Chapter VI: Introduction (4)

Among these may be mentioned the Apache medicine-man Nakai′-doklĭ′ni, who attracted some attention for a time in southern Arizona in 1881. (_Bourke, 1._) In the early part of this year he began to advertise his supernatural powers, claiming to be able to raise the dead and commune with spirits, and predicting that the whites would soon be driven from the land. He taught his followers a new and peculiar dance, in which the performers were ranged like the spokes of a wheel, all facing inward, while he, standing in the center, sprinkled them with the sacred _hoddentin_[3] as they circled around him.

In June of 1881 he announced to his people, the White Mountain band of Apache on San Carlos reservation, that on condition of receiving a sufficient number of horses and blankets for his trouble he would bring back from the dead two chiefs who had been killed a few months before. The proposition naturally aroused great excitement among the Indians. Eager to have once more with them their beloved chiefs, they willingly produced the required ponies, and when remonstrated with by the agent, replied that they would wait until the specified time for the fulfillment of the prediction, when, if the dead chiefs failed to materialize, they would demand the restoration of the property. (_Comr., 3._)

Accordingly Nakai′-doklĭ′ni began his prayers and ceremonies, and the dance was kept up regularly at his camp on Cibicu creek until August, when it was reported to Colonel E. A. Carr; commanding at Fort Apache, that the medicine-man had announced that the dead chiefs refused to return because of the presence of the whites, but that when the whites left, the dead would return, and that the whites would be out of the country when the corn was ripe.

As matters seemed to be getting serious, the agent now called on the commanding officer to “arrest or kill him, or both.” The officer prepared to make the arrest when Nakai′-doklĭ′ni should come down to the post to lead the dance which had been arranged to take place in a few days. The prophet failed to put in an appearance, however, and messengers were sent to his camp to ask him to come to the fort the next Sunday. To this message he returned an evasive reply, whereon Colonel Carr, with 85 white troops and 23 Apache scouts, started for his camp in Cibicu canyon to put him under arrest. They arrived at the village on August 30. Nakai′-doklĭ′ni submitted quietly to arrest, but as the troops were making camp for the night, their own scouts, joined by others of the Indians, opened fire on them. A sharp skirmish ensued, in which several soldiers were killed or wounded, but the Indians were repulsed with considerable loss, including the prophet himself, who was killed at the first fire. The result was another in the long series of Apache outbreaks. (_Comr., 4; Sec. War, 1; A. G. O., 2._)

THE POTAWATOMI PROPHET

In 1883 a new religion was introduced among the Potawatomi and Kickapoo, of the Pottawotomie and Great Nemaha agency in northeastern Kansas, by visiting Potawatomi, Winnebago, and Ojibwa from Wisconsin. As usual, the ritual part consists chiefly of a ceremonial dance. In doctrine it teaches the same code of morality enjoined by the ten commandments, and especially prohibits liquor drinking, gambling, and horse racing, for which, reason the agents generally have not seen fit to interfere with it, and in some cases have rather encouraged it as a civilizing influence among that portion of the tribes not yet enrolled in Christian denominations. The movement is entirely distinct from the Ghost dance, and may perhaps be a revival of the system preached by Känakûk more than fifty years before. In 1891 the majority of the two tribes, numbering in all 749, were reported as adherents of the doctrine. (_Comr., 5, 6, 7; also reports from the same agency for 1887 and 1889._) A large number of the Sauk and Fox, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi of Oklahoma are also believers in the religion.

In 1885 Agent Patrick says on this subject:

These Indians are chaste, cleanly, and industrious, and would be
a valuable acquisition to the Prairie band if it were not for
their intense devotion to a religious dance started among the
northern Indians some years since. This dance was introduced to the
Prairie band about two years ago by the Absentee Pottawatomies and
Winnebagoes, and has spread throughout the tribes in the agency.
They seem to have adopted the religion as a means of expressing
their belief in the justice and mercy of the Great Spirit and of
their devotion to him, and are so earnest in their convictions
as to its affording them eternal happiness that I have thought
it impolitic so far to interfere with it any further than to
advise as few meetings as possible and to discountenance it in my
intercourse with the individuals practicing the religion. It is not
an unmixed evil, as under its teaching drunkenness and gambling
have been reduced 75 per cent, and a departure from virtue on the
part of its members meets with the severest condemnation. As some
tenets of revealed religion are embraced in its doctrines, I do not
consider it a backward step for the Indians who have not heretofore
professed belief in any Christian religion, and believe its worst
features are summed up in the loss of time it occasions and the
fanatical train of thought involved in the constant contemplation
of the subject. (_Comr., 6._)

CHEEZ-TAH-PAEZH THE SWORD-BEARER

It is probable that something of the messiah idea entered into the promises held out to his followers by Sword-bearer, a Crow medicine-man, in Montana in 1887. The official records are silent on this point, although it is definitely stated that he asserted his own invulnerability, and that his claims in this respect were implicitly believed by his people. Cheez-tah-paezh, literally “Wraps his tail” (also written Cheeschapahdisch, Cheschopah, Chese-cha-pahdish, and Chese-Topah), was without any special prominence in his tribe until the summer of 1887, when, in company with several other young men of the Crows, he participated in the sun dance of the Cheyenne, and showed such fortitude in enduring the dreadful torture that he was presented by the Cheyenne with a medicine saber painted red, in virtue of which he took the title of Sword-bearer. This naturally brought him into notice at home, and he soon aspired to become a chief and medicine-man. Among other things, he asserted that no bullet or weapon had power to harm him. What other claims he made are not known, but his words produced such an impression, it is said, that for a time every full-blood and half-blood among the Crows believed in him.

