Pocket in the Waistcoat: Scenes of Oregon Country, 1806-1839

By R C Marlen

Oregon, 1806-1839 When four girls from the Tillamook and Clatsop People befriended Joseph Gervais, he changed from the cantankerous French-Canadian fur trapper to become an amusing storyteller and hero. One day, he saved a Métis girl from being snatched by a stranger and earned respect from the Chinook and Clatsop Tribes, as well as, the love of a child who claimed she would become his wife. And she would. It was a time of turmoil at Fort Astoria: the British and Americans vied for control of the Northwest, yet it was a time of rapport between the native people and the fur trappers. In fact, three daughters of Tyee Koboway, Chief of the Clatsop People, sought to marry white men; however, their Tillamook friend Pocket did not want to marry anyone; she strove to be a shaman and to speak English. This story tells about the Native People living in the Northwest since time immemorial, and how their lives and cultures once were harmonious with the Americans and Canadians.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R C Marlen
• Release date: Jun 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463358214

R C Marlen

RC Marlen (a.k.a.Rosalie Marlen Schele) spent her first forty years in St. Louis, Missouri. While growing up, she lived with the six Marlen siblings and worked in the family drugstore which provided much of the material for her novels Inside the Hatboxes and The Drugstore.After college, she taught Mathematics, earned a Masters, started a business in Los Gatos, California teaching adults about computers, and then fell in love with Henry Schele who took her to live in Chile and Argentina for fourteen years. In the year 2000 she finished Inside the Hatboxes and three months later became a widow.Now she lives in beautiful, verdant Oregon. She recently sold her home in San Carlos, Chile - a pueblo six hours south of Santiago. In the future she plans to write about South America.

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POCKET in the Waistcoat

Scenes of Oregon Country 1806-1839

A Novel by

RC Marlen

Copyright 2019 by RC Marlen

Sunbird Press: Salem, Oregon

Concerning words used for the indigenous people who inhabited Oregon since time immemorial, the author chose to use an assortment of names for various reasons. For example, during 1806-1839, the words Indian and Injun were in common use, so they are in this book’s dialogue; however, in paragraphs with the author’s voice describing the scene, the more accepted words, Native Americans or natives, were written. Please note: the author hoped not to offend.

Published by RC Marlen at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Dedicated to

Two Granddaughters

My Mia

and

Mi Mya

Foreword

In 1810, a group of more than sixty men and one woman, called Madame Dorion, driven by dreams and a desire for a better life, followed Lewis and Clark’s journey to the Northwest. They reached the same remote place, at the mouth of the Columbia River, only to become political pawns. Though most were French-Canadians, they had signed with Jacob J. Astor’s American company for a trek across the continent; in February of 1812, one group arrived and built Fort Astoria. Unbeknownst to them, that fort was soon to be sold to the British and later to be renamed Fort George. Why? The War of 1812 was the impetus, being not only a war against England for the survival of the new nation but also a war for expansion.

England was well established in Canada on the eastern side of North American, capturing the wealth from the land for more than a hundred years with two British organizations: the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which was founded in 1670, and the North West Fur Company (NWF or called Nor’Wester Company by fur trappers), created in 1779.

When an American, J.J. Astor, created competition by building the Pacific Fur Company (PFC) in 1810, a chess game began. Though three thousand miles away from the fighting when the War of 1812 broke out, the men who built Fort Astoria were in the game. By 1813, the Americans in the eastern battles had failed in all attempts to take any land from the British—in Upper Canada, Lower Canada, or Montreal. At sea, the powerful British navy maintained a complete blockade along the eastern American coast. Astor knew his little remote fort would get no protection from the United States of America if the British attacked it, so he sold Fort Astoria to the North West Fur Company, and it became Fort George.

When the peace treaty was signed at the end of 1814, ending the War of 1812, neither country was a winner: they only had peace.

But, in the game of chess, the King of England had put the little fort into Checkmate. Astor’s fear had given Great Britain control of the Northwest.

