Yakima County, Washington - Chapter 4: The Yakima Indians, 1904

Chapter 4: The Yakima Indians

Such are the difficulties in the way of him who would search deeply into the inner character and life of the Indian that they can be overcome only in a limited measure. The Indian is by nature reticent. To none but his true and tried friends will he unbosom himself at all, and even the man who has won his confidence must exercise much tact to gain from him an insight into his traditions, folk-lore, religion and aspirations. "His language," says Dr. G. P. Kuykendall, "is difficult to comprehend ; its idioms are peculiar, and his manner of thought is widely different from ours. In his heart the Indian sincerely believes the traditions and myths of his fathers ; but it is difficult to get him to open his mind and communicate them to the whites. In their zeal to correct the erroneous beliefs of the Indians, the white people usually laugh at his stories ; and then he becomes silent. These things are sacred to him, and he cannot complacently bear to have them ridiculed. They are his bible, his code of laws, his system of philosophy and his religion. From him infancy he has heard these things related by his father as facts - sacred facts; and to him they are sacred."

It would seem, however, that Dr. Kuykendall has been quite successful in his efforts to reach the sanctum sanctorum of the Indian heart and to win from it its treasure of tradition and legend. Having been for years engaged as agency physician on the Yakima reservation, he enjov'ed unusual opportunities for the study of Indian characteristics, and much of the material for his excellent article on the Indians of the Pacific Northwest was doubtless compiled at this time. Very few writers have ever been so intimately associated with Indians in their every-day life as to admit of personal investigations into their character and habits. The writer cheerfully acknowledges himself indebted to the researches of the doctor and to information furnished him by Indian Agent Jay Lynch for material assistance in the preparation of this chapter.

The commonly accepted estimate of the Indian is a symposium of impressions formed of him while at war with the whites. At such times all that is basest, most savage, cruel and deceitful in his nature is uppermost; the side of his character brought into bold relief is the worst side, and an impression decidedly unfavorable to him is the natural consequence. So it happened that the Pacific coast pioneers came to believe the only good Indian was a dead Indian. But now that the conquest of the red man is complete, that there is no longer a chance of his waging successful warfare against the white men, a reaction has set in and many are coming to look more kindly upon the vanquished race, and to contemplate with feelings of sympathy the Indian's impending doom. Men are beginning- to realize the pathetic aspect of the Indian's situation; how that his race has wrestled without guiding star for ages with the problem of destiny; yielding at last its native land to strangers and going out of existence as a race, leaving not even so much as a history behind. "Almost all that is known," says Kuykendall, "of the past hopes, fears, loves, battles, intellectual, physical and moral life of un- counted millions of human beings could be written on a single page. All the rest is silent and forever lost in oblivion. That the Indian race was capable of a great degree of civilization is evident from the ruins of magnificent cities found in the southern part of the continent. That this country is very ancient and has known a high degree of civilization is certain. Whether the North American Indians worked out their own destiny without any extraneous influence will probably never be known. Our Northwest Pacific country has a wonderful past as well as a grand future. As having some bearing on the past history of our tribes, it may be mentioned that while boring an artesian well in Nampa, Idaho, Mr. M. A. Kurtz found, July 24, 1889, a pottery image of a human form, almost perfect in every detail, at a depth of nearly three hundred feet. The well went first through the natural soil, gravel, etc., about sixty-five feet; then through a lava flow of about fifteen feet ; and the rest of the distance was through layers of sand, quicksand, clay and pebbles. The image was found in sand underneath all these. It was of burnt clay and about one inch long. Who made it, where it came from, how it came where it was found and how long it had lain there are mysteries that will never be unveiled. This curious find would go to indicate that, at some remote age back of all written history, there were in this country, somewhere, people who were well advanced in civilization and art."

The origin of the Indian is another unsolved problem. Possibly the most feasible explanation of his presence is that his race is identical with the Mongolian and that his ancestors drifted across the Pacific ocean, probably where the two continents, Asia and America, approach each other most nearly. There are, perhaps, no physical differences between the Chinese and the Indians that cannot be accounted for by the effect of climate and environment. The war spirit is much more dominant in the American than in the Asiatic race, but this may have resulted from the physical conditions of the country in which the ancestral Indian found himself, being developed first by his warfare with the animal creation for subsistence and later by intertribal belligerence incident to chieftainship and a tribal form of government. Indeed, the recent Japanese- Chinese war furnished abundant proof that at least one branch of the original Mongolian stock was not deficient in martial spirit. Whether differences of environment and conditions are sufficient to cause the Asiatic Mongolians to be noted for their patient industry, while the American Indian is noted for his utter shiftlessness and contempt for anything like drudgery, is a matter of opinion.

