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<DIV>Both of these boys stayed with us a great deal. One, whom we called Jack,
hung around so persistently that Mother told him that he must stay away or else
be washed and dressed decently and keep away from the Indian camps. So Jack came
to live with us. He lived with us till he was a grown man. He was just a
"Siwash" but a kindly, honest, gentle-souled fellow, with the Siwash mentality
and the Siwash indolence.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> Siwash in Chinook means Indian, but we came to use it to
differentiate between the coast Indians and the higher type from the
interior.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> The coast Indians were peace-loving, indolent and sickly. They
were not warriors and were even indifferent hunters, frequenting the clam beds
where a living was easy. The squaws gathered nuts and berries and canas. Canas
is a kind of lily bulb like an onion. They roasted it in pits and stored it away
for winter use. I used to rather like it.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> Our Indians were not thrifty and they never seemed to take a
lesson from the lean years. Their meager stores were always pitifully small and
the winter usually found them starving. At such times they could be hired to
work, but they were at best, indifferent helpers.Jack was a true Siwash, but he
belonged to us and of course, always had enough to eat and wear.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> When he came to us, he wore an old blue soldiers cap. It sat
well up from his head. One day Father noticed that it sat rather too high to
look natural. He lifted it from Jack's head and an avalanche of salt poured down
over his shoulders and spread around his feet. He had taken it from our
storehouse and was on his way to his old, blind Mother's teepee.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> Father scolded him, and told him that he would "Punish
him severely if such a thing ever happened again." He made it quite clear that
taking without asking was stealing. Father also made it clear to Jack that if he
wanted anything for his Mother he was to ask for it, and if it were possible she
could have it.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> Many a sack of meal, and other things were carried to the old,
blind squaw, and never, to my knowledge, did the boy again touch a thing that
was not strictly his own, and I kept track of him even after he had married and
gone to live on the reservation with his own people. He died quite young.
Tuberculosis by that time was among them and was taking a heavy toll. The tribe
to which Jack belonged, is almost, if not quite extinct.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> The Indians who camped near us were called, Yamhills. I do not
know the origin of the name. They were friendly and very good to me. I spent a
great deal of time at there camp and learned to speak the Chinook jargon with a
fluency that in consideration of my dark eyes and skin, was not altogether
flattering to my family.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> I have never forgotten it, few of the Indians that are now
living, can even speak it. Now and then I meet one, who is very old, and the
words come to me as readily as they did when I was a child. The true Indian
accent with which I spoke it, always seems to mystify them.The Indians have a
certain native delicacy and they would hesitate to question, but once or twice
I've had them ask "Mika sitcom Siwash?" (are you half Indian) and my answer,
"Wake" (no), causes them to glance at me skeptically. An embarrassed Indian
always has immediate and pressing business elsewhere.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><B>Walt
Davies<BR>Cooper Hollow Farm<BR>Monmouth, OR 97361<BR>503 623-0460 <BR></B><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA1.1108191932@aol.com" height=93 width=72 border=0 DATASIZE="2892" ID="MA1.1108191932" ></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>