hair with. Some would make mauls and wedges for future use and others
were making bows and arrows, while a few would give directions to
the others. The women went about their work such as pounding acorns,
soaking the flour and preparing it to make bread or mush, some cutting
fresh salmon and preparing it for cooking, others go out after wood for
their part of the living and cooking quarters and others made baskets
for cooking purposes. Some made hats and baskets they used for storing
away food, while others made fine dresses for wearing and anything that
was to be done, but few of them being idle, unless it was some of the
old women that were very wealthy. The Klamath people have the same kind
of tobacco that grows over a large part of the United States, which,
when it grows up has small leaves. They prepare the ground and plant
the seed but will not use any they find growing out of cultivation.
They are very careful in gathering the plant and cure it by the fire,
or in the hot sun, then pulverize it very fine, then put it up in tight
baskets for use. It becomes very strong and often makes the oldest
smokers sick, which they pass over lightly, saying that it is a good
quality of tobacco. The women doctors all smoke but the other women
never do. Their pipes are made out of yew wood with a soap-stone for a
bowl, the wood is a straight piece and is from three to six inches long
and is larger at the bowl end where it joins on to the stone, it is
notched in so it sets the bowl on the wood, making the pipe straight.
They hold the pipe upwards if sitting or standing and it is only when
lying on the back that one seems to enjoy the smoke with perfect ease,
however they can handle the pipe to take a smoke in any position. Some
of these pipes are small, not holding any more than a thimble-full of
tobacco. My people never let the tobacco habit get the better of them
as they can go all day without smoking or quit smoking for several days
at a time and never complain in the least. The men, after supper, on
going into the sweat-house take their pipes and smoke and some take two
or three smokes before they go to bed. The old women doctors will smoke
through the day and always take a smoke before lying down to sleep. All
inhale the smoke, letting it pass out of the lungs through the nose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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