The account of their origin given by the Pacific coast Indians themselves is of interest primarily as a part of their religion and mythology and incidentally from the fact that it presupposes a condition of physical features such as geological science teaches to have existed in past ages. The observations of the Indian led him to think that much that is now dry land was formerly covered with water, and the geologist's -research has led him to the same conclusion. The legends of the different tribes regarding their creation, though not in perfect accord, are similar in all their essential features. The version of the eastern Washington Indians is thus given by Dr. Kuykendall:

A great while ago, in the wonderful age of the ancients, when all kinds of animals spoke and reasoned, and before the present race of Indians existed, there was a mighty beaver, Wishpoosh, that lived in Lake Cle-Elum. This beaver was god of the lake, owning it, and claiming property in all the fish, wood, and everything in and about its waters. He lived in the bottom of the lake ; his eyes were like living fire ; his eyebrows bright red ; and his immense nails or claws shone and glistened like burnished silver. Like so many others of the Indians' animal gods, he was a bad character, and was very destructive to life. He had made the lake and its surroundings a place of terror; for he destroyed and devoured every living thing that came in his way. To those he could not kill, he denied the privilege of taking fish, of which there were plenty in the water. All about in the country the (animal) people were hungry for fish; and, with plenty near by. it seemed hard that they must starve. Coyote, in his journeyings, found the (animal) people in this sad plight, and their condition moved him to do something for their relief. As many unsuccessful attempts had been made to destroy the monster, Coyote knew he had a big job on hand, and so made elaborate preparations for the encounter. He armed himself with a powerful spear with a long and strong handle. This spear he bound to his wrist with strong cords of twisted ta-hoosh (Indian flax). Thus equipped, he went up to the lake, and finding old Wishpoosh, drove his spear into him. The wounded and enraged water god plunged into the lake and down to the bottom. The cord of the spear handle being fast to Coyote's wrist, he was dragged along by the infuriated beast ; so that now the two went plunging and tearing along through the lake. A fearful struggle ensued, in which they tore a gap through the mountain, and came wallowing and swimming into the lake that then covered Kittitas valley. On across that they came, and thrashed through the ridge forming the Naches gap. and entered the lake that then stood over the Yakima valley. Still the mighty beaver god struggled: Coyote hung on, and they struck the ridge below the Ahtanum, and tore through, forming Union gap; and then they went floundering on down, tearing the channel of the Yakima river. Poor Coyote was getting badly worsted, and was almost strangled, and was clutching at trees along the bank, trying to stop his wild career down the stream. He caught hold of the large cottonwoods, but they broke off or pulled up; he tried the firs, but they tore out by the roots ; he clawed at the rocks, but they crumbled off. Nothing could stand before the irresistible power of the mighty Wishpoosh. Exhausted and almost drowned, he found himself wallowing in the mouth of the Columbia among the breakers. The muskrat was standing on the shore laughing at him.

By this time the beaver god was dead: and the now half drowned Coyote came out, dragging his game with him. When he came out. he wiped the water from his face and eyes, and proceeded to cut up the beaver's carcass. As lie cut the different parts, he made of them the

Central Washington

Indian tribes. Of the belly he made the lower Columbia and Coast Indians saying, "You shall always be short and fat, and have great bellies." Of the legs he made the Cayuses, saying, "You shall be fleet of foot and strong of limb." Of the head he made the northern tribes, saying, "You will be men of brains, and strong in war." Of the ribs he made the Yakimas or Peshwan-wa-pams. The various tribes had characteristics derived from the parts from which they were taken. Last of all there was a lot of blood, pieces of entrails and filth, which Coyote gathered up and flung off towards the country of the Sioux and the Snakes, saying, "You shall always be people of blood and violence." Having peopled the country with tribes of Indians, he started up the Columbia, and, reaching the point where the Columbia and Snake unite their waters, the mighty maker of the red men paused. Standing there, at the meeting place of the waters, with hands outstretched like the arms of a balance, first towards the east and west, then toward the north and south, he said: "Earth is full of inhabitants; there is no longer place here for me." Then he ascended to the sky.

