Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/63



supposed to be invulnerable, and lead the van to battle. They frequently exhibit proofs of their magic powers, at their dances and celebrations, by holding live coals of fire between their fingers, for several minutes at a time. They are held accountable for the success of anything which they undertake, and if a person dies in their hands, or if they loose an engagement, they are tried for their lives. When a Chief, or member of a Chief's family, or other notable person dies, they are placed in their canoes, with their blankets, arms and other implements, which they used while living; hung to the bough of a tree, or placed upon a rock, and a favorite horse, and sometimes several slaves, are killed, to bear the soul of the dead to the world of Spirits. Slavery exists in the lower country. These Indians are great gamblers, and they have several games, the form of which we are not able correctly to describe. They play until all their property is gone, and then frequently gamble off their bodies, part at a time, until the whole is lost, and they are slaves for life. Marriage, among the Indians, is rather a mercenary transaction, than otherwise. It is true, perhaps, that there is a choice in some instances; but generally, whoever pays the highest price, takes the woman. Poligamy is universally practiced, and some of the Chiefs have as many as ten wives. The wealth of an individual, is estimated frequently, by the number of his wives. The women here, as well as with all other barbarous tribes and nations, do all the hard labor; hunting, fishing and war, being the only duties of the man. But the Indians between the Umqua and Puget's Sound, are at this time any thing else but warlike. The time no doubt has been, when they were; but they have degenerated as fast as they have decreased in numbers, until they have, in every sense of the terms, become inactive and feeble. Perhaps no where on the great American Continent, on either side of the Isthmus of Panama, has their intercourse with the white man been more ruinous to them, than it has here. It is, however, no less strange than true and deplorable, that wherever the white man has had intercourse with the Indian, almost without an exception, it has tended both morally and physically to degrade, sink, and destroy him. The different tribes, differ from each other very much, in their language. They have not a great many words, and almost every one uttered with a strong gutteral sound. They count to ten, and afterwards, by tens and hundreds. These are the Flathead Indians, and we believe the only Tribe that practice this singular custom, upon the Continent of America, or upon the surface of the globe.