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 78
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It is a pleasure to add. in this connection. that our Nez Perce allies have pros- pered with the flight of time, and less, perhaps, than any other western tribe, have suffered from contact with the white man and the white man's civilization. Their reservation, near Lewiston, Idaho, is a region of great beauty and natural wealth,
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and they have taken kindly, for the most part, to the arts of peace. Many of them are well to do and even wealthy, and they have good houses that are comfortably and even showily furnished. Physically they are a rugged type, their fine forms and massive necks and heads suggesting unusual strength and vigor. They are truly a superior people. possessing many kindly virtues, and adhering faithfully to the religious training imparted them some seventy years ago by devout and self- sacrifieing missionaries.
They possess a rich and beautiful language, having varied and carefully ex- pressive verb forms, and a grammar inferior only to that of the more highly de- veloped tongues of civilization. Perrin Whitman, a nephew of the martyr mission- ary, who enjoyed, perhaps, a more intimate knowledge of these Indians than that acquired by any other white man, frequently said that the Nez Perce tongue bore close resemblance to the Greek, and he had found it so rich and expressive that it had largely displaced English in his thoughts, and he did most of his thinking in it. Whitman, when a boy, was brought to the Walla Walla mission by Dr. Whitman. and grew to manhood among Indian associations. He served often as interpreter for the government, and held to the last the implicit confidence of his Nez Perce friends.
WORDS FROM THE NEZ PERCE LANGUAGE*
God
hemakis Tota
Yesterday . watish
Father
tota
Black
.cinmo cimmeo
Woman
.iat
Vermilion . ailish
Child
meaits
Spirit koonapa
Sister
. axsip
Man . hama
Wife
waipna
Mother peka
Heaven accompenaka
Brother
uskeep
Water
. COOS
Husband hana
Snow
maika
People . tetokan
Wood haitsu
Earth
waitush
Hell or bad spirit. . koonapa kapseish
Fire
aula
Grizzly bear
hahats
Rain
waikit
Beaver
taxpull
Grass
. pax
Moose
taissheep
Horse
shecum
Wolf
. siyah
Black bear eakat
Trout wowalthum
Deer
cnishnim
Stone
pishwa
Buffalo
cocoil
Hair
hookoo
Salmon natso
Leg
. waiu
Gun temoon
Cloth
. talea
Head hooshus
Beads collowin
Arm
. artum
Bad
kapseis
Foot akkoa
Yes
ai
Saddle . supen sapoos
Small
. coots
Good
tois
Well
· penamina No
.waiitu
*As compiled by Rev. Samuel Parker in 1835.
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Great
hemakis White hihi
Sick
comitsa Red ilpelp
Today
tax Paint · penasuet
When Wright's command was resting at the camp of the Four Lakes, Lieutenant John Mullan, moved by a strong sense of justice, penned an carnest appeal to the commissioner of Indian affairs at Washington on behalf of this people. "Allow me, my dear sir," said Mullan, "while this general war is going on, to point you to at least a few green spots where the ravages of war do not as yet extend, and which thus far are untainted and unaffected, with a view of so retaining them that we may hereafter point to them as oases in this desert of war. These green spots are the Nez Perces. the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles. This is the same people. who, meeting the flying column of Colonel Steptoe in hot night retreat, having aban- doned animals, provisions and guns behind them. received him with open arms, sue- cored his wounded men, and crossed in safety his whole command over the difficult and dangerous south fork of the Columbia, at a time when no other means whatever to outreach a foc, who. already triumphant with success, had determined his com- plete destruction. Here, then. is an instance in Indian history that must and will stand long on record, not to be forgotten. Colonel Wright, on entering their country, was not unmindful of this noble act when we might-aye, justly, too-have antici- pated a lurking foe in that same tribe, and he took such measures as to keep their friendship. It is now for you to say whether this shall be inviolable.
"They have no agent who lives among them. They are far advanecd. already raise wheat, corn and vegetables, with the rudest of means. When asked by Colonel Wright what they wanted, their reply was well worthy of a noble race: 'Peace, ploughs and schools.' I point you. commencing with Lewis and Clark, in 1801, to the present day, to the accounts of all travelers across the continent : and with one accord they point to the Nez Perees and Flatheads as two bright. shining points in a long weary pilgrimage across a prairie desert and rugged mountain bar- rier, alive with savage hordes of Indians, where they have been relieved and aided when most in need." Oregon came into the union in 1859. a year after the penning of this appeal.
