LETTER—No. 48.
Whilst I am thus taking a hasty glance at the tribes on the Atlantic Coast, on the borders of Mexico, and the confines of Canada, the reader will pardon me for taking him for a few minutes to the mouth of the Columbia, on the Pacific Coast; which place I have not yet quite reached myself, in my wild rambles, but most undoubtedly shall ere long, if my strolling career be not suddenly stopped. I scarcely need tell the reader where the Columbia River is, since its course and its character have been so often, and so well described, by recent travellers through those regions. I can now but glance at this remote country and its customs; and revert to it again after I shall have examined it in all its parts, and collected my materials for a fuller account.
FLAT HEADS.
These are a very numerous people, inhabiting the shores of the Columbia River, and a vast tract of country lying to the South of it, and living in a country which is exceedingly sterile and almost entirely, in many parts, destitute of game for the subsistence of the savage; they are mostly obliged to live on roots, which they dig from the ground, and fish which they take from the streams; the consequences of which are, that they are generally poor and miserably clad; and in no respect equal to the Indians of whom I have heretofore spoken, who live on the East of the Rocky Mountains, in the ranges of the buffaloes; where they are well-fed, and mostly have good horses to ride, and materials in abundance for manufacturing their beautiful and comfortable dresses.
The people generally denominated Flat Heads, are divided into a great many bands, and although they have undoubtedly got their name from the custom of flattening the head; yet there are but very few of those so denominated, who actually practice that extraordinary custom.
The Nez Percés who inhabit the upper waters and mountainous parts of the Columbia, are a part of this tribe, though they are seldom known to flatten the head like those lower down, and about the mouth of the river. Hee-oh’ks-te-kin (the rabbit skin leggings, plate 207), and H’co-a-h’co a-h’cotes-min (no horns on his head, plate 208), are young men of this tribe. These two young men, when I painted them, were in beautiful Sioux dresses, which had been presented to them in a talk with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing through the Sioux country. These two men were part of a delegation that came across the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis, a few years since, to enquire for the truth of a representation which they said some white man had made amongst them, “that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all be lost if they did not embrace it.”
Two old and venerable men of this party died in St. Louis, and I travelled two thousand miles, companion with these two young fellows, towards their own country, and became much pleased with their manners and dispositions.
The last mentioned of the two, died near the mouth of the Yellow Stone River on his way home, with disease which he had contracted in the civilized district; and the other one I have since learned, arrived safely amongst his friends, conveying to them the melancholy intelligence of the deaths of all the rest of his party; but assurances at the same time, from General Clark, and many Reverend gentlemen, that the report which they had heard was well founded; and that missionaries, good and religious men, would soon come amongst them to teach this religion, so that they could all understand and have the benefits of it.
When I first heard the report of the object of this extraordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely believe it; but on conversing with General Clark on a future occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact; and I, like thousands of others, have had the satisfaction of witnessing the complete success that has crowned the bold and daring exertions of Mr. Lee and Mr. Spalding, two Reverend gentlemen who have answered in a Christian manner to this unprecedented call; and with their wives have crossed the most rugged wilds and wildernesses of the Rocky Mountains, and triumphantly proved to the world, that the Indians, in their native wilds are a kind and friendly people, and susceptible of mental improvement.
I had long been of the opinion, that to ensure success, the exertions of pious men should be carried into the heart of the wilderness, beyond the reach and influence of civilized vices; and I so expressed my opinion to the Reverend Mr. Spalding and his lady, in Pittsburgh, when on their way, in their first Tour to that distant country. I have seen the Reverend Mr. Lee and several others of the mission, several years since the formation of their school; as well as several gentlemen who have visited their settlement, and from all, I am fully convinced of the complete success of these excellent and persevering gentlemen, in proving to the world the absurdity of the assertion that has been often made, “that the Indian can never be civilized or christianized.” Their uninterrupted transit over such a vast and wild journey, also, with their wives on horseback, who were everywhere on their way, as well as amongst the tribes where they have located, treated with the utmost kindness and respect, bears strong testimony to the assertions so often made by travellers in those countries, that these are, in their native state, a kind and excellent people.
I hope I shall on a future occasion, be able to give the reader some further detailed account of the success of these zealous and excellent men, whose example, of penetrating to the heart of the Indian country, and there teaching the Indian in the true and effective way, will be a lasting honour to themselves, and I fully believe, a permanent benefit to those ignorant and benighted people.
THE CHINOOKS.
Inhabiting the lower parts of the Columbia, are a small tribe, and correctly come under the name of Flat Heads, as they are almost the only people who strictly adhere to the custom of squeezing and flattening the head. Plate 209, is the portrait of a Chinook boy, of fifteen or eighteen years of age, on whose head that frightful operation has never been performed. And in plate 210, will be seen the portrait of a Chinook woman, with her child in her arms, her own head flattened, and the infant undergoing the process of flattening; which is done by placing its back on a board, or thick plank, to which it is lashed with thongs, to a position from which it cannot escape, and the back of the head supported by a sort of pillow, made of moss or rabbit skins, with an inclined piece (as is seen in the drawing), resting on the forehead of the child; being every day drawn down a little tighter by means of a cord, which holds it in its place, until it at length touches the nose; thus forming a straight line from the crown of the head to the end of the nose.
