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gathering and preserving. The kamas is baked in the ground, a hole being 

 first dug and heated with stones, and the root covered over with twigs and 

 earth. There are numerous other roots and plants used in their fresh state. 

 Of the berries, such as the stniwberry, salmon-berry, raspbeny, and 

 others which are nof suitable for drying, are consumed at once ; but the 

 huckleberry, of which there are several kinds, sallal, &c., are dried and 

 stored for winter's use. The sahnon-berry, a large and somewhat coarse 

 species of raspberry, is abundant in the river bottoms, and grows to about 

 an inch in length. There are two varieties, the yellow and purple. It 

 obtains its name from its ripening about the same time with the height of 

 the salmon season on the Columbia, and its association with that fish in 

 Indian superstition. Acorns in those sections of the country where the oak 

 is found are gathered and stored for winter. But the great staple of food 

 through a vast portion of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, as well 

 in the interior as on the coast, is the salmon, which frequents in extraordi- 

 nary quantities almost every river from the Sacramento northward, and 

 pursues his way to the very base of the Rocky Mountains. Of this there 

 are several kinds, not less than six, it is supposed, entering the Columbia 

 alone at the different periods of the year, and others being found in other 

 localities. The salmon, which enter that river in the spring and are the 

 only ones prized as food by the whites, do not seek either the small rivers 

 of the coast or the lower tributaries near its mouth for the purpose of spawn- 

 ing, but push directly up the principal branches, such as the Willamette, the 

 Snake, &c., to the colder waters of the mountains In this they are assisted 

 by the simultaneous occurrence of the freshets which enable them to over- 

 come the obstructions with greater ease. In some of the forks of the Co- 

 lumbia they penetrate to the main chain of the Rocky Mountains; but in 

 others, as the Snake, they are stopped by impassable barriers. Later in the 

 season inferior kinds are abundant, and these also succeed in forcing their 

 way up the larger branches, but in addition, leave detachments in every 

 creek that enters the coast, every brook which unites with the rivers, and 

 even in the sloughs formed by rain in the prairies. It is at this season that 

 the coast Indians lay up their winter supplies ; for those later species pos- 

 sessing little fat are the easiest dried for keeping. The Indians of the inte- 



