INDIANS OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 655 



A Colcine Indian and a wolf. — Qne day a woman espied a wolf swim- 

 miug across Oolciue Bay. She told her husband, who, wishing to have 

 the skin, went to kill the wolf, but his wife begged him not to do so. 

 The man rowed out to the wolf and patted him on the head with his 

 paddle. The wolf looked at him and threw his ears back as if he would 

 beg for his life. At last they both reached the shore, when the wolf 

 did not run away from the man, but stood on the shore and looked at 

 him with his ears back. The man, then wishing to deceive the wolf said, 

 " I do not want to kill you but was afraid you might drown, so I came 

 to help you across. Now, for a reward, I ask this : You must drive as 

 many deer to me as you can." So the wolf went into the woods and 

 drove home deer until the man's house was filled with meat. Every 

 time the wolf came home he would drive home a deer. 



The taming of two young tcolves. — There was once a great hunter (who 

 the narrator said was his father's brother), at one time when out hunt- 

 ing who found two young wolves which he thought he might tame, so 

 that they would assist him in hunting deer. He brought them home, 

 and when they were partly grown he took them out. While they were 

 going along they found the mother wolf, and as the man wished the 

 cubs to grow fast he took her too. After that this hunter never failed 

 to kill deer. " This," said the narrator, "only shows how animals can 

 understand and act well to those who are kind to them." 



Although there is something fabulous in the former of these last 

 two stories, if not in both, they may show how the Indian dogs were 

 first obtained by domesticating wolves. 



DOMESTIC LIFE. 



Marriage. — Among these Indians marriage by purchase was formerly 

 the universal custom, and even now they are loath to abandon it. It 

 is customary for a man to seek for a wife within a certain circle of his 

 relatives. I knew a widower of perhaps forty-five or fifty years who 

 sought to marry a woman properly related, but being refused he was at 

 liberty to seek for one wherever he wished. He found a girl not over 

 fifteen years of age among the Skwaksins, not as old as one of his daugh- 

 ters, and married her. Her father consented to the marriage and she, 

 although reluctant, was obliged to submit. It is not often that a mar- 

 riage takes place where either party strongly objects, but oftentimes 

 the relations consult the parties to some extent, doing at the same time 

 most of the courting for them. 



Usually a man's relatives help him to pay for his wife from $100 to 

 $400 worth of money, blankets, guns, horses, and such articles, which 

 are given with many speeches and much ceremony, something being 

 said as each article is i)resented, the whole occupying one or two days. 

 Occasionally the parties live together for some time, even a year, be- 

 for3 this formal ceremony takes i)lace. 



Marriages with other tribes are common. The Twanas are iutermar- 