This process is seemingly a very cruel one, though I doubt whether it causes much pain; as it is done in earliest infancy, whilst the bones are soft and cartilaginous, and easily pressed into this distorted shape, by forcing the occipital up, and the frontal down; so that the skull at the top, in profile, will show a breadth of not more than an inch and a half, or two inches; when in a front view it exhibits a great expansion on the sides, making it at the top, nearly the width of one and a half natural heads.
By this remarkable operation, the brain is singularly changed from its natural shape; but in all probability, not in the least diminished or injured in its natural functions. This belief is drawn from the testimony of many credible witnesses, who have closely scrutinized them; and ascertained that those who have the head flattened, are in no way inferior in intellectual powers to those whose heads are in their natural shapes.
In the process of flattening the head, there is often another form of crib or cradle, into which the child is placed, much in the form of a small canoe, dug out of a log of wood, with a cavity just large enough to admit the body of the child, and the head also, giving it room to expand in width; while from the head of the cradle there is a sort of lever, with an elastic spring to it that comes down on the forehead of the child, and produces the same effects as the one I have above described.
The child is wrapped in rabbits’ skins, and placed in this little coffin-like looking cradle, from which it is not, in some instances, taken out for several weeks. The bandages over and about the lower limbs, and as high up as the breast, are loose, and repeatedly taken off in the same day, as the child may require cleansing; but the head and shoulders are kept strictly in the same position, and the breast given to the child by holding it up in the cradle, loosing the outer end of the lever that comes over the nose, and raising it up of turning it aside, so as to allow the child to come at the breast, without moving its head.
The length of time that the infants are generally carried in these cradles is three, five, or eight weeks, until the bones are so formed as to keep their shapes, and preserve this singular appearance through life.
This little cradle has a strap, which passes over the woman’s forehead whilst the cradle rides on her back; and if the child dies during its subjection to this rigid mode, its cradle becomes its coffin, forming a little canoe, in which it lies floating on the water in some sacred pool, where they are often in the habit of fastening the canoes, containing the dead bodies of the old and the young; or which is often the case, elevated into the branches of trees, where their bodies are left to decay, and their bones to dry; whilst they are bandaged in many skins, and curiously packed in their canoes, with paddles to propel, and ladles to bail them out, and provisions to last, and pipes to smoke, as they are performing their “long journey after death, to their contemplated hunting-grounds,” which these people think is to be performed in their canoes.
In plate 210½ letter a, is an accurate drawing of the above-mentioned cradle, perfectly exemplifying the custom described; and by the side of it (letter b,) the drawing of a Chinook skull, giving the front and profile view of it. Letter c, in the same plate, exhibits an Indian skull in its natural shape, to contrast with the artificial.[18]
This mode of flattening the head is certainly one of the most unaccountable, as well as unmeaning customs, found amongst the North American Indians. What it could have originated in, or for what purpose, other than a mere useless fashion, it could have been invented, no human being can probably ever tell. The Indians have many curious and ridiculous fashions, which have come into existence, no doubt, by accident, and are of no earthly use (like many silly fashions in enlightened society), yet they are perpetuated much longer, and that only because their ancestors practiced them in ages gone by. The greater part of Indian modes, however, and particularly those that are accompanied with much pain or trouble in their enactment, are most wonderfully adapted to the production of some good or useful results; for which the inquisitive world, I am sure, may for ever look in vain to this stupid and useless fashion, that has most unfortunately been engendered on these ignorant people, whose superstition forbids them to lay it down.
It is a curious fact, and one that should be mentioned here, that these people have not been alone in this strange custom; but that it existed and was practiced precisely the same, until recently, amongst the Choctaws and Chickasaws; who occupied a large part of the states of Mississippi and Alabama, where they have laid their bones, and hundreds of their skulls have been procured, bearing incontrovertible evidence of a similar treatment, with similar results.
The Choctaws who are now living, do not flatten the head; the custom, like that of the medicine-bag, and many others, which the Indians have departed from, from the assurances of white people, that they were of no use, and were utterly ridiculous to be followed. Whilst amongst the Choctaws, I could learn little more from the people about such a custom, than that “their old men recollected to have heard it spoken of”—which is much less satisfactory evidence than inquisitive white people get by referring to the grave, which the Indian never meddles with. The distance of the Choctaws from the country of the Chinooks, is certainly between two and three thousand miles; and there being no intervening tribes practicing the same custom—and no probability that any two tribes in a state of Nature, would ever hit upon so peculiar an absurdity, we come, whether willingly or not, to the conclusion, that these tribes must at some former period, have lived neighbours to each other, or have been parts of the same family; which time and circumstances have gradually removed to such a very great distance from each other. Nor does this, in my opinion (as many suppose), furnish any very strong evidence in support of the theory, that the different tribes have all sprung from one stock; but carries a strong argument to the other side, by furnishing proof of the very great tenacity these people have for their peculiar customs; many of which are certainly not general, but often carried from one end of the Continent to the other, or from ocean to ocean, by bands or sections of tribes, which often get “run off” by their enemies in wars, or in hunting, as I have before described; where to emigrate to a vast distance is not so unaccountable a thing, but almost the inevitable result, of a tribe that have got set in motion, all the way amongst deadly foes, in whose countries it would be fatal to stop.
