Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/73

 what appear to be ancient fortifications that would have required many warriors to man. No village of this magnitude was known there by white men. In the days of Lewis and Clark there was only a scattering settlement near Castle Rock, and a migratory trading band at the Cascades.

The Indian flint factory at the Clackamas River suggests a large population, and Cathlamet was always a greater city of the dead than of the living. Between the Elokomon and the Skamokawa the sloughs were lined with the burial canoes of the dead, and as only distinguished men were so buried, this stood for a very large population, probably greater than that of the Bella- Bella Indian Village in British Columbia. These canoe burials were ancient to say the least. Cedarwood is almost indestructible, and