USA > Washington > Asotin County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 5
USA > Washington > Columbia County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 5
USA > Washington > Garfield County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 5
USA > Washington > Walla Walla County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 5
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Still another enthusiastic student of Indian legends is Lucullus V. Mc- Whorter of North Yakima. He is an adopted member of the Yakima tribe, and has been of incalculable benefit to the Indians in instructing them as to their rights, in presenting their cause to the Government, and in making known their needs as well as some of their wrongs to the general public through voice and pen. He has made a specialty in recent years of organizing the Indians and taking them to "Round-Ups" and "Frontier Days." A recent pamphlet by him on the treatment of the Yakimas in connection with their water rights is an "eye-opener," on some phases of Indian service and Indian problems. Mr. Mcwhorter has gathered a large amount of matter from the Indians, in which is material for three books: "Traditions of the Yakimas;" "Hero Stories of the Yakimas ;" "Nez Perce Warriors in the War of 1877." Among the proteges of Mr. McWhorter from whom he tells me much of interest could be derived, are Chief Yellow Wolf of the Joseph Band of Nez Perces, and Mrs. Crystal McLeod, known to her people as Humishuma, or Morning Dove, an Okanogan woman of unusual beauty and intelligence and well instructed in the English language. Her picture appears in this work from photographs taken by Mr. John Langdon of Walla Walla.
Any reference to any phase of Oregon would be incomplete without mention of John Minto, one of the most honored of pioneers, one of the noblest of men, and one of the best examples of those ambitious, industrious, and high minded state builders who gave the Northwest its loftiest ideals. Mr. Minto was a student of the Indians and discovered and gave to the world various Clatsop and Nehalem legends. Hon. E. L. Smith of Hood River, Ore., well known as an official and legislator of both Oregon and Washington, and a man of such char- acter that all who ever knew him have the highest honor for him in every relation of life, has made a life-long study of the natives and has a great collection of myths both in mind and on paper. He is one of the most sympathetic, tolerant, and appreciative of investigators, one whom the Indians of the Mid-Columbia trust implicitly. He has written little for publication in comparison with what he knows, and it is to be hoped that his stores of material may be brought within reach before long. Worthy of mention as a general student of the geography and language of the Indians is Mr. John Gill of Portland. While he has not made a specialty of myths, he has studied the habits and language with special attention, and his dictionary of the Chinook jargon is one of the most valuable collections of the kind.
It is proper to mention here several who are well versed in native lore, yet who have not given their knowledge of legends or myths to the public in book or magazine form. The most conspicuous, indeed, of this group is no longer living. This was Dr. William C. McKay, a grandson of the Mckay of the Astor Fur Company, who lost his life on the Tonquin. The mother of Doctor Mckay was a Chinook "princess." He was a man of great ability and acquired a fine edu- cation. He lived for years in Pendleton, Ore., where he died some time ago. In the possession of his children and grandchildren there is undoubtedly valuable material and if it could be reduced to written form it would furnish matter of great interest. Certain others of Indian blood may be properly added here who could give material for interesting narrations. Among these are Henry Sicade and William Wilton, living on the Puyallup Reservation near Tacoma, Samuel
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McCaw of Yakima, Wash., and Charlie Pitt of the Warm Springs Agency in Oregon.
This summary of Indian stories and their investigators is necessarily incom- plete. One of the hopes in including it in this work is that it may lead to added contributions. As we contemplate the beauty and grandeur of Old Oregon, which includes Washington and Idaho and a part of Montana, and the pathos, heroism and nobility of its history, and as we see the pitiful remnant of the Indians, we cannot fail to be touched with the quaint, the pathetic, and the suggestive myths and legends that are passing with them into the twilight. In our proud days of possession and of progress we do well to pause and drop the tear of sympathy and place the chaplet of commemoration upon the resting place of the former lords of the land, and to recognize their contributions to the common stock of human thought.