The god "Coyote," who figures so prominently in the foregoing legend, was, in the Indian mythology, the chiefest of a large number of animal deities. It seems to be generally believed by Indians that the animals as they now exist are degenerate sons and daughters of an ancestry endowed with the power of speech and a large degree of intelligence. Indeed it is stated that even inanimate objects were thought to have possessed, in that wonderful ancient time, the ability to speak and to perform marvels. The Indians belieye that a spirit essence still exists in material blankets, beads and other articles of comfort and adornment, attesting their faith in the doctrine by burying such articles with their dead. They think that the soul of the blanket, pipe or other object attaches itself to the spirit of the departed and in some mysterious way ministers to his comfort in the undiscovered country. They believe, a fortiore, in the existence of animal souls, and some of them are in the habit of slaying a horse over the grave of his master, that the spirit of the animal may bear the spirit of the man in its journey to that good land to which the grave is the only portal.

The Indian's animal gods are a strange creation of his imagination. They are grotesque creatures possessed of magical powers to defy the laws of nature; cunning, deceitful, treacherous, reflecting with fidelity the moral character of the race that fabricated them. In their magical powers they were akin to the divine; in physique they were gigantic animals: in ethical standards they were ordinary Indians.

To Coyote, their great deity, are attributed wonderful powers. He could change the aspect of nature, convert beings to stone, transform himself into any form he wished. While he was not altogether good, and seems to have been a believer in the doctrine that a benevolent end might justifv almost any means necessary to its accomplishment, yet he was for the most part the friend of the Indian and the enemy of the tyrant gods who would do him harm. With all his powers, he sometimes suffered from hunger and thirst, often found himself in ludicrous and absurd positions, was frequently guilty of folly and frivolity, and wise though he sometimes was, was forced more than once to take counsel of his three little sisters who lived in his stomach and were, in bodily form, like a species of berry. It is said that whenever these knowing females had given him advice, he would say "Yes, that is just what I thought," taking all the credit to himself. In order to rid the world of a troublesome one-horned dog, he created a two-homed canine out of clay which vanquished the hated animal in various feats. He thereupon traded for the hated dog and took him out of the country. Then, the two-horned creature, having accomplished the purpose of his creation, turned back to the vile clay whence he sprung.

But this was by no means the most wonderful of the deeds of the famed Coyote. He destroyed malevolent water gods; slew Amash, the owl; fought with Eenumtla, the thunder, beat him unmercifully and so broke his power that he is now seldom able to kill anyone, though he often frights ; outwitted certain beaver women, who were in the habit of preventing salmon from ascending the rivers, and brought it about that the salmon might swim to the waters of the interior without hindrance ; transformed the female aspirants for the favor of his son into rocks; cursed the monstrous tick god, who thereafter became small, feeble, insignificant and vile; slew by treachery the giant mosquito god, forming from his head the race of diminutive insects which now annoy mankind; attempted with Eagle to bring the dead back from spirit land and did many other wonderful things.

But the mighty Coyote at length overleaped himself. In a climax of audacity he ascended to heaven. This boldness proved his utter undoing, for on account of his presumption, or the sinfulness and deceit of his past life, he was fated to experience a tremendous fall, not only from his elevated position in space but from all the exaltation of attribute and magical power which were formerly his. There are several different versions among the Indian tribes of this fall of Coyote. One of them is as follows :

Coyote, in the course of his checkered career, had at one time occasion to mourn the death of his five daughters, or, according to some, sisters. While wandering about disconsolate, he was directed to a rope reaching up to heaven, having found which he began the ascent. Encouraged by a voice from above, he climbed higher and higher, until at last the strains of music reached his ear and looking up he saw grass and trees, and streams of water. He had paused to listen and when he again attempted to move upward, he discovered, to his consternation, that his paws had become fastened to the rope, so that he could neither ascend nor descend. While in this ridiculous position between earth and heaven, he heard a voice saying, "You cannot come up; your heart has been very bad; you have been fork-tongued and deceitful, and have practiced evil. You are unfit for the heavenly country. You never can come up until you have confessed your wrongs and put away your evil spirit."

A long time Coyote hung there before he could bring himself to make this humiliating confession, for he was a great god and not a little proud of his achievements. At length, however, he made a clean breast of all his iniquities, and was drawn up through a trap door into the sky country. Four of his daughters received him joyfully, but the fifth upbraided him for his sinfulness and presumption in coming to the heavenly land. She ended up by giving him a shove through the trap door. Coyote sought the rope but it had been drawn up into heaven, so there was nothing to hold onto and he fell precipitate. For more than "nine days," - a whole year - he fell and fell. When at last he struck the earth he was mashed as flat as a tule mat; nor was there consolation in the voice which spoke to him from heaven, for it pronounced a curse upon him, saying: "You shall be a vagabond and wanderer, and shall be a common contemptible coyote, and shall forever cry and howl for your sins." Thus it came to pass that the coyote is a most ignoble animal, whining and crying of nights ; wandering about continually in its destitution and friendlessness.

