pip. nT 2®4T SHEEP ISLAND— OSBORNE, BRYAN, CRABTREE 273 



self-sown cottonwoods and willows, together with driftwood from up- 

 river lumbering operations, have changed radically the appearance of 

 the great valley where Lewis and Clark were often unable to find 

 firewood. 



THE INDIANS 



Sheep Island is in the range of the ethnographic Umatilla tribe. 

 No published ethnography exists of a northeastern Sahaptin tribe, 

 such as the Umatilla, although Dr. Verne F. Eay (1936, p. 109) has 

 worked with them for many seasons. He has yet published no formal 

 ethnography, but many data appear in his 1942 distribution study. 



The earlier aboriginal culture of the Umatilla, like that of their 

 neighbors (Nez Perce, Yakima, Cayuse), became masked by an 

 amazing complex, or series of complexes of culture traits from the 

 Plains, which penetrated nearly eveiy phase of their culture. Tliis 

 acculturation took place, apparently, from the second quarter of the 

 18th century well into the 19th. In a report by Osborne (1957) is 

 described an archeological site (45-BN-3) inhabited durmg tliis 

 period which shows a melange of material traits pointing at once 

 toward the old untainted Plateau culture stratum, toward the Plains 

 overlay (Ray, 1939, p. 3), and toward the period of the early fur 

 trade. Both Sheep Island archeological manifestations, the cremation 

 pits sketchily described by Garth and the burials, were prehistoric. 

 There appears to be no reason why they should not be assigned to the 

 earlier true Plateau culture that Eay discusses in his 1939 publication. 

 Only the briefest of ethnographic summaries, from Ray's work and 

 from the interpretation of excavation results, need be given here. 



The people were fishers, hunters, and gatherers, probably in that 

 order. Roots and tubers, wild fruits, and seeds were not as important 

 here as were seeds to the south in the Basin. Stone chipping, at least 

 during the period of the burials, did not compare with that which 

 produced the later agate "jewel points," those deeply barbed projectile 

 points which have indubitably caused the looting of more sites than 

 have any other artifacts in the West except the decorative ceramics of 

 the Southwest. Stoneworkers of the earlier period still preferred the 

 less brittle, tougher chalcedonies and fine-grained basalt. Percussion 

 chipping does not stand alone but may have been preferred. Projec- 

 tile types and knives were not exactly the same as in later periods but 

 are sufficiently similar so that one cannot infer any great change in 

 weapons. Greenstone (jadite, nephrite, etc.) celts, not uncommon 

 later tools, had not yet appeared as far south as this on the scene or 

 at least were not found in the deposit at Sheep Island, These celts are 

 obviously not a basic Plateau trait and probably came into the 

 northern Plateau (and thence to the southern) from the Lower Fraser 

 or possibly from the Coast, Borden (1951, p. 45) to the contrary. 



