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TRAITS OF NORTHWESTERN INDIANS.

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823

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SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF

INDIANS.

NORTHWESTERN

""^ 'T^HE Kootenay Indians, wlio number between five hundred and

v^ ' ^ ^;J^ -L a thousand persons, inhabit a strip of country between the

y< ;,/' 'yj' Rocky and the Selkirk Mountains, partly in the United States

- * vf . ■ [ind partly in British Columbia. As a rule, their moral character

1 ;i;f iii^' iV. ' . r and behavior are good, and they are honest, kind, and hospitable;

' "''^Z, l^ut a ftw incidents cited by Dr. A. P. Chamberlain, in his report

'■ j'i cjoncerning them to the British Association, indicate that they are

•■■f sometimes moody and easily offended, especially when their de-

. .4 '^ mands are refused. They have also a keen sense of the ludicrous,

. ' I; and laugh at the misfortunes that befall their follows. A favorite

' ^ ■" Sunday amusement among the Lower Kootenays is horse-run-

, 1;' ning. "All the horses are assembled in a large, open space near

y the camp, and the Indians form a large circle round them, and,

! provided with long whips, they drive the horses to and fro for an

;; ':M- hour or so, laughing and yelling to their hearts' content. Even

*,;f--i?. the little boys take part in this sport. They also take great de-

' "^r?- light in breaking stubborn horses, and the whole camp looks on

"^ fuutil the young man has succeeded in controlling his animal,

»• jg^iying him unmercifully if he makes mistakes." Although no

. SL'i'. " ■» * '. • rVKSSdltLA-'

824

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

picture-writing upon rocks has been attributed to them, they
have marked artistic ability, and exhibit their skill in ornamen-
tation upon articles of dress and the implements of the chase.
Indians who had had no instruction in drawing from the whites,
employed by Dr. Chamberlain to make a series of drawings,
drafted very good maps of their country, and seemed to have well
grasped the idea of their work. Some of them were also able to
recognize with ease the various physical features prominent in
the printed maps of the Kootenay district. Their drawings of
weapons, implements, etc., were excellent, and those of one of
them in particular would never be suspected of being the product
of aboriginal genius. "Pictures of houses, railway trains, etc.,
have a certain conventionality that is characteristic of savage
races. Several of the Indians were able to draw an excellent and
easily recognizable picture of the little steamboat that plied up
and down the Columbia River. In their drawings of human be-
ings, especial stress is laid upon the distinguishing features, and
any peculiarity or abnormity is brought out with full force.
Thus, a Stony Indian woman has no nose, a Chinaman has an im-
mense single braid of hair, a white man an enormoiis beard, a
certain Indian a colossal nose, and the like."

They have fourteen distinct names for colors, and their horses
may be white, black, half white and half black, roan, " buckskin,"
" blue," sorrel, or mouse-colored.

The social position of women is not greatly different from
that among the other surrounding tribes. Girls may be mar-
ried at fifteen and young men at twenty years of age. In the
olden times the young Indian wishing to marry " went at night
to the lodge where slept the object of his affections, and, quietly
lifting up the blankets to make sure, lay down beside her. The
girl's people soon found him there, and threats were made. The
young man's father meanwhile inquired where his son was, and,
on being told that he was in such-and-such a lodge, went thither
with his friends and discovered the young people together. The
girl then left and went with her husband to his own people. He
was at liberty to send his wife back to her relatives within a year
if she turned out to be bad or he was dissatisfied with hor. When
guilty of adultery she was punished by having one of her braids
cut off by her husband." Descent seems to be traced through the
mother.

Private property in land was unknown, the country belonging
to the tribe collectively ; and demands for money are still made
by the Lower Kootenays from any stranger intruding upon their
domain. The hunter had no absolute right in his game, and it
was distribut jd among the camp in order that all might have
food. Women could hold property as well as men. The horses

^ I

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TRAITS OF NORTHWESTERN INDIANS.

