Visit to Clallam. - The Indians at this place are more primitive than those at the head of the Sound. They are less nomadic and have seen little of the whites and crowded with great curiosity about our camp. They have no range, except on the water, for the country behind is quite impenetrable. Their abodes are permanent, for they live in extensive houses, reminding me of the tobacco sheds in the east. They are formed of large posts, supporting beams, some of them so large that it is a source of wonder how they are handled. The sides and roofs are formed o[ut] of huge slabs of cedar fastened together with strong twigs. An elliptical hole through one of these slabs forms the door, and often the entrance consists of a passage-way of rough boards.

august valentine kautz of

Klallam People

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August Valentine Kautz

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1

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19

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50

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Nothing Worthy of Note Transpired Today (archive.org) The transcribed journals of Civil War General August Valentine Kautz that detail his daily life and activities during his post at Fort Steilacoom in 1850.

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The posts are decorated with carvings and drawings of men, animals and faces, ornamented with black and red paint. On the wall inside hang the mats on which they sleep. A horizontal beam is fastened to the posts, from which the provisions are hung. There is room enough in such a structure for several families. They seem to be great lovers of size, for a saw a canoe this evening at least fifty feet long and six feet wide. It is doubtless used for the migration of the tribe, for it would hold a family or half a tribe. They are evidently poor, for they offer no food for sale, and when I tried to buy fish or game from them they asked high prices.

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On the lst of June we camped on the mainland at the house of a Mr. Garish, to whom I had received a letter from Mr. Starling. We desired to go on to Dungeness, but Garish persuaded us to stay with him arguing that there were no whites at Dungeness, that there was no water and that the Indians had gone fishing. Before I left I. found that he had not represented the facts correctly, and that I should have gone to Dungeness. Garish had a store and he probably thought that he could get some trade out of us. I stayed four nights at this camp and during that time I saw much of the Indians, but as usual there was nothing wrong. There had been no liquor18 sold to the Indians since Spencer, then in the guard house at Steilacoom, had been apprehended.