The Rise And Decline Of The Olympia Oyster 



always in close proximity to well populated oyster beds. 

 The Indians had evidently camped on these shores, feast- 

 ed on the oysters and clams from nearby beds, leaving 

 the shell piles w^here they had camped. 



In fact the Indians who occupied these oyster beds 

 when the first pioneers came, told stories of how they, 

 the peaceful "fish-eating" Indians, (sometimes called 

 "Siwash") had wars with the more belligerent Yakima 

 "meat-eaters," as the^^ were called. As the story goes, 

 the Yakimas would steal the canoes of the Siwash In- 

 dians. The Siwashes would retreat into a cove in the 

 proximity of the oyster beds; at night they would steal 

 out and get their favorite foods (oysters and clams) when 

 the tides were out. In time the Yakimas having satisfied 

 their hunger for sea foods and taking a quantity with 

 them, would return home. 



Newell Ellison of Mud Bay has given me another 

 story as it came to him from generations of his ancestry. 

 In the very early days there was a fierce Indian tribe 

 in British Columbia who raided the Mud Bay Indians. 

 They came down in their large war canoes and it was not 

 only oysters and clams they were after, but they cap- 

 tured women and children and took them home and held 

 them as slaves. 



The native oyster played it's part not only as an incen- 

 tive for these raids, but later helped in bringing the tribes 

 together in friendship and brotherly love. An Indian of 

 the Mud Bay locality, a Chief and a good man, as the 

 story goes, died and remained dead about three days; he 

 then came back to life. He said he had been in the "Hap- 

 py Hunting Ground" of the Indians where the Great 



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