Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/127

EXCERPTS AND NOTES. 119 Walla Walla, and it certainly is not confined to that locality. When Lewis and Clark made their great journey more than 100 years ago, they found the Clatsop Indians using flax or hemp fishlines, and were told they obtained it by barter with their neighbors, east of the Cascades. "These simple, primitive people were wise in gaining secrets from Mother Earth and utilized for food and use the plants that grew within the confines of their nomadic lives. That they understood, in a crude way, the retting and hackling of flax and hemp is very clearly proven by examining bags made by the Wascos, Klickitats, Warm Springs, Cayuse, Umatillas and other tribes. Any good collection of baskets will have these. Being much on horseback, nothing could be better adapted to their use than these strong, durable, pliable and beautifully-woven bags, or pouches. Their love of color and beauty wove a decoration, on the flax foundation, of finely split corn husk, in its natural tone, or dyed with alder bark or copper. "Either cultivation of vast areas has destroyed much of the native plants, or the degeneracy of their handiwork has made it less arduous to use the Boston man's cheap twine. The delicate blue of the lovely flax 'blushes unseen' in the gray waste of sagebrush, and the sturdy hemp by the creeks is ungarnered. Lucky is the possessor of the finely wrought and enduring pouches. Some day it will grow again, more vigor- ous and abundant, under intelligent cultivation. "Farming methods are too advanced for enlightened men to waste time and labor with unsatisfactory crops if other things make profitable returns, then let us consider them. "HARRIET M'ARTHUR." (NOTE. Flaxseed was brought across the plains to Oregon from Indiana in 1844 by James Johnson and planted near Lafayette, Yamhill County, the following year, and it grew well. The fiber was prepared and woven into towels and other articles for domes- tic use in the winter of 1845-46 by Mrs. Juliet Johnson on a loom made by her husband. John Killin, a pioneer of 1845, raised flax on his farm in Clackamas County, a few miles east of Hubbard, and his wife made towels and bedticks out of the fiber prior to 1860. A towel made by Mrs. Killin is in the possession of the Oregon Historical Society. George H. Himes.)