CHAPTER XVI.
LAWS OF THE FISH DAM.
WHEN the fish dam is put in, they have very strict laws governing it. There are nine traps which can be used, one belongs to Lock and his relatives, one to Lock-nee and his relatives, one to Normer and her relatives, and so on down the line. These families come in the morning and each one takes from the trap that which belongs to them, as many salmon as they need, by dipping them out with a net that is made and used for this purpose, and they must not let a single one go to waste, but must care for all they take, or suffer the penalty of the law, which was strictly enforced. After all these get their salmon, then comes the poor class, which take what they can use, some of which they use fresh and the rest they cut up, smoke them lightly then they are dried. When they are dried they are taken down and packed in large baskets with pepperwood leaves between each layer, so as to keep the moths out of them, and then they are put away for the winter. The Indians from up the river as far as they are able to come, can get salmon, and down the river the same. In these traps there get to be a mass of salmon, so full that they make the whole structure of the fish dam quiver and tremble with their weight, by holding the water from passing through the lattice work freely. After all have taken what they want of the salmon, which must be done in the early part of the day, Lock or Lock-nee opens the upper gates of the traps and let the salmon pass on up the river, and at the same time great numbers are passing through the open gap left on the south side of the river. This is done so that the Hoopas on up the Trinity river have a chance at the salmon catching. But theykeep a close watch to see that there are enough left to effect the spawning, by which the supply is kept up for the following year. The whites have often said that the Indians ought not to be allowed to put in the fish dam and thereby obstruct the run of salmon to their spawning ground, and it has been published in the papers that the fish dam ought to be torn out. One year it was published in the county papers that it had been torn out by the wardens, this was a false publication as it was never torn out by Indians or whites. On the other hand after the salmon cannery was established at Reck-woy, which is at the mouth of the river, the whites and the mixed bloods commenced to fish for the cannery; the whites have laws that no one is allowed to let a net extend more than two thirds the distance across the river, and wardens are paid to see that the law is obeyed, yet the whites set one net from one side two thirds across, and then just a few steps up another net from the other side, and which extends two thirds across in distance, and in a distance of sixty yards, there will be from eight to ten nets, making so complete a net-work that hardly a salmon can pass. Will the whites preserve the salmon through all the ages, as the Klamath Indians have done, if they should survive so long? Not unless they enforce the laws more strictly.
While the fish dam stands against the strain of the pressure of the water and salmon, Lock, Kock-nee, Normer, all the girls (wah-clure) and the boy (char-rah) remain and watch things until the water raises and washes the dam out, which often takes two and three months, and then they all go to their homes, glad that the dam is washed away. Lock and Lock-nee, during all this time at the fish dam, use the utmost care and precaution to see that they are all kept in good health, bathing daily and keeping clean, so as not to soil their beautiful buck skin dresses that has taken the most skillful and patient work to make, and the most patient and skillful work to clean if soiled. All this whole ceremony of putting in the fish dam has been carried through so precisely with the teachings that have been handed down to them through many generations as God’s laws, that a white man, to see it and understand the meaning of the different parts, and then not have a decent respect for it and carry himself accordingly, has not been born of a God-loving mother. The writer has helped as a Normer in putting in the fish damand knows the meaning of every move that is made.
These sacred laws were given to us by the white race of people that inhabited this country when my people first came to this land. The Wa-gas in ancient times first put in the fish dam some twenty-four miles farther down the river, at a place called by the Indians as Tu-rep, which is a flat bar containing some eighty or a hundred acres, and is located on the south side of the river, the north side which is steep, being nearly a bluff, the same as it is at Cap-pell. The Wa-gas changed it from Tu-rep to Cap-pell, saying that Tu-rep was to close to the ocean. At that time the river went into the sea at Ah-man, six miles north of the present mouth of the river at Reck-woy. Cap-pell gave more of a chance for the people to get to the fish dam, and therefore benefit a greater number of them. They taught my people to put in the fish dam, and gave them all the secret and sacred teachings of the laws governing it. This was done before the great deluge that covered the world, and drowned all but the two Talth and their wives, who went through it all. The present site where the fish dam is built has been there for long ages, and the laws governing the fish dam are very ancient, and are now lost forever. They may put it in, but not by the sacred laws and regulations that was used so many generations, as they are lost, and no one can get them.