200 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



idea of a supreme being. The word for god was one of those origi- 

 nally selected for the vocabulary, but it was found impossible, with 

 the assistance of the missionaries, and of interpreters well skilled in 

 the principal languages, to obtain a proper synonym for this term in 

 a single dialect of Oregon. Their chief divinity is called the wolf, 

 and seems, from their descriptions, to be a sort of compound being, 

 half beast and half deity. 



In comparing the various races with which we have come in con- 

 tact, it is impossible not to be struck with a certain similarity of 

 character between the American aborigines in general, but more 

 especially the natives of Oregon, and the Australians, the latter 

 appearing like an exaggerated and caricatured likeness of the former. 

 The Indian is proud and reserved; the Australian sullen and haughty. 

 The former is, at once, cautious and fierce ; the latter is cowardly and 

 cruel. The one is passionate and prompt to resent an injury ; the 

 other is roused to fury by the slightest imagined insult. The super- 

 stition of the Indian is absurd and irrational ; that of the Australian 

 is stupid and ridiculous. The Indian, who acknowledges a chief, yet 

 renders him such deference only as he thinks proper ; the Australian 

 owns no superior, and has not even a name for such an office. It 

 might be a point of some interest to determine how far this similarity, 

 in many respects, between two races otherwise so distinct, has arisen 

 from a similarity in their position and circumstances. 



The mode of life of the Oregon Indians, especially those of the 

 interior, is so peculiar that it is difficult to determine how it should 

 be characterized. They have no fixed habitations, and yet they are 

 not, properly speaking, a wandering people. Nearly every month in 

 the year they change their place of residence, but the same month 

 of every year finds them regularly in the same place. The circum- 

 stances which have given rise to this course of life are the following : 



1. The territory of Oregon abounds, beyond example, in esculent 

 roots, of various kinds, which, without cultivation, grow in sufficient 

 quantities to support a considerable population. More than twenty 

 species, most of them palatable, and obtainable, generally, with 

 little labor, are found in different parts of this territory. At cer- 

 tain seasons, the natives subsist almost entirely upon them. As 

 the different species come to maturity at different times, the people 

 remove from one root-ground to another, according to the time when 

 experience has taught them to look for a new crop. 



