INDIAN TRIBES OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 
413 
grazing it is as little adapted; and there is, in its whole extent, nothing to tempt encroachment 
upon its miserable owners. 
During Captain McClellan’s examination of the Methow river, six of the bands, belonging in 
part to each tribe, agreed upon Ke-keh-tum-nouse, or Pierre, an Indian from Klahum, the site of 
Astor’s old fort, at the mouth of the Okinakane, as their chief. 
The occasion furnished an opportunity of making an actual count, which for these six bands 
gave a total of 274. The remainder would, according to our observations, raise the number of 
Indians south of the 49th degree, and between the Columbia and the Cascade mountains, to 550 ; 
a larger one than was expected. As the smallpox was at its height, however, this is doubtless 
already much diminished. During the whole route we found the disease prevailing to a fearful 
extent. Several villages had been nearly cut off’; and we saw, at some places, the dead left 
unburied on the surface of the ground. These tribes have no cattle, and but comparatively few 
horses. They told us that formerly they had many, but that the company had purchased them 
for food; and they complained bitterly that the shirts and other articles given them in exchange 
were worn out, and nothing was left them but their new religion. At Fort Okinakane we 
observed a mode of disposing of the dead differing from any before noticed. They were wrapped 
in their blankets, or other clothing, and bound up right to the trunk of a tree, at a sufficient 
distance from the ground to preserve them from wild animals. Notwithstanding the climate, none 
of these Indians have a better shelter than is furnished by their mats. They raise some potatoes, 
but their main resource is salmon. These, at the time of their visit, actually filled the streams. 
In the Okinakane, in particular, there were myriads of a small species, which had assumed a 
uniform red color. They were depositing their spawn, and were in a condition eatable only by 
Indians, who were busily engaged in drying them. 
On leaving Fort Okinakane, the new chief accompanied the party to Fort Colville in the 
capacity of a guide, assisted by two of his subjects; and the cavalcade was enlarged at the lake 
by the chief of the Saht-lil-kwu band, a religious personage, who sported the title of King 
George, and persecuted us nightly with family worship. We parted with the whole with the loss 
of much tobacco and few regrets. Fort Colville is the principal ground of the Schwoyelpi, or 
Kettle Falls tribe, one of the largest of the Selish. 
According to the information received from Father Joset, of the Jesuit mission, they number 
from five to six hundred. At the time of our visit the greater part had gone to the buffalo hunt. 
They do not obtain many furs, the greater part of those taken at this post coming from the upper 
Columbia. The fishery at the Kettle falls is one of the most important on the river; and the 
arrangements of the Indians, in the shape of drying-scaffolds and stone houses, are on a corre¬ 
sponding scale. They take the fish by suspending immense baskets upon poles beneath the traps, 
into which the salmon spring. We saw here, for the first time, the canoe used upon the upper 
waters of the Columbia. It is of birch bark, and of a form peculiar to these rivers, being longer 
on the bottom than on the top. A canoe, of thirty feet in length on the floor, is open only about 
twenty-four feet, and gathered to a point about three feet long at each end. They are stretched 
on a light frame of split twigs, and are at once fast and buoyant. The mission is situated upon a 
high bluff'above the falls, and consists of a small house for the priest and a chapel. Around these 
are a number of huts and store-houses belonging to the Indians; the latter raised from the ground 
on posts. Fathers Louis and Joset, of the Order of Jesuits, are stationed here. Our visit admitted 
of but little opportunity of gathering further information concerning the Indians than what has 
already been published. The few who were present were assembled by Governor Stevens, who 
addressed them. They have no head chief of note, and there were present on the occasion only 
Klekahkahi, the chief at the falls ; Kuiltkuiltlouis, a sub-chief; and Llimiklka, the son of a former 
chief of this place. 
The last was highly spoken of by Mr. McDonald, but did not seem to be in equal favor at the 
mission. We learned that but few of the original Schwoyelpi stock remained ; they had gradually 
