The dress of the women is more simple: it consists of a long shirt of argali-skin, which reaches down to the ankles, and is without a girdle: to this are tied shells, little pieces of brass, and other small articles; but their head is not at all ornamented.
The Chopunnish Indians have very few ornaments; for their life is painful and laborious; and all their exertions are necessary to earn their subsistence. During the summer and autumn they are busily occupied in fishing for salmon, and collecting their winter store of roots. In the winter, with snow-shoes on their feet, they hunt deer over the plains; and, towards the spring, they cross the mountains to the Missouri, for the purpose of trafficking for buffalo-robes.
In descending the Kooskooskee, the travellers had many opportunities of observing the arrangements of the Indians for preserving fish, particularly salmon, which are here very abundant. In some places, especially in the Columbia, the water was so clear, that these fish were seen at the depth of fifteen or twenty feet. During the autumn, they float down the stream in such numbers, that the Indians have only to collect, split, and dry them. Scaffolds and wooden houses, piled up against each other, for the purpose of fishing, were frequently observed. Indeed fish are here so abundant, that, in a scarcity of wood, dried salmon are often used as fuel.
A considerable trade is carried on in dried fish, which is thus prepared. The salmon, having been opened, and exposed some time to the sun, is pounded between two stones; then packed in baskets, neatly made of grass and rushes, which are lined and covered with salmon-skins, stretched and dried for that purpose. In these baskets, the pounded salmon is pressed down as hard as possible. Each basket contains from ninety to one hundred pounds; seven baskets are placed side by side, and five on the top. They are then covered with mats, and corded; and then again matted, thus forming a stack. In this manner the fish is kept sweet and sound for many years.
The Koo-koos-kee is greatly augmented by the junction of Lewis's river from the south; and the united streams, after flowing a considerable distance, fall into the still larger flood of the Columbia. At their junction, the width of the Columbia is nine hundred and sixty yards.
The Indians, in this part of America, are called Solkuks; and seem to be of a mild and peaceable disposition, and to live in a state of comparative happiness. Each man is contented with a single wife, with whom he shares the labours of procuring subsistence, much more than is usual among savages. What may be considered as an unequivocal proof of their good disposition, is the great respect which is shown to old age. Among other instances of it, the travellers observed, in one of the houses, an old woman perfectly blind; and who, as they were informed, had lived more than a hundred winters. In this state of decrepitude she occupied the best position in the house, seemed to be treated with great kindness, and whatever was said by her, was listened to with much attention.
The fisheries supply the Solkuks with a competent, if not an abundant subsistence. Fish is, indeed, their chief food; except roots, and the casual supplies of the antelope, which, to those who have only bows and arrows, must be very scanty. Most of the Solkuks have sore eyes, and many of them are blind of one or both eyes; and decayed teeth are very common among them.
The party proceeded down the Columbia. Fish was here so abundant, that in one day's voyage, they counted no fewer than twenty stacks of dried salmon.
They passed the falls of this river. These are not great; but, at a little distance below them, a very remarkable scene is presented to the view. At a place where the river is about four hundred yards wide, and where the stream flows with a current more rapid than usual, it widens into a large bend or basin, at the extremity of which a black rock, rising perpendicularly from the right shore, seems to run wholly across. So completely did it appear to block up the passage, that the travellers could not, as they approached, see where the water escaped; except that the current appeared to be drawn with peculiar velocity towards the left of the rock, where there was a great roaring. On landing, to survey it, they found that, for about half a mile, the river was confined within a channel only forty-five yards wide, whirling, swelling, and boiling, the whole way, with the wildest agitation imaginable. Tremendous as the pass was, they attempted it; and, to the astonishment of the Indians, they accomplished it in safety.
In the vicinity of this place, a tribe of Indians, called Echeloots, were settled. Here the travellers, for the first time, since they had left the Illinois country, observed wooden buildings. The floors were sunk about six feet in the ground, a custom implying at the same time a cold and dry climate.