The natives were stationed beyond rifle-shot upon the rocks on either side of the way, bows and arrows, and guns in hand. Indian Boston was in command. He stood on the loftiest rock, grinding his teeth, and growling like a bloodhound, "Bostons ugh;" and springing upon his bow, drove his arrows into the ground with demoniac madness. I stopped, and drew my rifle to my face, whereupon there was a grand retreat behind the rocks. My army marched slowly and majestically on, as became the dignity {177} of veteran victors. The women and children fled from the wigwams by the way; and the fear of the annihilation of the whole tribe only abated when my wrath was, to their understanding, appeased by the interference of Mr. Lee. Thus the tribe was saved from my vengeance—the whole number, fifty or sixty stout savages, were saved! an instance of clemency, a parallel to which will scarcely be found in the history of past ages.
Being convinced, at last, that my intentions towards them had become more pacific, six oarsmen, a bowsman, and steersman, were readily engaged by Mr. Lee, and he shoved off from that memorable battle-ground on a voyage to the Willamette. These Indians have been notorious thieves ever since they have been known to the whites. Their meanness has been equally well known. Destitute of every manly and moral virtue, they and their fathers have hung around the Dalles, eaten salmon, and rotted in idleness and vice; active only in mischief, and honest only in their crouching cowardice towards those they suppose able to punish their villany.[231]
There is some very curious philosophy among them: as for example, they believe {178} human existence to be indestructible by the laws of nature; and never diseased, unless made so by the Medicine men or conjurers, who are believed to enter into the system in an unseen manner, and pull at the vitals. They also hold that one Medicine man can cast out another. Accordingly, when one of them is called to a patient and does not succeed in restoring him to health, he is believed to be accessory to his death, and is punished as such by the relatives of the deceased.
Their mode of treating patients is to thrust them into a sweat oven, and thence, reeking with perspiration, into the cold streams. After this, they are stretched out at length on the ground, wrapped very warmly, and kneaded, and rolled, and rubbed, with great severity. The abdomen is violently pressed down to the spine, and the forehead pressed with the might of the operator; the arms and limbs, pinched and rubbed, rolled and bruised. Meanwhile, the conjuror is uttering most beastly noises. As might be supposed, patients labouring under the febrile diseases, are soon destroyed.
In order, however, to keep up their influence among the people, the conjurors of {179} a tribe, male and female, have cabalistic dances. After the darkness of night sets in, they gather together in a wigwam, build a large fire in the centre, spread the floor with elk skins, set up on end a wide cedar board, and suspend near it a stick of wood in a horizontal position. An individual seizes the end of the stick, swings the other end against the cedar board, and thus beats noisy time to a still more noisy chant. The dance is commenced sometimes by a man alone, and often by a man and woman. And various and strange are the bodily contortions of the performers. They jump up and down, and swing their arms with more and more violence, as the noise of the singing and thumping accompaniment increases, and yelp, and froth at the mouth, till the musician winds up with the word "ugh"—a long, strong, gutteral grunt; or until some one of the dancers falls apparently dead.
When the latter is the case, one of the number walks around the prostrate individual, and calls his or her name loudly at each ear, at the nose, fingers, and toes. After this ceremony, the supposed dead shudders greatly, and comes to life. And thus they continue to sing, and thump, and {180} dance, and die, and come to life through the night. They are said to be very expert at sleight of hand.
The Chinooks, like all other Indians, believe in existence after death; but their views of the conditions of that existence, I could not learn. The conjurors teach them, that they themselves shall be able to visit their tribe after the body shall have decayed; and when approaching the end of their days, inform the people in what shape they will manifest themselves. Some choose a horse, others a deer, others an elk, &c., and when they die, the image of their transmigrated state is erected over their remains.[232]
The reader is desired to consider Mr. Lee and myself gliding, arrow-like, down the deep clear Columbia, at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th, and to interest himself in the bold mountain embankments clothed with the deep, living green of lofty pine and fir forests, while I revert to the kind hospitalities of the Dalles' mission. Yet how entirely impossible is it to relate all that one enjoys in every muscle of the body, every nerve and sense, and every affection of the spirit when he flies from the hardships and loneliness of deserts to the {181} comforts of a bed, a chair, and a table, and the holy sympathy of hearts moulded and controlled by the higher sentiments. I had taken leave of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins with the feelings that one experiences in civilized lands, when leaving long-tried and congenial friends.
The good man urged me to return and explore with him, during the rainy season in the lower country, some extensive and beautiful prairies, which the Indians say lie sixty or seventy miles in the north, on the east side of the President's range; and Mrs. Perkins kindly proposed to welcome my return for that object with a splendid suit of buckskin, to be used in my journeyings.