Chinook Chief Comcomly’s Head
Have you ever wondered how the great Chinook Chief Comcomly of Lewis
and Clark fame, lost his head? Well I never had either, until recently
when I came across a rather incredible story of this infamous event. But
first a little background on Comcomly is needed. Comcomly (Qanqmli) was a
one-eyed chief who has been written about since the end of the 18th
century. He was an important person along the lower Columbia, and in time
came to dominate the Chinook people. He was always friendly with the
whites and helped the Astorians build Fort Astoria when they arrived in
the area in 1811. Washington Irving has Chief Comcomly playing a central
role in his book Astoria. It has been said of Comcomly that even
though he only had one eye, he saw more than most people saw with both
eyes, especially when it benefited him the most. Comcomly’s village was
on Cape Disappointment where Point Adams is located. Madsu or Thunder,
after which he was named, was said to have 300 slaves who went everywhere
with him. However, it is more reasonable to go with the figure of 10 to 12
slaves which is the most often quoted number. He was the dominate figure
along the lower Columbia until his death in 1830 from one of the many
white man’s diseases, small pox or the “cold sick.”
On November 20th, 1805, Clark writes “found maney of the Chin nooks
with capt. Lewis of whome there was 2 Chiefs Com com moly & Chil lar
la wil to whome we gave Medals and to one a flag.” This second chief,
Shelathwell, was a good friend of Comcomly’s and they were often
together. Not much is mentioned in the journals about this one-eyed chief,
as Lewis & Clark didn’t think much of him and there was ”a general
order excluding them (Comcomly and his people) from our encampment; so
that whenever an Indian wished to visit us, he began by calling out No
Chin nook.”
In 1835 a British physician, Meredith Gairdner, was totally bored
as a clerk with the HBC at Fort Vancouver. He decided to make a name for
himself before he died of tuberculosis. Now to make it easier to
understand Mr. Gairdner’s quest to become a noted grave robber, you must
realize that in the 19th century there was a concentrated interest in
craniometry, the measurement of heads. Because the Indian race was
considered to be inferior to the whites, it was thought they must have a
smaller brain capacity, resulting in their barbaric (cultural differences)
way of life. With their flattened heads, the Chinook and Clatsop Indians,
thought Gairdner, were a specimen that would be particularly fascinating
to study. The question begged to be answered: does a flat head mean less
intelligence? The white man (European) could not understand that happiness
did not equate to possessions, and that poverty could not mean
contentment.
William Clark wrote about the Yakamas living on the lower Snake River
“The people appear to live in a State of comparative happiness.”
Fur trader Alexander Ross has this to say about the Chinook. “On a
fine day, it is amusing to see a whole camp or village, both men and
women, here and there in numerous little bands, gambling, jeering, and
laughing at one another, while groups of children keep in constant motion,
either in the water or practicing the bow and arrow , and even the aged
take a lively interest in what is passing, and there appears a degree of
happiness among them which civilized man, wearied with care and anxious
pursuits, perhaps seldom enjoys.” Then Ross continues by describing the
Okanogan Indians he had visited east of the Cascade Mountains. “The
Indian in his natural state is happy, with his trader he is happy, but the
moment he begins to walk the path of the white man his happiness is at an
end. Like a wild animal in a cage, his luster is gone.”
John Townsend writes “Although living in a state of the most abject
poverty, deprived of most of the absolute necessaries of life, and
frequently enduring the pangs of protracted starvation, yet these poor
people appear happy and contented.”
The Chinook burial custom was to put the deceased, along with his most
valued possessions, high in a tree cached in a cedar bark canoe. The theft
and disturbance of these burial canoes was regarded by the Indians as the
most serious of crimes. Gairdner knew that his quest for Comcomly’s head
was a very risky, life threatening situation, but possibly, knowing his
own death was imminent, he realized that this was his last chance at
preserving his own immortality. One night, Gairdner crept
silently into the burial ground where Comcomly had been buried some
five years earlier. The Chinook, wanting to keep their great chiefs burial
site a secret, buried him in a forest to prevent someone like Gairdner
from taking the old chief's prized possessions and the chief himself. How
Gairdner found the site of Chief Comcomly’s grave is not known (at least
to me), but never the less he began to dig up the remains. Picture this:
Gairdner, terrified of getting caught, slowly winds his way into the deep,
dark forest, alone, continually coughing up blood and phlegm, sweating
profusely even on this cold, wet night. He finds what he is looking for
and begins to dig. The wind howls around him, somewhere an owl “hoots”
and Gairdner jumps, expecting at any moment to be shot dead from an Indian
arrow or rifle. The wind blows the loosened dirt he has just dug up into
his face, leaves swirl around him, but he continues to dig. In the night a
wolf calls to his mate, letting Gairdner know that he is not alone. Then,
suddenly, Graidner finds the box that Comcomly was buried in. Slowly he
pries off the lid and there before him he sees the old chief’s skeleton,
hair and skin still on the flattened skull! What a terrifying and defining
moment in Gairdner’s life this must have been. Coughing and spitting up
more blood, Gairdner severs the head from the body and steals away into
the night.
Gairdner boarded a ship for Hawaii and sent the boxed skull of Comcomly
to a friend in England along with this letter of explanation: “By his
ability? cunning? or what you please to call it, he (Comcomly) raised
himself and family to a power and influence which no Indian has since
possessed in the districts of the Columbia below the first rapids one
hundred and fifty miles from the sea. When the phrenologists look at this
frontal development, what will they say to this? If I return to the
Columbia will endeavor to procure you the whole skeleton....” This was
denied to Gairdner, for one year later he died of tuberculosis.
But what ever happened to Chief Comcomly’s head? After arriving in
England, naturalist John Richardson studied the skull and then allowed it
to be displayed for all to see at the Royal Naval Hospital Museum for the
next 117 years. After the skull survived Hitler’s bombing of London, it
was loaned to the Smithsonian in 1956 and finally, in 1972, came home to
rest forever near Comcomly’s native village site at Illwaco, Washington
on Baker Bay.
For further reading about Chief Comcomly see The Chinook Indians:
Traders of the Lower Columbia by Robert H. Ruby & John A.
Brown
Submitted by Don Popejoy