USA > Washington > Asotin County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 2
USA > Washington > Columbia County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 2
USA > Washington > Garfield County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 2
USA > Washington > Walla Walla County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 2
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78
In the great semicircle of one hundred and fifty miles in which Snake River borders our four counties, there are frequent profound canons through which the snow-crested mountains from which the streams issue can be seen. The observer who has made that long journey and reaches the open prairie at the mouth of the Snake will behold with wonder and delight the distant chain, all in one
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splendid picture, of which he had before seen broken glimpses through the rifted canon walls or up the sources of the foaming creeks. But whether in broken glimpses or in their grand unity, the Blue Mountains possess a unique charm and individuality. While not so bold and aiguillated as the Cascades, and while there are no peaks standing in lonely sublimity to compel the vision of the traveller, like Mount "Takhoma" or Mount Adams or Mount Hood, the Blue Mountains are not inferior in many of the features of mountain charm to their greater brothers. The marvelous coloring is perhaps the most distinctive of these features. While most mountains are blue, these are blue blue. They are all shades of blue, according to the hour and the month and the season-blue, indigo, ultra- marine, violet, purple, amethyst, lapis lazuli, everything that one can think of to denote variations of blueness. "Blue Mountain" is a real name. The French voyageurs of the fur-traders were the first to note the characteristic blue, and according to Ross Cox, began at once to say, "Les Montagnes Bleues." Another characteristic feature of these mountains is the fact that they do not so much con- stitute a range or chain, like the long, narrow, regular Cascade Range, as a huge mass with prongs radiating from something like a central axis which might be considered the great granite and limestone knot of peaks about Wallowa Lake, of which Eagle Cap is the loftiest, over nine thousand feet in elevation. On account of this ganglionic structure there are many radiating canons from the long ridges and plateaus to the lower levels. The views from the open ridges and rounded summits down these canons constitute a scenic gallery of contours and colorings which may challenge comparison with even the views of the loftier and bolder Cascades.
The value of the Blue Mountains in condensing the moisture of the atmosphere and dropping it upon the plains below in rain and snow can hardly be conceived unless we reflect that without this vast reservoir of salvation to all growing things the Inland Empire would be a desert. Nor could it even be irrigated, for in the absence of the Blue Mountains there would be no available streams for distribu- tion. Wonderful indeed is it to consider how the ardent sun of the Pacific lifts the inconceivable masses of invisible vapor from the ocean and the west wind carries them inland. . The coast mountains constitute the first condenser of that vapor, and almost constant rain during half the year with a predominance of clouds and fogs at all times prevails along the ocean margin of Oregon and Wash- ington. The Cascade Range lifts its stupendous domes and sentinel-like cliffs to catch the vapor that still sweeps inland and to feed the greedy rootlets of their interminable forests and to clothe the heights with perpetual snow and ice. But those vast demands fail to exhaust the limitless resources of the sky, and there are yet remaining infinite treasures of moisture floating eastward. And so the next great suppliant for the vital nourishment of all life stands with uplifted, appealing hands, our wide-extended and clustered uplift of the Blues. Nor do they appeal in vain, as the fertile prairies and benches with their millions of bushels of grain and their far-reaching cattle ranges and their orchard valleys and their countless springs can testify.
Whether from the standpoint of the forester or the farmer or the stockman or the gardener or the orchardist or the fisherman or the artist or the poet, the Blue Mountains constitute one of the great vital working facts, the very frame- work of the life of Old Walla Walla County. We shall discover that they are not
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simply a picture gallery, but that the history of this region is fairly set within this stately frame.
" With these necessarily hurried and fragmentary glances at the physical scene of the story, we shall be prepared to bring the human characters upon the stage.
