The Mt. Adams Sun, Bingen, WA., June 5, 1952, page __
The Mt. Adams Sun, Bingen, WA., July 3, 1952, page __

HUCKLEBERRY PILGRIMAGE
By Ray M. Filloon
(Reprinted from Pacific Discovery by permission of the Publishers)
Photos by the Author, Courtesy U.S. Forest Service

During the huckleberry season when I was a boy, fifty or more years ago, I used to see Indians, hundreds of them, jogging on their Cayuse ponies in a cloud of dust. They were on their way to pick in the berry fields in the high country near Mount Adams. Second highest peak of the state of Washington, Mount Adams is in what is now known as the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which lies between Mount Rainier National Park on the north and the Columbia River on the south. Countless generations of Indians have come every year to the Huckleberry fields around the mountain. They still make their annual treks to Mount Adams, through the village of Trout Lake, but they now practice few of the colorful customs of the past. In the old days the huckleberry pilgrimage was vivid sight, with each tribe headed by its chief decked out in his bright blanket and other trappings. The ponies too were of many different hues and markings, including buckskin, spotted, bay, sorrel, gray and other colors in between. In the saddles and on the ponies' backs were brightly colored blankets, and stride the animals sat men, women, and children, each with a short whip or quirt, used continually to urge to ponies along. The ponies paid no attention, going no faster than a dog trot in spite of the urging. It was likely a mere habit on the part of both horse and rider.

CAVALCADE

The women wore brilliant scarves over their heads, scarves so brightly prized that one would bring ten gallons of huckleberries, more than a day's hard picking, in trade at a white man's store. The berries at that time were valued at 50 cents a gallon but now bring $2.50 to $3.00. Blankets were piled on the riding ponies, not just to sit on, but to save room on the pack animals for the rest of the equipage. An Indian took all of his possessions with him whenever he traveled to the huckleberry fields. Loose ponies, colts, and numerous dogs made up the rest of the cavalcade. Even in my boyhood I had a so-called camera, a little 2x2 glass plate affair which I earned by selling $3.00 worth of bluing. I missed my chance however, for the sight was so utterly commonplace I did not consider it worth taking. What I wouldn't give today for that forever lost opportunity! While my camera now is even smaller, it takes color. But I do have records of these Indian pilgrimages and customs in my memory!

BY GONE ERA

Born and raised in the vicinity and spending most of my life among the Indians, I had a grand opportunity to know them, talk to them, and learn much about their life and customs. I observed the Indians of the Northwest not only in my youth but also during my fifteen years with the United States Forest Service. For eleven summers I was a Forest Guard in the Mt. Adams Ranger District of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. There were four Indian national forest campgrounds in my bailiwick. One by one the old customs are either gone or on the way out. Seeing the "handwriting on the wall," the U.S. Forest Service in 1936, little more than a decade ago, decided that the customs still existing in the Mt. Adams country should be photographed before it was too late. The subjects of some of the pictures illustrating this article are not available for photographs today. They belong to a bygone era.

FIRES

The huckleberries of the Cascade Range grow in "burns" which are lands denuded of their timber by forest fires. Some of these burns of a hundred years ago or more are occasionally blamed on the Indian. While Indians may have set some of them, no doubt fully as many fires were started by lightning which, burning unchecked, destroyed vast stands of timber as well. Lightning fires today are quite common and there is no reason to believe they have not always been so. In 1914, part of this area, already old burn and much larger that it is now, was completely gone over by a fire lightning started. It burned until quenched by rains in the fall, mostly because of the lack of money, equipment, and modern know-how with which to fight. Though fifty men fought this fire all summer, the equipment consisted only of axes, shovels, and saws. Modern organization and methods would have stopped it almost as soon it started.

NO MORE

The picture has another side, however; berry bushes grow not only in these burns but also in the surrounding second-growth timber that is fast taking over the burns. The bushes in the timber produce little if any fruit, so as the fields are encroached upon, the berry producing area becomes smaller and smaller. As proof of how rapidly this transformation is taking place the present patch of 28 square miles has dwindled until it is less than one third its size forty years ago. At this rate it will not be long until, like some of the old customs described in this article, berry picking in this area will be no more. Huckleberries were, and still are, an important part of the Indians' diet, and though the log-fire drying custom is no more, the women are now canning them, by either the open kettle or cold pack method of their white sisters. The ways of preserving were beginning to come into use even in 1936 when the Forest Service had photographs made of the older Indian women still clinging to their log-fire drying customs. The younger generation will have none of it, for to them it belongs to the old ways when the Indian really had to live off the country.

