Page:The American Indian.djvu/39

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SALMON AREA
15

outlying islands engage in sea fishing all the year and are almost entirely dependent upon the marine fauna, but those of the interior hunt deer and other game to complete their diet.

Of vegetable foods there are several varieties. Inland, several species of roots are gathered, dried and pounded fine in the same manner as dried fish. The chief root is camas but there are several other species in general use. In their proper season, berries are also very numerous in certain localities.

One striking peculiarity of these inland people is the extent to which they pounded or pulverized dried flesh and vegetables quite like agricultural peoples treat forms of grain. The trait seems to be almost a conventionality and leads one to suspect that the idea was borrowed from their southern neighbors who, as we shall see, were in contact with grain grinders. The tribes of the coast, particularly the indented island-studded part north of Puget Sound, did not have this pulverizing habit, nor did they make very extensive use of roots. Dried fish and berries were their staples. Where available, a kind of clover was eaten green and the inner bark of the hemlock worked up into a kind of bread-like food.

While in this area the tribes of the coast maintained fairly permanent villages; those of the interior were rather nomadic, or more correctly, moved in an annual cycle, according to their food habits. Thus at the salmon run each group took its accustomed place on a river bank; then as berries ripened, they shifted to the localities where they were abundant; later they moved again for the gathering of roots; again for hunting deer, and so on in one ceaseless round. To a less extent this seasonal shifting prevailed among the coast tribes, for by the use of canoes they could readily reach the places sought and return again to their villages.

This correlation between the use of wild foods and instability of residence is perhaps more striking in this area than in the others but, nevertheless, holds for all. The Eskimo regularly shifted from sea to inland and back again as winter set in. Likewise, the caribou, bison, and guanaco hunters, each in their respective habitats, shifted according to seasonal re-