CHAPTER II
THE NATIVE RACES OF OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY
Any history of any part of America would be incomplete without some view of the aborigines. Such a view is due to them, as well as to the accuracy of state- ment and the philosophical perspectives of history. Such a view is required also by justice to the natives themselves. The ever westward movement of American settlement has been marked by trails of blood and fire. Warfare has set its red stains upon nearly every region wrested from barbarism to civilization. This has been in many cases due to flagrant wrong, greed, and lust by the civilized man. It has been due also to savage cruelty by the barbarian. Perhaps more than to wrong by either party, it has been due to that great. unexplained and unexplain- able tragedy of human history, the inability of either party to comprehend the viewpoint of the other. And yet, most of all, it has been due to that inevitable and remorseless evolution of all life by which one race of plants, animals, and human beings progresses by the extermination of others. Perhaps the phil- osophical mind, while viewing with pity the sufferings and with reprobation the crimes and irrational treatment forced upon the natives by the civilized race, and while viewing with equal horror the atrocities by which the losers in the inevitable struggle sought to maintain themselves-if to such a philosophical mind comes the question who was to blame for all this seemingly needless woe-must answer that the universe is mainly to blame, and we have not yet reached the point to explain the universe.
We have found in the preceding chapter and shall find in succeeding chapters frequent occasion to refer to events in connection with Indians. Our aim in this chapter is rather to give an outline of locations of different tribes, to sketch briefly some of their traits as illustrated in their myths and customs, and to state the chief published sources of our knowledge in regard to these myths and customs. The history of Indian wars, which also includes other incidental matter about them, will be found in the last chapter of Part One of this volume.
The literature of Indian life is voluminous. Practically all the early explorers from Lewis and Clark down devoted large space to the natives. The pioneer settlers knew them individually and some of them derived much matter of gen- eral value which has been preserved in brief newspaper articles or handed down in story and tradition. Out of this vast mass a few writers have formed groups of topics which serve well for those generalizations which a bird's-eye view like this must be content to take. Foremost among the writers dealing with the subject in a large way is Hubert Howe Bancroft. Although his great work on the history of the Pacific Coast has been severely and sometimes justly censured, yet it must be granted that, as a vast compendium of matter dealing with the subject, it is monumental and can be turned to with confidence in the authenticity of its sources
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HUMISHUMA. OR MORNING DOVE, A WOMAN OF THE OKANOGAN TRIBE Her deerskin robe, decorated with beads, elk teeth and grizzly-bear claws, is worth over one thousand dollars
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and in the general accuracy of its statements of fact, even if not always in the breadth of its opinions or the reliability of its judgments.
In Volume One, Chapter Three, of Bancroft's "Native Races," there is a generalized grouping of the Columbian native tribes which may well be accepted as a study of ethnology, derived from many observations and records by those early explorers most worthy of credence. These general outlines by the author are supported by numerous citations from those authorities. The Columbians occupied, according to Bancroft, all the vast region west of the Rocky Mountains lying between the Hyperboreans on the north and the Californians on the south. They are divided into certain families and these families into nations, and the nations into tribes. There is naturally much inter-tribal mingling, and yet the national and even tribal peculiarities are preserved with remarkable distinctness. Beginning on the northern coast region around Queen Charlotte Island are the Haidahs. South of them on the coast comes the family of the Nootkas, centered on Vancouver Island. Then comes the family of the Sound Indians, and still farther south that of the Chinooks. Turning to the east side of the Cascades, which more especially interests us, we find on the north the Shushwap family. embracing all the inland tribes of British Columbia south of lat. 52°, 30'. This group includes the Okanogans, Kootenais, and others of the border between British Columbia and Northeastern Washington and Northern Idaho and North- western Montana. Then comes the Salish family, in which we find the Spokanes, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, Kalispels, and others as far south as the Palouse region. There we begin with the family of Sahaptins, the one which particularly concerns us in Old Walla Walla County. Numerous citations in Bancroft's volume indicate that the early explorers and ethnologists did not altogether agree on the sub- divisions of this family. It would seem, that Hie groups have been somewhat arbitrarily made, yet there was evidently considerable effort to employ scientific methods by study