DRYING

Up until a decade ago almost all berries were preserved by drying with reflected heat from a log fire. To do this an Indian woman selected a log, scooped out the earth along one side of it, and from this trench built up a parallel ridge about three feet from the log. The slope of the ridge on the side facing the log would be approximately 45 degrees. Upon this she would place a tule mat of some other suitable covering and put a row of stones along the lower edge. Then she spreads a thin layer of berries over the mat and set the log afire. She would have at hand a watertight basket of water and bough broken off a near-by fir tree. If and when the fire got too hot in some places or a spark lit on her berries she dipped the bough in the water and touched the spot, thus keeping every hing under control. From time to time she stirred the berries, using a long-bladed oar-like paddle, using purpose. The drying took all day. When finished, the berries, raisin-like, would keep all winter. The Indians came to the Mt. Adams huckleberry fields not only to pick berries but to hunt and fish, and for recreation. Most of them were Yakimas and Klickitats, their homes being nearest to the berry fields. But others came from far away places -- Nez Perce from Idaho, Blackfeet from Montana, Wasco, Umatillas and Klamaths from eastern Oregon, and others. They now come by automobile, but when the horse was their only means of travel the journey took days and days. At that time, though, camping places were an easy day's journey apart and the Indian is a past master in the art of setting up a more or less comfortable abode, at least to his standards.

TEEPEE

As far as camping is concerned, he has learned by long experience to be a conservationist. Especially is this true to his campfire, for even with camp spots always at hand, the long years of use had made fuel scarce, even in the early days, and he had to make the best of the little which was available. The teepee he uses is so constructed that his fire may be built inside -- contrast this with the white man's tent, with his fire built, of necessity, outside. The old saying, "Indian build small fire, gets close; white man builds big fire, gets far away," is not an idle jest. It is very true. The white man uses up a lot of fuel with his fire, heats up all outdoors, roasts on one side, while freezing on the other, and gets smoke in his eyes. His copper-skinned brother, with a small fire built in the center, inside his teepee gets an even heat all around, conserves almost all of it, is quite comfortable close beside it, and gets no smoke in his eyes, for the hole in the top of his teepee takes it all away. For further insurance against a possible down draft bringing smoke into his teepee, he fastens wings to the ends of two poles, outside and on either side of the smoke hole. They are easily shifted according to the wind direction.

SHE

I have used the pronoun he, but it most properly should be she, for upon reaching the huckleberry country most of the real work fell upon the women. It was the women who put up the teepee poles and wrapped around them the covering to provide a shelter for her family. This covering is now some sort of cloth, canvas, sugar sacks sewn together, striped bed ticking, etc., but in the old days skins of animals were used. Some of the coverings have Indian designs painted on them. The women gathered the fuel for the fire built in the teepee, and of course prepared the meals. She picked the berries and preserved them for winter use. She looked after the children, the ones old enough trudging along through the path with her, the baby or papoose on her back in a cradleboard. When she began picking berries the cradleboard, still with the papoose securely fastened in, was either leaned up against a tree or hung from a limb to swing gently and keep the baby amused while she picked. If her lord and master killed some game it was she who carried it into the camp. If the game happened to be a deer or other large animal she also skinned and dressed it and saw to it that everything about the carcass which could be utilized for food, clothing, utensils, or for many other purposes, was saved. Nothing went to waste.

TANNING

Before the hides can be used for making them into clothing they must first be tanned. The process of tanning begins with the removal of the hair. This she does by soaking the hide in a solution of ashes and water until the hair "slips", after which it is scraped off. Then the brains of the animal are laboriously worked into the hide to soften it. After this is done it is laced on a frame and is worked and scraped some more and from time to time the stretch in the hide is taken up by tightening the lacing. When completed, the hide is soft, dry and pliable, also quite white. For some purposes it is left white, but for most uses it is placed in a smoke from smoldering rotten wood. It is this smoking process which gives the Indian tan its pungent odor. It also causes the article made from it to remain soft after repeated wettings. A moccasin or glove, for instance, would become much stiffer if made from white skins. Many of the wearables made from the tanned hides have designs sewn upon them, the women using various colored beads, also porcupine quills, shells, elk teeth, etc. Some of these articles of clothing are worn at their ceremonies and at other times when they wish to "dress up."