Referring to the strange admixture of conflicting characteristics attributed to this fantastic animal deity. Dr. Kuykendall says : "In the incongruities of the Indian god we see the incongruities of the Indian mind; for his god was the product of his own imagination and he clothed him with such attributes as were in harmony with his own intelligence, feelings and moral nature. Since these myths and traditions have been handed down for centuries, they convey to us a picture of the Indian character for ages back, more correct, perhaps, than any written history could give us. The mythmakers had no desire to flatter or traduce: but unconsciously, while telling of the doings of the gods, they told their own natures, feelings and impulses, and without knowing it gave us their own standard of morality."

A noticeable feature of the Indian mythology is that the death of a gigantic animal deity almost invariably resulted in the formation of a race similar in some respects to the slain god, but smaller in size, vastly inferior in power and dignity and degenerate in every way. Thus the death of Amash, the owl god, gave to the world the hooting bird of the night; the death of the mosquito god resulted in the blood-sucking pest of modern times, and even the fall of Coyote himself was fruitful in the creation of a race of animals. It was natural that the mythology of the Indian should take its form and substance from the animal creation. The earliest and the latest associations of the primitive red man were with the wild beasts of nature, and by the simplest psychological law he was constrained to weave them into his day-dreaming. The mythology of the Indian is the result of his efforts to solve the problem of origin, to explain nature as he saw it, a problem with which the mind of man has wrestled in all ages, and many times with as little success as has attended the philosophizing of the ancestral red man.

The Indian myth-maker did not pause when he had constructed a cosmogony of animal life. He sought also to explain by imaginative accounts many other phenomena of nature. The result is numerous myths concerning the origin of fire, the warm and cold winds, the existence of rocks in different places, etc., etc. Lakes and streams and springs were peopled with mythological inhabitants of various shapes and characters, and even the remains of extinct mammalia yielded suggestions to the story teller. A sunken place on the north side of the Naches river near a small lake is supposed to be the place where the famed Coyote used to have a sweathouse ; and a depression in a south hillside near the mouth of the Satus is pointed out as the spot where the warm wind rested over night when on his way to avenge the killing by the cold wind brothers of his father and uncles.

From the character of myths heretofore referred to, it may be seen that the Indians, in common with practically all other races of men, believe in a future existence. In reference to the peculiar features of the Indian's belief in the doctrine of the soul and immortality, we find this language in Dr. Kuykendall's excellent article :

As has been mentioned, the Indians believe that all objects are of a dual nature, having a soul or spirit-like existence independent of the material form. It is said that some of the Oregon tribes formerly held that the various organs of the body were each endowed with separate souls. Among all the tribes the idea seemed to be that there were really two persons, the spirit or soul and the body with its animal life, and that the body could exist for some time while the soul was absent. This ghost-like self had the same form and visage as the body. While they believed in a spirit or soul, they do not appear to have thought it was as much a reality as the body. There was a vague, misty unsubstantiality about it that must have been very unsatisfying to their minds. The soul could leave the body and go away in dreams and trances, and could appear as an apparition in places far from the body, with form and features recognizable. In their languages, life and breath or spirit and breath meant the same thing.

A good many if not all of the Indians believed that there were certain shamans or conjurers that could rob them of their souls, and that the body would continue to live on for a longer or shorter time, but that it must soon die. In their so-called doctoring pow-wows, the doctors professed to restore the absent soul to its owner, and thus make his recovery to health possible. Another idea quite prevalent among the tribes of northern Oregon and Washington was that the soul could come back and in- habit some other body. The most northerly tribes bordering upon and reaching into British Columbia thought the soul came back and entered certain birds, fish, or deer or elk. Others held that the soul came back in the body of infants born to near relatives. It entered the body of a female and appeared in her child. If the child strongly resembled the deceased, then there was no doubt but that he had appeared again ; and his name was sooner oir later conferred upon it. Some of the tribes in the Northwest held that the deceased could choose into what family he would be born again ; and, among the poor and sick and suffering, life was laid down with little regret, believing they might after a while be born into wealthy or honorable families. It was generally believed that the spirits of the dead are out around the world very active and busy during the night, but that in the daytime they stay about graveyards and lonely, dark places. Some held that the dead go into a state of insensibility as soon as the light of day comes on ; and that, when darkness broods over the world, their spirits come forth rehabilimented and happy, dancing, feasting and engaging in all kinds of pleasures during the hours of darkness.

