Alexander Henry, jun., thus describes a canoe of the Clatsop people on the Lower Columbia (Pacific coast, opposite Vancouver Island):  “This was a war canoe—­the first of the kind I had seen.  She was about thirty-six feet long and wide in proportion, the stem rising upright about six feet, on top of which was a figure of some imaginary monster of uncouth sculpture, having the head of a carnivorous animal with large erect ears but no body, clinging by arms and legs to the upper end of the canoe, and grinning horribly.  The ears were painted green, the other parts red and black.  The stern also rose about five feet in height, but had no figure carved on it.  On each side of both stem and stern broad strips of wood rose about four feet, having holes cut in them to shoot arrows through.  She had a high sprit-sail made of handkerchiefs and pieces of gunny-cloth or jute, forming irregular stripes, I am told these Indians commonly have pieces of squared timber, not unlike a three-inch plank, high and broad, perforated to shoot arrows through; this is fixed on the bow of the war canoe to serve as bulwarks in battle.”

Canoe voyages were mainly embarked on for trading; but in all probability before the coming of the European there was little trading done between one tribe and another, except in the region west of the Rocky Mountains, in which—­especially to the north—­the Amerindians were so different in their habits and customs from those dwelling east of the mountains as to suggest that they must very occasionally have been in touch with some world outside America, such as Hawaii, Kamschatka, or Japan.  In these Pacific coastlands they used a white seashell as a currency and a medium of exchange.  So also did the Iroquois people and the southern Algonkin tribes, in the form of “wampum”.  The principal articles of barter were skins of fur animals, porcupine quills, dogs, slaves, and women.

First Hunting (to supply food), then Trading in the products of the chase, and lastly War were the main subjects which occupied the Amerindian’s thoughts before the middle of the nineteenth century.  They usually went to war to turn other tribes out of profitable hunting grounds or productive fisheries; or because they wanted slaves or more wives; or because a chief or a medicine man had a dream; or because some other notability felt he had given way too much to tears over some personal or public sorrow, and must show his manliness by killing the people of another tribe.  In their wars they knew no mercy when their blood was up, and frequently perpetrated frightful cruelties for the sheer pleasure of seeing human suffering.  Yet these devilish moods would alternate with fits of sentimentality.  A man or a woman would suddenly take a war prisoner, or a person who was wounded or half-tortured to death, under their protection, and a short time afterwards the whole war party would be greeting this rescued wretch (usually a man—­they were far more pitiless towards women) as brother, son, or friend, and even become quite maudlin over a scratch or a bruise; whereas an hour or so before they were on the point of disembowelling, or of driving splinters up the nails and setting them on fire.  In warfare they often gave way to cannibalism.