178 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



are my lands," and "These are my salmon; " but the stern consequences 

 of conflict with the whites have taught them to abstain from any vio- 

 lent vindication of their rights. They will still always revenge a wrong- 

 inflicted on them by tlieir own people, and deem it a duty to avenge a 

 murder of one of their kindred, but I think they are a well-disposed race 

 by nature, and have no malice naturally in their hearts toward any one, 

 and will not injure any one who does not first injiue them. Every one 

 told me, before my arrival and during my stay on the McCloud, that the 

 Indians would steal everything that they could lay their hands on. I 

 am ghul that this opportunity is afiibrded me of bearing testimony to the 

 contr;iry, which I wish to do very emphatically. I would trust the Mc- 

 Cloud Indians with anything. We used to leave our things every day 

 around the house, and even down on the river-bank, for weeks together, 

 wbeie the Indians could have stolen them with perfect safety, and where 

 they would not have remained ten minutes hi a icliite marl's settlement, 

 and yet I do not know of a single instance of theft of the smallest thing 

 on tbeir part, during all our stay of two months among them. On the 

 contrary, in one instance, an Indian traveled six miles one hot day to 

 return me a watch-guard, which he found in the pocket of a garment 

 which I sold him, and which he might have kept with perfect impunity. 

 Ami on another occasion, on the arrival of some gold coin, when I had 

 reason to expect an attack from ivMte men, I gave the gold to oue of my 

 Indians, and told him that I depended on him to protect that and me 

 till morning. I slept soundly; and the next morning the faithful Indian 

 handed me the gold just as' I gave it to him. I wish on these accounts 

 to be very emphatic in saying that the charges against these Indians of 

 being a race of thieves, are untrue and unjust. 



With all their good traits, however, murder did not seem to have the 

 obnoxious character that it has among more enlightened people. 

 Almost every McCloud Indian we met had killed one or more men, 

 white or red, in the course of his life, but it was usually because they 

 were goaded to it by ungovernable jealousy or revenge. It was not from 

 motives of gain or causeless malice. 



The McCloud Indians live and sleep in the open air in the summer. 

 In the rainy season they build wigwams or huts of drift-wood and dry 

 logs, whicii they inhabit pretty comfortably through the winter. In the 

 summer and fall they live mainly on the salmon and trout which they 

 spear. In the winter they live on the salmon which they catch and dry 

 in the fall, and on acorns, which they gather in great quantities in the 

 woods. They hunt with bows and arrows, with which they occasionally 

 kill a bear, though a few of the more enterprising have rifles. They 

 trap a very little, but the salmon of the river are so abundant that they 

 are not obliged to resort to hunting and trapping at all, and do not do 

 much of either. 



I have made this long digression about the McCloud Eiver Indians 

 partly because their presence here is so singularly connected with the 



