meats, for salmon and horses, with the Shoshones. It was a beautiful spot, nearly circular, luxuriantly covered with grass, the hill wall around it thick grown with evergreen trees, chiefly larch. The Indians called it Karpkarp, which being translated is “Balm of Gilead.”
The life of these Indians was a peculiar one. Most of them had several homes, and as they lived only a part of the year in each, were frequently spoken of by travellers as nomadic tribes, while in fact they were as wedded to their homes as any civilized inhabitants of the world; and their wanderings were as systematic as the removals of wealthy city people from town homes to country places. If a man were rich enough, and fond enough of change, to have a winter house in New York, a house for the summer in Newport, and one for autumn in the White Mountains, nobody would think of calling him a nomad; still less if he made these successive changes annually, with perfect regularity, owing to opportunities which were offered him at regularly recurring intervals in these different places to earn his living; which was the case with the Oregon Indians.
As soon as the snow disappears in the spring there is in certain localities, ready for gathering, the “pohpoh”—a small bulb, like an onion. This is suceeeded by the “spatlam,” and the “spatlam” by the “cammass” or “ithwa,” a root like a parsnip, which they make into fine meal. In midsummer come the salmon in countless shoals up the rivers. August is the month for berries, of which they dry great quantities for winter use. In September salmon again—coming down stream now, exhausted and ready to die, but in sufficiently good condition to be dried for the winter. In October comes the “mesani,” another root of importance in the Indian larder. After this they must depend on deer, bears, small game, and wildfowl. When all these. resources fail, there is a kind of lichen growing on the trees, of which they can eat enough to keep themselves from starving, though its nutritive qualities are very
