Indian Tribes and Houses on the Columbia River

Indian Tribes and Houses on the Columbia River

When Lewis and Clarke visited the Columbia River district (1805-1806) they found the Indian tribes living in houses of the plainest communal type, and some of them approaching in ground dimensions and in the number of their occupants the pueblo houses in New Mexico. They speak of a house of the Chopunish (Nez Perces) as follows: "This village of Tumachemootool is in fact only a single house one hundred and fifty feet long, built after the Chopunish fashion, with sticks, straw and dried grass. It contains twenty-four fires, about double that number of families, and might perhaps muster a hundred fighting men." [Footnote: Travels, etc., l. c., p. 548.]

This would give five hundred people in a single house. The number of fires probably indicates the number of groups practicing communism in living among themselves, though for aught we know it may have been general in the entire household.

[Illustration: Fig. 6—Ground plan of Ncerchokioo.]

Another great house, Ncerchokioo, is thus described: "This large building is two hundred and twenty-six feet in front, entirely above ground, and may be considered a single house, because the whole is under one roof, otherwise it would seem more like a range of buildings, as it is divided into seven distinct apartments, each thirty feet square, by means of broad boards set up on end from the floor to the roof. The apartments are separated from each other by a passage or alley four feet wide, extending through the whole depth of the house, and the only entrance is from the alley through a small hole about twenty inches wide and not more than three feet high. The roof is formed of rafters and round poles laid on horizontally. The whole is covered with a double roof of bark of white cedar." [Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 503.]

The apartments, as in the previous case of the fires, may be supposed to indicate the number of groups into which the great household was subdivided for the practice of communism.

Elsewhere, speaking of the houses of the Clahclellahs, they remark: "These houses are uncommonly large; one of them measured one hundred and sixty by forty feet, and the frames are constructed in the usual manner…. Most of the houses are built of boards and covered with bark, though some of the more inferior kind are constructed wholly of cedar bark, kept smooth and flat by small splinters fixed crosswise through the bark, at the distance of twelve or fourteen inches apart." [Footnote: ib., p. 515.]

The houses of the coast tribes (Clatsops and Chinooks) are also described. "The houses in this neighborhood are all large wooden buildings, ranging in length from twenty to sixty feet, and from fourteen to twenty in width. They are constructed in the following manner: two posts of split timber or more, agreeable to the number of partitions, are sunk in the ground, above which they rise to the height of fourteen or eighteen feet. They are hollowed at the top, so as to receive the end of a round beam or pole (ridge-pole) stretching from one to the other, and forming the upper point of the roof for the whole extent of the building. On each side of this range is placed another, which forms the eaves of the house, and is about five feet high; and as the building is often sunk to the depth of four or five feet, the eaves come very near the surface of the earth. Smaller pieces of timber are now extended by pairs, in the form of rafters, from the lower to the upper beams, where they are attached at both ends with cords of cedar bark. On these rafters two or three ranges of small poles are placed horizontally, and secured in the same way with strings of cedar bark. The sides are now made, with a range of white boards, sunk a small distance into the ground, with upper ends projecting above the poles at the eaves…. The gable end and partitions are formed in the same way…. The roof is than covered with a double range of thin boards, except an aperture of two or three feet in the center, for the smoke to pass through. The entrance is by a small hole, cut out of the boards, and just large enough to admit the body. The very largest houses only are divided by partitions, for though three or four families reside in the same room, there is quite space enough for all of them. In the center of each room is a space six or eight feet square, sunk to the depth of twelve inches below the rest of the floor, and inclosed by four pieces of square timber. Here they make the fire, for which purpose pine bark is generally preferred. Around the fireplace mats are placed, and serve as seats during the day, and very frequently as beds at night. There is, however, a more permanent bed made by fixing, in two or sometimes three sides of the room, posts reaching from the roof to the ground, and at the distance of four feet from the wall. From these posts to the wall itself, one or two ranges of boards are placed so as to form shelves, in which they either sleep or there stow away their various articles of merchandise." [Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 431.]

