At the eastern extremity was a mat, on
which twenty-one skulls were placed in a circular form; the mode of
interment being first to wrap the body in robes, then as it decays to
throw the bones into the heap, and place the skulls together. From
the different boards and pieces of canoes which form the vault were
suspended, on the inside, fishing-nets, baskets, wooden bowls, robes,
skins, trenchers, and trinkets of various kinds, obviously intended
as offerings of affection to deceased relatives. On the outside of the
vault were the skeletons of several horses, and great quantities of
their bones were in the neighborhood, which induced us to believe that
these animals were most probably sacrificed at the funeral rites of
their masters."
Just below this stand the party met Indians who traded with tribes
living near the great falls of the Columbia. That place they designated
as "Tum-tum," a word that signifies the throbbing of the heart. One of
these Indians had a sailor's jacket, and others had a blue blanket and
a scarlet blanket. These articles had found their way up the river from
white traders on the seashore.
On the twenty-first of October the explorers discovered a considerable
stream which appeared to rise in the southeast and empty into the
Columbia on the left. To this stream they gave the name of Lepage
for Bastien Lepage, one of the voyageurs accompanying the party. The
watercourse, however, is now known as John Day's River. John Day was
a mighty hunter and backwoodsman from Kentucky who went across the
continent, six years later, with a party bound for Astoria, on the
Columbia.
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