Ex-President Roosevelt has justly said that our subsequent treatment of the Nez Perces, when Joseph's band were pleading eloquently for the retention of the homes of their ancestors in the Wallowa valley, constitutes an enduring reproach to our national sense of justice and gratitude. At another place in this volume we shall touch upon the incidents of that affair and the Nez Perce war of 1877. fought by our long-time friends and allies only after the severest provocation.
The speech of Chief George Moses of the Nez Perees at the conclusion of a war dance at Lewiston in 1907 was a model of Indian eloquence. Prefaeing his remarks by stating that the war dance just concluded had been given with a desire to assist in the entertainment of the guests of the Lewiston Interstate Fair association. Moses said :
"In the circle of warriors back of me, who have just given a war danec for your pleasure, are the sons of those chiefs and warriors of the tribe who ninety-eight years ago welcomed the intrepid explorers. Captains Lewis and Clark, when they had crossed the Bitter Root mountains and entered the land of the Nez Perces. Their
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forefathers then received the white man as friends. Of their few goods they gave largely. The Indians' slender stoek of eamas and conse, of dried roots, berries, venison, elk meat and fish was depleted that the starving party of whites might be fed. The party was guided to safe eamping places. The Indians assisted in the construction of eanoes in which the party of white men made the voyage down the Clearwater, Snake and Columbia rivers to the sea. All this was done in loving friendship.
"All through the intervening years the Nez Perees as a raee have held the white man in blood brotherhood. At all times have the great majority of the tribe been as willing to protect and defend the family of the white man as their own. With this undisputed history of the Nez Perces' peaceful and friendly association with the white raee before you, we ask that yon look upon our fading raee with respect. We ask your friendship and assistance in fitting ourselves for the duties of American citizenship. Help us to the benefits of free schools and churches and other good gifts that white men enjoy and profit by. We are ready to appreciate the benefits of citizenship and would willingly exercise the voting privilege in assisting in seeuring good government. But we are still children in comprehension. The complex objeets and aims of the white man's government are to us mysteries. We only know the rule of the chiefs and patriarehs-the law making of the eouneil fires, with the execution of its deerees on the warpath, marked with the bodies of the sealped and slain.
"Oh, white man!" continued the orator, standing with outstretched right arm, the hand grasping an eagle feather, while with the other arm he folded about him his blanket robe of somber color, "look at these warriors, the few feeble remnants of our onee all powerful armed array. You see in them only the faded shadow of a onee all-pervading power among the savage nations of the northwest. Time was when we ruled these hills and valleys and no man came or went save by the consent and desire of the tribe. This point where now stands a prosperous eity, trading and trafficking for wealth, was onee the meeting place of all the seattered branches of our people. Here we assembled on each reenrring autumn to offer thanks to the Great Spirit for his watchful help and to supplieate the continuanee of his favoring smile.
"Then the Nez Peree was a king-free as the bird whose winged flight the river mirrored. His thought was of the highest of which he knew. Kind to his friends, severe to his enemies, he gave the best to the Great Spirit ungrudgingly. And yet the white man eame, was received as a brother and the glory of the Nez Peree de- parted. never to return. The sun no longer gilds the deerskin tepees on a thousand hillsides : the warrior does not eount the sealps he has taken in battle and ambush by the eagle feathers in his war bonnet; the modest Indian maiden no longer prays to the Great Spirit for a brave husband. nor the young wife make offerings for handsome boys. With the conquest of the white man has apparently come to the Indian only the viees of his conqueror. And yet I see the light of better days to come. The remnants of the raee will know and appreciate the good ambitions of the white man. and will follow them. When this comes, there will be the dawning of a new and better day. The old glories of our raee will not return, but better glories will have taken their place. The boast of the Nez Perces a hundred years ago: 'We conquered our enemies,' will be changed to the happy ery, 'We have eon- quered ourselves.'"
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The manner of the orator throughout was dignified and impressive. More than 5.000 people crowded the grandstand and listened in silence and with elose atten- tion to the Indian's address, and its interpretation by Albert Moore, a full-blooded Nez Perce graduate of Carlisle Indian school and former undergraduate of Idaho university.
CHAPTER LXXXV
ORIGIN OF CERTAIN INDIAN NAMES-JOAQUIN MILLER'S ROMANTIC EXPLANATION OF THE MEANING OF IDAIIO-LAKE PEND D'OREILLE ONCE KNOWN AS KALISPELM, AND PRIEST LAKE AS ROOTHAN-AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NOTED PIONEER WHO SERVED WITH GOVERNOR STEVENS-DEDICATION OF MONUMENT AT CAMP WASHIINGTON, NEAR SPOKANE-KETTLE FALLS INDIANS SUFFER FROM FAMINE AND EAT PINE MOSS -HOW PRIEST RAPIDS WERE NAMED.