These explorers found the houses of the Indian tribes throughout the Columbia Valley occupied by several families, the smallest of them containing from twenty to forty persons, and the largest five hundred. The presence of large households is fully shown as the rule in their house-life. The practice of communism by the household, as stated by these authors, has already (supra, p. 71) been presented. This tendency to aggregation in groups, for subsistence and for mutual protection, reveals the weakness of the single family in the presence of the hardships of life. Communism in living was very plainly a necessity of their condition.

In a recent description (1869) of the modern houses of the Makah Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington Territory, by Mr. James G. Swan, the old usage which led to joint-tenement houses still asserts itself. Speaking of the manner of building these houses in detail, he remarks that "they are designed to accommodate several families, and are of various dimensions; some of them being sixty feet long by thirty wide, and from ten to fifteen feet high." The houses were made of split boards on a frame of timber. [Footnote: Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, No. 220, p. 5.]

Lewis and Clark Describe the Indians of the Columbia River

Lewis and Clark Describe the Indians of the Columbia River

The tribes of the Columbia Valley lived upon fish, bread-roots, and game. Food was abundant at certain seasons, but there were times of scarcity even in this favored area. Whatever provisions they had were shared freely with each other, with guests, and with strangers. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804-1806, visited in their celebrated expedition the tribes of the Missouri and of the Valley of the Columbia. They experienced the same generous hospitality whenever the Indians possessed any food to offer, and their account is the first we have at all special of these numerous tribes. Frequent references are made to their hospitality. The Nez Perces "set before them a small piece of buffalo meat, some dried salmon, berries, and several kinds of roots. Among these last is one which is round and much like an onion in appearance and sweet to the taste. It is called quamash, and is eaten either in its natural state or boiled into a kind of soup or made into a cake, which is then called pasheco. After the long abstinence, this was a sumptuous treat; and we returned the kindness of the people by a few small presents, and then went on in company with one of the chiefs to a second village, in the same plain at a distance of two miles. Here the party was treated with great kindness and passed the night." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 330.]

Of another tribe they remark, "As we approached the village most of the women, though apprised of our being expected, fled with their children into the neighboring woods. The men, however, received us without any apprehension, and gave us a plentiful supply of provisions. The plains were now crowded with Indians who came to see the persons of the whites, and the strange things they brought with them; but as our guide was perfectly a stranger to their language we could converse by signs only." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 334.]

The Indians of the Columbia, unlike the tribes previously named, boiled their food in wooden vessels, or in ground cavities lined with skins, by means of heated stones. They were ignorant of pottery. "On entering one of their houses he [Captain Clarke] found it crowded with men, women, and children, who immediately provided a mat for him to sit on, and one of the party undertook to prepare something to eat. He began by bringing in a piece of pine wood that had drifted down the river, which he split into small pieces with a wedge made of the elk's horn by means of a mallet of stone curiously carved. The pieces were then laid on the fire, and several round stones placed upon them. One of the squaws now brought a bucket of water, in which was a large salmon about half dried, and as the stones became heated they were put into the bucket till the salmon was sufficiently boiled for use. It was then taken out, put on a platter of rushes neatly made, and laid before Captain Clarke, and another was boiled for each of his men." [Footnote: Travels, p. 353.]

One or two additional cases of which a large number are mentioned by these authors will sufficiently illustrate the practice of hospitality of these tribes and its universality. They went to a village of seven houses of the Chilluckittequaw tube and to the house of the chief. "He received us kindly," they remark, "and set before us pounded fish, filberts, nuts, the berries of the sacacommis, and white bread made of roots…. The village is a part of the same nation with the village we passed above, the language of the two being the same, and their houses of similar form and materials, and calculated to contain about thirty souls. The inhabitants were unusually hospitable and good humored." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 375-376.]

