Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/64



How it has happened that the name has been given to a Tribe inhabiting the country upon the upper part of that branch of the Columbia, commonly known in the States by the name of Clarke's River, and separated, by several hundred miles, from the only people who are known to have ever practiced this custom, we are unable to imagine. Some ignorance and mistake, however, have thus widely misplaced the name: and instead of having given it to those whose most unnatural fancy would have rendered it highly appropriate, they have wrongly designated by it, a people whose heads are as round as our own. The same error has likewise been committed, in giving to a Tribe inhabiting a country on the North side of Snake River, the name of Nez Pierce, to whom the custom of piercing the nose is not at all peculiar; but which is practiced extensively by the Tribes along the coast; all of whom, are separated from these, who bear the name, by a distance of two or three hundred miles; and between whom the lofty range of the Cascade Mountains, (which intervenes,) admits but little intercourse. The custom of piercing the nose, for the purpose of wearing in it, shells, quills, rings, &c, is practiced somewhat, by all the aboriginal inhabitants of America. But with the Tribes, inhabiting these shores of the Pacific, it has been almost universal, and is still so with some. With those, however, who have had much intercourse with the whites, this, together with the custom of flattening the head, is beginning to be less observed. The custom of flattening the head, originated, probably, in the idea, that it was unbecoming the dignity of a master, to wear the same appearance as the slave; and as garbs and insignia were perishable, or subject to be wrested from them, it seems that they determined to put on different, and, of course, as they were superior, more beautiful heads. And perhaps the circumstance, that their slaves were to accompany them, and serve them in another world—the land of spirits—was considered by them an additional reason, why they should imprint indelibly, even on their very existence, a sure indication, and record of their own superiority: lest, perchance the master might be mistaken for the slave, and to the slave might be awarded the privileges of the master: lest the proud master, who, in this world, was accustomed to grant his servant life, or bid him die, might, by mistake, in Heaven be compelled, himself, to suffer and to serve; might be compelled to dig the spirit-roots, and gather spirit-berries, from the bogs and briers of heaven; and to bare around Portages or paddle