

1855.] INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL ON THE NORTH-WEST COAST, VANCOUVER'S ISLAND, &c. 



e Caiiiiiiiaii |0iinuiL 



TOKONTO, JULY, 1855. 



lacidents of Travel on the Korth-West Coast, Vancouver's 

 Island, Oregon, &c., &e., 



BY PAUL KANE, ESQ., TORONTO. 



THE CHINOOK INDIANS. 



iRead before the Canadian Institute, March lilh.'^') 



As it would be impossible for me in the confined limits of a 

 paper like the present to give anything like a detailed account 

 of all the tribes of Indians amongst whom I have travelled, I 

 have considered that it would prove far more interesting were 

 I to confine myself to one tribe, and give full information 

 regarding their habits, customs and traditions. For this pur- 

 pose I have selected the Chinooks, one of the tribes among 

 whom I have been, most remote from this part of the conti- 

 nent, and whose manners and customs are so much at variance 

 with our own, as, I trust, to render some notice of them, from 

 pergonal observation, novel and interesting. 



The Flat-Head Indians are met with along the banks of the 

 Columbia river from its mouth eastward to the Cascades, a 

 distance of about 130 miles; they extend up the Walamett 

 river south alwut 30 or 40 miles, and through the district 

 lyiug between the "Walamett and Fort Astoria, now called Fort 

 George. To the north they extend along the Cowlitz river and 

 the tract of land lying between that and Puget's Sound. About 

 two-thirds of Vancouver's Island is also occupied by them, 

 and they are found along the coasts of Puget's Sound and the 

 Straits of Juan de Fuca. The Flat-Heads are divided into numer- 

 ous tribes, each having its own peculiar locality, and differing 

 more or less from the others in language, customs and manners. 



Of these I shall select, as the subject of the present paper, 

 the Chinooks, a tribe inhabiting the tract of countiy at the 

 mouth of the Columbia river. Residing among the Flat-Heads 

 I remained from the fiill of 1846 to the following autumn of 

 1847, and had consequently ample opportunity of becoming 

 acquainted with the peculiar habits and customs of the tribe. 

 They are governed by a Chief called Casenov. This name has 

 no translation. The Indians on the west side of the Rocky 

 Mountains differing from those on the east, in having heredi- 

 tary names, to which no particular meaning appears to bo 

 attached, and the derivation of which is in many instances 

 forgotten. Casenov is a man of advanced age, and resides 

 principally at Fort Vancouver, about 90 miles from the mouth 

 of the Columbia. I made a sketch of him while staying there, 

 and obtained the following information as to his history and 

 previous career :— Previous to 1820 Casenov was considered a 

 great warrinr, ami could lead into the field 1,000 men, but in 

 that year the Hudson's Bay Company and emigrants from the 

 United States introduced the plough for the first time into 

 Oregon, and the locality hitherto considered one of the most 

 healthy was almost depopulated by the fever and ague. 



* Various articles of dress worn l)y tlie Chinoolc Indians, specimens 

 of tlieir bows and arrows, spear.s, cool<ing utensils, and a sl<ull taken 

 from one of tlioir graves, were cxliibitcd. Several admii-ablo oil paint- 

 ings, executed Ijy Mr. Kane, illustrated many important features of 

 the lives and characters of tlie Chinook Indians. (See proceedings of 

 the Canadian Institute, March 14th, page 213, Canadian Journal.) 



Vol. III., No. 12, July, 1855. 



Their principal settlement, Chinook Point, where King 

 Cumcomley ruled in 1811, at the mouth of the river, was 

 nearly reduced to one-half its numbers. The Klatsup village 

 now contains but a small remnant of its former inhabitants. 

 Wasiackum, Catlamet, Kullowith, the settlement.s at the mouth 

 of the Cowlitz, Kallemo, Kattlepootle and AValkumup are 

 entirely extinct as villages. On Soveys Island there were for- 

 merly four villages but now there scarcely remains a lodge. 



They died of this disease in such numbers that their bodies 

 lay unburied on the river's banks, and many were to be met 

 with floating down the stream. 



The Hudson's Bay Company supplied them liberally with 

 Quinine and other medicines, but their good effects were almost 

 entirely counteracted by their mode of living, and their obsti- 

 nacy in persisting in their own peculiar mode of treatment, 

 which consisted principally in plunging into the river without 

 reference to the particular crisis of the disease. 



From these two causes their numbers have been very much 

 reduced, and the cfi'ective power of the tribes so greatly dimin- 

 ished that the influence which Casenov owed to the number of 

 his followers has correspondingly declined ; his own immediate 

 family consisting of ten wives, four children and eighteen 

 slaves, being reduced in one year to one wife, one child and 

 two slaves. Their decrease since that time has also been fear- 

 fully accelerated by the introduction of ardent spirits, which, 

 in spite of prohibition and fines against selling it to Indians, 

 they manage to obtain from their vicinity to Oregon city, where 

 whiskey, or a poisonous compound called there blue ruin, is 

 illicitly distilled. I have scarcely ever seen an Indian in that 

 vicinity who would not get drunk if he could procure the 

 means, and it is a matter of astonishment how verj' small a 

 quantity suflEices to intoxicate these unfortunate beings, although 

 they always dilute it largely in order to prolong the pleasure 

 they derive from drinking. Casenov is a man of more than ordi- 

 nary talent for an Indian, and he has maintained his great 

 influence over his tribe chiefly by means of the superstitious 

 dread in which they hold him. 



This influence waswielded with unflinching severity towards 

 them, although he has ever proved himself the firm friend of 

 the white man. Casenov for many years in the early period 

 of his life kept a hired assassin to remove any obnoxious indi- 

 vidual against whom he entertained personal enmity. 



This bravo, whose occupation was no secret, went by the 

 name of Casenov's Skocoom or evil genius. He finally fell in 

 love with one of Casenov's wives who eloped with him ; Case- 

 nov vowed vengeance, but the pair for a long time eluded his 

 search, until one day he met her in a canoe near the mouth of 

 the Cowlitz river and shot her on the spot. After this he lived 

 in such continual dread of the lover's vengeance that for nearly 

 a year he never ventured to sleep, but in the midst of a b(Kiy 

 guard of 40 amied warriors, until at last he succeeded in tracing 

 him out, and had him assa.ssinated by the man who had suc- 

 ceeded him in his old oflice. The Chinooks over whom Casenov 

 presides carry the process of flattening the head to a greater 

 extent than any other of the Flat-Head tribes. 



The process is as follows : — The Indian mothers all carry 

 their infants strapped to a piece of board covered with moss or 

 loose fibres of cedar bark, and in order to flatten the head they 

 place a pad on its forehead, on the top of which is laid a piece 

 of smooth bark bound on by a leathern band pa.ssing through 

 holes in the board on cither side and kept tightly pressed across 

 the front of the head. A sort of pillow of grass or cedar fibres 

 being placed under the back of the neck to support it. 



This process commences with the birth of the infant and is 