825

* »

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were the property of the grown-up male children, as well as of
the father, and could be gambled away by any one of them. The
lodge seems to have been secured to the widow and children on
the death of the father. The women inherited the kettles and
other utensils, besides their saddles, blankets, " parfleshes," etc.
The horses, canoes, weapons, etc., went to the male children if
they were of age. In early times the dead man's relatives would
swoop down upon the lodge soon after his death and appropriate
the property substantially at their will. If the dead man left no
relatives, the "strong man" of the tribe took possession of his
property.

The Kootenays paid a worship to the sun, and they believed
in the existence of spirits in everything animate and inanimate ;
even little stones, bits of rag, shavings of wood, have their spirits.
These spirits can go anywhere, through glass, wood, or any sub-
stance, as through air. The touch of them causes death and dis-
ease. At the death of Indians their spirits may enter into fishes,
bears, trees, etc. ; in fact, into anything animate or inanimate.
When a man is alive his spirit may exist in the form of a tomtit,
a jay, a bear, a flower, etc. The spirits of the dead can return
and visit their friends. In olden times sacrifices appear to have
been made to the spirits of the mountains and of the forests to
secure success in hunting, and to appease them when they were
angered. Tlieir language is supposed to diflPer from the ordinary
Kootenay. A great or strong man has many spirits. The spirits
were supposed to come often at the prayer of the medicine men,
in the form of birds or the like. A tree is pointed out in the
Kootenay region, in northern Idaho, from which Indians have
jumped off on two successive occasions, in obedience to the prom-
ise of the medicine men that they should be able to fly like birds
if they did so. Certain death, of course, awaited them. The
shamans treated the sick by pressure upon various parts of the
body, by pinching, etc. ; practiced bloodletting, and pretended to
extract the cause of the malady by suction with the mouth.

In the astronomy of the Kootenays the moon is regarded as a
man and the sun as a woman. There was no sun in the begin-
ning, and, after the Indians had vainly endeavored to discover it,
the coyote was successful in making it rise above the mountains.
Another version makes the chicken hawk cause the sun to rise.
The coyote, getting angry, shoots an arrow at the sun, but misses,
sets the prairie on fire, and has to run for dear life. The moon is
said to have been found by the chicken hawk. A legend about
the man in the moon may be of European origin. The stars are
mostly Indians, who from time to time have got up into the sky.
The Great Bear was an Indian woman, who sometimes wjis very
angry ; and the stars in her tail are Indians whom she has seized.

163379

826

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The Milky Way is tlie dog's trail. The tlumder is caused by a
great bird that lives far u]) in the sky. The lightning is made by
the shooting of its arrows. At first there were no clouds. The
daughter of the coyote married the thunder, and her father gave
the clouds for a blanket. The Kooteuays believe that they came
from the East ; and one of their myths ascribes to them an origin
from a hole in the ground east of the Rocky Mountains. Another
account says they sprang from the hairs of the black bear, which
fell on the ground after he came out of the belly of the great fish
that had swallowed him. There were no women at first. By
and by an Indian went up into the mountains, and from a spirit
who lived there received the first Kootenay woman. The origin
of horses is ascribed to a medicine man who made a stick into the
shape of the animal and then threw it away, whereupon it became
a horse. The belief prevails that the white men get their cattle
from the sea. It is said that they go every year to the Pacific
Ocean to receive the cattle which come out of the waters. Many
of the animal myths remind one of Uncle Remus.