In a few months he had become one of the most influential leaders in the tribe, when, taking advantage of some dissatisfaction toward the agent, he headed a demonstration against the agency on September 30. Troops under General Ruger were called on to arrest him and the others concerned, and in attempting to do this, on November 5, 1887, a skirmish ensued in which Sword-bearer was killed. His death convinced his followers of the falsehood of his pretensions, and the tribe, which hitherto had always been loyal to the government, soon resumed its friendly attitude. (_Sec. War, 2; A. G. O., 3; additional details from a personal letter by Colonel Simon Snyder, Fifteenth infantry._)

The action is graphically described by Roosevelt on the authority of one of the officers engaged. When the troops arrived, they found the Crow warriors awaiting them on a hill, mounted on their war ponies and in full paint and buckskin. In this author’s words—

The Crows on the hilltop showed a sullen and threatening front,
and the troops advanced slowly toward them, and then halted for a
parley. Meanwhile a mass of black thunder clouds gathering on the
horizon threatened one of those cloudbursts of extreme severity and
suddenness so characteristic of the plains country. While still
trying to make arrangements for a parley, a horseman started out of
the Crow ranks and galloped headlong down toward the troops. It was
the medicine chief Sword-bearer. He was painted and in his battle
dress, wearing his war bonnet of floating, trailing eagle feathers,
and with the plumes of the same bird braided in the mane and tail
of his fiery little horse. On he came at a gallop almost up to the
troops, and then began to circle around them, calling and singing,
and throwing his red sword into the air, catching it by the hilt
as it fell. Twice he rode completely around the troops, who stood
in uncertainty, not knowing what to make of his performance, and
expressly forbidden to shoot at him. Then, paying no further heed
to them, he rode back toward the Crows. It appears that he had
told the latter that he would ride twice around the hostile force,
and by his incantations would call down rain from heaven, which
would make the hearts of the white men like water, so that they
would go back to their homes. Sure enough, while the arrangements
for the parley were still going forward, down came the cloudburst,
drenching the command, and making the ground on the hills in front
nearly impassable; and before it dried a courier arrived with
orders to the troops to go back to camp.

This fulfillment of Sword-bearer’s prophecy of course raised his
reputation to the zenith, and the young men of the tribe prepared
for war, while the older chiefs, who more fully realized the power
of the whites, still hung back. When the troops next appeared, they
came upon the entire Crow force, the women and children with their
tepees being off to one side beyond a little stream, while almost
all the warriors of the tribe were gathered in front. Sword-bearer
started to repeat his former ride, to the intense irritation of the
soldiers. Luckily, however, this time some of his young men could
not be restrained. They, too, began to ride near the troops, and
one of them was unable to refrain from firing on Captain Edwards’s
troop, which was in the van. This gave the soldiers their chance.
They instantly responded with a volley, and Edwards’s troop
charged. The fight lasted only a minute or two, for Sword-bearer
was struck by a bullet and fell; and as he had boasted himself
invulnerable and promised that his warriors should be invulnerable
also if they would follow him, the hearts of the latter became as
water, and they broke in every direction. (_Roosevelt, 1._)

+Chapter VI+

THE SMOHALLA RELIGION OF THE COLUMBIA REGION

SMOHALLA

I have only one heart. Although you say, Go to another country, my
heart is not that way. I do not want money for my land. I am here,
and here is where I am going to be. I will not part with lands, and
if you come again I will say the same thing. I will not part with
my lands.—_Umatilla Chief._

We have never made any trade. The earth is part of my body, and I
never gave up the earth. So long as the earth keeps me I want to be
let alone.—_Toohulhulsote._

Their only troubles arise from the attempts of white men to
encroach upon the reservations. I verily believe that were the
snow-crowned summits of Mount Rainier set apart as an Indian
reservation, white men would immediately commence jumping
them.—_Superintendent Ross._

About the time that the Paiute were preparing for the millennial dawn, we begin to hear of a “dreamer prophet” on the Columbia, called Smohalla, who was becoming a thorn in the flesh of the Indian agents in that quarter, and was reported to be organizing among the Indians a new religion which taught the destruction of the whites and resistance to the government, and made moral virtues of all the crimes in the catalog. One agent, in disregard of grammar if not of veracity, gravely reported that “the main object is to allow a plurality of wives, immunity from punishment for lawbreaking, and allowance of all the vices—especially drinking and gambling—are chief virtues in the believers of this religion.” (_Comr., 8._)

This was bad enough, but worse was behind it. It appeared that Smohalla and his followers, numbering perhaps about 2,000 Indians of various tribes along the Columbia in eastern Washington and Oregon, had never made treaties giving up any of their lands, and consequently claimed the right to take salmon in the streams and dig kamas in the prairies of their ancestral country undisturbed and unmolested, and stoutly objected to going on any of the neighboring reservations at Yakima, Umatilla, or Warmspring. There is no doubt that justice and common sense were on the side of the Indians, for by the reports of the agents themselves it is shown that the dwellers on the reservations were generally neglected, poor, and miserable, and subjected to constant encroachments by the whites in spite of treaties and treaty lines, while at the same time that agents and superintendents were invoking the aid of the military to compel Smohalla’s followers to go on a reservation these same men were moving heaven and earth to force the Indians already on a reservation to give up their treaty rights and remove to another and less valuable location—to begin life anew under the fostering care of the government until such time as the white man should want them to move on again.

