CHAPTER XXVII

QUINAIULTS AND QUILLAYUTES

Beyond the black range of the Olympic mountains, which can be seen standing out in such bold relief against the western horizon from the bluffs about the cities of the Sound on bright days, sits the little village of the Quinaiult Indians, whose last remnant of a once mighty tribe now scarce numbers a hundred persons. There’s a long shingle of beach, a glistening reach of sand, bright under the glare of summer suns, with a broad sweep of salty bay, flecked here and there with a few jagged and black-looking rocks, the sporting ground of the sea otter the year round. Outside the line of pointed rocks the swells from the restless Pacific ocean come tumbling in and are broken into white foam and dashing spray upon the rocks or, missing those roll on upon the beach and curl the shimmering reach of sand into pretty riffles. At the rear is a dense background of forest that reaches far into the interior until it runs out at the timber line far up the sloping sides of the Olympics. The Quinaiult river rushes out through the tangle of forest past the village and pours its purling waters into the long stretch of bay, as if glad to escape from the imprisonment of woods and jungle. The little village is an ideal scene, one to swell the ambitions of the artist, and to please the fancy of the legend-lover or the story teller. To the north’ard many miles and on clear days can be seen the jutting outline of Cape Flattery, that most northwesterly point of land in these United States, and around whose base the waters of the ocean surge and roll and never rest, and where, ’tis said, “a day has never passed whereon it has not rained.”

To the south’ard is the long reach of coast land, with few breaks, that runs away into the distant perspective and finally loses itself in a hazy and blue horizon. Many, many moons ago, so runs the tradition of the Quinaiults, their people were numbered by the thousands, and they held a great power over other and adjacent tribes, above that of any tribe that inhabited all the coast lands thereabouts. But many changes have taken place since the sun of the ancient Quinaiult was in the zenith. The warriors of the tribe lie buried in the dense copse and wood that feather-edge the great sand stretches of the ocean beach, and a degenerated handful of men and women and children, a few dogs and chickens keep watch over the graves and cling to the little grass plats that formed the nucleus of their once almost boundless domain. Worse far, all their happy hunting grounds have been curtailed by a maternal government until now but a stretch of ocean beach and a narrow breadth of mighty forest land is all that is left that they can call their own.

One street, crooked in a right angle half way in its length, serves the little village for a thoroughfare, aye, more than answers, for little use have the handful of Quinaiults who are left for street or thoroughfare other than the naked beach. The ocean shore is their highway and the cedar canoe their favored and their only equipage, and they ask for nothing better.

Of their habitations there is not much to attract except in their very quaintness. There are very few and as the years roll by there will be fewer still, for the Quinaiults will soon be known only in history or musty tradition. Several of their rude structures, bare imitations copied from the whites who have crowded them down upon the narrow beach, are raised on stilts or elevated foundations just out of reach of the turbulent tides. These raised structures are not, however, the rule, for the larger number line the little foot-path out of reach of the restless waters. The majority of the buildings have for the floor the mother earth. The exteriors generally are as rude as the floor. An ordinary barn far outranks the unclassic habitation of the older Quinaiults, and even the rising generation fails in its efforts to approach the rudest ideal of the Boston man.

The “renaissance” erections of Quinaiult and also the two government buildings, for there is an agency on the ground, only serve to contrast with the ultra-conservatism apparent in the greater portion of this veritable wind-washed place. Hand-riven cedar, now darkly stained and moss-covered by age, rudely but snugly laid together after the fashion of a barn, describes the exterior. But within, what study! The colder comfort of the exterior has vanished. There is little light, for there are no windows, and the smoke from the fire which burns somewhere within hides one’s view. Gradually, however, one can see.

