History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I, Part 77

Author: Durham, Nelson Wayne, 1859-1938
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 880


USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 77


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"From that time on prosperity smiled upon them until the coming of the white


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man, who could not be snared. The Indians often declared that the pale face was the worse devil of the two for he left them nothing and that is their present condi- tion."


George Gibbs, who accompanied, in 1833, the government expedition which surveyed the country between St. Paul and Puget Sound in search of feasible routes for a railroad to the Pacific, was charged with the duty of making a first-hand study of the Indian tribes of Washington territory. His conclusions are set forth in an interesting and informative report to his superior, Captain George B. McClel- lan, and from it we extract the following particulars:


"The Spokehnish. or Spokanes, lie south of the Schwoyelpi, and chiefly upon or near the Spokane river. The name applied by the whites to a number of small bands, is that given by the Coeur d'Alenes to the one living at the forks (mouth of the Little Spokane). They are also called Sinkoman by the Kootenaies. These bands are eight in number: the Sin-slik-hoo-ish. on the great plain above the crossings of the Coeur d'Alene river; the Sin-too-too-lish, on the river above the forks; the Sma-hoo-men-a-ish (Spokehnish) at the forks; the Skai-schil-t'nish, at the old Chemakane mission : the Ske-chei-a-mouse, above them on the Colville trail; the Selm-el-stish; the Sin-poil-schne, and Sin-sper-lish, on the Columbia river; the last named band nearly extinct. The three hands on the Columbia all speak a different language from the rest. but are elaimed by the Spokanes. . . They were a wilder looking race than the tribes to the westward. The men are gener- ally spare, even when young, and soon become withered.


"Their principal chief is Spokane Garry, whose name was bestowed upon him by Governor Sir George Simpson, by whom he was sent. when about twelve years old, to the Red River for education, where he spent five years. Garry is now (in 1853) about 12 years of age, is very intelligent. and speaks English fluently. He bears an excellent character, and is what he claims to be, and what few are among these tribes, a chief. Of petty chiefs there are, besides, an abundance, cach band having two or three. Garry himself accompanied us to the forks of the Spokane, where his band usually reside. A few lodges, chiefly of old men and women, were there at the time. His own, in neatness and comfort, was far be- yond any we had seen. His family were dressed in the costume of the whites. which in fact now prevails over their own. Many of the Spokanes. besides their intercourse with the fort, visit the American settlements, where they earn money by occasional work, most of which is spent in clothing. blankets. etc. The chief offered us the hospitality of his house with much cordiality-a cup of tea or coffee. and bread. The 'Spokane House,' which is a landmark upon all the maps of this country, was an old Hudson's Bay fort. situated at his village, but has long since been destroyed.


"This tribe claims as their territory the country commencing on the large plain at the head of the Slawntehus-the stream entering the Columbia at Fort Colville; thence down the Spokane to the Columbia, down the Columbia half-way to Fort Okinakane, and up the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene to some point between the falls and the lake, on the latter. There is in this direction a question of boundary between them and the Coeur d'Alenes, which appears to be as complicated as some of those between civilized nations. No resort to arms has, however, occurred. and the territory continues under joint occupation. An additional source of cool-


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ness between them arises from a difference in religion-the Spokanes being Pro- testants, or of the 'American religion,' and the Coeur d'Alenes Catholies. The latter taunt the former as hereties, whose faith is worthless. Garry narrated to us the evils arising from this state of feeling, with a forbearance and Christian spirit of toleration which would have honored any one. The tribe at present have no missionary among them, but they seem to have been consistent to what they learned under the tuition of Messrs. Walker and Eells, of the Chemakane mission. The country of the Spokanes, though in most respeets unattractive to settlement by the whites, is well suited to the pursuits of the Indian.


"Of the larger game there is but little in their own country. The buffalo, it would seem, in former times penetrated, at least occasionally thus far to the west- ward, though now they never come through the northern passes. We were in- formed by an old Iroquois hunter at Fort Colville, who has been some forty-eight years in the company's service, that the last bull was killed some twenty-five years ago in the Grand coulee.