These matters are treated at length in the annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with the accompanying reports of superintendents and agents in charge of the reservations concerned, from 1870 to 1875. With regard to the Umatilla reservation, to which most strenuous efforts were made to remove the “renegades,” as they were called, Agent Boyle reports in 1870 (_Comr., 9_) that the Indians are “dispirited ... in consequence of the oft-repeated theme that their farms are to be taken from them and given to the white settlers.” He continues, “It is hardly to be expected that the Indians can retain this reservation much longer unless the strong arm of the government protects them. Daily I am called upon to notify the white settlers that they are encroaching upon the Indian lands.” He advises their removal to a permanent reservation, “knowing as I do that they must go sooner or later.” Again, “The agency has been established for the space of ten years, and I regret exceedingly that I have been most completely disappointed with what I see about me.” In discussing the removal of the Indians to a new reservation, Superintendent Meacham says of a considerable portion of them that it “would suit them better to be turned loose to look out for themselves.” (_Comr., 10._)

In 1873 Agent Cornoyer reported that the Indians numbered 837, by the census of 1870, which he believes was as correct as could then be taken, but “this number I think is now too high.” He continues:

Of the appropriation of $4,000 per annum for beneficial objects,
not one single dollar of that fund has been turned over to me since
September, 1871; and of the appropriation for incidental expenses
of $40,000 per annum for the Indian service in this state, only
$200 of that appropriation has been turned over to me during the
same period of two years.... I would also beg leave to call your
attention to that portion of my last annual report wherein I called
the attention of the Department to the unfulfilled stipulations of
the treaty of June 9, 1855, with these Indians. (_Comr., 11._)

Commissioner Brunot, in 1871, stated that the estimated number of Indians coming under the provisions of the treaty at the time it was made in 1855 was 3,500, and “by the census taken in 1870 the number was 1,622”—a decrease of nearly one-half in fifteen years. Of these only about half were on the reservation, the rest being on Columbia river, “never having partaken of the benefits of the treaty.” On the next page he tells us what some of these benefits are: “Maladministration of agents, and the misapplication of funds, the failure of the government to perform the promises of the treaty, and the fact that the Indians have been constantly agitated by assertions that the government intended their removal, and that their removal was urged for several years in succession in the reports of a former agent, thus taking away from them all incentives to improve their lands.” (_Comr., 12._)

In 1871 a commission was sent to Umatilla and other reservations, which gave the Indians a chance to speak for themselves. The Cayuse chief, described as a Catholic Indian, in dress, personal appearance, and bearing superior to the average American farmer, said:

This reservation is marked out for us. We see it with our eyes
and our hearts. We all hold it with our bodies and our souls.
Right out here are my father and mother, and brothers and sisters
and children, all buried. I am guarding their graves. My friend,
this reservation, this small piece of land, we look upon it as
our mother, as if she were raising us. You come to ask me for my
land. It is like as if we who are Indians were to be sent away and
get lost.... What is the reason you white men who live near the
reservation like my land and want to get it? You must not think so.
My friends, you must not talk too strong about getting my land. I
like my land and will not let it go.

The Wallawalla chief said:

I have tied all the reservation in my heart and it can not be
loosened. It is dear as our bodies to us.

The Umatilla chief said:

Our red people were brought up here.... When my father and mother
died, I was left here. They gave me rules and gave me their land
to live upon. They left me to take care of them after they were
buried. I was to watch over their graves. I do not wish to part
with my land. I have felt tired working on my land, so tired
that the sweat dropped off me on the ground. Where is all that
Governor Stevens or General Palmer said [i. e., that it was to be a
reservation for the Indians forever]? I am very fond of this land
that is marked out for me.... Should I take only a small piece of
ground and a white man sit down beside me, I fear there would be
trouble all the time.

An old man said:

I am getting old now, and I want to die where my father and mother
and children have died. I do not wish to leave this land and go
off to some other land.... I see where I have sweat and worked in
trying to get food. I love my church, my mills, my farm, the graves
of my parents and children. I do not wish to leave my land. That is
all my heart, and I show it to you.

A young chief said:

I have only one heart, one tongue. Although you say, Go to another
country, my heart is not that way. I do not wish for any money for
my land. I am here, and here is where I am going to be.... I will
not part with lands, and if you come again I will say the same
thing. I will not part with my lands.