While among the Shoshones, and before arriving at the Columbia they "reached an Indian lodge of brush inhabited by seven families of the Shoshones. They behaved with great civility, and gave the whole party as much boiled salmon as they could eat, and added a present of several dried salmon and a considerable quantity of chokechinies;" [Footnote: ib. p. 288.] and Captain Lewis remarks of the same people, that "an Indian invited him into his bower, and gave him a small morsel of boiled antelope, and a piece of fresh salmon roasted. This was the first salmon he had seen, and perfectly satisfied him that he was now on the waters of the Pacific." [Footnote: ib. p. 268.]

Thus far among the tribes we find a literal repetition of the rule of hospitality as practiced by the Iroquois. Mr. Dall, speaking of the Aleuts, says, "hospitality was one of their prominent traits," [Footnote: On the Remains of Later Prehistoric Man, Alaska Ter. Smithsonian Cont., No. 318, p. 3. Travels, etc., Phila. ed., 1796, p. 171.] and Powers, of the Pomo Indians of California remarks, that "they would always divide the last morsel of dried salmon with genuine savage thriftlessness," and of the Mi-oal'-a-wa-gun, that, "like all California Indians they are very hospitable." [Footnote: Powell's Contributions to North American Ethnology, Power's Tribes of California, vol. iii. p. 153.]

Lewis and Clark Describe the Hospitality of the Mandan Indians

Lewis and Clark Describe the Hospitality of the Mandan Indians

Lewis and Clarke refer to the usages of the tribes of the Missouri, which were precisely the same as those of the Iroquois. "It is the custom of all the nations on the Missouri," they remark, "to offer every white man food and refreshments when he first enters their tents". [Footnote: Travels, etc., London edition, 1814, p. 649.]

This was simply applying their rules of hospitality among themselves to their white visitors.

About 1837-1838 George Catlin wintered at the Mandan Village, on the Upper Missouri. He was an accurate and intelligent observer, and his work on the "Manners and Customs of the North American Indians" is a valuable contribution to American ethnography. The principal Mandan village, which then contained fifty houses and fifteen hundred people, was surrounded with a palisade. It was well situated for game, but they did not depend exclusively upon this source of subsistence. They cultivated maize, squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco in garden beds, and gathered wild berries and a species of turnip on the prairies. "Buffalo meat, however," says Mr. Catlin, "is the great staple and staff of life in this country, and seldom, if ever, fails to afford them an abundant means of subsistence."

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"During the summer and fall months they use the meat fresh, and cook it in a great variety of ways—by roasting, broiling, boiling, stewing, smoking, &c., and, by boiling the ribs and joints with the marrow in them, make a delicious soup, which is universally used and in vast quantities. The Mandans, I find, have no regular or stated times for their meals, but generally eat about twice in the twenty-four hours. The pot is always boiling over the fire, and any one who is hungry, either from the household or from any other part of the village, has a right to order it taken off and to fall too, eating as he pleases. Such is an unvarying custom among the North American Indians, and I very much doubt whether the civilized world have in their institutions any system which can properly be called more humane and charitable. Every man, woman, or child in Indian communities is allowed to enter any one's lodge, and even that of the chief of the nation, and eat when they are hungry, provided misfortune or necessity has drawn them to it. Even so can the poorest and most worthless drone of the nation, if he is too lazy to hunt or to supply himself; he can walk into any lodge, and every one will share with him as long as there is anything to eat. He, however, who thus begs when he is able to hunt, pays dear for his meat, for he is stigmatized with the disgraceful epithet of poltroon and beggar." [Footnote: Manners and Customs of the North American Indians, Hazard's edition, 1857, i, 200.] Mr. Catlin puts the case rather strongly when he turns the free hospitality of the household into a right of the guest to entertainment independently of their consent. It serves to show that the provisions of the household, which as he elsewhere states, consisted of from twenty to forty persons, were used in common, and that each household shared their provisions in the exercise of hospitality with any inhabitant of the village who came to the house hungry, and with strangers from other tribes as well. Moreover, he speaks of this hospitality as universal amongst the Indian tribes. It is an important statement, because few men in the early period of intercourse with the western tribes have traveled so extensively among them.