I am obliged therefore, to believe, that either the Chinooks emigrated from the Atlantic, or that the Choctaws came from the West side of the Rocky Mountains; and I regret exceedingly that I have not been able as yet, to compare the languages of these two tribes, in which I should expect to find some decided resemblance. They might, however, have been near neighbours, and practicing a copied custom where there was no resemblance in their language.
Whilst among the Choctaws I wrote down from the lips of one of their chiefs, the following tradition, which seems strongly to favour the supposition that they came from a great distance in the West, and probably from beyond the Rocky Mountains:—Tradition. “The Choctaws, a great many winters ago, commenced moving from the country where they then lived, which was a great distance to the West of the great river, and the mountains of snow; and they were a great many years on their way. A great medicine-man led them the whole way, by going before with a red pole, which he stuck in the ground every night where they encamped. This pole was every morning found leaning to the East; and he told them that they must continue to travel to the East, until the pole would stand upright in their encampment, and that there the Great Spirit had directed that they should live. At a place which they named Nah-ne-wa-ye (the sloping hill); the pole stood straight up, where they pitched their encampment, which was one mile square, with the men encamped on the outside, and the women and children in the centre; which is the centre of the old Choctaw nation to ‘this day.’”
In the vicinity of the mouth of the Columbia, there are, besides the Chinooks, the Klick-a-tacks, Cheehaylas, Na-as, and many other tribes, whose customs are interesting, and of whose manufactures, my Museum contains many very curious and interesting specimens, from which I have inserted a few outlines in plate 210½, to which the reader will refer. Letter d, is a correct drawing of a Chinook canoe—e, a Na-as war-canoe, curiously carved and painted—f, two dishes or ladles for baling their canoes—g, a Stikeen mask, curiously carved and painted, worn by the mystery-men when in councils, for the purpose of calling up the Great or Evil Spirits to consult an the policy of peace or war—h, custom of the Na-as women of wearing a block of wood in the under lip, which is almost as unaccountable as the custom of flattening the head. Letter i, is a drawing of the block, and the exact dimensions of one in the Collection, taken out of the lip of a deceased Na-as woman—k, “wapito diggers,” instruments used by the women for digging the wapito, a bulbous root, much like a turnip, which the French Traders call pomme blanche, and which I have before described. Letter l, pau-to-mau-gons, or po-ko-mo-kons, war-clubs, the one made by the Indians from a piece of native copper, the other of the bone of the sperm whale. Letter n, two very curiously carved pipes, made of black slate and highly polished.
Besides these, the visitor will find in the Collection a great number of their very ingenious articles of dress; their culinary, war, and hunting implements, as well as specimens of their spinning and weaving, by which they convert dog’s hair and the wool of the mountain-sheep into durable and splendid robes, the production of which, I venture to say, would bid defiance to any of the looms in the American or British Factories.
The Indians who inhabit the rugged wildernesses of the Rocky Mountains, are chiefly the Blackfeet and Crows, of whom I have heretofore spoken, and the Shoshonees or Snakes, who are a part of the Camanchees, speaking the same language, and the Shoshokies or root diggers, who inhabit the southern parts of those vast and wild realms, with the Arapahoes and Navahoes, who are neighbours to the Camanchees on the West, having Santa Fe on the South, and the coast of California on the West. Of the Shoshonees and Shoshokies, all travellers who have spoken of them, give them a good character, as a kind and hospitable and harmless people; to which fact I could cite the unquestionable authorities of the excellent Rev. Mr. Parker, who has published his interesting Tour across the Rocky Mountains—Lewis and Clarke—Capt. Bonneville and others; and I allege it to be a truth, that the reason why we find them as they are uniformly described, a kind and inoffensive people, is, that they have not as yet been abused—that they are in their primitive state, as the Great Spirit made and endowed them with good hearts and kind feelings, unalloyed and untainted by the vices of the money-making world.
To the same fact, relative to the tribes on the Columbia river, I have been allowed to quote the authority of H. Beaver, a very worthy and kind Reverend Gentleman of England, who has been for several years past living with these people, and writes to me thus:—
“I shall be always ready, with pleasure, to testify my perfect accordance with the sentiments I have heard you express, both in your public lectures, and private conversation, relative to the much-traduced character of our Red brethren, particularly as it relates to their honesty, hospitality and peaceableness, throughout the length and breadth of the Columbia. Whatever of a contrary disposition has at any time, in those parts, been displayed by them, has, I am persuaded been exotic, and forced on them by the depravity and impositions of the white Traders.”