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Updated: May 25, 2025
The buildings of the town of Wishram across the river, so like the buildings of the white man, had awakened a thousand memories of home. Vivid pictures of his life in New England and in the cloisters of Magdalen came before his sleepless eyes. The longing for the refined and pleasant things that had filled his life rose strong and irrepressible within him.
All the wandering tribes of the Upper Columbia came there to fish or to buy salmon of the Wishram fishers. There too the Indians of the Lower Columbia and the Willamette met them, and bartered the hiagua shells, the dried berries, and wappatto of their country for the bear claws and buffalo robes of the interior.
It was Wishram, the ancient village of the falls, whose brave and insolent inhabitants, more than a century later, were the dread of the early explorers and fur traders of the Columbia. It was built at the last and highest fishery on the Columbia, for the salmon could not at that time ascend the river above the falls.
That he does not belie them will be evidenced hereafter, when we have occasion again to touch at Wishram and navigate the rapids. In the present instance the travellers effected the laborious ascent of this part of the river, with all its various portages, without molestation, and once more launched away in smooth water above the high falls.
But before they left the camp, a runner entered it with a summons from Multnomah calling them to the great council of the tribes on Wappatto Island, for which they must start on the morrow. See Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. i., p. 270. See Ross Cox's "Adventures on the Columbia River" for a description of torture among the Columbia tribes. They arrived at the village of Wishram.
Stuart and his comrades had not proceeded far in the canoes, when they beheld the whole rabble of Wishram stringing in groups along the bank, whooping and yelling, and gibbering in their wild jargon, and when they landed below the falls, they were surrounded by upwards of four hundred of these river ruffians, armed with bows and arrows, war clubs, and other savage weapons.
Reconnoitring Party Preparations for a Trading Post. An Unexpected Arrival A Spy in the Camp. Expedition Into the Interior Shores of the Columbia Mount Coffin. Indian Sepulchre. The Land of Spirits Columbian Valley Vancouver's Point.-Falls and Rapids. A Great Fishing Mart. The Village of Wishram.
The houses of Wishram were built of logs, the walls low, the lower half being below the surface of the ground, so that they were virtually half cellar. At a distance, the log walls and arched roofs gave them very much the appearance of a frontier town of the whites.
For like reason we would make especial mention of the village of Wishram, at the head of the Long Narrows, as being a solitary instance of an aboriginal trading mart, or emporium. Here the salmon caught in the neighboring rapids were "warehoused," to await customers.
Now I ride him, what do I care? Suppose he die, plenty more hiagua shells, plenty more horses." After which logical answer he plied the whip harder than ever, making the pony keep up with the stronger and abler horses of the other riders. The long train of squaws and warriors wound on down the trail by the river-side. In a little while Wishram and Tumwater passed from sight.
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