H ENRY GANNETT (in a publication of the United States government. "Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States"), says that the word "Idaho" is an Indian name of unknown meaning. But the poet Joaquin Miller, who was an express rider in the early '60s between Walla Walla and the placer camps, rhapsodizes over a poetical meaning. Miller's statement, which the reader will take with some salt, awards to his old friend Colonel Craig, of Craig's Mountain, Nez Perce county, "the distinetion of naming Idaho. The faets are these," says Miller: "I was riding pony express at the time rumors reached us, through the Nez Perce Indians, that gold was to be found on the headwaters and tributaries of the Salmon river. I had lived with the Indians; and Colonel Craig, who had spent most of his life with them, often talked with me about possible discoveries in the mountains to the right, as we rode to Orofino, and of what the Indians said of the then unknown region. Gallop your horse, as I have a hundred times, against the rising sun. As you elimb the Sweetwater mountains, far away to your right. you will see the name of Idaho written on the mountain-top-at least you will see a peculiar and beautiful light at sunrise, a sort of diadem on two grand elusters of mountains that bear away under the clouds, fifty miles distant. 'That,' he said, 'is what the Indians ealled E-dah-hoe, which means the light or diadem on the line of the mountains.' That was the first time I ever heard the name. Later, in September, '61, when I rode into the newly discovered eamp to establish an express office. I took with me an Indian from Lapwai. We followed an Indian trail, erossed Craig's mountain and Camas prai- rie, and had all the time E-dah-hoe mount for an objeet point.
"On my return to Lewiston, I wrote a letter containing a brief account of our trip and of the mines, and it was published in one of the Oregon papers. In that account I oftened mentioned E-dah-hoe, but spelled it Idaho. So that, perhaps, I may have been the first to give it its present spelling, but I certainly did not originate the word."
According to Ex-Senator Nesmith of Oregon. "the bill first passed the house of representatives designating the present territory of Idaho as 'Montana.' When Vol. 1-42
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it came up for consideration in the senate, on the 3d of March, 1863, Senator Wil- son of Massachusetts moved to strike out the word 'Montana' and insert 'Idahe.' Mr. Harding of Oregon said, "I think the name Idaho is preferable to Montana. Idaho, in English, signifies "The Gem of the Mountains."' I heard others sug- gest that it meant in the Indian tongue, 'Shining Mountains,' all of which are synonymons. I do not know from which of the Indian tongues the two words Ida-ho come. I think, however, if you will pursue the inquiry among those familiar with the Nez Perce, Shoshone and Flathead tribes, you will find the origin of the two words as I have given it above."
It is also said that William H. Wallace, the delegate to congress who intro- duced the bill making a new territory out of the eastern portion of Washington, pleased with the beauty of the name Idaho, suggested it as an appropriate one.
Other Indian names in the Inland Empire are given by Mr. Gannett as follows : Spokane-Named for an Indian tribe, the name meaning "Children of the Sun."
Okanogan-An Indian word and tribal name, signifying rendezvous, and so applied first to the river on account of the assembling of Indians to lay in supplies of fish and game.
Lapwai -- Place of division, or boundary.
Latah-Said by one authority (not given) to be an Indian word meaning "succession."
Chelan-An Indian word meaning deep water, or big water.
Yakima -- Said to have been named for a tribe of Indians, the name meaning "Black Bear," or, according to other authorities, "coward."
Wallowa-An Indian word meaning a tripod for holding a fishtrap in the water.
Walla Walla-From a Nez Perce Indian word used to designate a rapid stream.
Missoula-The name is said to have the same meaning as Missouri, "muddy water.'
Kittitas -- The word means "shoal" in the Yakima language.
