408 INDIAN TRIBES OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 



apart, two of the legs fronting up stream, and one supporting them below. There are several 

 of these weirs on the main river fifty or sixty yards in length. The cast-nets are managed by 

 two men in a canoe, one of whom extends it with a pole and the other manages the rope. Their 

 canoes are of very rude workmanship, compared with those belonging to tribes of more aquatic 

 habits, being simply logs hollowed out and sloped up at the ends, without form or finish. 



Another article of food obtained from the rivers is the unis, or fresh-water muscle, of which 

 there are several varieties. Deep beds of their shells are found near the sites of villages on the 

 river. 



Of game the Yakima country is as destitute as that of the Klikatats so much so that ten deer 

 skins will purchase a horse. The sage-fowl and sharp-tailed grouse are abundant. The chiefs 

 possess a considerable number of cattle, which, in the summer, find good bunch-grass on the 

 hills. In winter they are driven to great straits for subsistence, being compelled, when the snow 

 lies deep, as it does in the valleys, to browse upon the tops of the wild sage, or artemisia. In 

 horses they are well off, though not rich as compared with adjoining tribes. A portion of the 

 Yakimas, more particularly those living on the main river, in hunters language, &quot;go to buffalo,&quot; 

 joining the Flatheads in their hunts; but these expeditions are probably far more rare than 

 formerly, when, with greater numbers, they and their allies carried war against the Blackfect 

 beyond the mountains. With the tribes on Puget sound they communicate continually during 

 the summer by the Nahchess and main Yakima passes, taking horses for sale to Nisqually, and 

 purchasing &quot;hai-qua,&quot; dried clams, and other savage merchandise, on their return. The Yakimas 

 have, like the Klikatats, during the past year suffered severely from the smallpox; the village 

 at the Dalles in particular, the Wish-ram of evil notoriety, in Mr. Irving s Astoria, having been 

 depopulated. 



Individuals among them profess to have some remedy for the disease. Father Pandozy, one of 

 the missionaries among them, informed me that he believed it to be the root of a species of 

 iris. He had once tasted it, and it acted as a violent emetic. The Spokanes have also an 

 other and different specific. It is known to but few persons, having been gradually forgotten 

 since the former visitation. Recently, when it broke out in one of the Spokane villages, an old 

 woman, who was blind, described it to her daughter and directed her to proceed towards Kam- 

 ai-ya-kans, and that if she encountered none in her way, to get from him some of that which 

 he used. The girl, however, did find the herb and returned with it. The mother prepared 

 the medicine, and the smallpox was stayed, but not until it had nearly destroyed the village. 

 We were not successful in obtaining specimens of this plant, but Father Pandozy kindly prom 

 ised to save some when opportunity offered. In regard to this disease, the greatest scourge 

 of the red man, it has passed through this region more than once, and was probably the first 

 severe blow which fell upon the Oregon tribes. Its appearance seems to have been before any 

 direct intercourse took place with the whites, and it may have found its way northward from 

 California. Captains Lewis and Clark conjectured, from the relations of the Indians, and the 

 apparent age of individuals marked with it, that it had prevailed about thirty years before their 

 arrival. It also spread with great virulence in 1843. From the other, and no less sure, de 

 stroyer of the coast tribes, the venereal, the Yakimas, and generally the Indians east of the 

 mountains, are, as yet, exempt. Spirituous liquors have never been introduced into their coun 

 try, at least beyond the neighborhood of the Dalles. 



That a population very considerably more numerous than the existing one formerly occupied 

 this region, there can be no doubt. The estimates of Lewis and Clark gave a sum of 3,240 

 for the bands on the Klikatat and Yakima rivers, without including those upon the Columbia, 

 which amounted to 3,000 in addition. The whole course of the Yakima is lined with the ves 

 tiges of former villages now vacant. A very interesting subject of inquiry has been pursued by 

 Mr. Schoolcraft, in his endeavor to follow the earth-works of the Ohio and Mississippi valley 

 into the region west of the Rocky mountains. A careful inquiry among the officers of the 