Some very interesting legends are related by Prof. George W.
Dawson as communicated to him by Mr. J. W. Mackay, Indian
agent <it Kamloops, from the stock of the Shiiswap Indians. Like
most of the Indian people they have a culture or creation hero
with supernatural attributes, who with them figures as a coyote or
small wolf, and is named Skil-ap. In the old times the salmon
could not ascend the Fraser River on account of a dam which
two old witches had made at Hell-gate Canon. He told the peo-
ple he would go down the river and break the dam, so that
the salmon could come up, and instructed them that he would
make his approach known by a great smoke. He transformed
himself into a smooth, flat piece of board, floated down to the
dam, was picked up by the women, who undertook to use the
board as a plate, emerged from it as a child, and was cared for by
them, till one day when they were absent he put something on
his head that made him invulnerable, and destroyed the dam,
after which the salmon began to go up in great numbers. Then
he followed the bank of the river, keeping abreast of the van-
guard of the salmon, and making a great smoke by setting fire to
the woods as he proceeded, so that the people knew that he was
coming. Near the outlet of the Kamloops Lake ho stopped to eat,
and made a fish weir at a spot where some high rocks may still
be seen. At the mouth of the Clearwater he completed a salmon
dam he found the people making ; and there are to the present
day steep rocks on either side of the river, and above them a large
pool or basin where he fished with his scoop-net and which is still
a noted salmon-fishing place. On the rocks may be seen the
prints of his feet where ho stood to fish. Thus the salmon were

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■1VM«iM»«»» •>'. -tmiKrvrvtur »<»■•

TRAITS OF NORTHWESTERN INDIANS.

827

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enaMed to ascend into all the rivers of the Shuswap country.
Skil-ap is expected to return at some distant period when " the
world turns " and the good old days come back.

There were in the p.AViY times of Skil-ap other supernatural
beings who roamed the world, the most important of whom was
named Knil-i-elt ; and it may be, Prof. Dawson suggests as a
point worthy of inquiry, that in the stories related of Knil-i-elt and
Skil-ap we find the mingling of mythological ideas derived from
two different sources. Knil-i-elt had no recognized father or any
relative but his mother, and was the offspring of the union of the
woman with a root which is eaten by the Indians. Learning the
mystery of his birth after he had become a great hunter, he re-
proached his mother concerning it, and said he would go away
and never return to her. She then told him of all the evil and
malignant monsters living in the country farther down the river,
and he resolved to extirpate them. Among his exploits was a trial
of strength with two friends, in which each should push his head
against a rock and see which could make the deepest impression.
Each of the friends made a shallow indentation, but Knil-i-elt
pressed his head in to the shoiilders. Impressions in the rock are
still shown by the Indians, and Hat Creek, near the mouth of
which they were made, was named from the incident. A
conflict with the eagle monster resulted in the death of the eagle
and the capture of its eaglets, pulling out the tail feathers
from which, Knil-i-elt reduced them to common eagles, able to
harm no man. At the outlet of Kamloops Lake was an elk
monster that lived in the middle of the river and killed and ate
men. Knil-i-elt, having made a raft, embarked and floated down
the stream, when, before long, the elk seized and swallowed him.
His friends, who were looking on, thought they had seen the last
of him, but Knil-i-elt stabbed the elk to the heart with the weap-
on he carried, and then cut his way out of its belly and came to
shore, bringing the elk with him, and invited his friends to eat
some of the meat. He then reduced the elk to its present posi-
tion, saying to it: "You will no longer kill men ; they will in
future always kill you." The badger was also in this early time
a formidable monster, and had its lodge stored with dead men,
collected for food. Knil-i-elt caught the badger, and striking him
on the head said, " Hereafter you will be nothing but a common
badger, able only to fight with dogs when they attack you." He
further brought to life again all the people whom he found dead.
Knil-i-elt met his fate from four witches, whose supernatural
power was superior to his, and who turned him and the two
friends who had accompanied him in all his adventures into 'stone.

On the trail leading from Kamloops toward Trout Lake the
scanty remnant of an old stump protrudes from among a few