The household is generally squatting upon rush mats, with darkened faces and queer fashion presenting a strange picture illumined by the glow of the small log fire. The most conspicuous of the group, perhaps, will be an old woman or older man of short stature and appearing broken down with age. The rank growth of heavy gray hair, for all wear it to its full length, covers almost entirely the small, wizened features, now characteristic of little but decrepitude and imbecility, but showing a sharply receding forehead, sharp eyes, and small, regular teeth, yet preserved with fair whiteness; covered with a parti-colored shawl or blanket, clothed in an ordinary skirt and bodice, or with a dirty, faded shirt, if it be a man, and decorated with ancient trinkets which have dangled from the ears for perhaps a hundred years, forms one only of the old dames or graybeards who are found attached to the Quinaiult household. If a squaw, her time is occupied stirring the contents of an iron kettle containing salmon, while other members of the family engage in mat-making or basket-weaving. One or two fat and naked little Quinaiults are also in view, playing with the domestic pets of all kinds—chickens, cats and dogs. They are watched by the mother with a truly maternal care. The latter displays, with average height but heavy proportions, a healthy, active form, indicating a strength not much inferior to that of her liege lord and husky-looking husband. Indeed, the woman is built for the work in which she so exerts herself when poling in the canoe on the rapids of her own Quinaiult river, for a long reach of their favorite stream running back into the hills the tribe holds as part of its own domain. Her features are full and round, of the usual Flathead type, and display an intelligence immediately remarked in contrast with her aged kindred. Though living in huts no better than stables or outhouses, she is contented, rather neat in attire and not unhappy.

But the truer type of the tribe, the head of the household, is also there, a living study for the enthusiast—a portrait not yet portrayed. His face and his bearing recall the Indian stoic of romance and bring to mind the heroes of the sun dance. In youth this full-blooded nomad of the water had slain three men in single-handed combat or accomplished other warlike deeds. There is some trace of thought in his countenance, and, notwithstanding the flat head he bears himself as a freeman. The eye of the man is small and oblique, well lashed, and surmounted by heavy eyebrows. The nose is wide, not very prominent; mouth large, and of impressive line. His figure is well balanced—a heavy frame covered by rounded flesh, not particularly sinewy. His negligee is a shirt only—there is no orthodox dress for the male portion of the tribe.

Types in the tribe are greatly varied at this late, or rather last, period of existence. The specific characteristic is the flat head.

In physique the Quinaiult cannot compare with his brother of the plains. He has matured in the damp shadows of the forest and in the cramped limits of the cedar canoe—not on the boundless prairie. The group before us, however, shows signs of health and strength, without great vivacity.

The method of dining is as simple as the meal itself, for each of the family dips promiscuously into a kettle with a small ladle of horn. Salmon, often without other addition whatever to the bill of fare, is relished to excess.

Since the days to which their earliest tradition extends the lordly salmon has graced the Quinaiult’s frugal board. True the waters that wash up against his rude dwelling contain countless thousands of other fish, but they never show themselves in the fresh water streams.

Of game they have but little, and as the years go by what little they have been used to gradually diminishes. Salmon is the chief staple diet and will continue to be so until the last Quinaiult has departed to the happy fishing grounds.

Besides the salmon and other fish the older Quinaiults lived upon the products as well of the forest and the stream, as do in a measure the remnant of the tribe now left. Encroaching civilization has driven the game almost out of his reach now, for the Quinaiult is a hunter who doesn’t like trailing through the dense woods. He must now depend on a relish from the garden of some sort to take the place of the juicy steaks of the game of the forest.

In the waters of the ocean they still seek the valuable sea otter, the seal, and sea lion, and at times the whale from which everything eatable almost is sent to the larder. In the woods they still track the deer, the elk and the bear and trap the otter, the beaver and the mink at the river brink, though had they still to depend upon these for sustenance they would go to bed on half rations. The furs they secure, however, go a good ways in keeping the proverbial wolf from the door of their hovels.

