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Updated: June 18, 2025
The four tribes nearest to Astoria, and with whom the traders had most intercourse, were, as has heretofore been observed, the Chinooks, the Clatsops, the Wahkiacums, and the Cathlamets.
The tribes of the Oregon at this time were numerous but small. They consisted chiefly of the Chinooks, Vancouvers, the Walla Wallas, the Yacomars, the Spokans, the Cayuses, the Nez-Percés, the Skagits, the Cascades, and many tribes that were scarcely more than families.
Clatsops and Chinooks were now their neighbors. Christmas and New Year of 1806 were celebrated by a discharge of firearms. No boats chanced to touch at the Columbia during the winter. The time was passed laying up store of elk meat and leather; for the company was not only starving, but nearly naked. The Pacific had been reached on November 14, 1805.
No ill treatment or indignity on our part seemed to excite any feeling except fear; nor, although better provided than their neighbors with arms, have they enterprise enough either to use them advantageously against the animals of the forest, or offensively against the tribes near them, who owe their safety more to the timidity than the forbearance of the Chinooks.
From their summits the grey-green up-tilted limestone protruded, whipped clean of soil by the chinooks of centuries. Here and there on their northern slopes hung a beard of scrub timber; sharp gulleys cut into their fastnesses to bring down the turbulent waters of their snows.
There was no direct intercourse between the two nations as yet, but the Chinooks traded with the Clatsops and Wahkiacums, and these in turn traded with the Skilloots, and in this way the two hostile tribes exchanged the articles which they had for those which they desired.
The Chinooks reside chiefly along the banks of a river of the same name, running parallel to the sea-coast, through a low country studded with stagnant pools, and emptying itself into Baker's Bay, a few miles from Cape Disappointment. This was the tribe over which Comcomly, the one-eyed chieftain, held sway; it boasted two hundred and fourteen fighting men.
When I arrived I found that the Rogue River Indians had just been placed upon the reservation, and subsequently the Coquille, Klamath, Modocs, and remnants of the Chinooks were collected there also, the home of the latter being in the Willamette Valley.
The Chinooks and other Indians at the mouth of the river, soon proved themselves keen traders, and in their early dealings with the Astorians never hesitated to ask three times what they considered the real value of an article. They were inquisitive, also, in the extreme, and impertinently intrusive; and were prone to indulge in scoffing and ridicule at the expense of the strangers.
Hunt and his associates, the little colony might be able to maintain itself until the return of peace. Affairs of State at Astoria. M'Dougal Proposes for the Hand of An Indian Princess Matrimonial Embassy to Comcomly. Matrimonial Notions Among the Chinooks. Settlements and Pin-Money. The Bringing Home of the Bride. A Managing Father-in-Law. Arrival of Mr. Hunt at Astoria.
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