CHAPTER 111 THE FIRST EXPLORERS AND THEIR ROUTES THROUGH THE REGION
Of all events in carly American history influential in their bearing upon the territorial development of the United States the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 must be accorded the foremost place. Until that event the United States, in spite of the fact that it had gained independence, was essentially European in its habit of thought and colonial in its aspirations and outlook. A few seers indeed recognized the possibilities of continental expansion. The doctrine of "manifest destiny" had hell the glowing vision of the place in history which might be wrought by a continent, or at least the dommating parts of it, under the control of the same race of men who had redeemed the Atlantic seaboard from the wilderness and successfully maintained against the greatest empire of the world the proposition that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed " The author of those words had seen more clearly perhaps than any other the world vision of a great American democracy, independent of Europe and yet by reason of geographical position as well as political ideals and social aspirations, the natural mediator among peoples and the ultimate teacher and enlightener of mankind.
When, therefore, as a result of the political revolution of 1800 and the per- manent establishment of the democratic conception in the leadership of American politics, Thomas Jefferson found himself invested with the enormous responsibil- ity of framing policies and measures for the new era, one of his foremost aims was to turn the face of the nation westward. Having long entertained the idea that the true policy was to secure such posts of vantage beyond the Alleghenies as would lead by natural stages to the acquisition of the country beyond the Mississippi, even to the Pacific, he was alert to seize any opening for pursuing that truly American policy. He did not have long to wait At the time of his inaugu- ration the stupendous energies of the French Revolution had become concentrated in that overpowering personality. Napoleon Bonaparte. Holding then the position of first consul, but as truly the imperial master as when he placed the iron crown of the Lombards upon his own head. "the man on horseback" perceived that a renewal of the great war was inevitable and that Austria on land and England at sea were going to put metes to his empire if human power could do it. Nothing was more hateful to Napoleon than to let French America, or Louisiana, slip from his grasp. But he had not the maritime equipment to defend it. England was sure to take it and that soon. Monroe, the American envoy, was in Paris fully instructed hy President Jefferson what to do. All things were ready. The man and the occasion met. The Louisiana Purchase was consummated. For less than three cents an acre, a region now comprising thirteen states of parts of states.
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estimated at over five hundred and sixty-five million acres, equal in extent to all Europe outside of Russia and Scandinavia, became part of the United States.
When that great event was consummated and one of the milestones in the world's progress upon the highway of universal democracy had been set for good, the next step in the mind of Jefferson was to provide for the exploration of the vast new land. The westward limits of Louisiana were not indeed defined by the treaty of purchase otherwise than as the boundaries by which the territory had been ceded by Spain to France, and those boundaries in turn were defined only as those by which France had in 1763 ceded to Spain. Hence the western bound- ary of Louisiana was uncertain. Although subsequent agreements and usages determined the boundary to be the crest of the Rocky Mountains as far south as Texas, Jefferson seems to have thought that the entire continent to the Pacific ought to be included in the exploration, for he saw also that the destiny of his country required the ultimate union of Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as the great central valley. From these conceptions and aims of Jefferson sprang that most interesting and influential of all exploring expeditions in our history, the Lewis and Clark exploration from St. Louis up the Missouri, across the Rocky Mountains, and down the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean. Jef- ferson had contemplated such an expedition a long time. Even as far back as December 4, 1783, in a letter to George Rogers Clark, he raised the question of an exploration from the Mississippi to California. In 1792 he took it up with the American Philosophical Society, and even then Meriwether Lewis was eager to head such an expedition. In a message to Congress of January 18, 1803, before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson developed the importance of a thorough ex- ploration of the continent even to the Western Ocean. With his characteristic secrecy, Jefferson was disposed to mask the great design of ultimate acquisition of the continent under the appearance of scientific research. In a letter to Lewis of April 27, 1803, he says : "The idea that you are going to explore the Mississippi has been generally given out ; it satisfies public curiosity and masks sufficiently the real destination." That real destination was, of course, the Pacific Ocean, and the fundamental aim was the continental expansion of the then crude and straggling Republic of the West. Considering the momentous nature of the undertaking and the possibilities of the unknown wilderness which it was to cover, it is curious and suggestive that Lewis had estimated the expenses at $2,500, and Jefferson called upon Congress for that amount of appropriation. An ex- plorer of the present would hardly expect to go out doors on that scale of ex- pense. Jeffersonian simplicity with a vengeance !