When Governor Stevens passed through this region in 1853, and again in 1855, Lake Pend d'Oreille was called Lake Kalispell, and the Priest lake of the present day was Lake Roothan. Dr. George Suckley, who as a member of Gover- nor Stevens' exploring expedition, voyaged down the Clark's fork to the lake, down the lake and Pend d'Oreille river to the Columbia, and thenee down the greater stream to Fort Vancouver, near the present city of Portland, recorded in his journal the following interesting entry:
"November 6, 1853 .- Thirty-two miles below Lake Kalispelm. Today, after paddling ten miles along the river, which is here about three-fourths of a mile wide, we got into swift water and a quick succession of rapids. The nineteenth mile brought us to our last portage, this side of the mission of St. Ignatius (A)- bani falls, near the present town of Newport). Here an island blocks up and dams the river, which relieves itself on both sides of the island by a cascade of about six and a half feet perpendicular fall. In the middle of the island is a cleft. now dry, which becomes a third channel in high water. Below the island a bay makes in to within thirty feet of the water on its upper side. Over this thirty feet of rock we made a portage of our stuff, and dragged our boat across. I learn that about thirty-five miles to the north there is a beautiful sheet of water called
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RIVERSIDE AVENUE AND STEVENS STREET, LOOKING NORTH ON STEVENS
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Lake Roothan. It is about the same size as Lake Kalispehin, and like it, beautifully clear, and surrounded by lofty mountains, but surpasses the latter in beauty by the great number of small islands it contains. The outlet of the lake (Priest river) enters Clark river (the Pend d'Oreille) about five miles above the fall. From Lake Roothan a mountain ridge runs southwest to the Spokane country, a distance of ahout seventy miles. The river and ridge interscet at the fall, the island between being wrought into its present shape by the continual action of the water."
ADVENTUROUS CAREER OF FRANCIS WOLFF
One of the noted pioneers of the Spokane country was Francis Wolff, who lived for more than fifty years in the Colville valley, and died June 24, 1909. He en- listed in the regular army in 1849, and was sent to the Pacific coast in 1852, by way of Panama, to take station at The Dalles. In 1853 he was one of the command sent to meet Governor I. I. Stevens at Fort Benton. I quote now from Mr. Wolff's autobiography :
"In 1854 we went by the Lolo fork trail over the mountains and down the Clearwater, and I was discharged at The Dalles in July, 1854, where I loeated. In the spring of 1855 I went into partnership with H. P. Isaacs, merchandising at The Dalles: remained at The Dalles about six months, and during the mining excitement started for the Pend d'Oreille mines. I met the miners returning on the Umatilla, where in September I stopped at Fort Henrietta.
"Led by Kamiaken, the Indians had commenced a war in the Yakima country, and Major Haller had been defeated. The four men I had employed got on their horses in the night and went to The Dalles. I stayed with my goods, and traded one day for thirty horses, which were let out of the eorral during that night and returned to their range on the mountains. I locked up my store, went after them, was gone two days, and when I returned my goods were all gone. I traced the goods to one branch of the U'matillas. Winnumsnute, the head chief, was my friend. and wherever I could find an Indian with my goods he would compel him to give them np. I then gave them to Winnumsnute's people, who had no hand in the stealing. About that time Indian Agent Olney came along, gathering up the set- tlers hy order of Governor Curry of Oregon, and I was glad to get out of the country, having lost all my goods, wagons, oxen, etc., valued at ahout $1,000. This was in October, 1855.
"When we reached The Dalles, I found Captain Hunmason organizing a com- pany of volunteers, which I gladly joined, and next day was on my return for the seat of war at Walla Walla, and was in the three days' fight near Whitman's sta- tion, had my horse shot, and had a talk with Winnumsnte. I was in this service 122 days. Lieutenant James McAuliff, afterwards mayor of Walla Walla for ten years, said to me 'that Wolff used to sit on a hill during a lull in the fight and read a novel: he was the most fearless man I ever saw.'
"I returned in the spring of 1856 to The Dalles and was discharged : sold my house to Major Lougenbeel for $1,100, and put that, with $2,000 more, into goods. with Vie. Trevett as a partner, bought the goods of II. P. Isaacs. and started with them by ox teams for Colville. This was the first time goods were carried to Col- ville by wagons. The winter of 1856-57 I stopped about five miles north of the
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present town of Colville, but in the spring of 1857 I moved to the John Wynn ranch, on which the town of Colville is now located. I had miners' and Indian supplies and goods, and was in direct competition with the Hudson's Bay company, and as they claimed and exercised exclusive control of the trade, they claimed I was trespassing on their territory, and forbade me building or trading thereon, and I believe encouraged the Indians to steal from and otherwise annoy me. This continued until the United States fort was established.
"In the spring of 1858, with eighteen miners whom I had fitted out, and with some goods. I started for Fraser river. I sold the goods, and with what had been collected for goods sent the previous year, I took out $5,000 in gold dust. going to The Dalles and purchasing more goods of H. P. Isaacs.
"I went to Walla Walla, and in July, 1858, joined the MeLanghlin party bound for Fraser river. On reaching the Fraser mines I traded off what goods the In- dians had not stolen, and started to Yale for more, and learning that there was war between the Indians and miners, we joined the volunteers and helped elean ont the Indians. seeing at one place in a cave sixteen mutilated dead miners.
