Oregon, and under the name of Molallas lived along the Molalla River. Over the high desert country of the southeastern region roamed the nomadic Snake and Paiute tribes of the Shoshoneans.
Intercourse between the various tribes and later with the white men made it necessary for the Indians to supplement their many dialects with a common language. Among merchant Indians at the mouth of the Columbia there grew up a pidgin language based upon Chinook, and later intermixed with French and English words. This language became known as Chinook jargon, and was widely used by all tribes, as well as by thf early settlers, traders, and missionaries. When the Indians were removed to reservations, many who had not adopted the jargon were obliged to learn it in order to speak with their neighbors.
The local customs of Indians in the western valleys and coast region differed greatly from those of the interior. The western tribes, because of the density of the forests, usually traveled by canoe. They subsisted chiefly on salmon, roots, and berries. The opening of the salmon season in June was attended with great formality. The first salmon caught was sacred, and was eaten ceremonially in a long-established ritual intended to propitiate the salmon and insure future runs. Before the arrival of the whites, the coastal Indians were scantily clad. The men went entirely naked in summer, and the women wore a flimsy skirt of cedar bark fiber or grasses. In winter, the men wore a robe made of skins reaching to the middle of the thigh; the women added to their costume a similar robe reaching to the waist; or either might wear a fiber cape.
Among the Chi nooks, distinctions of rank extended to burial. The bodies of slaves were tossed into the river or gotten rid of in some other way, while the free born were carefully prepared for box, vault, tree, or canoe burial, and were honored with rituals of mourning which included periods of wailing during a certain length of time, cutting the hair, and refraining from mentioning the name of the dead. Entombment varied according to the tribe and locality. Columbia River Indians utilized Memaloose Island near The Dalles, Coffin Rock near the mouth of the Cowlitz River, and other islands and promontories, with ceremonial dressing and storing of bones. The coast Indians used canoes supported on decorated scaffolds, and placed the head toward the west so that the departed spirit might more easily find its way to Memaloose lllahee, or the land of the dead, which lay somewhere toward the setting sun. Valley Indians often placed their dead, wrapped in skins, in the forks of trees.
