Traded in Everything
Part V

By Edward Huggins
The Sunday Oregonian
August 26, 1900

We used to trade in almost everything an Indian brought that could be used or made useful. An enormous number of ducks, geese, grouse, partridges and fish. were traded; also Indian-made mats, baskets and head straps, for carrying loads. The company paid for a mallard duck two charges of ammunition; for a goose, four or five charges; a quarter of venison, four or five charges; a good, large salmon, three or four charges; and other fish in proportion. 

Dried clams and cockles were traded and served out to the Indians as part of their rations and were very useful to give an Indian when sent on a short journey. They were strung on a string about two feet in length, and hung on the lodge roof poles, where they became well smoked and as hard as flint. Before the Indians ate them, they softened them by pounding with stones. 

A luxury among the Indians was salmon roe made into cakes with oil and in some manner dried. They would make a sort of soup with it, and consume it with great relish. We never traded that luxury, as sometimes it had a habit of emitting a strong odor, which, to the olfactory nerves of the sensitive white man, was very repellant. In those early days game was plentiful, compared with the present time. 

There was no legal protection, and the Indian hunters were very numerous. Grouse and partridge were so thick that almost always a hunter, white or colored, was certain of getting three or four every time he went after them. Then the geese! How numerous they were in the month of October! I have seen the plains literally black with them, but now they are seldom seen, and I often wonder what has become of them, as well as the grouse and partridges. 

People tell me they have been killed by the hunters, but this I cannot believe, as 50 years ago the Indians were, quite numerous and derived part of their subsistence by hunting these wild birds. Then the deer were quite numerous and comparatively easy to get, but in those days little or no hunting of deer was done with dogs. I have no doubt that the poor animals have been hounded to death by the many packs of brutal dogs kept for that purpose by many of the farmers, and, indeed, sometimes these brutes do a little private hunting on their own account.