"The Skitwich, or Coeur d'Alenes, live upon the upper part of the Coeur d'Alene river (the Spokane of the present day), above the Spokanes, and around the lake of the same name. They are estimated by Dr. Dart as only 200 in num- ber. which is believed, however, to be too low an estimate. Father Mengarini, for- merly missionary among the Flatheads, gives as his opinion, that they reach 450.


"The Kalispelms, or Pend d'Oreilles of the lower lake, inhabit the country north of the Coeur d'Alenes, and around the Kalispehin lake (the Pend d'Oreille of the present day). Dr. Dart gives their population as 520, which is but little short of Father Mengarini's."


When in the Yakima valley, Captain MeClellan's party received a visit from Owhi-that Owhi who, two years later, was to play an active part in the outbreak of the Yakimas. Cayuses, Walla Wallas and other hostiles, have a hand in the murder of several miners in the Colville country, and who, at the end of the Wright campaign was to be taken prisoner, see his son hanged in a eamp on Hangman ereek. and. himself attempting to break away from his guards a few days later, find death in his desperate dash for liberty.


"Owhi's two sons," says Gibbs, "both tall. handsome men, had their blankets and dress profusely ornamented, and the wife of one of them, a very pretty woman, wore a dress stiff with headwork and porenpine quills. Owhi himself, on the other hand, appeared in full American suit, and touched his hat by way of saluta- tion-a compliment which he elearly expected to be noticed and returned. He, like Kamiaken, has adopted some of the forms of Catholicism, and professes to pray habitually, but there seemed to be a shadow of hypocrisy in his devotion. He is, however, a man of very considerable understanding and poliey, and inelined to profit by the example of the whites."


As MeClellan's party traveled north along the west bank of the Columbia, Owhi pointed out two landmarks near the mouth of the Wenatchee, and related the In- dian tradition associated with them. Two columns of sandstone stand apart from a bluff of similar material. "Once upon a time." he said, "two women of the raee of Elip Tilieum lived here and were very bad, being in the habit of killing those who passed by. The Indians prayed the Great Spirit to destroy them. and He, granting their petition. sent an enormous bird which picked out their brains, and


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then turned them into stone." In proof of which. says Gibbs, the narrator pointed out a hole in the top of one of the columns, from which a boulder had fallen. as the aperture broken by the bird in extracting his meal.


"A short distance beyond," adds Gibbs. "he turned a little off the trail to point out to us another curiosity. It was a perpendicular rock, on the face of which were carved sundry figures, most of them intended for men. They were slightly sunk into the sandstone, and colored, some black, others red, and traces of paint remained more or less distinctly on all of them. These also, according to their report, were the work of the ancient race; but from the soft nature of the rock, and the freshness of some of the paint. they were probably not of extreme antiquity. Nothing could, in this connection, be ascertained from the Indians, whether they had any traditions of their own migration from another country."


Gambling and incantation dancing were passionate vices of the pagan or non- Christianized Indians of the Inland Empire. Father A. Diomedi, who condensed in his "Sketches of Modern Indian Life" ten years of close observation and experi- ence, gives a lively description of the favorite gambling game, called nzclalkom, or the stick game. "The people assemble in a lodge, arrange themselves in a circle, and then begin to sing the Indian tune which is a prelude to the game. This done, one of the gamblers takes two small sticks, about one-fourth of an inch thick and two inches long, to one of which a long thread is attached. and holds them, one in cach hand, in such a way as to show the thread passing through the fingers of both hands. The others must then guess in which hand is the stick to which the thread is fastened. Excitement reaches a high pitch before the guessing begins, and singing and yelling will go on for several minutes before any one will venture to guess. The man who guesses right gains one point, and loses one if wrong, and when the number agreed upon is reached. the game is over."


Before the Spokane Indians were closely confined to the reservation, the writer chanced occasionally upon little groups, seated in grassy glades beneath the shad- ing pines, within the present city limits, gambling at this game with an absorption so intense that they would scarcely look up at the approach of a spectator. In their desperate infatuation players would frequently gamble away their last re- maining article of personal property-the bedding and household ntensils of their families, the very clothing upon their backs. Father Diomedi narrates a case which fell under his observation, wherein a player gambled away his wife's wear- ing apparel, and the impoverished pair were left in an abandoned hut for two days, naked and exposed to the inclemency of the weather, miserable laughing stocks of the community.


