The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft

A serious offense against an individual, although nominally pardoned in consideration of presents, can really never be completely atoned for except by blood; hence private, family, and tribal feuds continue from generation to generation. Women are not immodest, but the men have no shame. Stealing is recognized as a fault, and the practice as between members of the same tribe is rare, but skillful pilfering from strangers, if not officially sanctioned, is extensively carried on and much admired; still any property confided in trust to a Nootka is said to be faithfully returned. To his wife he is kind and just; to his children affectionate. Efforts for their conversion to foreign religions have been in the highest degree unsuccessful.318

      THE SOUND INDIANS.

The Sound Indians, by which term I find it convenient to designate the nations about Puget Sound, constitute the third family of the Columbian group. In this division I include all the natives of that part of Washington which lies to the west of the Cascade Range, except a strip from twenty-five to forty miles wide along the north bank of the Columbia. The north-eastern section of this territory, including the San Juan group, Whidbey Island, and the region tributary to Bellingham Bay, is the home of the Nooksak, Lummi, Samish and Skagit nations, whose neighbors and constant harassers on the north are the fierce Kwantlums and Cowichins of the Nootka family about the mouth of the Fraser. The central section, comprising the shores and islands of Admiralty Inlet, Hood Canal, and Puget Sound proper, is occupied by numerous tribes with variously spelled names, mostly terminating in mish, which names, with all their orthographic diversity, have been given generally to the streams on whose banks the different nations dwelt. All these tribes may be termed the Nisqually nation, taking the name from the most numerous and best-known of the tribes located about the head of the sound. The Clallams inhabit the eastern portion of the peninsula between the sound and the Pacific. The western extremity of the same peninsula, terminating at Cape Flattery, is occupied by the Classets or Makahs; while the Chehalis and Cowlitz nations are found on the Chehalis River, Gray Harbor, and the upper Cowlitz. Excepting a few bands on the headwaters of streams that rise in the vicinity of Mount Baker, the Sound family belongs to the coast fish-eating tribes rather than to the hunters of the interior. Indeed, this family has so few marked peculiarities, possessing apparently no trait or custom not found as well among the Nootkas or Chinooks, that it may be described in comparatively few words. When first known to Europeans they seem to have been far less numerous than might have been expected from the extraordinary fertility and climatic advantages of their country; and since they have been in contact with the whites, their numbers have been reduced—chiefly through the agency of small-pox and ague—even more rapidly than the nations farther to the north-west.319

These natives of Washington are short and thick-set, with strong limbs, but bow-legged; they have broad faces, eyes fine but wide apart; noses prominent, both of Roman and aquiline type; color, a light copper, perhaps a shade darker than that of the Nootkas, but capable of transmitting a flush; the hair usually black and almost universally worn long.320

      All the tribes flatten the head more or less, but none carry the practice to such an extent as their neighbors on the south, unless it be the Cowlitz nation, which might indeed as correctly be classed with the Chinooks. By most of the Sound natives tattooing is not practiced, and they seem somewhat less addicted to a constant use of paint than the Nootkas; yet on festive occasions a plentiful and hideous application is made of charcoal or colored earth pulverized in grease, and the women appreciate the charms imparted to the face by the use of vermilion clay. The nose, particularly at Cape Flattery, is the grand centre of facial ornamentation. Perforating is extravagantly practiced, and pendant trinkets of every form and substance are worn, those of bone or shell preferred, and, if we may credit Wilkes, by some of the women these ornaments are actually kept clean.

      SOUND DRESS AND DWELLINGS.

The native garment, when the weather makes nakedness uncomfortable, is a blanket of dog's hair, sometimes mixed with birds' down and bark-fibre, thrown about the shoulders. Some few fasten this about the neck with a wooden pin. The women are more careful in covering the person with the blanket than are the men, and generally wear under it a bark apron hanging from the waist in front. A cone-shaped, water-proof hat, woven from colored grasses, is sometimes worn on the head.321

Temporary hunting-huts in summer are merely cross-sticks covered with coarse mats made by laying bulrushes side by side, and knotting them at intervals with cord or grass. The poorer individuals or tribes dwell permanently in similar huts, improved by the addition of a few slabs; while the rich and powerful build substantial houses, of planks split from trees by means of bone wedges, much like the Nootka dwellings in plan, and nearly as large. These houses sometimes measure over one hundred feet in length, and are divided into rooms or pens, each house accommodating many families. There are several fire-places in each dwelling; raised benches extend round the sides, and the walls are often lined with matting.322

      FOOD OF THE SOUND INDIANS.

In spring time they abandon their regular dwellings and resort in small companies to the various sources of food-supply. Fish is their chief dependence, though game is taken in much larger quantities than by the Nootkas; some of the more inland Sound tribes subsisting almost entirely by the chase and by root-digging. Nearly all the varieties of fish which support the northern tribes are also abundant here, and are taken substantially by the same methods, namely, by the net, hook, spear, and rake; but fisheries seem to be carried on somewhat less systematically, and I find no account of the extensive and complicated embankments and traps mentioned by travelers in British Columbia. To the salmon, sturgeon, herring, rock-cod, and candle-fish, abundant in the inlets of the sound, the Classets, by venturing out to sea, add a supply of whale-blubber and otter-meat, obtained with spears, lines, and floats. At certain points on the shore tall poles are erected, across which nets are spread; and against these nets large numbers of wild fowl, dazzled by torch-lights at night, dash themselves and fall stunned to the ground, where the natives stand ready to gather in the feathery harvest. Vancouver noticed many of these poles in different localities, but could not divine their use. Deer and elk in the forests are also hunted by night, and brought within arrow-shot by the spell of torches. For preservation, fish are dried in the sun or dried and smoked by the domestic hearth, and sometimes pounded fine, as are roots of various kinds; clams are dried on strings and hung up in the houses, or occasionally worn round the neck, ministering to the native love of ornament until the stronger instinct of hunger impairs the beauty of the necklace. In the better class of houses, supplies are neatly stored in baskets at the sides. The people are extremely improvident, and, notwithstanding their abundant natural supplies in ocean, stream, and forest, are often in great want. Boiling in wooden vessels by means of hot stones is the ordinary method of cooking. A visitor to the Nooksaks thus describes their method of steaming elk-meat: "They first dig a hole in the ground, then build a wood fire, placing stones on the top of it. As it burns, the stones become hot and fall down. Moss and leaves are then placed on the top of the hot stones, the meat on these, and another layer of moss and leaves laid over it. Water is poured on, which is speedily converted into steam. This is retained by mats carefully placed over the heap. When left in this way for a night, the meat is found tender and well cooked in the morning." Fowls were cooked in the same manner by the Queniults.323

I find no mention of other weapons, offensive or defensive, than spears, and bows and arrows. The arrows and spears were usually pointed with bone; the bows were of yew, and though short, were of great power. Vancouver describes a superior bow used at Puget Sound. It was from two and a half to three feet long, made from a naturally curved piece of yew, whose concave side became the convex of the bow, and to the whole length of this side a strip of elastic hide or serpent-skin was attached so firmly by a kind of cement as to become almost a part of the wood. This lining added greatly to the strength