THE CHINOOK INDIANS. 15 



language affording no appropriate expression. Their language is also 

 peculiar in containing no oaths, or any words expressive of gratitude or 

 thanks. 



Their habits are extremely filthy, their persons abounding with 

 vermin, and one of their chief amusements consists in picking these 

 disgusting insects from each others' heads and eating them. On my 

 asking an Indian one day why he ate them, he replied that they bit 

 him and he gratified his revenge by biting them in return. It may 

 naturally be supposed that they are thus beset from want of combs 

 or other means of displacing the intruders; but this is not the case, 

 they pride themselves on carrying such companions about them, and 

 giving their friends the opportunity of amusing themselves in hunting 

 and eating them. 



The costume of the men consists of a musk-rat skin robe, the size 

 of one of our ordinary blankets, thrown over the shoulders, without 

 any breech-cloth, moccassins or leggings. Painting the face is not much 

 practised amongst them except on extraordinary occasions, such as 

 the death of a relative, some solemn feast, or going on a war party. 

 The female dress consists of a girdle of cedar bark round the waist, 

 with a dense mass of strings of the same material hanging from it all 

 around and reaching almost to the knees. This is their sole summer 

 habiliment. They, however, in very severe weather add the musk- 

 rat blanket. They also make another description of blanket from the 

 skin of the wild goose, which is here taken in great abundance. 

 The skin is stripped from the bird with the feathers on, and 

 cut into strips, which they twist so as to have the feathers outwards. 

 This makes a feathered cord, and is then netted together so as to form 

 a blanket, the feathers filling up the meshes, and rendering it a light 

 and very warm covering. In the summer these are entirely thrown 

 aside, not being in any case worn from feelings of delicacy, and the men 

 go quite naked, though the women always wear the cedar petticoat. 



The country which the Chinooks inhabit being almost destitute of 

 furs they have little to trade in with the whites. This, coupled with 

 their laziness — probably induced by the ease with which they procure 

 fish, which is their chief subsistence — prevents their obtaining orna- 

 ments of European manufacture, consequently anything of the kind 

 is seldom seen amongst them. They, however, wear long strings of 

 small shells found on the coast called loquas, and used by them also 

 as money. 



A great traffic is carried on amongst all the tribes through the me- 

 dium of these shells, which are found only at Cape Flattery, at the 