"In horse gambling," says Father Diomedi, "they have the very peculiar cus- tom of staking a part of the animal; for instance, they will begin with one foot, then with another, and so on to the neck and head, which will transfer the whole animal to the winner. This occupation is continued throughout the night, and is such a disturbance to the camp, on account of the screaming and yelling accompany- ing it. that those engaged in it are frequently sent off in disgust to a distance where they can not be heard."


Indulgence in this vice, however, lowered the respectability of the players, even among the pagan Indians. Youths aspiring to matrimony found it advisable to abstain, or gamble surreptitiously; and widowers who were known to possess the


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weakness before bereavement fond it necessary to refrain from the viee, often over a period of several years if they would again enter the wedded state.


Father Diomedi gives a graphic deseription of ghost-daneing, as witnessed by him in a great winter eneampment at the month of the Okanogan. The daneing tent had been constructed by driving poles into the ground, and stretehing around them skins or eanvas, about the height of a man's head; the top was left entirely open. In a row down the center were three places prepared for fires, and the space on each side of these was covered with pine branches upon which were spread blankets and buffalo robes. This constituted the daneing floor. These win- ter danees were usually condueted in the severest weather, as one purpose of the ineantation was to make "medicine" for a chinook wind. Although the temperature was around twenty below, many of the daneers were elothed about the waist only, "the rest of the body being painted either red or in stripes. Their neeks and wrists were adorned with strings of beads, whilst their heads were eneireled with eagles' feathers, or sometimes a tall hat made of the skin of a coyote or a polecat towered above them."


Within the large. open lodge, some 30 by 20 feet, men and women erowded in- diseriminately. only the children and the very aged were exelnded. "They were so closely paeked," adds Father Diomedi. "that it seemed to me impossible for anybody to move. I then learned that their dance did not mean movement, or turning around ; they stood with their arms raised, and their thumbs tonehing their shoulders, the only motion being the moving of the upper part of the body, up and down from the knees.


"While this was going on, and all eyes were watching with intense anxiety for the entrance of the 'medieine man,' a voiee was heard in the distance humming an Indian tune. As the spirit man approached, thus singing. those inside endeavored to eateh up the same tune. This lasted a short time until the song had been learned by all the people, who, in wild confusion, and with most nneouth sounds, were sereaming at the top of their voices. While all were singing, and the 'medieine man' was going around the ontside of the lodge, pretending to be a spirit in search of an entranee, another man was telling the people what the 'medieine man' had re- ceived from the world of spirits. When he at last entered, the seene at once changed ; all turned towards him as hungry wolves upon their prey, extending their neeks towards him and imitating the snapping of Indian dogs. The 'medieine man' stood in the midst of that paek of human hounds and took out the little bag in which he kept his saered charm, and shaking it. as if to stir up the spirit which it represented, commanded silenee. Then he began to experiment with his superstitious perform- ances. A siek man was slipped into the tent among the people, so that they might witness the power of the 'spirit man,' and see for themselves whether or not he was able to effeet an instantaneous cure. The 'medieine man' then began to shake his charm. or, as the Indians called it, somesh, and to sing a song in order to invoke the power of the spirit. He spat all over the siek man. and then, beginning to grow excited and wild. he rushed at him. seized him by the head with one hand and by the throat with the other as if to ehoke him. and finally approaching his month to that of the patient. he blew powerfully into it. By this time the sick man was worked up to the most exeited condition ; his hair stood on end as though charged with elee- trieity, and with the strength imparted by the excitement. he began to throw dirt


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at the spectators and to make use of the foulest language, until at length he fell back exhausted upon his butfalo robe."


