Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/136

 128 T. W. DAVENPORT. Indian women is the exception, as it is among the whites, and the exceptions were to be met with, as a rule, among those families that hung about the towns and made a hap-hazard living in contact with civilization. It is well known by critical inquirers into the causes of social deterioration of every grade that it varies with the intensity of the struggle for existence. The stress and tug of living was not so extreme among the Cayuses, and the Cayuse women were in the main above sus- picion. Eneas 's family of the Walla Wallas were well-to-do farmers, having good log houses, orchards and fields, and the girls were chaste and orderly members of the Catholic de- nomination. As I have stated in preceding pages, not a.11 the Indians, even with what assistance the Government rendered, could support themselves upon the reservation, and so from necessity, if not from choice, some of the Walla Wallas got their support in and about the town of that name, and a part of the Umatillas picked up a living along the Columbia River above and below the mouth of the Umatilla. It was among such remnants, always hard pressed for a living, that lascivi- ous white men learned of the unchastity of squaws.