In the ocean and river chase, however, is where these redmen excel, for they have literally been bred, born and brought up on the waters. Bravery in the canoe, on the surf or in the rapid rivers where no other craft can live, is the leading virtue of the Quinaiult. He will pack in his ictas and his household, and course the waters of the river or the coast and send the canoe spinning through the strongest currents that chase about the base of Flattery Rocks with the daring hardihood of a Dohomian warrior in battle. He will course along the coastland in waters that no ordinary vessel will attempt and seldom is it that the Quinaiult population is decreased by wrecks at sea.

The Quinaiult has no excessive love of life. He is stoic, living in the hope of the happy hunting or fishing ground, and a few years ago the custom of slaying the pony of the dead at the grave was still practiced. It is even now the custom to place the gold of the dead in the mouth and hands, burying it with them. “They will need it on the journey to the happy hunting grounds,” and the cupidity of the Quinaiult is never aroused at the sight of gold when one of his people dies, for they like all other western Indians have an excessive love of family.

Along the somber banks of the Quinaiult river at this day are many graves, bearing on the exterior, in decorative form, the minor personal belongings of the body within. There were graves pointed out which were made earlier than their tradition records and once graceful canoes of cedar placed above their dead owners are now crumbling into unshapely forms.

Marriage is a simple institution of “take a wife and live with her.”

The potlatch dance, or gift feast, is the year’s social event at Quinaiult.

Upon the acquirement of wealth the fortunate man issues a manifest to his own and other tribes that it is his intention to hold a potlatch merriment. He gives up his entire fortune, for he acquires thereafter the title of “tyee” or chief. Presents of all values are lavishly distributed to those who attend. It is a grotesque ceremony and lasts many days.

The superstition of the tribe forms a weird chapter. The medicine man is the chief factor. He has in his possession hideously painted and carved wooden images, shamens of wonderful power in Quinaiult. Representing grossly exaggerated human proportions, and of no merit as a work of art, they bear no description. It is in sickness that these “big medicines,” as they are called, are used by the doctor, who remains in practice against all devices of the evil one to suppress his power.

One of the latest affairs in which this big medicine was practiced, resulted in the death of three children, all of the same family, after many weeks of noisy demonstration by the doctors. The father’s wealth was spent in heavy payments to the medicine men, called by him from various tribes to administer to his sick girls, who at first showed nothing more than the symptoms of a simple disease. In company with the doctors also were many neighbors, who crowded the limited quarters of the sick room to suffocation, in the performances of their wild orgies. Night and day would be heard the hoarse chant of the medicine men, chorused vociferously by the crowd, and the beating of the tom-tom drum. The young ones lay helpless and unattended, without hope or chance of recovery.

Few strangers pass through the village without hearing the noise of the tom-tom, and the chant of death at the sick bed. However trifling the complaint the medicine man is called and heavily recompensed for his services.

The indulgence of superstition, however, is better illustrated by the recent conduct of the unhappy mother of a child which became slightly sick. The incident happened during one of the cold and stormy nights of winter. Darkness had long announced the hour of sleep when a wailing cry was heard coming from the side of the river, where nothing but a forest-covered bluff exists. The cry was one almost of agony and was continued throughout the night. At times the wail of woe would be borne away by the soughing of the woods in the gale or be drowned by the roar of breakers close at hand. No light was seen. With the faith of a fanatic and endurance of a mother’s love the mourner spent the night alone in the cold and rain, wrapped in no cover but a single blanket, in the belief that the evil spirit would not find her babe in the darkness. The strange faith of the woman is paralleled by the worship practiced by an old medicine man, still living, of the tribe. In a dilapidated dwelling the Indian erected a charred hemlock pole of slight dimensions, securing thereto a covering of eagle and other feathers. The idol was complete in its simplicity and exemplified a tradition of the medicine man’s power. Its significance, however, remains buried within the bosom of the taciturn worshiper. For days and nights he knelt beside this strange design without eating, without sleeping, but partly chanting, partly talking, with earnest gesture and uplifted face, he called up the mystery of his superstition.