The scope of our book does not permit any detailed account of the preparations or of the personnel of the party. Suffice it to say that the leader, Meriwether Lewis, and his lieutenant, William Clark, were men of energy, discretion, courage, and the other necessary qualities for such an undertaking. While not men of education or general culture (Clark could not even spell or compose English cor- rectly) they both had an abundance of common sense and in preparation for their mission gained a hurried preparation in the essentials of botany, zoology, and astronomy such as might enable them to observe and report intelligently upon the various objects of discovery and the distances and directions traversed.
Jefferson's instructions to Captain Lewis give one an added respect for the intelligence and broad humanity of the great democrat. Particularly did he enjoin Vol. I-3
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upon the leader of the party the wisdom of amicable relations with the natives. The benevolent spirit of the President appears in his direction that kine-pox mat- ter be taken and that its use for preventing small-pox be explained to the Indians. All readers of American history should read these instructions, both for an estimate of Jefferson personally, and for light they throw on the conditions and viewpoints of the times.
The number in the party leaving St. Louis was forty-five. But one death occurred upon the whole journey, which lasted from May 14, 1804, to September 23, 1806. Never perhaps did so extended and difficult an expedition suffer so little. And this was the more remarkable from the fact that there was no physician nor scientific man with the party and that whatever was needed in the way of treating the occasional sicknesses or accidents must be done by the captains. While to their natural force and intelligence the party owed a large share of its immunity from disaster, good fortune surely attended them. This seems the more noticeable when we reflect that this was the first journey across a wilderness afterwards accentuated with every species of suffering and calamity.
The members of the party were encouraged to preserve journals and records to the fullest degree, and from this resulted a fullness of detail by a number of the men as well as the leaders which has delighted generations of readers ever since. . And in spite of the fact that none of the writers had any literary genius. these journals are fascinating on account of the nature of the undertaking and a certain glow of enthusiasm which invested with a charm even the plain and homely details of the long journey.
The first stage of the expedition was from St. Louis, May 14, 1804, to a point 1,600 miles up the Missouri, reached November 2. There the party wintered in a structure which they called Fort Mandan. The location was on the west bank of the Missouri, opposite the present City of Pierre. The journey had been made by boats at an average advance of ten miles a day. The river, though swift and with frequent shoals, offered no serious impediments, even for a long distance above Fort Mandan.
After a long, cold winter in the country of the Mandans, the expedition re- sumed their journey up the Missouri on April 7. 1805. Of the interesting details of this part of their course we cannot speak. Reaching the head-waters of the Missouri on August 12, they crossed that most significant spot, the Great Divide. A quotation from the journal of Captain Lewis indicates the lively sentiments with which they passed from the Missouri waters to those of the Columbia: "As they proceeded, their hope of seeing the waters of the Columbia rose to almost painful anxiety ; when at the distance of four miles from the last abrupt turn of the stream, they reached a small gap formed by the high mountains which recede on either side, leaving room for the Indian road. From the foot of one of the lowest of these mountains, which rises with a gentle ascent for about half a mile. issued the remotest water of the Missouri. They had now reached the hidden sources of that river which had never before been seen by civilized man ; and as they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy fountain-as they sat down by the brink of the little rivulet which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent ocean-they felt themselves rewarded for all their labors and difficulties. * *
* They found the descent much steeper than on the eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile, reached a handsome, bold creek of cold,
-
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clear water running to the westward. They stopped to taste for the first time the waters of the Columbia."
