Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound. Emily Inez Denny
of the rain upon her and in after years recalled it saying that she had forever after a prejudice against camping out.
David T. Denny inadvertantly let fall the remark that he wished they had not come. A. A. Denny, his brother, came to him, pale with agitation, asking what he meant, and David attempted to allay his fears produced by anxiety for his helpless family, by saying that the cabin was not comfortable in its unfinished state.
The deeper truth was that the Sound country was swarming with Indians. Had the pioneers fully realized the risk they ran, nothing would have induced them to remain; their very unconsciousness afterward proved a safeguard.
The rainy season was fairly under way and suitable shelter was an absolute necessity.
Soon other houses were built of round fir logs and split cedar boards.
The householders brought quite a supply of provisions with them on the “Exact;” among other things a barrel of dried apples, which proved palatable and wholesome. Sea biscuit, known as hard-bread, and potato bread made of mashed potatoes and baked in the oven were oft times substitutes for or adjuncts of the customary loaf.
There was very little game in the vicinity of the settlement and at first they depended on the native hunters and fishermen who brought toothsome wild ducks and venison, fresh fish and clams in abundance.
One of the pioneers relates that some wily rascals betrayed them into eating pieces of game which he afterward was convinced were cut from a cougar. The Indians who brought it called it “mowich” (deer), but the meat was of too light a color for either venison or bear, and the conformation of the leg bones in the pieces resembled felis rather than cervus.
But the roasts were savory, it was unseemly to make too severe an examination and the food supply was not then so certain as to permit indulgence in an over-nice discrimination.
The inventive genius of the pioneer women found generous exercise in the manufacture of new dishes. The variations were rung on fish, potatoes and clams in a way to pamper epicures. Clams in fry, pie, chowder, soup, stew, boil and bake—even pickled clams were found an agreeable relish. The great variety of food fishes from the kingly salmon to the tiny smelt, with crabs, oysters, etc., and their many modes of preparation, were perpetually tempting to the pioneer appetite.
The question of food was a serious one for the first year, as the resources of this land of plenty were unknown at first, but the pushing pioneer proved a ready and adaptable learner.
Flour, butter, syrup, sugar, tea and coffee were brought at long intervals over great distances by sailing vessels. By the time these articles reached the settlement their value became considerable.
Game, fish and potatoes were staple articles of diet and judging from the stalwart frames of the Indians were safe and substantial.
Trading with the Indians brought about some acquaintance with their leading characteristics.
On one occasion, the youngest of the white women, Louisa Boren, attempted to barter some red flannel for a basket of potatoes.
The basket of “wapatoes” occupied the center of a level spot in front of the cabin, backed by a semicircle of perhaps twenty-five Indians. A tall, bronze tyee (chief) stood up to wa-wa (talk). He wanted so much cloth; stretching out his long arms to their utmost extent, fully two yards.
“No,” she said, “I will give you so much,” about one yard.
“Wake, cultus potlatch” (No, that is just giving them away) answered the Indian, who measured several times and insisted that he would not trade for an inch less. Out of patience at last, she disdainfully turned her back and retired inside the cabin behind a mat screen. No amount of coaxing from the savages could induce her to return, and the disappointed spectators filed off, bearing their “hyas mokoke” (very valuable) potatoes with them, no doubt marveling at the firmness of the white “slanna” (woman).
A more successful deal in potatoes was the venture of A. A. Denny and J. N. Low, who traveled from Alki to Fort Nesqually, in a big canoe manned by four Indians and obtained fifty bushels of little, round, red potatoes grown by Indians from seed obtained from the “Sking George” men. The green hides of beeves were spread in the bottom of the canoe and the potatoes piled thereon.
Returning to Alki it was a little rough and the vegetables were well moistened with salt chuck, as were the passengers also, probably, deponent saith not.
It is not difficult for those who have traveled the Sound in all kinds of weather to realize the aptness of the expression of the Chinese cook of a camping party who were moving in a large canoe; when the waves began to rise, he exclaimed in agitation, “Too littlee boat for too muchee big waters.” It is well to bear in mind that the “Sound” is a great inland sea. A tenderfoot’s description of the water over which he floated, the timorous occupant of a canoe, testifies that it looked to him to be “Two hundred feet deep, as clear as a kitten’s eye and as cold as death.”
All the different sorts of canoes of which I shall speak in another chapter look “wobbly” and uncertain, yet the Indians make long voyages of hundreds of miles by carefully observing the wind and tide.
A large canoe will easily carry ten persons and one thousand pounds of baggage. One of these commodious travelers, with a load of natives and their “ictas” (baggage) landed on a stormy day at Alki and the occupants spent several hours ashore. While engaged with their meal one of them exclaimed, “Nannitch!” (look) at the same time pointing at the smoke of the campfire curling steadily straight upward. Without another word they tumbled themselves and belongings aboard and paddled off in silent satisfaction.
The ascending column of smoke was their barometer which read “Fair weather, no wind.”
The white people, unacquainted with the shores, tides and winds of the great Inland Sea, did well to listen to their Indian canoemen; sometimes their unwillingness to do so exposed them to great danger and even loss of life.
The Indians living on Elliott Bay were chiefly the indigenous tribe of D’wampsh or Duwampsh, changed by white people into “Duwamish.”
They gave abundant evidence of possessing human feeling beneath their rough exterior.
One of the white women at Alki, prepared some food for a sick Indian child which finally recovered. The child’s father, “Old Alki John,” was a very “hard case,” but his heart was tender toward his child, and to show his gratitude he brought and offered as a present to the kind white “slanna” (woman) a bright, new tin pail, a very precious thing to the Indian mind. Of course she readily accepted his thanks but persuaded him to keep the pail.
Savages though they were, or so appeared, the Indians of Elliott Bay were correctly described in these words:
“We found a race, though rude and wild, Still tender toward friend or child, For dark eyes laughed or shone with tears As joy or sorrow filled the years. Their black-eyed babes the red men kissed And captive brothers sorely missed; With broken hearts brown mothers wept When babes away by death were swept.”
—Song of the Pioneers.
But there were amusing as well as pathetic experiences. The Indians were like untaught children in many things. Their curiosity over-came them and their innocent impertinence sometimes required reproof.
In a cabin at Alki one morning, a white woman was frying fish. Warming by the fire stood “Duwampsh Curley;” the odor of the fish was doubtless appetizing; Curley was moved with a wish to partake of it and reached out a dark and doubtful-looking hand to pick out a piece. The white woman had a knife in her hand to turn the pieces and raised it to strike the imprudent hand which was quickly and sheepishly withdrawn.
Had he been as haughty and ill-natured as some savages the result might have been disastrous, but he took the reproof meekly and mended his manners instead of retaliating.
Now and then the settlers were spectators in dramas of Indian romance.
“Old Alki