The great highway of the tribe, next to the ocean itself, is the swiftly flowing Quinaiult river, up which they run their light canoes to the lake of the same name. In the summer and sometimes, too, when the snow whitens the upper lying forests, the canoe highway is relinquished and the Indian takes the trail through the woods or over the mountains. From the lake of Quinaiult, resting in the foothills of the Olympics, within hearing of the ocean’s roar, many trails are blazed to camps, made long years ago, where fat elk have been butchered and dried by the Indians.

The mountains form the summer’s paradise of the tribe. It is there that bands of elk may be seen gamboling on the unmelted snow in the glare of the sun; and the black bear may be seen in numbers feeding on the luxurious wild berries. But the lake itself, perhaps, is regarded by the Indians as their greatest natural treasure. The year round it is the haunt of numerous kinds of salmon, tempted there from the ocean to spawn. Thousands of trout may be seen also in its transparent depths and wild fowl flock to its inviting feeding grounds in great numbers from all climes. At times, too, a deer makes its way from bank to bank. It is an ideal spot, but will not much longer be the domain of the Quinaiult tribe.

The interior of the Quinaiult hut is more interesting than the outside. In the smoke and dull light the details of the house are almost invisible. The mountings of a rack of firearms, seven or eight in number, attract inquiry as they glimmer in the firelight. They are relics of many years with the exception of one or two. The most ancient is a flint-lock, of immense bore and short barrel, the stock being inlaid with native work of bone. Another is an old muzzle-loading Kentucky rifle standing as high as the hunter himself; and of more recent date is the old reliable Sharp’s, picked up by the present generation in their migrations to the hop fields on Puget Sound or in barter.

Here and there many things tell of the chase—the short thick string bow of Alaska cedar, together with a quiver of feathered arrows, steel traps and the salmon and otter spears (fir poles an inch in diameter and 18 feet long) mounted with two keen points of elk or deer horn, and secured by thongs of rawhide, and a dozen other curious relics. The domestic belongings of the family are within the building. Canoe poles of young hemlock and the strong, light and gracefully made paddles of native yew-wood are stowed away under the roof. Hanging on the walls are rush mats, clam baskets and more fancifully-designed baskets delicately weaved of dyed spruce roots, forming one of the more profitable pastimes of the women. Relics of the hunt, hides, furs, tanned skins, horns and skulls are in every odd corner. Fresh meats and fresh salmon are hung in the cool shade without the house. Salmon is also hung up to dry in the sun without, and masses of salmon are hanging from the rafters within, curing by smoke from the daily fires. Salmon aroma is everywhere.

There is no furniture proper. The family beds are laid upon platforms raised a few inches from the floor, with a few rush mats for mattresses. The appearance of the whole interior is primitive to a degree. It is a study on nature’s own farm.

Probably of all their pastimes the sea otter chase lends the greatest excitement and shows the Quinaiult Indian at his best. The otter loves the surf that tosses about around and over the jutting rocks that fringe a few islands out in the bay in front of the village. Strong tides rush in eddying currents between the rocks and the shore line, and following these the Quinaiult pushes his sea boat out on the leeward side of the rocks and meets the glossy-coated animal in his most pleasant haunt. The smoothbore is now used largely by the present hunters, but the spear once formed the only weapon used in the chase as the bow and quiver did on land.

The Quinaiult builds himself a lookout on shore and a sentinel is at all convenient times perched up aloft with his gaze seaward, on the lookout for any object of the chase by sea. When a whale or otter or a herd of seals is spied the sentinel gives the warning and all able-bodied members of the tribe rush for the fleet of canoes always drawn up on the beach.

Few ships appear in the offing and fewer steam vessels beat the waters along the shoreline, for Quinaiult is nearly midway between Gray’s harbor and the entrance to the straits at Cape Flattery. There are no roads leading across country to the distant settlements on the Sound, and Quinaiult is therefore a lonesome place. The white settler is encroaching upon the Quinaiult, but his life must be largely an extension of the native’s for many years to come until the friendly railroad reaches him—if it ever does.