Pondering about this one-thousand-year-old game of chess and the dominance of men over women through the ages, it is interesting to note that, in the fifteenth century, a new chess piece, the Queen, was created. What happened? In my research, I never learned why a woman was designated the most powerful piece in the game; however, in the last chapter of my story, I have Joseph Gervais expound on an idea.

List of Characters

NOTE: Main Characters have birth/death dates

Just as RC Marlen presents historical events as accurately as possible, the descriptions of homes, forts, and other structures are taken from writings of people who saw them. As noted in the following List of Characters, the people in this novel once lived in Oregon, except for those labeled Fictional. The six fictional characters were conceived in an attempt to weave a compelling storyline within the flow of actual history.

Historical Characters (in order of appearance in story):

Joseph Gervais, 1777-1861

Louis LaBonté, 1780-1860

Mr. Henry and Mr. Matthews – Clerks

Captain Jonathan Thorn of Tonquin ship

Donald Mackenzie – Partner in Astor’s Pacific Fur Company (PFC)

Ramsey Crooks – Partner in Astor’s Pacific Fur Co. (PFC)

Wilson Price Hunt – Leader of Astor’s Hunt Expedition

Robert Stuart and John Day – Fur trappers

Madame Dorion – From eastern Ioway Tribe, with her husband,

Pierre Dorion – A Métis from the Sioux Tribe

Donald McTavish – An Owner of North West Fur Company (NWF)

Miss Jane Barnes – Barmaid who came on ship Isaac Todd in 1814

Alexander Ross – Worked for PFC, NWF, and Hudson’s Bay Co.

Etienne Lucier – Fur trapper and good friend of Joseph Gervais

Dr. John McLoughlin – Chief Factor, Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC)

Mrs. Marguerite McLoughlin – Chief Factor’s wife

Basile Poirior – Baker at HBC who married Celiaste/Mrs. Ellen

Solomon Smith, 1809-1874

Jason Lee and Cyrus Shepard – Methodist Missionaries

Ewing Young – Fur trapper who settled on French Prairie

Dr. William John Bailey – Englishman who settled on French Prairie

John Woodward – Trapper who arrived in Oregon with Dr. Bailey

Edouard Gervais – Youngest son of Joseph and Marguerite Gervais

Bishop François Norbert Blanchet – First Catholic priest in Oregon

Fictional Characters:

Pocket, a Métis, 1806-1839

Ne-ma, Pocket’s Tillamook mother

Eshayum and Tlihtlih, Clatsop couple and friends of Joseph Gervais

Chakchak, Fictional son of Chinook Chief Comcomly

Moses Potter, escaped slave from a southern state

Kahmooks, Gervais family’s dog (Kahmooks means ‘dog’ in Chinook Jargon.)

Historical Indigenous People (some birth/death dates not known):

Yeck-a-tap-am of Umatilla Nation

Tyee Koboway, Chief of the Clatsop People, and his daughters:

Kil-a-ko-tah, a.k.a. Mrs. Margaret, 1800-18xx

Celiaste, a.k.a. Mrs. Ellen, 1805-1894

Yi-a-must, a.k.a. Mrs. Marguerite, 1806-1840

Tyee Comcomly, Chief of the Chinook Nation, 1765-1830

Oofaaf of the Kalapuyan People along the Willamette River

Nishlush, of Tillamook People a.k.a. Nancy who married Edouard Gervais

People referenced from Lewis and Clark Expedition:

Captain William Clark and his black servant York

Captain Meriwether Lewis

Sacagawea and husband, Toussaint Charbonneau

Children of Joseph Gervais with their birth years:

·Mothered by unnamed Chinook Woman:

1820 – Julie

1823 – David

·Mothered by Clatsop Yi-a-must, a.k.a. Mrs. Marguerite:

1828 – Isaac

1831 – Xavier

1832 – Françoise

1834 – Mary

1835 – Edouard (also Edward or Ed)

1838 – Adélaide

·Mothered by Chinook Marie Angelique:

1841 – Rosalie

Introduction

Long before the Europeans discovered the existence of another continent and prior to any ships sailing along the eastern or western shores of North America, there existed two lingua franca among the indigenous people who belonged to hundreds of different tribes. They all had separate cultures, locations, and languages, but their lives overlapped at times when they needed to talk to one another for trading purposes.