After some very harassing and toilsome movements in that vast cordon of peaks in which lie the cradles of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Snake, Clearwater, and Bitterroot rivers-more nearly reaching starvation point than at any time on the trip-the party emerged upon a lofty height from which their vision swept over a vast expanse of open prairie, in which it became evident that there were many natives and, as they judged, the near vicinity of the great river, which, as they thought, would carry them in short order to the Western Ocean of their quest. They little realized that they were yet more than six hundred miles from the edge of the continent. Descending upon the plain, they made their way to the Kooskooskie, now known as the Clearwater River. As judged by Olin D. Wheeler in his invaluable book, "On The Trail of Lewis and Clark," the explorers crossed from what is now Montana into the present Idaho at the Lolo Pass, and proceeded thence down the broken country between the north and middle forks of the Kooskooskie, reaching the junction on September 26. The camp at that spot was called Canoe Camp. There they remained nearly two weeks, most of them sick through overeating after they had sustained so severe a fast in the savage defiles of the Bitter Roots, and from the effects of the very great change in temperature from the snowy heights to the hot valley below. At Canoe Camp they constructed boats for the further prosecution of their journey. They left their thirty-eight horses with three Indians of the Chopunnish or Pierced-Nose tribe, or Nez Perce as we now know them.
With their canoes they entered upon a new stage of their journey, one easy and pleasant after the hardships of the mountains. Down the beautiful Koos- kooskie, then low in its autumn stage, they swept gaily, finding frequent rapids, though none serious. The pleasant-sounding name Kooskooskie, which ought to be preserved (though Clearwater is appropriate and sonorous), was supposed by the explorers to be the name of the river. This it appears was a misapprehension. The author has been told by a very intelligent Indian named Luke, living at Kamiah, that the Indians doubtless meant to tell the white men that the stream was Koos, koos, or water, water. Koos was and still is the Nez Perce word for water. Luke stated that the Indians did not regularly have names for streams, but only for localities, and referred to rivers as the water or koos belonging to some certain locality.
After a prosperous descent of the beautiful and impetuous stream for a dis- tance estimated by them at fifty-nine miles (considerably overestimated ) the party entered a much larger stream coming from the south. This they under- stood the Indians to call the Kimooenim. They named it the Lewis in honor of Captain Lewis. It was the great Snake River of our present maps. The writer has been told by Mr. Thomas Beall of Lewiston that the true Indian name is Twelka. Still another native name is Shahaptin. The party was now at the present location of Lewiston and Clarkston, one of the most notable regions in the Northwest for beauty, fertility, and all the essentials of capacity for sustain- ing a high type of civilized existence. The land adjoining Snake River on the west is Asotin County, one of the components of our history. The party camped on the right bank just below the junction, and that first camp of white men was nearly opposite both Lewiston and Clarkston of today. They say that the Indians
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flocked from all directions to see them. The scantiness of their fare had brought them to the stage of eating dog-meat, which they say excited the ridicule of the natives. The Indians gave them to understand that the southern branch was navigable up about sixty miles; that not far from its mouth it received a branch from the south, and at two days' march up a larger branch ealled Pawnashte, on which a chief resided who had more horses than he could count.
The first of these must be the Asotin Creek, unless indeed they referred to the Grande Ronde, which is the first large stream, but is considerable distance from the junction. The Pawnashte must have been the Salmon, the largest tributary of the Snake. The Snake at the point of the camp of the explorers was discovered to be about three hundred yards wide. The party noticed the greenish blue color of the Snake, while the Kooskooskie was as clear as crystal. The Indians at this point are described as of the Chopunnish or Pierced-Nose nations, the latter of those names translated by the French voyageurs into the present Nez Perce. Ac- cording to the observations of the party, the men were in person stout, portly, well-looking men ; the women small, with good features and generally handsome. The chief article of dress of the men was a "buffalo or elk-skin robe decorated with beads, sea-shells, chiefly mother-of-pearl, attached to an otter-skin collar and hung in the hair, which falls in front in two queues; feathers, paints of dif- ferent kinds, principally white, green, and light blue, all of which they find in their own country. The dress of the women is more simple, consisting of a long skirt of argalia or ibex-skin, reaching down to the ankles without a girdle ; to this are tied little pieces of brass and shells and other small articles." Further on the journal states again: "The Chopunnish have few amusements, for their life is painful and laborious; and all their exertions are necessary to earn even their precarious subsistence. During the summer and autumn they are busily occupied in fishing for salmon and collecting their winter store of roots. In the winter they hunt the deer on snow-shoes over the plains, and towards spring eross the moun- tains to the Missouri for the purpose of trafficking for buffalo robes." It may be remarked here parenthetically that there is every indication that buffalo formerly inhabited the Snake and Columbia plains. In fact, buffalo bones have been found in recent years in street excavations at Spokane. What cataclysm may have led to their extermination is hidden in obscurity. But at the first coming of the whites it was discovered that one of the regular occupations of the natives was crossing the Rocky Mountains to hunt or trade for buffalo.
