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Show POWELL.] IMPROVIDENCE OF INDIANS. 37 presented witji the recurring seasons. In civilization, hunting and fishing are often considered sports, but in savagery they are labors, and call for endurance, patience, and sagacity. And these are exercised to a reasonable- degree among all savage peoples. It is probable that the real difficulty of purchasing quantities of food from Indians has, in most cases, not been properly understood. Unless the alien is present at a time of great abundance, when there is more on hand or easily obtainable than sufficient to supply the wants of the people, food can not be bought of the Indians. This arises from the fact that the tribal tenure is communal, and to get food by purchase requires a treaty at which all the leading members of the tribe are present and give consent. As an illustration of the improvidence of the Indians generally, the habits of the tribes along the Columbia River may be cited. The Columbia River has often been pointed to as the probable source of a great part of the Indian population of this country, because of the enormous supply of salmon furnished by it and its tributaries. If an abundant and readily obtained supply of food was all that was necessary to insure a large population, and if population always increased up to the limit of food supply, unquestionably the theory of repeated migratory waves of surplus population from the Columbia Valley would be plausible enough. It is only necessary, however, to turn to the accounts of the earlier explorers of this region, Lewis and Clarke, for example, to refute the idea, so far at least as the Columbia Valley is concerned, although a study of the many diverse languages spread over the United States would seem sufficiently to prove that the tribes speaking them could not have originated at a common center, unless, indeed, at a period anterior to the formation of organized language. The Indians inhabiting the Columbia Valley were divided into many tribes, belonging to several distinct linguistic families. They all were in the same culture status, however, and differed in habits and arts only in minor particulars. All of them had recourse to the salmon of the Columbia for the main part of their subsistence, and all practiced similar crude methods of curing fish and storing it away for the winter. Without exception, judging from the accounts of the above mentioned and of more recent authors, all the tribes suffered periodically more or less from insufficient food supply, although, with the exercise of due forethought and economy, even with their rude methods of catching and curing salmon, enough might here have been cured annually to suffice for the wants of the Indian population of the entire Northwest for several years. In their ascent of the river in spring, before the salmon run, it was only with great difficulty that Lewis and Clarke were able to provide themselves by purchase with enough food to keep themselves from starving. Several parties of Indians from the vicinity of the |