The trading language in the Southeast was called Mobilian and had existed for centuries before the white man came. Without gold or furs to trade, these Native Americans and the Mobilian language were not important to the Europeans and both gradually died—one through disease, the other through nonuse. Mobilian was consigned to oblivion. However, the Europeans acquired the wealth of the Southeast without even trading: they took the land.

In the Northwest and West, the trading language of Chinook Jargon, which existed before white men came, was a flexible and continually changing language used among the hundreds of different Native American People. Chinook Jargon was a simple language, developed over the centuries, with sounds and words from many different groups. Since it was created for trade, words for personal concepts were irrelevant and nonexistent. This made it easy to learn and use. When the Europeans came in their ships, they learned Chinook Jargon to communicate and in turn, reaped the wealth of furs; consequently, the Jargon began to expand with English words and personal references.

In the Northwest, the men of the fur-trading companies only wanted to trade. They wanted neither the land nor anyone to settle and displace thousands of natives who hunted the fur-bearing animals. The Native Americans in the Northwest were valuable to the white man because, since time immemorial, they had hunted: they knew how to amass millions of furs—more than all the white fur trappers ever would.

So, with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, a rapport was started through trading with the Native Americans of the Northwest. When Jacob J. Astor’s men came and built a small fort on the mouth of the Columbia River near the Pacific Ocean, there was no indication of the newcomer’s inevitable greed for land because, in the first decades of the eighteen hundreds, they wanted only furs.

Chapter One

Fort George

Spring 1814

Clenching his jaw, Joseph Gervais slammed the axe into a thick log balanced atop an eight-foot-wide stump, still rooted in the ground. It split with a sharp CRACK echoing off the walls of the fort. He raised the axe again and finished off the log, with a piece flying ten feet and hitting the palisade with a hard THUD. Pushing a few chunks away with his foot and glancing at the growing pile of firewood, he stopped long enough to spit and wipe sweat. His wool shirt—still tucked into his pants—hung inverted around his hips and down to his knees. His coat had been flung over a bush. Even with the cold wind, sweat trickled down his backbone and puddled at his waist, forming a dark, damp semicircle in his shirt. He had tied his red sash around his forehead to stop sweat dripping into his eyes, but, leaning the axe against the stump, Joseph removed his sash to wipe his face before walking to get another log. He coughed and spit again. He worked with another man, a Kanakan, who had volunteered to come from the Sandwich Islands (later to be called Hawaii) located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A light drizzle started again as it had off and on all day. He enjoyed the cool rain on his skin.

Pulling at a log in the pile, he felt a splinter jab into his thumb. Damn it all. He shoved the log in anger and kicked it before he shook his head and complained to himself, Damn, it been four years since I sign my French-Canadian ass to the good-for-nothing Pacific Fur Company, and now I only curse in English. I forget all my foul-mouth French. He raised his hand to peer at his thumb and thought: Angry could be my middle name. Yes, Joseph Angry Gervais. He reached for the big splinter and, even with thick calloused fingers, managed to pull it out. He had been cutting wood for hours, and his patter assuaged the resentment he felt toward his bosses.

He squatted to wrap his muscular arms around the same big log while still muttering to himself. With the exertion, his face contorted with creases and ridges filling his cheeks and brow, but the furrow above his nose was permanent—whether he frowned or laughed: it had formed during the treacherous trek across the Louisiana Purchase to the mouth of the Columbia River with the Hunt Expedition for Pacific Fur Company. Grunting, he lifted the log and hobbled through muck and mud over to the splitting stump and never stopped his rant.

