The voyagers were now drifting down the Columbia River, and they
found the way impeded by many rapids, some of them very dangerous.
But their skill in the handling of their canoes seems to have been
equal to the occasion, although they were sometimes compelled to go
around the more difficult rapids, making a short land portage.
When they had travelled about forty miles down the river, they landed
opposite an island on which were twenty-four houses of Indians;
the people, known as the Pishquitpahs, were engaged in drying fish.
No sooner had the white men landed than the Indians, to the number
of one hundred, came across the stream bringing with them
some firewood, a most welcome present in that treeless country.
The visitors were entertained with presents and a long smoke
at the pipe of peace. So pleased were they with the music of two
violins played by Cruzatte and Gibson, of the exploring party,
that they remained by the fire of the white men all night.
The news of the arrival of the white strangers soon spread,
and next morning about two hundred more of the Indians assembled
to gaze on them. Later in the day, having gotten away from their
numerous inquisitive visitors, the explorers passed down-stream
and landed on a small island to examine a curious vault,
in which were placed the remains of the dead of the tribe.
The journal says: -
"This place, in which the dead are deposited, is a building
about sixty feet long and twelve feet wide, formed by placing
in the ground poles or forks six feet high, across which a
long pole is extended the whole length of the structure;
against this ridge-pole are placed broad boards and pieces
of canoes, in a slanting direction, so as to form a shed.
It stands cast and west, and neither of the extremities is closed.
On entering the western end we observed a number of bodies wrapped
carefully in leather robes, and arranged in rows on boards,
which were then covered with a mat. This was the part destined
for those who had recently died; a little further on, bones half
decayed were scattered about, and in the centre of the building
was a large pile of them heaped promiscuously on each other.
At the eastern extremity was a mat, on which twenty-one skulls
were placed in a circular form; the mode of interment being
first to wrap the body in robes, then as it decays to throw
the bones into the heap, and place the skulls together.
From the different boards and pieces of canoes which form
the vault were suspended, on the inside, fishing-nets, baskets,
wooden bowls, robes, skins, trenchers, and trinkets of various kinds,
obviously intended as offerings of affection to deceased relatives.
On the outside of the vault were the skeletons of several horses,
and great quantities of their bones were in the neighborhood,
which induced us to believe that these animals were most probably
sacrificed at the funeral rites of their masters."
Just below this stand the party met Indians who traded with tribes
living near the great falls of the Columbia.
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