"After the war I returned to the mines with supplies, and from there went to San Francisco in the fall of 1858, wintering there and returing to The Dalles in the spring of 1859. Joining Major Lougenbeel's command, I came to Colville in June, 1859, and was employed by him to ride express to Walla Walla, which I did for seven months. After that I engaged in farming, first turning over to II. P'. Isaaes the Jacques Demers raneh and my interest in the sawmill built by Douglass, to satisfy my indebtedness to him.
"I have resided in Colville valley nearly fifty years ; have been sheriff two terms, probate judge four years, county commissioner several times, served as justice of the peace, and was deputy collector of U. S. customs. Have lived under the dominating influence of the Hudson's Bay company, have fought with the Indians from Walla Walla to Fraser river, and have seen the savage give way before the pushing civilization of the western pioneer."
DEDICATION OF CAMP WASHINGTON
In an address delivered on the occasion of the dedication of the monument mark- ing the historic site of Camp Washington, on Four Mound prairie, Wednesday, October 28. 1908. Secretary W. H. Gilstrap of the State Historical society, said :
"According to Indian traditions, this has been a camping place for many genera- tions. Lieutenant Johnson's party of the Wilkes expedition in 1841, either eamped here or passed within a few rods of this spot, on the way from Fort Col- ville to Lapwai. He says of this place: 'After traveling five miles from the Spokane river, we reached a camp of Spokane Indians, numbering about 300, at the entrance of a fine meadow, where they had a number of horses feeding, while they were digging camas roots.' The old Indian trails either crossed or branched out from here. Where the rough ground has not been cultivated, the trails may yet be seen.
"Here on this ground culminated that great engineering expedition. Here, fifty-five years ago today, two divisions, one from the east and the other from the west, met and recounted their achievements. Although Governor Stevens halted
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in his onward mareh baek in the Rocky mountains and formally assumed the office of governor, it was on this spot that he really began his work as governor. This is where he was really inaugurated. His aids and assistants were all here with him. It was a great meeting, one of the greatest of our state.
"This stone that we place here today fitly represents the character of the men and their times. It is rugged and pointed, but it is solid and granite. It cannot be pushed over on one side. The same was true of Governor Stevens; he stood for something. He may have been a little rugged and pointed, but he was a true patriot, and stood four square to the world."
An audience of 500 was drawn together by the ceremonies. Five nearby schools were dismissed for the day, to enable the pupils to attend, and farmers drove to the seene from twenty miles around. A survivor of the expedition, Francis J. D. Wolff, was present. Rev. C. S. Pringle, a pioneer minister of Spokane, delivered the invocation. An address of welcome followed by Owen B. Gilstrap, who home- steaded the site, and this was responded to by Judge C. H. Hanford. Governor A. E. Mead eulogized Stevens, and L. B. Nash spoke on "Stevens the Governor." Reminiseenees of the first governor, by John Miller Murphy, pioneer editor of Olympia, were read by Franeis H. Cook. A military aspeet was imparted by the presence of 210 soldiers from Fort George Wright, and when the flag fell away from the stone, these presented arms, and the buglers of the Third regiment played "America."
INDIANS REDUCED TO PINE MOSS
Gabriel Franehere, who came to the northwest in 1811 with the Astor party, found at the Kettle falls of the Columbia, a number of Indians who were reduced, by springtime famine, to subsisting on a product made from pine moss: "They had been fasting, they assured us, for several days. They appeared. in fact, reduced to the most pitiable state, having nothing left but skin and bones, and seareely able to drag themselves along. so that not without difficulty could they even reach the margin of the river, to get a little water to wet their parehed lips. It is a thing that often happens to these poor people, when their chase has not been productive; their principal nourishment consisting, in that ease, of the pine moss, which they boil till it is reduced to a sort of glue or black paste, of sufficient eonsistence to take the form of biseuit. I had the curiosity to taste this bread, and I thought I had got in my mouth a bit of soap. Yct some of our people, who had been reduced to eat this glue. assured me that when fresh made it had a very good taste, seasoned with meat. We partly relieved these wretched natives from our seanty store."
Franehere's Narratives give the following explanation of the origin of the term "Priests' Rapids:"
"On the 18th we passed Priests' rapids, so named by Mr. Stuart and his people, who saw at this spot, in 1811, as they were ascending the river, a number of sav- ages. one of whom was performing on the rest eertain aspersions and other cere- monies, which had the air of being coarse imitations of the Catholic worship."
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