296 
VOYAGE IN A CANOE FROM FORT OWEN TO VANCOUVER. 
generally extend over a tract of country of more than one hundred miles square. The journeys 
are performed with horses and canoes. Many individuals of the nation prefer to use canoes 
entirely; these are made of the inner thin bark of the white pine, spread over red-cedar hoops, 
sewed with spruce roots, in the manner of the birch canoes of the Chippewas and other eastern 
Indians. The white-pine bark is a very good substitute for birch, but has the disadvantage of 
being more brittle in cold weather. These canoes are also shaped somewhat differently, not 
being turned up at the ends like those of the Chippewas. 
Just above Lake Pend d’Oreille the Clark river divides into three streams, which again unite, 
thus forming two or three large islands. One of these streams is wide, shallow, and swift. Here 
the Indians annually construct a fence, which reaches across the stream, and guides the fish into 
a wier or rack, where they are caught in great numbers. To the natives this is a place of great 
resort. To Lake Rootham, long celebrated for the superior quality and vast numbers of its 
beaver, they go to catch the latter animal and to hunt deer. To other places they go to hunt deer 
alone; to others to cut flag and rushes for mats, and still again to others to hunt bear. The old 
method of cooking fish in bowls of wicker or basket work, heating the water by hot stones, is 
still occasionally practised; although the operation is not very cleanly, it is still very rapid, and 
the fish thus cooked have an excellent flavor. In summer the Indians live principally on fish, 
which they catch not only by wiers and fish-traps, but by the hook and line and by spearing. 
They also collect camas and bitter roots, and a berry, called in some of the eastern States the 
sugar-berry or sugar-pear. These they dry separately, and also in cakes, with moss, for winter 
use. This food affords nourishment merely sufficient to sustain life. In the autumn, in addition 
to hunting venison and bear, they dry meat and fish for winter use. When the severe cold 
weather has fairly set in, the whole band moves to some noted venison hunting-ground, where 
during the heavy snows the deer cannot escape, and are readily pursued and killed with clubs. 
They hunt over the whole section so thoroughly as entirely to exterminate these animals 
in that locality, leaving none to breed. In this way they have destroyed the deer entirely 
in all but two or three places. To each of them they will proceed during the coming and one 
or two subsequent winters; the deer will then all be destroyed, leaving the inhabitants no 
dependence, unless by that time they shall have sufficient land under cultivation to support 
them ; otherwise, there will be a great deal of suffering among these people. Last winter 
they killed eight hundred deer; these were but just sufficient for their wants. The Indians 
say that in old times there were but very few deer; latterly they became much more plenti¬ 
ful. About six years ago there was a very severe winter and a very heavy fall of snow. The 
Indians wantonly slaughtered many thousands of these animals, most of which were so poor 
as almost to be reduced to skin and bone, and for the most part unfit for food. The same winter 
many deer died from cold and starvation. As the deer are easily killed during a heavy fall of 
snow, the Indians are in the habit of praying for the latter as a great blessing. The following 
is a short account of the operations of the missionaries : They came among these Indians about nine 
years ago, and found them to be a poor, miserable, half-starved race, with an insufficiency of food 
and nearly naked, living upon fish, camas and other roots, and, at the last extremity, upon the 
pine-tree moss. They (the Indians) were in utter misery and want —in want of everything. Their 
whole time was occupied in providing for their bellies, which were rarely full. They were of a 
peaceable disposition, brave, good-tempered, and willing to work. Of spiritual things they were 
utterly ignorant. Unlike the Indians east of the mountains, they had no idea of a future state or 
of a Great Spirit; neither had they any idea of a soul. In fact, they had not words in their 
language to express such ideas. They considered themselves to be animals nearly allied to the 
beaver, but greater than the beaver—and why? Because, they said, “ the beaver builds houses 
like us, and he is very cunning, too; but we can catch the beaver, and he cannot catch us— 
therefore we are greater than he.” They thought when they died that was the last of them. 
While thus ignorant, it was not uncommon for them to bury the very old and very young alive, 
