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Show Indian Agent Erwin, of the Yakima Agency, Wash., who recently visited the Tumwater and Wisham fisheries on the Columbia, describes finding there the celebrated 'LPainted Rocks" which hear the faces and figures in unfading oolors of a race of people long extinct.. Though the Indians have no knowledge of the people who painted these rocks, it is evident that this was a fishing ground before the confederated trihes of Yakima Indians existed, and that the ancestors of these trihes had been accustomed to fish there long before the white man appeared on the Columbia Biver. A part of the fishery he fomid inclosed with a fence of immense upright rocks, some of them weigh-ing many tons, and how rocks of such great size were placed in their present position is a matter of wonder. As to the known length of time these Indial~s have been accustomed to 5sh at Tumwater or Wisham, Agent Erwin quotes from Lewis and Clark's History, volume 2, page 32, which describes a period prior to the year 1810, as follows: Here is the great fishing plsoe of the Columbia. In the spring of the year, when the water is high, the salmon ascend the river in incredible numbers. As they pass through this narrow strait the Indians, standing on the rocks or on the end of wooden st;lges projecting from the hanks, scoop them up with small nets distended on hoops and attached to long handles, and east then1 an the shore. They are then aured and paoked in a peculiar manner. After having been opened and disem-boweled they are espoaed to the sun on scsffolds erected on theriver banks. When sufficiently dry they are ponndea fine between two stones, presaed into the snlnlleat oompaas,nnd paoked in baskets or belesof grass matting ahont2feet long md lfoot in diameter, lined with the cured skin of the salmon. Thetop islikewise coveI.ed with fish skins, secured by cords passing through holes in the edge of the basket. Paek-ages are then made, each containing tvelve of these hales, seven at bottom, five at top, pressed close to eaoh other, with the corded side opwmd, wrapped in mats and oarded. These are placed in dry situations and sgein covered with matting. Each of them paokagea contains from 90 to 100 pounds of dried fish, which in this state will keep soood for several years. He also quotes from Washington Irving's Astoria (p. 326), which speaks of a party that ascended the river in 1812, and describes this . same fishery as follows: We make especial mention of the village of Wisham, at the head of the Long Nar-rows, ss being the solitary instance of an aboriginal trading mart or emporium. Here the salmon onught in the neighboring rapids were "warehoosed" to await onstomera. The Indians have used the fisheries in question as their chief means of subsistence from timeimmemorial. Sho~ildth ey be deprived of their rights their main source of support would be gone. Very respectfully, your obedieat servant, D. M. BBOWNING, Commissioner. The SEORETARY OF THE INTERIOR. |