CAMAS

The women also gathered roots and herbs for food and medicine, and grasses and bark of the Western red cedar for making baskets. For food the principal root was the camas, an onion-like bulb which, tho to some extent eaten raw, was usually first roasted and then further prepared in various ways. A few of the older women still gather these bulbs, but this custom is fast dying out. The younger generation now follows the lines of the least resistance and patronizes the white man's store for all its needs especially foods. The camas, found growing in damp meadows in late spring as a blue flower, is harvested in the summer after the stalks have dried down, indicating that the bulbs have matured. In gathering the camas root a digging stick, once wooden, is now made of steel, and is about three feet long. It is curved and sharpened on the business end and had a short crosswise handle. It is pushed into the ground under the bulb, which is pried to the surface. To roast these bulbs, a shallow pit is dug, a fire built in it, and stones are added. When all is heated to satisfaction, the remaining embers are raked out, the pit lined with the heated stones, leaves placed on them, bulbs put in, more leaves placed on top of them. Then the hot ashes and coals are placed on the leaves and earth is mounded over. A twig, about the size of a lead pencil, is then pushed gently through the mound to the bulbs and very carefully removed, thus leaving a vent. After forty-eight hours all is taken out and the roasted camas bulbs are then ready for final preparation by being pounded into a sort of doughy mass, which is mostly shaped into potato cake-like patties and baked.

BARK BASKETS

The Indian women also have another important duty, basket making. For the ones made up in the berry fields they used Western red cedar bark -- they haven't made this kind for a number of years, however, because of the scarcity of cedar trees. They were quite easy to make and took only an hour or two, once the bark has been brought into camp. These baskets ranged in size from one to ten gallons capacity and their construction allowed a free circulation of air to pass thru the contents. Thus they were excellent containers for transporting the berries from the patch to their homes or to towns, where they sold house to house or traded at stores for food or other goods. Needing a basket, a woman peeled from a live tree a strip of bark double the length and slightly wider than the diameter desired. Then she marked a sharp-pointed oval across the middle of the length of the strip. Along this line she made two parallel cuts about half an inch apart half way through the inner bark and removed this layer. This made a hinge so that when the two ends of the strip were brought together the basket was almost finished. The oval became the bottom and all she needed to complete the job was to take some laces made from the inner bark of cedar, fasten the sides together, and lace in a ring of cedar root around the top.

GRASS BASKETS

Another type, the Klickitat basket it is commonly called, is quite rigid and very durable, in fact some of them have been in use for more than one hundred years. This is borne out by the statement an old Indian woman made to me when I asked her how old was one of her baskets I admired. She told me that it belonged to "her mama's mama, and her mama's mama," repeating these words for several more generations of "mama's". The Indians still use this type of basket and prize it highly. This is not to be wondered at, for with the passing of the older generations who have made them, their manufacture has almost become a lost art. The women seldom worked on them while in the berry country, saving this chore for winters at home when they had more time. This type took an infinite amount of painstaking labor and skill. As some of the material used in the making, especially squaw grass (bear grass), was abundant in the high country, it was gathered and taken home for later use. The squaw grass, bleached and dyed, was used as the principal material in the pattern designs woven into these baskets. The dyes were mostly obtained by pounding up berries and plants and, to some extent, minerals. One of the most potent dyes, yellow, was obtained from the root of Oregon grape. The framework, coil type, was of some sort of pliable twig or root, such as willow or cedar. The start was made in the center of the bottom, the basket progressing outward and upward in ever widening circles until the desired shape and size was attained. The grass and split roots, etc., were so tightly woven together that the basket when completed was absolutely watertight. In bygone days the Indian women actually cooked in them. They placed food, water, and red hot stones all together in the basket, changing the stones as needed until cooking was done.

GAMBLING

While the Indian women were busy with their more or less menial chores, their "lords and masters" were also occupied, though having more fun. The men, or "bucks" as they are generally called, fished, gambled with their sticks or bone games, and/or raced their ponies. The women sometimes also indulged in these gambling sports but as a rule they were too busy elsewhere. The Indian was and still is, like some of his white brothers, an inveterate gambler. He would, if necessity arose, wager his all, even his wife, to back a hunch or horse. Many an Indian in the old days has gone up into the huckleberry country proudly taking all his horses, blankets, everything he owned, and if luck frowned upon him has been forced to come out afoot. The Indian race track, unlike the white man's circular one, was a straightaway, and in the horse - Indian days pony racing was top sport. An Indian would wager all he had in the world on his favorite mount. There are legends to perpetuate the memories of some far away "dark horse," brought in to enter the races, taking the unsuspecting "to the cleaners" -- as today at the white man's track.

STICK GAME

In playing the stick or bone game (they are synonymous) the opposite sides sit upon the ground and face each other with a blanket spread between them. The gambling takes are placed on the blanket. The side having the stick passes it from hand to hand behind the backs of players, the object being for the opponents to guess in whose hand the stick is at the moment the guess is made. During all this the side with the sticks keeps up a constant chant varying in pitch and tempo to confuse their opponents, who if they have made a good guess, rake in their winnings, take the stick, and with a new pile of stakes spread on the blanket, begin the game again. This game has also gone the way of other old customs. While the blanket is still spread on the ground, monte, black jack, and poker of white man's invention are now played in place of the stick or bone game.

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©  Jeffrey L. Elmer