After closing my remarks relative to the natural scenery of Oregon, I am led to suggest some ideas concerning the poor, degraded, primitive man of the country.
INDIANS OF OREGON.
CHAPTER XI.
Their Customs, Habits and Character.
The Indians of Oregon, notwithstanding the exertions that have been made to improve their condition, are still a degraded race of semi-human beings, rapidly approaching to total extinction. Such is the proneness of the human race to indolence and vice, that it requires the whole of a short life to make any considerable advances towards an improvement in his natural or mental condition, even amongst the most favord portions of the human family.
The Indian does not appear to have the most distant conceptions of any moral obligation towards another. He is prompted by tradition more than by a sense of duty, and the more he becomes enlightend, the more he becomes alive to vice.
The fox, taken from its lair in an infantile state, is only reard and shown to the lodgings of the domestic fowl of the barnyard, ere he escapes from the hands of his benefactor, with his prey, to his distant and secret abode, amongst the thicket of the forest. So the Indian. Point him to the comforts and enjoyments of a domestic life, and he looks upon them with indifference and disdain. Teach him that from the plow is derivd his food, and that in due time he may reap if he faint not, and yet if he is hungry he will resort to the potato patch of his neighbor and dig them all up so soon as they are planted, leaving his future well-being to the fates.
There is but little confidence reposd in each other respecting the safe-keeping of property, and it is impossible to make an Indian believe that it is morally wrong to steal. The only thing that prevents them from stealing, is the probability of being detected and punishd for it, and that Indian is smartest, who is keenest at the business.
At present, the few remaining Indians of Oregon are in a worse condition than before the whites settled amongst them. Formerly, they depended entirely on furs to keep them warm during the inclement season of the year, but now they are partly clad in skins and partly in garments nearly worn out, sold them by the whites for a trifling amount of labor, or such other pay as is agreed upon. With these, they are often amusingly and fantastically dressd. A man is sometimes seen wearing a bonnet, wrong side before. Sometimes a woman is seen wearing a man’s shirt, and others, again, are seen wearing a dress, reversed. Sometimes, in the summer season, it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to tell what kind of a dress they do wear, or whether——