Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/323

Rh beauty, a daughter of the chief family of the Cathelametts. She had recently been purchased, or espoused, by the heir-apparent of the Cowlitz chief. She seemed to be indifferent to the life around her, and shortly after was, presumably, the cause of tribal war. She was permitted a few weeks later to pay a visit to her own tribe, accompanied by an old woman of her husband's. They both joined a party of the women of her tribe in a wapato gathering expedition. The old duenna did not return, her body was found next day near the wapato beds, horribly mutilated by a knife murder. The natural fruit of the Chinooks' polity of marriage. A short tribal war resulted.

In order to show the measure of manhood this system produced in a different phase from that of Chiefs Kalata's and Chenowith's, I will relate from memory a short visit at the lodge of the Cathelamett chief:

As one of a party of the employees of Hunt's mill, making our way from Astoria to the mill, we were approaching Cathelamett Point, the village of the tribe, on the south shore. We were hailed from the shore and found ourselves near the women and girls of the tribe, having a good time gathering the newly risen stems of the common fern and preparing it for food in earth ovens over heated rocks. They voluntarily told us they had no prepared food, but pressed us to go on to their village, and "Lemiyey" (old mother) (pronounced in a tone that conveyed love and respect) would gladly entertain us. They made no mistake in this. The old lady seemed proud of the opportunity to act as hostess, and without ostentation put her help to work and gave us a bountiful meal of fresh salmon and wapatos, and afterward put on what had evidently been often used as a robe of state, and passed back and forward in illustration of scenes she had been part of. Her son, apparently utterly