Clackamas Chinook

Clackamas Chinook. An Artist Encounter With the First Peoples of the Oregon City Area. About four miles below Oregon City the Klackamass enters the Walhamettee: and, seated below the banks at its mouth, I saw a party of Indians of the Klackamass tribe, and I put ashore for the purpose of taking a sketch of them. , They were busy gambling at one of their favorite games. Two were together on skins, and immediately opposite to them sat two others, several trinkets and ornaments being placed between them. for which they played. , The game consisted in one of them having his hands covered with a small round mat resting on the ground. He has four small sticks in his hands, which he disposes under the mat in certain positions, requiring the opposite party to guess how he placed them. , If he guesses right, the mat is handed around to the next, and a stick is stuck up on the opposite side as a mark against him. This, like almost all Indian games, was accompanied with singing: but in this case the singing was peculiarly sweet and wild, possessing a harmony I never heard before or since amongst Indians. -- Paul Kane, 1847 , Artist Paul Kane traveled North America in the 1840's and extensively painted the Native Americans and early towns such as Oregon City. He later published his journal and paintings. , From Harper J. Russell, ed. Paul Kane's Frontier: Including Wandering of an Artist Among the Indians of North America, by Paul Kane, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.