What was apparently a remarkable cure accomplished by one of these "medi- cine men" is narrated by the same authority. A young Indian was brought before him, bleeding from an ugly arrow wound over the heart, and with the iron arrow point embedded in the flesh. A "medicine man" was called in to treat the patient. "The second day after the occurrence, I saw young Theodore sitting on a fence and walking about as well as if he had never been hurt. I did not see, however, whether the wound had disappeared, nor whether the iron point had been extracted; neither did I see whether the cure had been affected by sucking the blood, as an Indian told me, or by the use of some instrument."


According to a myth of the Coeur d'Alenes, a spirit named Amotkan ruled over the waters of the earth, and singularly they bestowed this same name upon the president of the United States. Once he grew angry with all the Indians, and with- held from the people the last drop of water, so that they all perished of thirst. One day while Father Diomedi was floating down the Coeur d'Alene river between the Mission and the lake, his Coeur d'Alene guide narrated this interesting tradition :


One day a little wolf (the favorite hero of Indian stories), was going around in search of water, and seeing a little bird carrying a drop to his young ones, asked him where he found it. The bird answered. "I found it where Amotkan dwells, but I had to wait until he was asleep to take away this little drop. because he was so angry with the people that he has refused to give them any."


"Then." said the little wolf. "show me the way and I will go and kill him, be- cause otherwise all creatures will be destroyed."


So they went, and the wolf killed Amotkan while he was asleep, and then the water began to flow. and kept on so powerfully that it flooded the whole country and covered everything.


"But." asked the priest, "how does it happen that there are any men on earth now, if they were all destroyed, either by thirst or by flood?"


"Well." replied the guide. "Amotkan's body was carried down by the waters. and when they dried up, the little wolf, which was always strolling around, dis- covered it on the shore in this very place. Then he cut it into pieces, and threw the heart into our land, and from this sprung our people. called 'pointed hearts' or Coeur d'Alene. From the other parts sprang other people, such as the Nez Perces and the Sgoielpi (the Indians around Kettle Falls). The Spokanes, though, came into ex- istence in this way: After the little wolf had finished this work he cleaned his paws with some straw, which he then threw into the Spokane land, and from this came those people, whom we call derisively 'Men of Straw.'"


Father Diomedi asked the guide if they believed that man's soul lived after death.


"We had very little knowledge about that." replied the guide, "but still we thought that it did live. and now and then some of the old people would say. 'I saw such and such a one. some one who had been dead a long time.' Our people believed in spirits a good deal, and thought they dwelt in everything-trees. stones, mountains and animals. When any one went out hunting, he would embrace what- ever he met in his way, praying to the spirit and saying, 'let me find game.' Each one tried to make friends with some spirit. A girl. when she reached the age of


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about twelve years, would leave her home and go into the woods; boys would do the same at about fourteen; they would walk on in search of the spirit, and not drink water or taste fruit and roots until they found him. After a day or two they would fall asleep, and then they would see the spirit, who taught them a song, and gave them something to keep sacred. Then they would come home, persuaded that they had found a friend who would always proteet them during life. Sometimes we would see a bear, and then he would give us one of his elaws to keep; sometimes a deer. and he would give a hoof; again a bird, and then we would kill another just like it, and keep either its feathers or its head; sometimes a snake, and then we would keep a snake skin or rattle always with us. Wherever we went we always kept our somesh, but never showed it."


Clair Hunt, allotting agent on the Colville reservation, thus deseribes a eere- monial war danee: "A group of old men sit in a eirele in a big tent, doing nothing : just sitting there. By and by one drops out and brings in a big stone pipe a foot long. First the leader takes two or three puffs and hands it to the man on his left. and so on around the group for quite a while. By and by the drummer begins play- ing, so lightly one can hardly hear it ; but he gradually inereases the sound, and at last they begin to sing. They keep this up for an indefinite time, and then they be- gin their danee. When they are warmed up and dancing good, an Indian rushes in with news of an attack by another tribe. Then a number of the dancers mimic what they think of it. They keep this daneing up all night. When the leader notes that they are tired, he makes three big flourishes, which means that they may rest. The Indians take care to train their children in the war dance.


