Life’s Cycle at the Dalles

Life’s Cycle

From the Columbia Plateau to the river’s mouth, Sahaptian- and Chinookan-speaking Peoples followed a yearly cycle for fishing, hunting, and harvesting wild foods. Upper Chinookan people of the Columbia River, after fishing the autumn salmon run and picking the last wild fruits, moved away from the river’s strong winds. Through the winter, they lived on dried foods–fish, roots, and berries–in their villages of wood-frame lodges partially sunken into the earth for insulation, the floors carpeted with woven mats. Farther east, the Nez Perce moved down from the Rocky Mountains into protected river bottoms. During winter, Chinookans hunted both sea and land mammals, including sea lions, seals and whales killed during migrations. A few elk and deer might be harvested; shellfish were available all year (although never eaten during summer months).

In the spring, Columbia River people moved back to the river to fish and live in their ground-level rush-and-willow summer lodges.^[4]In the fall of 1805, the Corps noted empty lodges along the river, which they then assumed to be abandoned permanent homes. Returning in the spring of 1806, they realized that these were only … Continue reading The eulachon, a type of smelt, was the first fish to run upstream, and its oily flesh was a treat enjoyed even before fresh greens began sprouting. Next, the salmon’s spring return occasioned First Salmon ceremonies (See Salmon Spirit and Sustenance), in which tribes honored Salmon’s bounty, each in its own manner, but all including thanksgiving. After fishing the spring runs on the Columbia and its tributaries, people gradually moved away to hunt, gather roots, and harvest nuts–especially acorns and hazel nuts–and ripe fruits. And, in the summer, people from many Sahaptin and Chinookan tribes visited The Dalles to trade and socialize.

Lower Chinookan tribes came up the Columbia to The Dalles, bringing elk hides, compacted cakes of dried salal^[5]Salal” is Gaultheria shallon Pursh, also called shallon, an evergreen shrub in the heath family, which thrives on the shady floors of thick pine forests. Clark recorded the Chinookan name, … Continue reading berries, dried clams, and dried wapato roots (Sagittaria latifolia). The Watlalas introduced the Corps of Discovery to roasted wapato, which Lewis described as about the size of a chicken egg. He recognized this plant as the region’s most valuable root crop. Chinookans brought dentalia, or tooth-shaped shells–used in ornamentation–and offered some European trade goods–beads, metal products from knives to kettles to bracelets, and cloth garments–obtained from ships that traded for furs on the Pacific coast. They traded nephrite, a type of hard, light green or white jade that they obtained from Frazier River-area Indians, which was valued for ax heads. Their own tightly woven, waterproof hats and containers were other welcome items, and at The Dalles they in turn traded for new supplies of beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) to use in weaving, its grass-like leaves gathered by the Upper Chinookan tribes of the Columbia Plateau.

The Nez Perce came to The Dalles offering dried camas roots (Camassia quamash), and some bison products such as jerked meat and hides. The latter came to them through trading with the Shoshones, their connection to the middle Missouri River trading network. Horses had recently become their most important stock in trade, the Nez Perce having acquired the animal around 1730 and become excellent horse breeders.

The trading season usually ended around mid-October, and so the Corps, traveling downstream from late October into November 1805–and returning the next spring just as the first salmon run began–never saw it in full swing. Alexander Ross, clerk of John Jacob Astor’s maritime Astorians who reached the area in 1810, centered the trade on the Long and Short Narrows, which he called “the great emporium or mart of the Columbia.” Ross also noted the gambling games that were part of summer socializing, and the general “roguery” being practiced.

Part of the latter may have been a custom that infuriated the captains: among these tribes, changing one’s mind after making a trade was culturally acceptable. Either buyer or seller could think about a recent deal, or discuss it with family and friends, and change his mind; if a deal was rescinded, the exchanged goods were restored to their original owners. When this happened time and again to Clark, trying desperately to buy horses in the spring of 1806, he perceived it as unethical. Another feature of local trading style was for the seller to set a value and stick to it, refusing to change it; this, too, frustrated Clark in 1806 when his trade-goods stock was small and rapidly dwindling–until then, the Corps had been able to negotiate prices with natives.

Curtis wrote:

In the quiet pools along the rocky shore the salmon sometimes lie resting from their long journey up-stream. The experienced fisherman knows these spots, and by a deft movement of his net he takes toll from each one.

He continued:

These peoples’ position on the river being one of the very best for taking fish, they had an unlimited supply for their own use and ample stores for barter, which gave them everything they needed. From the western ocean were brought shells and sea foods, and through the medium of the Plateau tribes came the buffalo-robes and pemmican of the plains Indians. From the north were brought woven blankets of goat-hair, and the river itself furnished them, as nature’s gift, logs for fuel and for building houses.^[6]Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian, 20 vols. (Norwood, Massachusetts: Plimpton Press, 1911), 8:87.

After the late 1840s, with traders and immigrants arriving in steadily increasing numbers, the old ways were gradually eroded. When photographer Edward Curtis arrived at the turn of the 20th century to document the demise of age-old cultural traditions, he had to bring traditional costumes of the type that few of his subjects were accustomed to wearing any more. Inasmuch as their position as the key traders on the Columbia had always made them comparatively cosmopolitan, a mixture of fashions was still appropriate.