of affiliations in language, customs, treaty relations, range, and other peculiarities. In general terms it may be said that the different writers pretty nearly agree in finding some six or eight nations, each divided into several tribes. These are the Nez Perces or Chopunnish, the Yakimas, the Palouses, the Walla Wallas, the Cayuses, the Umatillas, the Wascos, and the Klickitats. The tribes are variously grouped. The modern spelling appears in the above list, but there is a bewildering variety in the early books. This is especially true of Palouse and Walla Walla. The former appears under the following forms: Palouse, Paloose, Palus, Peloose, Pelonse, Pavilion, Pavion and Peluse. The word means "Gooseberry," according to Thomas Beall of Lewiston. Our familiar Walla Walla, meaning, according to "Old Bones," the Cayuse chief, the place where the four creeks meet, the Walla Walla, Touchet, Mill Creek, and Dry Creek, appears as Ouilla-Oualla (French), Walla Wallapum, Wollow Wollah, Wollaolla, Wolla- :alla, Wallawaltz, Walla Walle, Wallah Wallah, Wallahwallah, Wala- Wala, and Wollahwollah. For Umatilla we find Umatallow, Utalla, Utilla, and Emmatilly. Cayuse has as variants, Cailloux, Kayuse, Kayouse, Skyuse, Cajouse, Caagua, Kyoose, and Kyoots. Doctor Whitman's station, now known as Waiilatpu, appears in sundry forms, as Wyeilat, Willetpu, Wailatpui, and Wieletpoo. Some odd names are found in Hunt. "Nouvelles Annales des Voyages," where it is stated that the Sciatogas and Toustchipas live on Canoe River (apparently the Tucanon), and the Euotalla (perhaps the Touchet), and the Akaitchis "sur le
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Big-River," i. e., the Columbia. The tribe at the junction of the Columbia and Snake was the Sokulks, apparently a branch of the Walla Wallas. It would seem that the Cayuses occupied mainly the middle Walla Walla region including Mill Creek, the Umatilla, the upper Walla Walla, and across the high lands to the Umatilla River, while the Walla Wallas were from the vicinity of the junction of Dry Creek, the Touchet, and the Walla Walla River to its mouth. It appears that the most of the region now composing Columbia, Garfield, and Asotin counties was occupied by Nez Perces. All the tribes were more or less on the move all the time, to mountains, plains, and rivers, according to the season and variations in the food supply. The Sahaptin family seem to have been in general of the best grade of Indians. Lewis and Clark found the Nez Perces a noble, dignified and honest race, though they say that they were close and reserved in bargaining. Generally speaking, the inland Indians were far superior in physique and in mental capacity to those of the Sound or the lower Columbia. Townsend in his "Narrative" goes so far as to say that the Nez Perces and Cayuses were almost universally fine-looking, robust men. He compares one of the latter with the Apollo Belvedere. Gairdner says that the Walla Wallas were generally powerful men, at least six feet high, and the Cayuses were still stouter and more athletic. Others remarked that very handsome young girls were often seen among the Walla Wallas. With them doubtless, as with other Indians, the drudgery of their lives and their early child-bearing made them prematurely old and they soon lost their beauty.
There seems to have been much variation among these natives as to personal habits and morality. The Nez Perces and Cayuses are almost always described as clean, both of body and character. Palmer in his "Journal," says that the Nez Perces were better clad than any others, the Cayuses well clothed, Walla Wallas naked and half-starved. The last statement seems not to correspond with the observations of Lewis and Clark. Wilkes says that "at the Dalles women go nearly naked, for they wear little else than what may be termed a breech-cloth, of buckskin, which is black and filthy with dirt." About the same seems to have been true of the Sokulks. But among the Tushepaws and Nez Perces and Cayuses the men and women often wore long robes of buffalo or elk-skin decorated with beads and sea-shells. Farnham speaks of the Cayuses as the "Imperial tribe of Oregon, claiming jurisdiction over the whole Columbia region."
The chief wealth of the tribes of Old Walla Walla County was in horses. Doctor Tolmie expressed the supposition that horses had come from the south- ward at no very long time prior to white discovery. It is well known that a pre- historic horse, the hipparion, not larger than a deer, existed in Oregon. Remains of that creature have been found in the John Day Basin. But there is no evidence that there was a native horse among the Indians of Oregon. Their "Casuse horses," to all indications, came from the horses of California, and they in turn were the offspring of the horses brought to Mexico and Southern California by the Spanish conquerors. At the time of the advent of the whites, horses existed in immense numbers all through the Columbia Valley. It was not uncommon for a Walla Walla, Umatilla, Cayuse, or Nez Perce chief to have bands of hundreds, even thousands. Canoes were a highly esteemed possession of the Indians on the navigable rivers, and they had acquired marvelous skill in handling them. The
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lower Columbia Indians spent so much time curled up in canoes that they were distorted and inferior in physique to the "bunch-grass Indians."