828

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stones which are piled about it, in passing which the Indians al-
ways throw some little offering upon it — such as matches, a frag-
ment of tobacco, or a shred of clothing, which were seen by the
author. The story attached to it relates that a lonely woman
called Grizzly Bear made of pitch the figure of a girl to be a
companion to her, who became her daughter. She warned the
girl that when she bathed she must not aftorward sit or lie in the
sun to get warm. The girl tried the forbidden experiment after
her fourth bath, and was melted away. Grizzly made another
daughter of clay, and told her that she must not rub herself when
in the water. This girl disobeyed likewise and was washed away.
The old woman than made another daughter of wood, on whom
it was not necessary to impose restrictions. This girl, after a
fourth bath, was accosted by a trout, which she said she would
like for a husband. On repeating her wish the fourth time the
trout appeared as a young man, became her husband, and took
her with four efforts, the first three of which were balked, to his
lower country. A boy and a girl were born to this couple. They
wore taunted about having no grandmother, and, questioning
their mother on the subject, were told that they had a grand-
mother living in the upper country. They might go up there and
would find her as an old woman digging roots on the hillside, but
must not speak to her, though they mighi" go to her house and
eat whatever food they might find there. The children acting
upon these instructions, the woman missed the food, and, ob-
serving ' jotprints of the children, concluded that none but
her dauglu. ^ children would visit her house in that way. She
therefore prepared some potent medicine, and, going to a stump in
the hillside where she was accustomed to work, told it that when
the children appeared it must move and seem to be a woman
digging. The woman then concealed herself in the house, while
the stump acted as it had been bidden. The children, after re-
garding the stump for a time with bome doubt, ventured into the
house, when the woman threw her medicine upon them. The
medicine fell all over the boy, who was changed to an ordinary
human being, but only partly over the girl, and she became a
little dog. The boy and the dog, in whom he failed to recognize
his sister, had some curious adventures, in the course of which he
learned the truth. He went to his grandmother and questioned
her on the subject. She told him that if, when shooting, his
arrow should lodge in a tree, or anywhere above his reach, how-
ever little, he must not climb up to get it. Soon afterward he lost
three arrows in this way, but a fourth time his arrow stuck in a
tree not far up, and he climbed on a branch to get it ; but the
arrow continued to move further up and he had to climb after it,
and though he thought that he had not gone very far, he looked

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iliill IH' ,'!!'

TRAITS OF NORTHWESTERN INDIANS.

829

down after a time and found that ho could not oven see the earth.
So he went on climbing till at last he reached another country-
above, which was very pleasant and populous, and there he re-
mained. The old stump by the wayside is the remnant of that
tree.

Another curious story relates to a mosquito gorged with
blood, which flew up where the thunder is. The thunder asked
the mosquito where it got the blood, and the insect falsely replied
that it was sucked from the buds at the very top of the trees be-
low. Hence the reason that the thunder (or lightning) strikes the
tops of the trees.

Some curious myths are associated with particular places. The
lakes are supposed to be occupied by peculiar beings called " water
people," who are alleged to have remarkable powers and to use
them in performing strange acts. It is dangerous for canoes to
pass Battle Bluff, on Kamloops Lake, because of the water peo-
ple, who in this instance are described as of human shape, but
hairy in the upper half, with fishlike tails below. It is also told
of this bluff that some hostile people, once coming by land to
attack the Kamloops Indians, looking down over the front of the
bluft' as they passed, saw a woman or witch dancing in a niche
part way down the cliff. They sat down on the edge of the cliff
to watch the woman dance and were turned to stones. " Little
men " are reported to exist in several places, to hunt with bows
and arrows, to be only two feet high, and yet able to carry a deer
easily. In contrast to this, when a squirrel is killed, they skin it
and take only a jiart, as the whole is too heavy for them. The
Indians are very much afraid of them. The Indians aver that
unknown brings sometimes throw stones at them, particularly at
night, when stones may be noticed occasionally falling into the
fire. A Kamloops Indian, long since dead, once saw a white object
following him by night. He drew back from the trail and shot
an arrow at it as it passed. In the morning he returned and found
his arrow buried in a human shoulder-blade. It is believed that
burning wood from a tree which had been struck by lightning
brings on cold weather. This appears to be based on the fact
that cold follows a thunderstorm. Thus, in the spring, when In-
dians may be traveling over the snow on high ground, splinters
of such wood are thrown on the fire to reduce the temperature, in
order that the crust may remain unmelted on the snow. A small
splinter of such wood wrapped up with the bullet in loading a gun
is supposed to increase the deadly effect of the bullet. The plant
Parnassia fimhriata, worn in the hat or rubbed on it and on the
soles of the feet, is believed to make it certain for the deer-hunter
that the deer will be seen and caught. The rattle of a rattlesnake
is worn as a preventive against headache.

