case with all fish-stocked streams, the Columbia was resorted to in the fishing season by many tribes living at considerable distance from it; but there is no evidence tending to show that the settled population of its banks or of any part of its drainage basin was or ever had been by any means excessive.
The Dalles, as stated above, was the best fishing station on the river, and the settled population there may be taken as a fair index of that of other favorable locations. The Dalles was visited by Ross in July, 1811, and the following is his statement in regard to the population:
The main camp of the Indians is situated at the head of the narrows, and may contain, during the salmon season, 3,000 souls, or more; but the constant inhabitants of the place do not exceed 100 persons, and are called Wy-am-pams; the rest are all foreigners from different tribes throughout the country, who resort hither, not for the purpose of catching salmon, but chiefly for gambling and speculation.[2]
And as it was on the Columbia with its enormous supply of fish, so was it elsewhere in the United States.
Even the practice of agriculture, with its result of providing a more certain and bountiful food supply, seems not to have had the effect of materially augmenting the Indian population. At all events, it is in California and Oregon, a region where agriculture was scarcely practiced at all, that the most dense aboriginal population lived. There is no reason to believe that there ever existed within the limits of the region included in the map, with the possible exception of certain areas in California, a population equal to the natural food supply. On the contrary, there is every reason for believing that the population at the time of the discovery might have been many times more than what it actually was had a wise economy been practised.
The effect of wars in decimating the people has often been greatly exaggerated. Since the advent of the white man on the continent, wars have prevailed to a degree far beyond that existing at an earlier time. From the contest which necessarily arose between the native tribes and invading nations many wars resulted, and their history is well known. Again, tribes driven from their ancestral homes often retreated to lands previously occupied by other tribes, and intertribal wars resulted therefrom. The acquisition of firearms and horses, through the agency of white men, also had its influence, and when a commercial value was given to furs and skins, the Indian abandoned agriculture to pursue hunting and traffic, and sought new fields for such enterprises, and many new contests arose from this cause. Altogether the character of the Indian since the discovery of Columbus has been greatly changed, and he has become far more warlike and predatory. Prior to that time, and far away in the wilderness beyond such influence since that time, Indian tribes seem to have lived together in comparative peace and to have settled their difficulties by treaty methods. A few of the tribes had distinct organizations for purposes of war; all recognized it to a greater or less extent in their tribal organization; but from such study as has been given the subject, and from the many facts collected from time to time relating to the intercourse existing between tribes, it appears that the Indians lived in comparative peace. Their accumulations were not so great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare were not excessively destructive. Armed with clubs and spears and bows and arrows, war could be prosecuted only by hand-to-hand conflict, and depended largely upon individual prowess, while battle for plunder, tribute, and conquest was almost unknown. Such intertribal wars as occurred originated from other causes, such as infraction of rights relating to hunting grounds and fisheries, and still oftener prejudices growing out of their superstitions.
That which kept the Indian population down sprang from another source, which has sometimes been neglected. The Indians had no reasonable or efficacious system of medicine. They believed that diseases were caused by unseen evil beings and by witchcraft, and every cough, every toothache, every headache, every chill, every fever, every boil, and every wound, in fact, all their ailments, were attributed to such cause. Their so-called medicine practice was a horrible system of sorcery, and to such superstition human life was sacrificed on an enormous scale. The sufferers were given over to priest doctors to be tormented, bedeviled, and destroyed; and a universal and profound belief in witchcraft made them suspicious, and led to the killing of all suspected and obnoxious people, and engendered blood feuds on a gigantic scale. It may be safely said that while famine, pestilence, disease, and war may have killed many, superstition killed more; in fact, a natural death in a savage tent is a comparatively rare phenomenon; but death by sorcery, medicine, and blood feud arising from a belief in witchcraft is exceedingly common.