The commissioner who was conducting the negotiations, after enumerating the promises made to the Indians in return for the lands which they had surrendered under the original treaty of 1855, tells how some of these promises have been fulfilled:

... A miserably inadequate supply of worn-out agricultural
implements. A group of eight or ten dilapidated shanties used for
the agency buildings. The physician promised has never resided
upon the reservation, but lives and practices his profession at
Pendleton. The hospital promised (fifteen years ago) has not yet
been erected.

Of their ever-living grievance Colonel Ross, superintendent of the Washington agencies, says:

Their only troubles arise from the attempts of white men to
encroach upon the reservations. A mania prevails among a certain
class of citizens in this direction. I verily believe that were
the snow-crowned summits of Mount Rainier set apart as an Indian
reservation, white men would immediately commence jumping them.
(_Comr., 14._)

JOSEPH AND THE NEZ PERCÉ WAR

We first hear officially of Smohalla and his people from A. B. Meacham, superintendent of Indian affairs in Oregon, who states, in September, 1870, that—

... One serious drawback [to the adoption of the white man’s road]
is the existence among the Indians of Oregon of a peculiar religion
called Smokeller or Dreamers, the chief doctrine of which is that
the red man is again to rule the country, and this sometimes leads
to rebellion against lawful authority.

A few pages farther on we learn the nature of this rebellion:

The next largest band (not on a reservation) is Smokeller’s, at
Priest rapids, Washington territory. They also refused to obey my
order to come in, made to them during the month of February last,
of which full report was made. I would also recommend that they be
removed to Umatilla by the military. (_Comr., 15._)

Three months before this report Congress had passed a bill appointing commissioners to negotiate with the tribes of Umatilla reservation “to ascertain upon what terms they would be willing to sell their lands and remove elsewhere,” and Meacham himself was the principal member of this commission. (_Comr., 15._)

In 1872 Smohalla’s followers along the Columbia were reported to number 2,000, and his apostles were represented as constantly traveling from one reservation to another to win over new converts to his teachings. Repeated efforts had been made to induce them to go on the reservations in eastern Oregon and Washington, but without success. We are told now that—

They have a new and peculiar religion, by the doctrines of which
they are taught that a new god is coming to their rescue; that all
the Indians who have died heretofore, and who shall die hereafter,
are to be resurrected; that as they will then be very numerous and
powerful, they will be able to conquer the whites, recover their
lands, and live as free and unrestrained as their fathers lived
in olden times. Their model of a man is an Indian. They aspire to
be Indians and nothing else.... It is thought by those who know
them best that they can not be made to go upon their reservations
without at least being intimidated by the presence of a military
force. (_Comr., 17._)

We hear but little more of Smohalla and his doctrines for several years, until attention was again attracted to Indian affairs in the northwest by the growing dissatisfaction which culminated in the Nez Percé war of 1877. The Nez Percés, especially those who acknowledged the leadership of Chief Joseph, were largely under the influence of the Dreamer prophets, and there was reason to believe that an uprising inaugurated by so prominent a tribe would involve all the smaller tribes in sympathy with the general Indian belief. As soon therefore as it became evident that matters were approaching a crisis, a commission, of which General O. O. Howard was chief, was appointed to make some peaceable arrangement with the so-called “renegades” on the upper Columbia. The commissioners met Smohalla and his principal men at Wallula, Washington territory, on April 23, 1877, and as a result of the council then held these non-treaty tribes, although insisting as strongly as ever on their right to live undisturbed in their own country, yet refrained from taking part in the war which broke out a few weeks later.

It is foreign to our purpose to recount the history of the Nez Percé war of 1877. As is generally the case with Indian wars, it originated in the unauthorized intrusion of lawless whites on lands which the Indians claimed as theirs by virtue of occupancy from time immemorial. The Nez Percés, whom all authorities agree in representing as a superior tribe of Indians, originally inhabited the valleys of Clearwater and Salmon rivers in Idaho, with the country extending west of Snake river into Washington and Oregon as far as the Blue mountains. They are first officially noticed in the report of the Indian Commissioner for 1843, where they are described as “noble, industrious, sensible,” and well disposed toward the whites, while “though brave as Cæsar, the whites have nothing to dread at their hands in case of their dealing out to them what they conceive to be right and equitable.” (_Comr., 18._) It being deemed advisable to bring them into more direct relations with the United States, the agent who made the report called the chiefs together in this year and “assured them of the kind intentions of our government, and of the sad consequences that would ensue to any white man, from this time, who should invade their rights.” (_Comr., 19._) On the strength of these fair promises a portion of the tribe, in 1855, entered into a treaty by which they ceded a large part of their territory, and were guaranteed possession of the rest. In 1860, however, gold was discovered in the country, and the usual result followed. “In defiance of law, and despite the protestations of the Indian agent, a townsite was laid off in October, 1861, on the reservation, and Lewiston, with a population of 1,200, sprung into existence.” (_Comr., 20._) A new treaty was then made in 1863, by which the intruders were secured in possession of what they had thus seized, and the Nez Percés were restricted within much narrower limits. By this treaty the Wallowa valley, in northeastern Oregon, the ancestral home of that part of the tribe under the leadership of Chief Joseph, was taken from the Indians. This portion of the tribe, however, had refused to have part in the negotiations, and “Chief Joseph and his band, utterly ignoring the treaty of 1863, continued to claim the Wallowa valley, where he was tacitly permitted to roam without restraint, until the encroachments of white settlers induced the government to take some definite action respecting this band of non-treaty Nez Percés.” (_Comr., 21._) At this time the tribe numbered about 2,800, of whom about 500 acknowledged Joseph as their chief.