830

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Tho Pleiades are cnllod by tlio Shuswaps "the bunch," and
also " people roaHting." The latter name is given from a story of
their origin, which relates that a number of women who were
baking roots in a hole in tho ground were changed into this group
of stars. The morning star has tho names "coming with the day-
light " and " one with hair standing out round his head." The
four stars forming the bowl of the Great Di[)por are known as the
bear stars, and tho three following largo stars are three brothers
in pursuit of the bear. The first hunter is brave and near the
bear ; the second leads a dog (tho small companion star) ; and the
third is afraid and hangs far back. The stars of Orion's belt are
called " fishing," and the Milky Way is the road or path of the
dead. The months, beginning about March, are " spring," "grass
month," "root-digging month," "strawberry month," "berry
month," "salmon month," "month when the salmon get bad,"
" month when the deer travel," " month in which they return
from hunting," "midwinter month," and P it -tshik- in-tin" (which
is not translated).

Several native roots still constitute notable items in the food
of the Shuswaps, though their impoi tance has diminished since
the white man's preparations were introduced. Roots are always
dug and cooked or cured by the women. In digging the roots
a pointed stick, about four feet in length, with a crutch-shaped
handle, is used. The lily, Lilium columhianum, is much sought
after, and, like moat of tho roots, is cooked by baking in the
ground. The roots of balsamorhiza, cinquefoil, claytonia or spring
beauty, dog-tooth violet, and of other less familiar i)lants, are also
eaten. The camass is abundant, and forms an important article
of diet. No edible thing is ignored, and few edible substances of
any kind are passed by ; but the Indians never heard of any one
eating a mushroom. The cambium layer of the black or bull
pine {Finits murrayana) is eaten when it is soft and gelatinous,
at the time the leaves are still growing, and is sometimes dried
and kept. The cambium of tho subalpine spruce and of cotton-
wood is also sometimes eaten. The sappy and still nearly white
parts of the large leaf-stalks and stems of the Heracleum lanatum
are eaten in the spring, and, when taken at the right stage, are
not much inferior to celery. Tho nutlets in the cones of Pinus
alhicantes are gathered in large quantities and eaten from the
cones after having been roasted, or thrashed out and prepared.
They have a rather pleasant taste, flavored with turpentine, and
are nearly the size of small garden peas. Nutlets of yellow pine
and Douglas fir are also collected — generally by robbing tho
mice and squirrels of their stores. The pith or inner bark of
Epilohium spicatum is eaten while still young and sappy. A
black, hairlike lichen, Aledoria juhata, is eaten roasted, and is

Ma-m- w—nm^rm^m,.,,-.

""ch/^ and
» tt story of

who Were

'"s group
'1 tile day.
^^." TJie
^^n as the

brothers
near the

and the

belt are
^of tiiQ

" berry
t hiiil,"
return
wiiich

said to taste very sweet. A yellow lichen furnishes a coloring
matter, and the root of a certain forn { isplenimn ov Aspidium)
yields a black dye. The leaves of the syihiga {Fhiladeljihus leiv-
tsii) wore formerly used as a soap in wn siting clothing. The fiber
plants are an Aschpias or milkweed, and the common nettle of
the country.

The sweat-houses of all the Northwestern Indians are very
much alike. They consist of a dome-shaped framework, formed
by bending willow sticks over one another, covered with blankets
or skins or earth, and a pile of hot stones in the center, or a hole
in which hot stones are thrown. The Indian takes his place in
the booth, and water is thrown upon the stones. The bathers sit
in a suffocating temperature till they have had enough of it, and
then rush out and plunge into^ilie water, which they take care to
have always near. ^v