The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

      FISHING BY NIGHT ON THE KLAMATH.

Fishing is more congenial to the lazy taste of these people than the nobler but more arduous craft of hunting; consequently fish, being abundant, are generally more plentiful in the aboriginal larder than venison. Several methods are adopted in taking them. Sometimes a dam of interwoven willows is constructed across a rapid at the time when salmon are ascending the river; niches four or five feet square are made at intervals across the dam, in which the fish, pressed on by those behind, collect in great numbers and are there speared or netted without mercy. Much ingenuity and labor are required to build some of the larger of these dams. Mr. Gibbs describes one thrown across the Klamath, where the river was about seventy-five yards wide, elbowing up the stream in its deepest part. It was built by first driving stout posts into the bed of the river, at a distance of some two feet apart, having a moderate slope, and supported from below, at intervals of ten or twelve feet, by two braces; the one coming to the surface of the water, the other reaching to the string-pieces. These last were heavy spars, about thirty feet in length, and secured to each post by withes. The whole dam was faced with twigs, carefully peeled, and placed so close together as to prevent the fish from passing up. The top, at this stage of the water, was two or three feet above the surface. The labor of constructing this work must, with the few and insufficient tools of the natives, have been immense. Slight scaffolds were built out below it, from which the fish were taken in scoop-nets; they also employ drag-nets and spears, the latter having a movable barb, which is fastened to the shaft with a string in order to afford the salmon play.454 On Rogue River, spearing by torch-light—a most picturesque sight—is resorted to. Twenty canoes sometimes start out together, each carrying three persons—two women, one to row and the other to hold the torch, and a spearman. Sometimes the canoes move in concert, sometimes independently of each other; one moment the lights are seen in line, like an army of fire-flies, then they are scattered over the dark surface of the water like ignes fatui. The fish, attracted by the glare, rise to the surface, where they are transfixed by the unerring aim of the spearmen. Torchlight spearing is also done by driving the fish down stream in the day-time by dint of much wading, yelling, and howling, and many splashes, until they are stopped by a dam previously erected lower down; another dam is then built above, so that the fish cannot escape. At night fires are built round the edge of the enclosed space, and the finny game speared from the bank.455 Some tribes on the Klamath erect platforms over the stream on upright poles, on which they sleep and fish at the same time. A string leads from the net either to the fisherman himself or to some kind of alarm; and as soon as a salmon is caught, its floundering immediately awakens the slumberer. On the sea-shore smelts are taken in a triangular net stretched on two slender poles; the fisherman wades into the water up to his waist, turns his face to the shore, and his back to the incoming waves, against whose force he braces himself with a stout stick, then as the smelts are washed back from the beach by the returning waves, he receives them in his net. The net is deep, and a narrow neck connects it with a long network bag behind; into this bag the fish drop when the net is raised, but they cannot return. In this manner the fisherman can remain for some time at his post, without unloading.

      Eels are caught in traps having a funnel-shaped entrance, into which the eels can easily go, but which closes on them as soon as they are in. These traps are fastened to stakes and kept down by weights. Similar traps are used to take salmon.

      When preserved for winter use, the fish are split open at the back, the bone taken out, then dried or smoked. Both fish and meat, when eaten fresh, are either broiled on hot stones or boiled in water-tight baskets, hot stones being thrown in to make the water boil. Bread is made of acorns ground to flour in a rough stone mortar with a heavy stone pestle, and baked in the ashes. Acorn-flour is the principal ingredient, but berries of various kinds are usually mixed in, and frequently it is seasoned with some high-flavored herb. A sort of pudding is also made in the same manner, but is boiled instead of baked.

They gather a great variety of roots, berries, and seeds. The principal root is the camas,456 great quantities of which are dried every summer, and stored away for winter provision. Another root, called kice, or kace,457 is much sought after. Of seeds they have the wocus,458 and several varieties of grass-seeds. Among berries the huckleberry and the manzanita berry are the most plentiful.459 The women do the cooking, root and berry gathering, and all the drudgery.

The winter stock of smoked fish hangs in the family room, sending forth an ancient and fish-like smell. Roots and seeds are, among some of the more northerly tribes, stored in large wicker boxes, built in the lower branches of strong, wide-spreading trees. The trunk of the tree below the granary is smeared with pitch to keep away vermin.459 The Modocs are sometimes obliged to cache their winter hoard under rocks and bushes; the great number of their enemies and bad character of their ostensibly friendly neighbors, rendering it unsafe for them to store it in their villages. So cunningly do they conceal their treasure that one winter, after an unusually heavy fall of snow, they themselves could not find it, and numbers starved in consequence.460

Although the Northern Californians seldom fail to take a cold bath in the morning, and frequently bathe at intervals during the day, yet they are never clean.461

      WAR AND WEAPONS.

The Northern Californians are not of a very warlike disposition, hence their weapons are few, being confined chiefly to the bow and arrow.462 The bow is about three feet in length, made of yew, cedar, or some other tough or elastic wood, and generally painted. The back is flat, from an inch and a half to two inches wide, and covered with elk-sinews, which greatly add both to its strength and elasticity; the string is also of sinew. The bow is held horizontally when discharged, instead of perpendicularly as in most countries. The arrows are from two to three feet long, and are made sometimes of reed, sometimes of light wood. The points, which are of flint, obsidian, bone, iron, or copper, are ground to a very fine point, fastened firmly into a short piece of wood, and fitted into a socket in the main shaft, so that on withdrawing the arrow the head will be left in the wound. The feathered part, which is from five to eight inches long, is also sometimes a separate piece bound on with sinews. The quiver is made of the skin of a fox, wild-cat, or some other small animal, in the same shape as when the animal wore it, except at the tail end, where room is left for the feathered ends of arrows to project. It is usually carried on the arm.463

Mr. Powers says: "doubtless many persons who have seen the flint arrow-heads made by the Indians, have wondered how they succeeded with their rude implements, in trimming them down to such sharp, thin points, without breaking them to pieces. The Veeards—and probably other tribes do likewise—employ for this purpose a pair of buck-horn pincers, tied together at the point with a thong. They first hammer out the arrow-head in the rough, and then with these pincers carefully nip off one tiny fragment after another, using that infinite patience which is characteristic of the Indian, spending days, perhaps weeks, on one piece. There are Indians who make arrows as a specialty, just as there are others who concoct herbs and roots for the healing of men."464 The Shastas especially excelled in making obsidian arrow-heads; Mr. Wilkes of the Exploring Expedition notices them as being "beautifully wrought," and Lyon, in a letter to the American Ethnological Society, communicated through Dr. E. H. Davis, describes the very remarkable ingenuity and skill which they display in this particular. The arrow-point maker, who is one of a regular guild, places the obsidian pebble upon an anvil of talcose slate