Arrowhead, Squaw's Toes, and Other Things 135 



head." He refers these plants to Theophrastus and Pliny, but 

 states that he finds nothing in writing concerning their vir- 

 tues or temperament, a statement which appeared strange 

 to' me, for the wapatoo, a relative, has been of the greatest 

 importance in the economy of the Pacific Northwest Indians. 

 They gathered it for their own needs, and used the surplus 

 for trading purposes. Lewis and Clark, who described it in 

 their journal, wrote that it was collected chiefly by the 

 women who employed canoes from ten to fourteen feet long 

 and light enough so that they could be carried easily. The 

 women would take their canoes to a pond, where they would 

 push them ahead and wade among the arrowhead plants. 

 When they located the bulbous roots they would free them 

 with their toes. When the roots floated to the surface they 

 gathered and put them into their canoes. One can imagine 

 the sight, the brown bodies of the harvesters outlined against 

 the green of the swamp, the splashing, the comments, and 

 growing heaps of the wapatoo in the cedar canoes. 



On the shore near the marsh stood the small mat houses 

 of the tribe, temporary shelters for use in such situations. 

 Here the women, too old for work in the water, prepared the 

 wapatoo for use. The little children played or, if too young, 

 lay wide-eyed in their boards while the pits were dug and 

 the bulbs roasted to make a product so highly esteemed that 

 it was a regular article of commerce and trading. Surplus 

 stocks of wapatoo brought many things to the tribes who 

 prepared it. Buckskins and berries, horn and arrowheads, 

 dried oysters and clams, and many other things which were 

 plentiful in other sections were available to those who had 

 wapatoo for trade. Lewis and Clark exchanged beads, small 

 articles of copper and iron, and other trifles for it, and found 

 the wapatoo superior to the camass which was so extensively 

 dug by Indians in the less humid districts. Most of the early 

 explorers mentioned the plant and its value to the natives. 



I could easily understand how the marshes in a country 