Soon after resuming the journey on October II, the explorers noted with curiosity one of the vapor baths common among those Indians, which they say differed from those on the frontiers of the United States or in the Rocky Moun- tains. The bath-house was a hollow square six or eight feet deep, formed in the river bank by damming up with mud the other three sides and covering the whole completely except an aperture about two feet wide at the top. The bathers descended through that hole, taking with them a jug of water and a number of hot rocks. They would throw the water on the rocks until it steamed and in that steam they would sit until they had perspired sufficiently, and then they would plunge into cold water. This species of entertainment seems to have been very sociable, for one seldom bathed alone. It was considered a great affront to decline an invitation to join a bathing party.
The explorers seem to have had a very calm and uneventful descent of Snake
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River. They describe the general lay of the country accurately, noting that beyond the steep ascent of 200 feet ( it is in reality a great deal more in all the upper part of this portion of Snake River) the country becomes an open, level, and fertile plain, entirely destitute of timber. They note all the rapids with suf- ficient particularity to enable anyone thoroughly familiar with the river to identify most of them. They make special observation of the long series of rapids com- monly known now as the Riparia and Texas Rapids, and below these observe a large creek on the left which they denominate as Kimooenim Creek. This is rather odd, for that had already been noted as the native name of the main river. A few miles further down they pass through a bad rapid but twenty-five yards wide. Of course, it must be remembered that the time was October and the river was about at its lowest. This was the narrow crack of the Palouse Rapids, which, however, is not so narrow as they estimated, even at low water. At the end of this rapid they discovered a large river on the right, to which they gave the name of Drewyer, one of their party, their mighty hunter in fact. This was a many-named stream, for it was later the Pavion, the Pavillion, and at the last the present Palouse, the equivalent, we are told again by Thomas Beall, for goose- berry. The principal rapids below the entrance of the Palouse are known at pres- ent as Fishhook, Long's Crossing, Pine Tree, the Potato Patch, and Five Mile. Five Mile looked so bad to them that they unloaded the canoes and made a port- age of three-quarters of a mile. At a distance below this, which they estimated as seven miles, they reached that interesting place where the great northern and southern branches of the Big River unite. They were then at the location of the present Village of Burbank. Many interesting events and observations are chronicled of their stay at that point. Soon after their arrival a regular procession of 200 Indians from a camp a short distance up the Columbia came to visit them, timing their approach with the music of drums, accompanied with the voice. There seems to have followed a regular love-feast, both parties taking whiffs of the friendly pipe and expressing as best they could their common joy at the meeting. Then came a distribution of presents and a mutual pledging of good will.
The captains measured the rivers, finding the Columbia 960 yards wide and the Snake .575. From their point of observation across the continued plain they noted how it rose into the heights on the farther side of the river. They had already taken into account the far distant mountains to the south, our own Blue Mountains, which they thought about sixty miles distant, just about the right estimate. It is to be hoped that it was one of the perfect days not infrequent in October and that the azure hues of those mountains which we love today were before them in all their rich, soft splendor. They noted in the clear water of the river the incredible number of salmon. The Indians gave them to understand that frequently in the absence of other fuel they burned the fish that, having been thrown upon the bank, became so dry as to make excellent fuel. These Indians were of a tribe known as Sokulks. According to the description they were hardly so good-looking a people as the Chopunnish, but were of mild and peaceable dis- position and seemed to live in a state of comparative happiness. The men, like those on the Kimooenim, were said to content themselves with a single wife. The explorers noted that the men shared with their mates the labor of procuring subsistence more than is usual among savages. They were also very kind to the aged and infirm. Nor were they inclined to beggary. All things considered, these
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