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Show i9oo] NORTHERN INTERIOR INDIANS 125 well built, and muscular. The chief facial feature to be noted is the nose, which becomes strongly marked, particularly among the Shahaptian and Shoshonean tribes. The cheek- bones are wide and prominent, the lips are thick, and the lower part of the face is broad and heavy. These features appear at their best and most typically in the Indians of the great plains, though in that region they lack the coarseness which is the chief characteristic of the Shoshonean and other tribes of the southern plateaus. From their homes on the plateaus the Shahaptian and other peoples controlled the upper reaches of the Columbia and its tributaries; and, led by the desirability of salmon as an article of diet, they gradually pushed down that stream, until their extensions were checked by a people from the coast of sharply different language and culture, the Chinook. 1 The limiting line between these two groups was at the falls of the Columbia in the neighborhood of the present city of The Dalles. On account of their intimate relations with the early traders on the lower Columbia, the Chinook, though now nearly extinct, played a most important r61e in the early settlement and development of Oregon. There were two well- marked divisions of the stock, the upper and the lower; the former living in the interior, but along the banks of the Columbia; while the latter had their seat near the mouth of 1 Boas, Chinook Texts. |