Like all barbarian people the Indians of the Columbia Valley were next door to starvation a good part of the time. They gorged themselves when food was plentiful, and thus were in distress when the bounty of Nature failed, for there was no accumulated store as under civilized conditions. Their food consisted of deer, elk, and other game, in which the whole Blue Mountain country with the adjoining plains abounded, and of salmon and sturgeon which they obtained in the Columbia and Snake rivers by spearing and by ingenious weirs. They also obtained an abundance of vegetable food from the camas and couse which were common, and in fact still are in this region. Rather curiously, considering the fertility of this Walla Walla County, there are very few wild berries, nuts, or fruits. The huckleberry is practically the only berry in large quantities and wild cherries the only kind of wild fruit.
Such were the physical conditions, hastily sketched, of the natives of Old Walla Walla County. Their mental and moral characteristics may be derived in a degree from the events narrated in the pages which follow. In their best estate they were faithful, patient, hospitable, and generous. In their worst estate, in which the whites more usually found them, they seemed vindictive, suspicious, cruel, and remorseless. Too many cases of the former type occurred to justify any sweeping condemnation. One of the finest examples of Indian character in its better light is shown by an event in this region narrated by Ross Cox in his "Adventures on the Columbia River." The party of trappers of the North- western Fur Company, of which Cox was one, was on its way from Astoria to "Oakinagan," as he calls it-a company of sixty-four in eight canoes. When at a point in the Columbia about equidistant between the mouth of the "Wallah Wallah" and that of the Lewis (Snake), a number of canoes filled with natives bore down upon their squadron, apparently without hostile design. But within a few minutes the Indians evinced the purpose of seizing the canoes of the whites and plundering them by violence. It was soon give and take, and arrows began to fly. Pretty soon one of the company, McDonald, seeing an Indian just at the point of letting fly an arrow at him, fired and killed the Indian. A struggle ensued, but the whites broke loose and defended themselves sufficiently to reach an island, which must have been the one nearly opposite the present Two Rivers. It was a gloomy prospect. Cox says that they had pretty nearly given up hope of escaping, and had written farewell notes which they hoped might reach their friends. It was a dark, gloomy night in November, with a drizzling rain. Dur- ing the night the party saw signal fires on the shore to the northwest, followed by others to east and west. Soon after a large band of ravens passed over, the fluttering of whose wings they could hear. This had a most depressing effect on the superstitious Canadians, and one of them declared that the appearance of ravens at night was an infallible sign of approaching death. Mr. Keith, one of the Scotchmen, seeing the gloomy state of their minds and wishing to forestall the effect, instantly joined the conversation, declaring that while there was such a general fear of a night flight of ravens, yet it never worked disaster unless the flight was accompanied by croaking. But when ravens passed over without croaking, they were a harbinger of good news. Much relieved, the Canadians regained their nerve and shouted out, "you are right, you are right! Courage!
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There is no danger!" The beleaguered band on their dismal retreat waited for the dawn, making all preparations for resistance to the death. Early in the morn- ing the party crossed to the north bank of the river, and there waited develop- ments. A large force of Indians soon appeared, well armed, and yet ready for a parley. The whites sent forward their interpreter, Michel, to indicate their willingness to parley. A group of thirty or forty of the relatives of the dead Indians advanced chanting a death song, which, as they afterwards learned, was about as follows: "Rest, brothers, rest! You will be avenged. The tears of your widows shall cease to flow, when they behold the blood of your murderers ; and your young children shall leap and sing with joy, on seeing their scalps. Rest, brothers, in peace; we shall have blood."
The events which followed this lugubrious song cannot be better told than by following the vivid narrative of Cox:
"They took up their position in the center ; and the whole party then formed themselves into an extended crescent. Among them were natives of the Chim- napum, Yackaman, Sokulk, and Wallah Wallah tribes. Their language is nearly the same; but they are under separate chiefs, and in time of war always unite against the Shoshone or Snake Indians, a powerful nation, who inhabit the plains to the southward.
