The seed thus collected
is winnowed and parched, and ground between two stones into a kind of
meal or flour; which, when mixed with water, forms a very palatable
paste or gruel.
Some of these people, more provident and industrious than the rest, lay
up a stock of dried salmon, and other fish, for winter: with these, they
were ready to traffic with the travellers for any objects of utility in
Indian life; giving a large quantity in exchange for an awl, a knife,
or a fish-hook. Others were in the most abject state of want and
starvation; and would even gather up the fish-bones which the travellers
threw away after a repast, warm them over again at the fire, and pick
them with the greatest avidity.
The farther Captain Bonneville advanced into the country of these
Root Diggers, the more evidence he perceived of their rude and forlorn
condition. "They were destitute," says he, "of the necessary covering
to protect them from the weather; and seemed to be in the most
unsophisticated ignorance of any other propriety or advantage in the
use of clothing. One old dame had absolutely nothing on her person but a
thread round her neck, from which was pendant a solitary bead."
What stage of human destitution, however, is too destitute for vanity!
Though these naked and forlorn-looking beings had neither toilet to
arrange, nor beauty to contemplate, their greatest passion was for a
mirror. It was a "great medicine," in their eyes.
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