INDIANS ON THE ROUTE. 
149 
A third party was also on the plains. They are a simple-minded, honest, and industrious 
population. They are attended by the priests and ministers of religion, and make it a principle 
to rest on the Sabbath. Their attention to their religious duties on these plains is one of the 
most striking characteristics of this primitive population. They make two hunts each year, 
leaving a portion of their numbers at home to lake care of their houses and farms: once from the 
middle of June to the middle of August, when the}’’ make pemican, and dry meat, and prepare 
the skin of the buffalo for lodges and moccasins; and again from the middle of September to the 
middle of November, when, besides the pemican and dried meat, the skin is dried into robes. 
I estimate that four months each year two thousand hunters, three thousand women and chil¬ 
dren, and eighteen hundred carts are on the plains; and estimating the load of a cart at eight 
hundred pounds, and allowing three hundred carts for luggage, that twelve hundred tons of meat, 
skins, and furs, is their product of the chase. 
I had very free intercourse with the governors and prominent men of both bands, who ex¬ 
pressed a strong attachment to the American government, and a great desire to settle perma¬ 
nently on American soil. I am satisfied they would make good citizens. I have collected a 
large amount of valuable information in reference to their history, modes of life, and with illus¬ 
trations by the artist, which will appear in the elaborate report. 
The Indians referred to by Mr. Gibbs, in his report, as the Upper Pend d’Oreilles, have been 
formed at a comparatively recent period under Ambrose as their chief, and are known as the 
Kalispel or Kalispelms. They consist of a number of wandering families, composed of Spo- 
kanes, Kalispelms proper, and Flatheads, who, having intermarried, have formed a habit of 
sojourning in the general vicinity of the Horse and Camash plains, on Clark’s fork, during their 
annual migrations to and from the buffalo hunting grounds. They have about forty lodges, num¬ 
bering some two hundred and eighty inhabitants. 
The Kalispelms proper, Pend d’Oreilles, have Victor for their chief, and have sixty lodges, or 
about four hundred and twenty inhabitants. This estimate is lower than that of Mr. Gibbs, but 
may be relied on. For much valuable information in reference to these Indians, and the Catholic 
mission established among them, I will refer you to Doctor Suckley’s report. 
The Coeur d’Alene Indians are under-estimated by all the authorities. They have some 
seventy lodges, and number about five hundred inhabitants. They are much indebted to the 
good fathers for making considerable progress in agriculture. They have abandoned polygamy, 
have been taught the rudiments of Christianity, and are greatly improved in their morals, and in 
the comforts of life. It is indeed extraordinary what the fathers have done at the Coeur d’Alene 
mission. It is on the Coeur d’Alene river, about thirty miles from the base of the mountains, and 
some-miles above the Coeur d’Alene lake. They have a splendid church, nearly finished, 
by the labor of the fathers, laymen, and Indians, a large barn, a horse-mill for flour, a small range 
of buildings for the accommodation of the priests and laymen, a store-room, a milk or dairy room, 
a cook-room, and good arrangements for their pigs and cattle. They are putting up a new range 
oi quarters, and the Indians have some twelve comfortable log-cabins. The church was designed 
by the superior of the mission, Pere Avili, a man of skill as an architect, and undoubtedly, judg¬ 
ing from his well-thumbed boohs, of various accomplishments. Pere Gazzoli showed me his 
several designs for the altar, all of them characterized by good tasle and harmony of proportion. 
The church, as a specimen of architecture, would do credit to any one, and has been faithfully 
sketched by our artist, Mr. Stanley. The massive timbers supporting the altar were from larch 
trees five feet in diameter, and were raised to their place by the Indians, with the aid simply of a 
pulley and rope. 
They have a large cultivated field of some two hundred acres, and a prairie of from two to 
three thousand acres.' They own a hundred pigs, eight yoke of oxen, twenty cows, and a 
liberal proportion of horses, mules, and young animals. 
I he Indians have learned to plough, sow, till the soil generally, milk cows, (with both hands,) 
