[or-roots] Aunt Charotte's book

[DAVIESW739 at aol.com]

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.
 
  Siwash in Chinook means Indian, but we came to use it to  differentiate 
between the coast Indians and the higher type from the  interior.
 
  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.
 
  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.
 
  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.
 
  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.
 
  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.
 
  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.
 
  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.
 
 
 
Walt  Davies
Cooper Hollow Farm
Monmouth, OR 97361
503 623-0460 

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