Page:Wishram by Henry J. Biddle.djvu/14

Rh the writer will go back to the earliest writers, and quote what they have to say about the nationality, and language, of these Indians at the Falls and Narrows.

While Lewis and Clark were resting at Rock Fort, alongside the present city of The Dalles, they were visited by the chiefs of the tribes on the river.

(Clark, Oct. 27, 1805)::

".......We took a Vocabulary of the Languages of those two chiefs which are very different notwithstanding they are situated within six miles of each other. Those at the great falls call themselves E-nee-shur and are understood on the river above: Those at the Great Narrows call themselves E-che-lute and is understood below."

Thus early was attention called to the fact that between the Great Falls and the Great Narrows was the boundary between what Lewis and Clark would have called two Nations, or what would commonly be called two tribes, of Indians. This might already have been surmised from the fact that the Indians at the Falls lived in mat lodges, those at the Long Narrows in wooden houses.

Excellent testimony to this effect is given in Farnham's Travels (1839). "At the Dalles is the upper village of the Chinooks. At the Shutes, five miles above, is the lower village of the Wallawallas. One of the missionaries, Mr. Lee, learns the Chinook language, and the other, Mr. Perkins, the Wallawalla; ......."

The writer is well aware that up to this point the evidence has been very confusing. How can the village of the Echelutes, of Lewis and Clark, be connected with the village of the Wishram, of Irving? The village of Wisham of Wilkes is evidently the same as Wishram; but how can Niculuita be explained? And yet all these names were applied to a village located on the Washington side of the river, at the head of the Long Narrows. Fortunately, what might be called linguistic evidence,