CHIEF JOSEPH]

Collisions between the whites and Indians in the valley became more frequent, and one of Joseph’s band had been killed, when a commission was appointed in 1876 to induce the Indians to give up the Wallowa valley and remove to Lapwai reservation in Idaho. Joseph still refusing to remove, the matter was turned over to General Howard. On May 3, 1877, he held the first council with Joseph and his followers at Fort Lapwai. Their ceremonial approach, which was probably in accord with the ritual teachings of the Dreamer religion, is thus described by the general:

A long rank of men, followed by women and children, with
faces painted, the red paint extending back into the partings
of the hair—the men’s hair braided and tied up with showy
strings—ornamented in dress, in hats, in blankets with variegated
colors, in leggings of buckskin and moccasins beaded and plain;
women with bright shawls or blankets, and skirts to the ankle and
top moccasins. All were mounted on Indian ponies as various in
color as the dress of the riders. These picturesque people, after
keeping us waiting long enough for effect, came in sight from up
the valley from the direction of their temporary camp just above
the company gardens. They drew near to the hollow square of the
post and in front of the small company to be interviewed. Then
they struck up their song. They were not armed except with a few
tomahawk pipes that could be smoked with the peaceful tobacco or
penetrate the skull bone of an enemy, at the will of the holder.
Yet somehow this wild sound produced a strange effect. It made one
feel glad that there were but fifty of them, and not five hundred.
It was shrill and searching; sad, like a wail, and yet defiant in
its close. The Indians swept around outside the fence and made
the entire circuit, still keeping up the song as they rode. The
buildings broke the refrain into irregular bubblings of sound until
the ceremony was completed. (_Howard, 1._)

At this conference Toohulhulsote, the principal Dreamer priest of Joseph’s band, acted as spokesman for the Indians, and insisted, according to the Smohalla doctrine, that the earth was his mother, that she should not be disturbed by hoe or plow, that men should subsist by the spontaneous productions of nature, and that the sovereignty of the earth could not be sold or given away. Continuing, he asserted, “We never have made any trade. Part of the Indians gave up their land. I never did. The earth is part of my body, and I never gave up the earth. So long as the earth keeps me I want to be left alone.” General Howard finally ordered him under arrest, after which the Indians at last agreed to go on a reservation by June 14. (_Howard, 2._) A few days later, councils were held with Smohalla and his people, and with Moses, another noted “renegade” chief with a considerable following farther up the Columbia. Both chiefs, representing at least 500 warriors, disclaimed any hostile intentions and agreed to go on reservations. Smohalla said, “Your law is my law. I say to you, yes. I will be on a reservation by September.” (_Howard, 3._) Parties under Joseph and other leading chiefs then went out to select suitable locations for reservations, Joseph and his band deciding in favor of Lapwai valley. Everything was moving smoothly toward a speedy and peaceful settlement of all difficulties, and the commission had already reported the successful accomplishment of the work, when a single act of lawless violence undid the labor of weeks and precipitated a bloody war. (_Comr., 22._)

One of Joseph’s band had been murdered by whites some time before, but the Indians had remained quiet. (_Comr., 23._) Now, while the Nez Percés were gathering up their stock to remove to the reservation selected, a band of white robbers attacked them, ran off the cattle, and killed one of the party in charge. Joseph could no longer restrain his warriors, and on June 13, 1877—one day before the date that had been appointed for going on the reservation—the enraged Nez Percés attacked the neighboring settlement on White Bird creek, Idaho, and killed 21 persons.[4] The war was begun. The troops under Howard were ordered out. The first fight occurred on June 17 at Hangman’s creek and resulted in the loss of 34 soldiers. Then came another on July 4 with a loss of 13 more. Then on July 12 another encounter by troops under General Howard himself, in which 11 soldiers were killed and 26 wounded. (_Comr., 24._)

Then began one of the most remarkable exhibitions of generalship in the history of our Indian wars, a retreat worthy to be remembered with that of the storied ten thousand. With hardly a hundred warriors, and impeded by more than 350 helpless women and children—with General Howard behind, with Colonel (General) Miles in front, and with Colonel Sturgis and the Crow scouts coming down upon his flank—Chief Joseph led his little band up the Clearwater and across the mountains into Montana, turning at Big Hole pass long enough to beat back his pursuers with a loss of 60 men; then on by devious mountain trails southeast into Yellowstone park, where he again turned on Howard and drove him back with additional loss of men and horses; then out of Wyoming and north into Montana again, hoping to find safety on Canadian soil, until intercepted in the neighborhood of the Yellowstone by Colonel Sturgis in front with fresh troops and a detachment of Crow scouts, with whom they sustained two more encounters, this time with heavy loss of men and horses to themselves; then again eluding their pursuers, this handful of starving and worn-out warriors, now reduced to scarcely fifty able men, carrying their wounded and their helpless families, crossed the Missouri and entered the Bearpaw mountains. But new enemies were on their trail, and at last, when within 50 miles of the land of refuge, Miles, with a fresh army, cut off their retreat by a decisive blow, capturing more than half their horses, killing a number of the band, including Joseph’s brother and the noted chief Looking Glass, and wounding 40 others. (_Comr., 25._)