This here is shit work. I sign up to fur trap for J.J. Astor and his American company. Not log splittin’. Crap, how could Astor sell everything, including me with it? Damn him. Ya think I want to work for the bloody British, those Nor’Westers? He glanced at the Kanakan who ignored his railing about the North West Fur Company. After he dropped his log onto the stump, he turned to direct a comment to his coworker in his thick French accent. All the men I talk wit’ ain’t likin’ how the Nor’Westers treat ’em. What you think?

The Kanakan stopped working a moment, raised his shoulders, and shook his head, not comprehending the English.

Joseph just went on with his grumbling. And they outta supplies. Lucky I got boots ’fore they ran out. But there ain’t much food left. Remembering what the clerk had told him, he gave out a boisterous laugh, Ha, now I gotta call this place Fort George or they fine me for sayin’ Fort Astoria. What the hell! I so pissed. Oh, and they put us in irons if we call our self Astorians. His pay and his expenditures were all on the books, not in his hands. They docked his money on the ledger for the food he ate, for his cot in the crowded room inside the fort, for any clothes he took from the supply room—such as the made-in-New-York leather high-top shoes with thick soles—and for saying the wrong name. From one day to the next, the ledgers had changed from American dollars to British pounds. But no money git to my pockets. Damn them.

The Kanakan explained, No talk English.

Hell, it don’ matter. I jus’ need to complain.

The two worked at the backside of the fort built with vertical, bark-covered logs, forming a twelve-foot-high palisade—a stockade. Inside the walls, the men of Pacific Fur Company had built several rooms: a trading store, a blacksmith’s shop, sleeping quarters, and storage for fur pelts. Most of those pelts were acquired from the local natives, far fewer from the excursions of the men who signed up to come to Oregon Country. Many pelts from the Clatsops and Chinooks were sea otter furs, now that beavers were disappearing from over-trapping in the area. As he raised the axe to start splitting the firewood again, he heard a child screaming, "Mamook kopet! Kopet!"

Whipping his head toward the plea for help, he saw a man dragging a small girl into the trees and undergrowth. For centuries, the lush and verdant Northwest had sprouted hemlocks, red cedar, fir, and spruce trees until they expanded and crowded the land, leaving little space for the many types of berry bushes, ferns, and grasses that squeezed together beneath the trees. With all the plants, Joseph knew that no space existed for that man to walk easily, much less run. So, when Joseph saw the girl’s legs disappear into the woods, he dropped his axe and ran through the cleared area of the fort toward them. Within seconds he pounced on the man and started pounding. His fury against someone attacking a young girl mixed with his anger toward the new owners of this fort: all his rage flew from his fists. What ya think ya goin’ ta do wit’ this little one?

Huddled below a giant fir, the native girl cringed among sword ferns and salmonberry bushes with her eyes watching the white man pound her attacker until blood ran from his nose and his dark forehead split. When Joseph noticed the man was no longer conscious, he stopped his battering and sat on him.

Panting, Joseph ran both hands through his dark, greasy hair to pull it back from his face. He turned, searching for the young girl, and said to her, He ain’t gonna run away while I sit on him. Joseph grinned and studied her: she was just a child. Her eyes were large, round, and dark, but no longer fearful. Her black hair, in two long braids down to her waist, looked unlike the hair of other natives because she was curly-headed, and, around her face, the fuzziness appeared as a nimbus. With her torso bare, he could see she was not mature, although tall. Her long, straight legs were wrapped in skins tied with strips of bark and she wore a silk-grass skirt over the leggings. Why I talkin’ English wit’ you? Joseph changed to Chinook Jargon with its mix of Chinook, Nootka, Chehalis, English, French, and other stuff. Too many tribes existed with different languages, so trappers and the Indians learned to use the Jargon. He ask, "Yaka mahsh lolo? and repeated it in English, Did he tear off your top?" When she continued to stare without an answer, he rose to go and see if she was hurt.

She bolted.

