THE CHINOOK INDIANS. 13 



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 met with an Indian in that 

 vicinity who would not get drunk if he could procure the means, and 

 it is a matter of astonishment how very small a quantity suffices 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 ordinary 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 was 

 wielded with unflinching severity towards them, although he has ever 

 proved himself the firm friend of the white man. For many years, 

 in the early period of his life, he kept a hired assassin to remove any 

 obnoxious individual 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. Casenov 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 ven- 

 geance that for nearly a year he never ventured to sleep, but in the 

 midst of a body guard of forty armed warriors, until at last he suc- 

 ceeded in tracing his foe out, and had him assassinated by the man who 

 had succeeded him in his old office. 



The Chinooks over whom Casenov presides carry the process of 

 flattening the head to a greater extent than any other of the Fiat- 

 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 the forehead of the child, on the top of which is laid a piece 

 of smocth bark bound on by a leathern band passing through holes in 

 the board on either side and kept tightly pressed across the front of 

 the head, A sort of pillow of grass or cedar fibres is placed under the 

 back of the neck to support it. 



This process commences with the birth of the infant, and is contin- 

 ued for a period of from eight to twelve months, by which time the 

 head has lost its natural shnpe and acquired that of a wedge, the front 

 of the skull becoming flat, broad, and higher at the crown, giving it a 

 most unnatural appearance. 



It might be presumed that from the extent to which this is 