Forced either to surrender or to abandon the helpless wounded, the women, and children, Joseph chose to surrender to Colonel Miles, on October 5, 1877, after a masterly retreat of more than a thousand miles. He claimed that this was “a conditional surrender, with a distinct promise that he should go back to Idaho in the spring.” (_Comr., 26._) The statement of General Howard’s aid-de-camp is explicit on this point:

It was promised Joseph that he would be taken to Tongue river
and kept there till spring, and then be returned to Idaho.
General Sheridan, ignoring the promises made on the battlefield,
ostensibly on account of the difficulty of getting supplies there
from Fort Buford, ordered the hostiles to Leavenworth, ... but
different treatment was promised them when they held rifles in
their hands. (_Sutherland, 1._)

Seven years passed before the promise was kept, and in the meantime the band had been reduced by disease and death in Indian Territory from about 450 to about 280.

This strong testimony to the high character of Joseph, and his people and the justice of their cause comes from the commissioner at the head of Indian affairs during and immediately after the outbreak:

I traveled with him in Kansas and the Indian Territory for nearly
a week and found him to be one of the most gentlemanly and
well-behaved Indians that I ever met. He is bright and intelligent,
and is anxious for the welfare of his people.... The Nez Percés
are very much superior to the Osages and Pawnees in the Indian
Territory; they are even brighter than the Poncas, and care should
be taken to place them where they will thrive.... It will be borne
in mind that Joseph has never made a treaty with the United States,
and that he has never surrendered to the government the lands he
claimed to own in Idaho.... I had occasion in my last annual report
to say that “Joseph and his followers have shown themselves to
be brave men and skilled soldiers, who, with one exception, have
observed the rules of civilized warfare, and have not mutilated
their dead enemies.” These Indians were encroached upon by white
settlers on soil they believed to be their own, and when these
encroachments became intolerable they were compelled, in their own
estimation, to take up arms. (_Comr., 27a._)

In all our sad Indian history there is nothing to exceed in pathetic eloquence the surrender speech of the Nez Percé chief:

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is
dead. Toohulhulsote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the
young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men is dead. It
is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing
to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and
have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps
freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and
see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the
dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad.
From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. (_Sec.
War, 3._)

+Chapter VII+

SMOHALLA AND HIS DOCTRINE

My young men shall never work. Men who work can not dream, and
wisdom comes to us in dreams.... You ask me to plow the ground.
Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s bosom? You ask me to dig
for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? You ask me to
cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men. But
how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?—_Smohalla._

We hear little of Smohalla for several years after the Nez Percé war until the opening of the Northern Pacific railroad in 1883 once more brought to a focus the land grievances of the Indians in that section. Along Yakima valley the railroad “was located through Indian fields and orchards, with little respect for individual rights,” while the host of prospective settlers who at once swarmed into the country showed the usual white man’s consideration for the native proprietors. Some of the Indians, breaking away from their old traditions in order to obtain permanent homes before everything should be taken up by the whites, had gone out and selected homesteads under the law, and the agent was now using the Indian police to compel them to return to the reservation, “and the singular anomaly was presented of the United States Indian agent on the one hand applying for troops to drive the Indians from their homestead settlements to the reservation a hundred miles away, and on the other the Indians telegraphing to the military authorities to send troops to protect them from the Indian police.” (_MacMurray MS._) In addition to their land troubles the Yakima and their confederated tribes, among whom were many progressive and even prosperous Indians, were restive under constant interference with their religious (Smohalla) ceremonies, to which a large proportion adhered.

In order to learn the nature of the dissatisfaction of the Indians, and if possible to remove the cause, General Miles, then commanding the military department of the Columbia, sent Major J. W. MacMurray to the scene of the disturbance in June, 1884. He spent about a year in the work, visiting the various villages of the upper Columbia, especially Pʿnä at Priest rapids, where he met Smohalla, the high priest of the Dreamer theology, and his report on the subject is invaluable.

Smohalla is the chief of the Wa′napûm, a small tribe in Washington, numbering probably less than 200 souls, commonly known rather indefinitely as “Columbia River Indians,” and roaming along both banks of the Columbia from the neighborhood of Priest rapids down to the entrance of Snake river. They are of Shahaptian stock and closely akin to the Yakima and Nez Percés, and have never made a treaty with the government. Among his own people and his disciples in the neighboring tribes he is known as Shmóqûla, “The Preacher.”[5] He is also frequently called Yu′yunipĭ′tqana, “The Shouting Mountain,” from a belief among his followers that a part of his revelation came to him from a mountain which became instinct with life and spoke into his soul while he lay dreaming upon it. Still another name by which he is sometimes known is Waip-shwa, or “Rock Carrier,” the reason for which does not appear. The name which belonged to him in youth, before assuming his priestly function, is now forgotten. For more than forty years he has resided at the Wanapûm village of Pʿnä on the west bank of the Columbia, at the foot of Priest rapids, in what is now Yakima county, Washington. The name Pʿnä signifies “a fish weir,” this point being a great rendezvous for the neighboring tribes during the salmon-fishing season. These frequent gatherings afford abundant opportunity for the teaching and dissemination of his peculiar doctrines, as is sufficiently evident from the fact that, while his own tribe numbers hardly two score families, his disciples along the river are counted by thousands.

DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBES OF THE UPPER COLUMBIA REGION IN WASHINGTON,
OREGON AND IDAHO INCLUDING ALL THOSE OF THE SMOHALLA AND SHAKER
RELIGIONS BY JAMES MOONEY 1894]

Smohalla was born about 1815 or 1820, and is consequently now an old man, although still well preserved, and with his few scattering locks unchanged in color. At the time of the Nez Percé war he was in the full vigor of manhood. His appearance in 1884 is thus described by Major MacMurray: “In person Smohalla is peculiar. Short, thick-set, bald-headed and almost hunch-backed, he is not prepossessing at first sight, but he has an almost Websterian head, with a deep brow over bright, intelligent eyes. He is a finished orator. His manner is mostly of the bland, insinuating, persuasive style, but when aroused he is full of fire and seems to handle invectives effectively. His audience seemed spellbound under his magic manner, and it never lost interest to me, though he spoke in a language comprehended by few white men and translated to me at second or third hand.” By another writer who met him a year later he is described as rather undersized and inclining toward obesity, with “a reserved and cunning but not ill-natured countenance, and a large, well-shaped head. His manners were more suave and insinuating than is usual with Indians.” He had a comfortable appearance, his moccasins and leggings were new, and he rode a good pinto pony. (_Huggins, 1._)

In his youth he had frequented the Catholic mission of Atahnam among the Yakima, where he became familiar with the forms of that service and also acquired a slight knowledge of French. Whether or not he was a regular member of the mission school is a disputed point, as it is asserted by some that he has never worn the white man’s dress or had his hair cut. The influence of the Catholic ceremonial is plainly visible in his own ritual performance. In his early manhood he distinguished himself as a warrior, and had already come to be regarded as a prominent man when he first began to preach his peculiar theology about the year 1850. There can be no question that the rapid spread of his doctrines among the tribes of the Columbia materially facilitated their confederation in the Yakima war of 1855–56. It is said that he aspired to be the leader in this war, and that, to attain this end, he invited all the neighboring bands to attend a council at his village of Pʿnä, but failed to accomplish his object.

Shortly after the close of the war, probably about 1860, the incident occurred which wrought an entire change in his life, stamping him as an oracle and prophet beyond peradventure, and giving to his religious system the force of authority which it has ever since retained. He had already established a reputation as a medicine-man, and was believed to be “making medicine” against the life of Moses, the noted chief of a tribe farther up the river, who was greatly in dread of his occult powers, and forced a quarrel in order to rid himself forever of his rival. A fight resulted, and Smohalla was nearly killed. It is said that he was left on the ground as dead, but revived sufficiently to crawl away and get into a boat on the bank of the Columbia near by. Bleeding and disabled, he was carried down at the mercy of the current until he was finally rescued from his perilous position by some white men, far below. His recovery was slow. When it was completed, unwilling to return in disgrace to his own country and probably still dreading the anger of Moses, he determined to become a wanderer.

Then began one of the most remarkable series of journeyings ever undertaken by an uncivilized Indian. Going down the Columbia to Portland and the coast, he turned south, and, stopping on the way at various points in Oregon and California, continued beyond San Diego into Mexico. Then, turning again, he came back through Arizona, Utah, and Nevada to his former home on the Columbia, where he announced that he had been dead and in the spirit world and had now returned by divine command to guide his people. As he was thought to have been killed in the encounter with Moses, and as he had disappeared so completely until now, his awe-stricken hearers readily believed that they were actually in the presence of one who had been taken bodily into the spirit world, whence he was now sent back as a teacher.

On the occasion of MacMurray’s visit, says that authority, “Smohalla asked me many geographic questions, and I spread out a railroad map, marking the situation of Priest rapids, Portland, and Vancouver barracks, and he traced with a straw down the coast line to below San Diego. He asked where San Bernardino was, and paused long over this. He recognized the ocean or ‘salt chuck,’ with many other geographic features and localities, but he would neither admit nor deny having been at Salt Lake City, although he admitted having been in Utah, knew the lake and adjacent mountain chains, and said that he had seen Mormon priests getting commands direct from heaven. He dwelt long over Arizona, and remarked, ‘_bad-a Inchun_.’”

Smohalla now declared to his people that the Sa′ghalee Tyee, the Great Chief Above, was angry at their apostasy, and commanded them through him to return to their primitive manners, as their present miserable condition in the presence of the intrusive race was due to their having abandoned their own religion and violated the laws of nature and the precepts of their ancestors. He then explained in detail the system to which they must adhere in future if they would conform to the expressed will of the higher power. It was a system based on the primitive aboriginal mythology and usage, with an elaborate ritual which combined with the genuine Indian features much of what he had seen and remembered of Catholic ceremonial and military parade, with perhaps also some additions from Mormon forms.