Straightening his stiff overworked back as he stood, Joseph watched her run past the fort while ducking under the cannon pointed out to where the Columbia River flowed into the ocean and, just as she disappeared under a big Douglas-fir, he saw two men coming. He knew them. A dozen or so of the seventy men stationed at the fort worked outside that day. He knew them all, but not all their names. One of the two was the man-in-charge.

Joseph stood thinking, Crap, he doesn’t look happy. And I know he doesn’t like me. So I guess it's trouble for me. What’s his name? William Henry or is it Alexander Henry? Why do Englishmen have both names that are first names? That confuses me. And I ain’t good with names, anyway.

Joseph Gervais, I should have guessed it was you when someone told me a white man was beating on an Indian. Again, you’re fighting with an Indian. Don’t look at me like that! It’s on our records: when we sent you on the hundred-mile exploration of the Willamette River with Donald Mackenzie last year, you beat up a Kalapuyan Indian and offended his tribe. The company had to give a lot of gifts to appease them. Now what have you done?

The rain started to pelt them: no one seemed to notice. The second man shoved Joseph and retrieved the bloodied Indian, dragging him by his legs. When the rain began to slant in sheets, they adjusted their hats.

Mr. Henry bent and scrutinized the prone man. I don’t think he’s one of the Indians from here. Look how he cuts his hair. The Chinook and Clatsops don’t do that. And he doesn’t have the sloping forehead.

With a deeply furrowed brow, Joseph complained, The Injun was draggin’ a youngster away to the woods. He pointed in the direction where she had fled. Don’ know if she was hurt cuz she ran from me. I figured he weren’t plannin’ nothin’ good fer her.

By listening to your attempt to speak the King’s language, it becomes quite obvious you learned from illiterate American fur trappers. Actually, with your accent, it sounds more like you are speaking French. Mr. Henry shook his head. You are a disgrace.

Ignoring the criticism, Joseph said, I goin’ to see if she hurt. He turned and ran.

Come back here, he shouted. I am not finished with you, Gervais. You are the most impertinent man I know. Taking a deep breath, Mr. Henry hollered louder, You will pay for this disobedience.

Joseph disappeared around the side of the fort and saw small footmarks in the mud. He slowed, knowing she would be easy to follow, and pulled his shirt out of his pants to slip it on. During late afternoon, rain was the norm and the wind usually began to blow harder in this corner of the Northwest where the Columbia River headed out to the Pacific Ocean.

Thinking of the Pacific reminded him of the repeating nightmare he had many nights. He muttered, "Hell’s fire! I ne’er even saw the Tonquin but my dream puts me on that ship when it sailed north. Gotta git this dream outta my head."

As he trudged along the well-used path between the two forts—Fort Clatsop and Fort George—his heart pounded and a lump high in his throat gave him discomfort with each footstep. During this five-mile walk, with a short distance through water, he had time to puzzle over his emotions. He thought. When I saw that girl in danger I got all choked up. It’s the same as how I feel about that dream. Hell’s fire, it’s just a dream. Why?

He recalled, two years ago, when they had been told why the Tonquin was not at the fort when his group had arrived after walking from St. Genevieve, Missouri with Hunt’s Party.

He started analyzing the facts he remembered. The barque left New York in September of 1810, that’s the same time we left the east. We figured it would be here before us with all those supplies we couldn’t carry. And it did arrive. I thank Our Holy Mother of God it got here first and unloaded the provisions. We’d been lost without them. Amazing how they built this fort before we got here. Those poor men, felling trees and clearing a space to build this fort, and they kept working, cutting more to build the palisades, before they sailed away to their doom. Well, no use worrying about them; if they were good men they are with our Lord. If not …

Being distracted with thoughts about his dream, Joseph tripped and tumbled onto the narrow, moss-lined path. His boot had caught on a fallen branch. "A horse coulda broke a leg. Ain’t got many animals here, but the few we got come on the Tonquin." He pushed the limb aside and continued walking, still dwelling on the demise of the Tonquin.

When their ship was burning, the sailors probably thought they were in the fires of Hell.

