SALMON-FISHING—BREAD-MAKING. 49 
head, on which brushwood is spread for a screen against the sun. In 
one of these really picturesque booths an Indian sleeps at night, with a 
string leading up from the net to his fingers, so that when a salmon begins 
to flounce in it he is awakened. Sometimes the string is attached to an 
ingenious rattle-trap of sticks or bones (or a bell nowadays), which will 
ring or clatter, and answer the same purpose. 
They also spear salmon from these booths with a fish-gig furnished with 
movable barbs, which after entering the fish spread open, and prevent the 
withdrawal of the instrument. Another mode they sometimes employ is to 
stand on a large bowlder in the main current where the salmon and the 
little skeggers shoot in to rest in the eddy when ascending the stream, where- 
upon they scoop them up in dip-nets. Again they construct a weir of wil- 
low stakes nearly across the stream at the shallows, leaving only a narrow 
chute wherein is set a funnel-shaped trap of splints, with a funnel-shaped 
entrance at the large end. Ascending the stream the bold, resolute salmon 
shoots into this, and cannot get out. Sometimes the weir reaches clear 
across, the stakes being fastened to a long string-piece stretching from bank 
to bank. The building of one of these dams is usually preceded by a grand 
dance, and followed by a feast of salmon. The greater portion of the catch 
is dried and smoked for winter consumption. 
There are two runs of salmon, one in the spring and one in the fall, of 
which the former is the better, the fish being then smaller and sweeter. The 
whites along the river sometimes compel the Indians to leave their weirs 
open a certain number of days in the week, that they may participate in 
the catch. Quarrels used to arise between two villages, caused by the lower 
one making a weir so tight as to obstruct the run, and these occasionally 
led to bloodshed. 
Bread or mush is made from the acorns of the chestnut-oak (Quercus 
densiflora), which are first slightly scorched and then pounded up in stone 
mortars. The invariable sound that first salutes the ear as one approaches 
a village is the monotonous thump, thump of the pestles wielded by the 
patient women. The meal thus prepared is wet up with water, and the mix- 
ture poured into little sand-pools scooped in the river beach, around which 
a fire is made until the stuff is cooked, when the outside sand is brushed 
ALG 
