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Show 124 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1800 The Shahaptian and Shoshonean tribes of the more southerly plateaus were primarily hunting ( peoples, but the attraction of the salmon fisheries < of the Columbia River seems to have very distinctly modified their habits of life. In general their ex- J istence was much like that of the Salishan tribes J just mentioned, till the annual migration to the fisheries brought them into contact with Indians 1 pushing up from the coast, and many customs were I acquired in that way. For example, the communal \ houses of the Chinook were found among the Nez Perc6 when first seen by Lewis and Clark. The horse had also reached this group at the time of the explorers' visit, and the revolution which that acquisition would bring about is easy to imagine. As has been pointed out, each group of these peoples has been influenced by foreign contact: the Athapascan by the Eskimo and north coast Indians; the Salishan by the coast tribes extending up the Fraser River; and the Shahaptian and Shoshonean by the lower Columbia peoples, as well as by the plains Indians on the east. There is no part of the continent where the migration of culture along natural paths of communication can be better studied than here, where the inhabitants are bordered by two diametrically opposed types, that of the coast and that of the plains. Physically these stocks are strongly differentiated from the coast types and not so strongly from those of the plains. Jn stature the inland people are tall, |