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Fortunately, at this moment one of the men arrived, and told us that these very Indians had stolen his gig and basket; we therefore ordered the two women, who remained in the canoe, to restore them; but this they refused to do till we threatened to shoot them, when they gave back the articles, and we commanded them to leave us. They were of the Wahkiacum nation.
The Wahkiacums, or Waak-i-cums, inhabited the north side of the Columbia, and numbered sixty-six warriors. They and the Chinooks were originally the same; but a dispute arising about two generations previous to the time of the settlement, between the ruling chief and his brother Wahkiacum, the latter seceded, and with his adherents formed the present horde which continues to go by his name.
They called themselves Wahkiacum, and their language differed from that of the tribes above, with whom they trade for wappatoo roots. The houses, too, were built in a different style, being raised entirely above ground, with the eaves about five feet high, and the door at the corner.
The tribe of Indians known as the Wahkiacums has entirely disappeared; but the name survives as that of one of the counties of Washington bordering on the Columbia. Wahkiacum is the county lying next west of Cowlitz. When the explorers passed down the river under the piloting of their Indian friend wearing a sailor's jacket, they were in a thick fog.
Fortunately, the hardships to be undergone on the shores of the ocean were then unknown and undreamed of; the travellers were thankful to see the sea, the goal of all their hopes, the end of their long pilgrimage across the continent. That night they camped near the mouth of the river in what is now known as Gray's Bay, on the north side of the river, in the southwest corner of Wahkiacum County.
"These people seem to be of a different nation from those we have just passed; they are low in stature, ill shaped, and all have their heads flattened. They call themselves Wahkiacum, and their language differs from that of the tribes above, with whom they trade for wappatoo-roots.
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