"I drove up to a group of Indians one day and they did not hear me. and Iasked what was the matter. My interpreter said it was a gambling game. There were about twenty Indians in all, sitting in two rows. I saw between the two rows a pot of money. silver dollars and bills. If they bet a horse there was a stick in the pot : if a blanket. another stiek of different size or shape. They play the game with two bone sticks. On one of these is tied a black eord. The opposing side will try to guess in which hand is the stiek with the black eord, and if they guess right they win. When the game is over the chief takes the money and distributes it among the group. Every one seems satisfied. and disputes almost never occur. That game lasted two nights and a day.


"In my labors among the Indians the past twelve years I have never seen them steal anything. Baek on the reservation, away from civilization, there is no need of my hiding anything. My goods and also my family would be safer in the middle of the reservation, without any protection than in any outside settlement.


"When an Indian dies it is customary for a near relative to invite all the rela- tives and friends to a feast in honor of the deceased. Acquaintances for fifty miles or more eone and remain till the food supply is gone. The time is occupied in talk."


The Nez Perees were the largest and most powerful tribe of the interior. They ealled themselves Chipunish, but were termed Nez Peree, or piereed nose, by French Canadian trappers and traders, and that designation they bear to the present day.


Lieutenant Lawrence Kip. who accompanied the Wright expedition and after- ward wrote a little classic, "Army Life on the Pacific," was a elose observer of the traits and customs of this tribe, and we are indebted to that work for an interesting deseription. Their habitat then extended from the great plains of Montana, where


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they hunted the buffalo, to the Rocky mountains and the rivers in the country that we now term the Inland Empire. They were expert hunters of the elk, the bear, the buffalo and the mountain sheep, and trapped beaver for the trading posts. They were celebrated for their large droves of horses. which they branded and turned loose to graze upon the fertile plains till needed by their owners. Everything save war, gambling and the perils of the chase was held beneath the dignity of the men and all menial tasks were laid upon the women.


"When at home and not occupied in preparing their arms, or in feats of horse- manship." says Kip. "they are gambling, lounging in groups, or listening to some story teller who recounts the exploits of the old warriors of the tribe."


And yet they had a devout side, and as Kip said. a strictness in some religions rites which might shame those "who profess and call themselves Christians." They took readily to the religious instruction of the Presbyterian missionaries. nota- bly Spalding of the Lapwai mission in the Clearwater country, and adhered zeal- ously to their Christian services long after the missionaries, alarmed by the Whit- man massacre, had retreated to the Willamette valley in Oregon. Some of them came under the teachings of the Catholic missionaries, and Kip quaintly remarked that "the theological creed of the Nez Perces. if now investigated, would probably be an odd system which would startle an ordinary D. D." That author continues:


"Still it exerted a very perceptible influence over their system of morality and daily life. When, with Lieutenant Gracie at the council on this spot (Walla Walla) in 1855. 2.500 of the Nez Perce tribe were present. and as we were camped among them for three weeks. I had an opportunity of learning something of their habits. I found they had prayers in their lodges every morning and evening, service several times on Sunday- and nothing could induce them on that day to engage in any trading.


"On one occasion at that time, visiting the old chief Lawyer in his lodge, on some evening in the middle of the week. I found him surrounded by his family and reading a portion of the new testament. On another occasion, on a Saturday even- ing. he was employed with a member of his tribe in singing sacred music to prepare for the worship of the morrow. The next day, therefore, we rode over to the Nez Perce camp, where we found they were holding service in one of the largest lodges. Two of the chiefs were officiating one of them delivering an address (taking the ten commandments for his text), and at the end of each sentence the other chief would repeat it in a louder tone of voice. This is their invariable custom with all their speeches. Everything was conducted with the greatest propriety, and the singing, in which they all joined, had an exceedingly musical effect."


Kip "found an odd mixture of this world and the next in some of the Nez Perces an equal love of fighting and devotion." It will scarcely escape the reader's ob- servation that this mixture is not peculiar to our old friends the Nez Perces. One encounters it, indeed, through all history and among all peoples, and even the white man today. with all his superior civilization and education, retains a strong penchant to that self-same mixture.




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