"From Chili to Athabasca, and from Nootka to the Labrador, there is an indescribable coldness about an American savage that checks familiarity. He is a stranger to our hopes, our fears, our joys, or our sorrows; his eyes are seldom moistened by a tear, or his features relaxed by a smile; and whether he basks beneath a vertical sun on the burning plains of the Amazonia, or freezes in eternal winter on the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean, the same piercing black eyes, and stern immobility of countenance, equally set at naught the skill of the physiognomist.
"On the present occasion, their painted skin, cut hair, and naked bodies. imparted to their appearance a degree of ferocity from which we boded no good result. They remained stationary for some time and preserved a profound silence.
"Messrs. Keith, Stewart, LaRocque, and the interpreter, at length advanced about midway between both parties unarmed, and demanded to speak with them ; upon which two chiefs, accompanied by six of the mourners, proceeded to join them. Mr. Keith offered them the calumet of peace, which they refused to accept, in a manner at once cold and repulsive.
"Michel was thereupon ordered to tell them that, as we had always been on good terms with them, we regretted much that the late unfortunate circumstance had occurred to disturb our friendly intercourse; but that as we were anxious to restore harmony. and to forget what had passed, we were now willing to compensate the relations of the deceased for the loss they had sustained.
"They inquired what kind of compensation was intended; and on being in- formed that it consisted of two snits of chief's clothes, with blankets, tobacco. and ornaments for the women, etc., it was indignantly refused ; and their spokes- man stated that no discussion could be entered into until two white men (one of whom should be the big red-headed chief) were delivered to them to be sacrificed, according to their law, to the spirits of the departed warriors.
"Every eye turned on McDonald, who on hearing the demand, 'grinned hor-
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ribly a ghastly smile'; and who, but for our interposition, would on the spot have chastised the insolence of the speaker. The men were horrified, and 'fear and trembling' became visible in their countenances, until Mr. Keith, who had observed these symptoms of terror, promptly restored their confidence, by telling them that such an ignominious demand should never be complied with.
"He then addressed the Indians in a calm, firm voice, and told them that no consideration whatever should induce him to deliver a white man to their vengeance ; that they had been the original aggressors, and in their unjustifiable attempt to seize by force our property, the deceased had lost their lives; that he was willing to believe the attack was unpremeditated, and under that impres- sion he had made the offer of compensation. He assured them that he preferred their friendship to their enmity; but that, if unfortunately they were not actuated by the same feelings, the white men would not, however deeply they might lament it, shrink from the contest. At the same time he reminded them of our superiority in arms and ammunition; and that for every man belonging to our party who might fall, ten of their friends at least would suffer; and concluded by request- ing them calmly to weigh and consider all these matters, and to bear in recollec- tion that upon the result of their deliberation would in a great measure depend whether white men would remain in their country or quit it forever.
"The interpreter having repeated the above, a violent debate took place among the principal natives. One party advised the demand for the two white men to be withdrawn, and to ask in their place a greater quantity of goods and ammu- nition ; while the other, which was by far the most numerous, and to which all the relatives of the deceased belonged, opposed all compromise, unaccompanied by the delivery of the victims.
"The arguments and threats of the latter gradually thinned the ranks of the more moderate; and Michel told Mr. Keith that he was afraid an accommodation was impossible. Orders were thereupon issued to prepare for action, and the men were told, when they received from Mr. Keith the signal, to be certain that each shot should tell.
"In the meantime a number of the natives had withdrawn some distance from the scene of deliberation, and from their fierce and threatening looks, joined to occasional whispers, we momentarily expected they would commence an attack.
"A few of their speakers still lingered, anxious for peace; but their feeble efforts were unavailing when opposed to the more powerful influence of the hostile party, who repeatedly called on them to retire, and allow the white men to proceed on their journey as well as they could. All but two chiefs and an elderly man, who had taken an active part in the debate, obeyed the call, and they remained for some time apparently undecided what course to adopt.
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