Shaking his head, Joseph pursed his lips with his next thought. That man, Captain Jonathan Thorn, was a fool. How can men who are fools be our leaders? After they built the fort, Captain Thorn took command of the barque and set sail going north in the Pacific. Ha, he was to make friends with the natives, and instead he insults them.

As he walked, Joseph visualized the scene, as vividly as in his nightmares:

When Captain Thorn stood on the Tonquin near Vancouver Island with all his men on deck, talking and trading with the Tia-o-qui-aht People, a yard of red gurrah exchanged hands for a basket of candlefish. A point blanket traded for sea otter skins. Rolled tobacco and blue beads, much sought trade items, passed in the trading. A native squatted and turned a copper pot over in his hands, caressing the smooth metal and nodding. Without warning, Thorn grabbed a beaver hide and, pulling back his arm, he whipped the pelt into the face of a Tia-o-qui-aht nobleman.

Aghast, all on board stopped to stare at the two men. All bantering and bartering hushed. Like the moment hovering between the flash of lightning and the thunder, silence filled the air, until the natives’ voices exploded in war cries and they leveled their bows to shoot arrows into the chests of the crew. Thorn’s men had no time to react before their blood spilled onto the ship’s deck. The Tia-o-qui-aht People filled the air with chants of retribution before taking trophies from the dead. While some natives piled trade goods and cargo into their canoes, others wasted no time in making fires. Glowing red fires crept across the wooden deck and jumped to the masts and sails. Everything burned like a dry pine forest. In minutes the heat became unbearable and, when the flames rose hundreds of feet into the skies, Thorn’s translator, a man from the Quinault Nation, slipped from the deck into the water and swam ashore. He lived to tell the story.

In his dream, Joseph had been with the crew, and he had begged the translator to help him because his wound was small.

But the Quinault Injun said, No, you not live. You die.

Joseph shivered with the words from his dream echoing in his head. He reached inside his shirt and felt for the gold ring that hung on a chain around his neck. He rubbed the wide and smooth ring to sooth himself. He liked to feel the silkiness and often stroked it.

Joseph came to the end of the path, neared the shore where the Lewis and Clark River empties into the Columbia River, and waded among cattails and giant horsetail at the water’s edge. Looking over the many small, bobbing boats—mostly canoes, pirogues, and two bateaux—he chose a small bark canoe, not one of the larger ones. The larger dugouts were hollowed from cedar trees and had high prows intricately carved in images of animals. He knew the custom: take any craft, use it, and on your return trip, leave it near the same place.

He paddled across. Fort Clatsop, the structure built by Lewis and Clark, came in sight across the waterway. The Clatsop people, many with sloping foreheads, began to appear among the lush spruce and hemlock forest surrounding the fort. Soon Joseph was walking past busy Clatsop people: cooking roots, or weaving reeds for mats, or skinning game, or stitching hides. Joseph passed a fire burned down to embers, where strips of spruce root peelings hung to dry: those strips would be used to make fine waterproof baskets. Another pile of embers was drying salmon strips draped over a semicircle formed from green twigs. And a smoky fire was drying moss to use on a baby’s bottom.

He nodded his head to many as a greeting, and thought, The Clatsop people are truly friends to us whites. I recall the day I ask some women what they were doing and they showed me how to peel roots of a spruce tree into strips for their baskets. Even Chief Koboway talks with me in Chinook Jargon. When Lewis and Clark left behind this fort and made it a gift to Chief Koboway, a friendship was left behind, too. Clark was here about eight years ago, but still the Clatsops befriended us.

Lounging dogs, asleep or watching for a scrap from the watertight cooking baskets, were everywhere. None barked at him, and several approached with wagging tails. They remembered him as one who shared a bite with them.

At last he saw the child he had been pursuing. Ahead in the distance, she sat among a group of girls and women. They chattered together with serious faces, and the curly-headed one, who had ran from him, expressed herself with many hand gestures.

Just as Joseph took a step toward them, he heard someone call his name.

Joseph.