His words made a deep impression on his hearers. They had indeed abandoned their primitive simplicity to a great extent, and were now suffering the penalty in all the misery that had come to them with the advent of the white-skin race that threatened to blot them out from the earth. The voice of the prophet was accepted as a voice from the other world, for they knew that he had been dead and was now alive. What he said must be true and wise, for he had been everywhere and knew tribes and countries they had never heard of. Even the white men confirmed his words in this regard. He could even control the sun and the moon, for he had said when they would be dark, and they were dark.

If genius be a form of insanity, as has been claimed, intense religious enthusiasm would seem to have a close connection with physical as well as mental disease. Like Mohammed and Joan of Arc, and like the Shaker prophet of Puget sound, Smohalla is subject to cataleptic trances, and it is while in this unconscious condition that he is believed to receive his revelations. Says MacMurray:

He falls into trances and lies rigid for considerable periods.
Unbelievers have experimented by sticking needles through his
flesh, cutting him with knives, and otherwise testing his
sensibility to pain, without provoking any responsive action. It
was asserted that he was surely dead, because blood did not flow
from the wounds. These trances always excite great interest and
often alarm, as he threatens to abandon his earthly body altogether
because of the disobedience of his people, and on each occasion
they are in a state of suspense as to whether the Saghalee Tyee
will send his soul back to earth to reoccupy his body, or will, on
the contrary, abandon and leave them without his guidance. It is
this going into long trances, out of which he comes as from heavy
sleep and almost immediately relates his experiences in the spirit
land, that gave rise to the title of “Dreamers,” or believers
in dreams, commonly given to his followers by the neighboring
whites. His actions are similar to those of a trance medium, and if
self-hypnotization be practicable that would seem to explain it. I
questioned him as to his trances and hoped to have him explain them
to me, but he avoided the subject and was angered when I pressed
him. He manifestly believes all he says of what occurs to him in
this trance state. As we have hundreds of thousands of educated
white people who believe in similar fallacies, this is not more
unlikely in an Indian subjected to such influence.

In studying Smohalla we have to deal with the same curious mixture of honest conviction and cunning deception that runs through the history of priestcraft in all the ages. Like some other prophets before him, he seeks to convey the idea that he is in control of the elements and the heavenly bodies, and he has added greatly to his reputation by predicting several eclipses. This he was enabled to do by the help of an almanac and some little explanation from a party of surveyors. In this matter, however, he was soon made to realize that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. He could not get another almanac, and his astronomic prophecies came to an abrupt termination at the end of the first year. Concerning this, Major MacMurray says:

He showed me an almanac of a preceding year and asked me to
readjust it for eclipses, as it did not work as it had formerly
done. I explained that Washington (the Naval Observatory) made new
ones every year, and that old ones could not be fixed up to date.
He had probably obtained this one from the station agent at the
railroad, now superseded by a new one, who had cut off Smohalla’s
supply of astronomical data. My inability to repair the 1882
almanac for use in prognosticating in 1884 cost me much of his
respect as a wise man from the east. (_MacMurray MS._)

Smohalla had also a blank book containing mysterious characters, some of which resembled letters of the alphabet, and which he said were records of events and prophecies. MacMurray was unable to decide whether they were mnemonic or were simply unmeaning marks intended to foster among his followers the impression of his superior wisdom. It is probable that they were genuine mnemonic symbols invented by himself for his own purposes, as such systems, devised and used by single individuals or families, and unintelligible to others, are by no means rare among those who may be called the literary men of our aboriginal tribes.

SMOHALLA AND HIS PRIESTS]

As their principal troubles arose out of the disputed title to their lands, Major MacMurray was asked by the Indians to explain the Indian homestead law and how white men divided land. This was carefully done with the aid of a checkerboard, and they were shown how the land was mapped out into equal squares arranged on straight lines so that every man could find his own. They were then urged by the officer to apply for homesteads and settle upon them so as to avoid further trouble with the new settlers who were pouring into the country. Smohalla replied that he knew all this, but he did not like the new law, as it was against nature. He then went on to expound in detail the Indian cosmogony. Said he:

I will tell you about it. Once the world was all water and God
lived alone. He was lonesome, he had no place to put his foot, so
he scratched the sand up from the bottom and made the land, and
he made the rocks, and he made trees, and he made a man; and the
man had wings and could go anywhere. The man was lonesome, and
God made a woman. They ate fish from the water, and God made the
deer and other animals, and he sent the man to hunt and told the
woman to cook the meat and to dress the skins. Many more men
and women grew up, and they lived on the banks of the great river
whose waters were full of salmon. The mountains contained much game
and there were buffalo on the plains. There were so many people
that the stronger ones sometimes oppressed the weak and drove them
from the best fisheries, which they claimed as their own. They
fought and nearly all were killed, and their bones are to be seen
in the hills yet. God was very angry at this and he took away their
wings and commanded that the lands and fisheries should be common
to all who lived upon them; that they were never to be marked off
or divided, but that the people should enjoy the fruits that God
planted in the land, and the animals that lived upon it, and the
fishes in the water. God said he was the father and the earth was
the mother of mankind; that nature was the law; that the animals,
and fish, and plants obeyed nature, and that man only was sinful.
This is the old law.