His friend Eshayum reached out to touch his arm while smiling broadly with his two missing front teeth and displaying his ever-present grizzly claw, dangling from a strip of rawhide around his neck. They exchanged the usual polite greeting in Chinook Jargon, "Kla-how-ya," before the Clatsop man invited Joseph to sit with him to eat. Mika ticky muckamuck?

Yes, I am hungry so I accept your gracious invitation, Joseph replied in the Clatsop tongue. He had lived close to these people for two years and had learned their language; however, he had learned Chinook Jargon during his fur trapping days in the Rocky Mountains and on the Arkansas River when he was in his twenties. They squatted near the fire and talked while Eshayum’s woman boiled seal meat. Joseph was offered bark to chew from the native crabapple tree: Joseph liked this custom—similar to chewing tobacco. After a time, Joseph told his friend about the man he beat. He was not Chinook or Clatsop. And the girl is over there, he said and pointed by protruding his lips and chin in the direction. The correct words to describe her curly-hair in any language eluded Joseph, so he used his hands to encircle his own head and said, She has angry dog’s hair sticking out.

Eshayum bobbed his head. "Al-ah. Ah, yes, she’s Nehalem. You white men call them the Tillamook People, but many different groups exist: the Nehalem band is one. The girl comes with her mother who trades with us. They live down the coast, not far from here. Not many Tillamook come as often as these two because they must cross a high and steep rock mountain along the coast. It called Neahkahnie Mountain and is dangerous: few want to cross it. That mother and daughter come with their basket’s straps hanging from their foreheads and swinging down their backs. He smiled broadly, showing his missing teeth again. My woman could not do that because everything would slip from her sloping brow." Now he let out a hearty hoot at his own little joke about his woman, but sobered in a blink, after seeing a dark look from her. Eshayum chewed on more bark before continuing, "For many years, the girl is friend with Tyee Koboway’s daughters. Chief Koboway had many daughters and many wives. Some of our Tyee’s daughters sit with the girl now."

Joseph looked at the group—women old and young—before turning back to ask, Why did this young girl come to our fort? And alone?

She different than others. She want to learn to talk in Boston. She good with talking in our tongue and other People’s so now she want to learn yours. Eshayum took another strip of the crabapple bark to chew.

Now Eshayum’s woman explained more. She go to fort and sit quiet like a bug under a leaf, where no one notice her. She listen to all the talk to learn Boston.

Joseph lifted his brows to puzzle about this little girl, wondering why she would want to learn to speak in English. I want to know if she’s hurt or not?

Eshayum’s woman rose from her squat at the cooking fire and said, I go. Before leaving, she assigned the many tasks at the fire to her slave woman who had the distinctive rounded head of a slave. The Clatsop’s custom of flattening foreheads during infancy was an ever-present sign to distinguish the upper class from others. Before she left, the two women laughed at a whispered comment and squeezed each other’s hands. Slaves were deprived of the honor of a flattened forehead but were not deprived of friendship.

Joseph watched his friend’s short and broad woman shuffle across the open area in front of Fort Clatsop, passing dozens of people. All the women were busy cooking, weaving, tending children, and doing women’s work: their men talked together and smoked. Her braids were tied together behind her back for cooking. The shiny, black ropes of hair swung along her knees.

"What’s your woman’s name, Eshayum? I never asked." Joseph pondered a thought that he had often had about the native women in the Northwest. Unlike other tribes I saw while walking on Hunt Expedition, the Clatsops respect their women. In many ways they seem equal to the men. Some of those other tribes treated their women like slaves. Humph, well, the slaves of the Clatsops are treated well, too.

Eshayum spit before he answered, "I call her Tlihtlih."

Shifting to another position to look at his friend, Joseph said, But it means ‘to itch’ I think. To demonstrate he scratched at his arm.

Again the grin spread across his face, showing the missing teeth. "Yes, until she agree to be my woman, I had this tlihtlih, and it gave me no rest. It pestered me in the rain and in the warm sun, but was worse when the moon went across the sky." He exploded