Whatever happiness or bliss was attributed to those in the spirit land, there seems to have been a sort of vague dread and much misgiving in regard to it ; and their legends show clearly enough that it was the general belief that it would be desirable to have the souls of the deceased return to earth ; and that the existence here is really more substantial and desirable than that in the spirit land. Everything goes to show that for some cause there had been a great deal of change going on in the belief of the tribes for some time before the advent of the whites. Their traditions indicate that the Indians had been travelling and visiting more together than formerly. There is every indication that, at some period back only a few hundred years, the tribes had no horses, and their excursions were limited, and there were greater provincialisms in customs and beliefs than in later times. Formerly each little tribe had its own grounds, lived and died near their birthplaces, and seldom traveled to any extent. Under these circumstances, each had its own legends and myths, and its own particular belief as to the future. Now and for some years back there are found traces of several beliefs mixed in with all the tribes. There was much more independence in thought and difference in religious belief than we have been prone to imagine. There was much more scepticism and tendency to unbelief than we have been taught to look for. Many individuals, when asked about the future state, will say, "I don't know." Some express a doubt as to the immortality of the soul ; and some utterly deny it.

Among most of the tribes, there seems to have been a pretty distinct idea of rewards and punishments based on the Indian's idea of right and wrong. In nearly all cases, there was hope held out for relief and final entrance into the happy land. Generally, after an uncertain length of time spent in banishment, the sins of the offender were expiated, and he was permitted to pass in among the good, or was even assisted in. Among no tribes do we find anything like the orthodox fire and brimstone hell; but there are very close representations to the condition of the ancient Tantalus, forever tortured with images of everything pleasing to the senses, but which he was utterly unable to grasp. The Chinooks and Klickitats believed in a bright, happy land not very definitely located, where the good were permitted to enjoy themselves in hunting, fishing and every pleasure conceivable to the Indian mind; while the wicked were condemned to wander away in a land of cold and darkness to starve and freeze unceasingly. Some of the northern tribes say that in the other world there is a dark, mysterious lake or ocean; and that out of this lake there flow two rivers. Up one on the shores there is a beautiful country filled with all manner of berries and game, while the stream abounds in fish. Here the good Indian lives in happiness and comfort forever. Up the other river there is a land of frost and darkness, a stony, barren waste, a land of briars and brambles, where the sunlight never comes and where the wicked wander forever in cold, hunger and despair.

The Okanogans have an Indian heaven and a peculiar kind of hell. Instead of the orthodox cloven-footed, barbed-tailed devil, there is a being in human form with ears and tail of a horse. This fantastic being lives in the pine trees, and jumps about from tree to tree, and with a stick beats and prods the poor souls consigned to his dominions. If among the tribes of the Northwest there is any idea of a heaven in the sky or in some elevated spot in space, it probably was derived from priests or missionaries. In the extreme southern part of Oregon, the Indians represent the happy hunting grounds as beyond a deep, dark gulf or chasm across which all must pass - some say on a slippery pole. The good manage to get over, but the evil fall in and reappear upon earth in the form of beasts, insects or birds. One of the most common ideas among the interior tribes was that the spirit land is situated far away towards the south or west. In its journey the soul meets far out on the way a spirit being who understands his life, and weighs all his conduct and actions. If he has been bad, he is sent on to a crooked, wandering road that leads to a land of misty darkness, where the soul, forlorn, cold and hungry, forever wanders in despair; while the good are directed along a straight road leading to a country that is very beautiful, and abounding in everything the Indian can desire.

These various shades of belief all give expression to that unutterable longing, characteristic of humanity in all ages, to look into the future, to unravel the mystery of death, and to solve the problem of man's destiny after he quits this mortal body. In his vain attempts to satisfy the yearnings of his soul after immortality and happiness beyond the grave, man in all lands has invented mythic stories. Death, silence and darkness fill the savage mind with superstitious dread. The most profound and philosophical stand silent in the presence of death. Each tribe or nation of people has its own ideas of heaven ; and each pictures what from its standpoint would seem the most happy and desirable condition. No people can picture a heaven superior to the powers of their conception to originate. The Indian's heavenly mansion was a mat house ; because he had never seen nor thought of anything superior or better. Drumming, dancing, gaming and feasting were the highest conceptions of felicity possible to the Indian mind. Hence he pictured for himself a heaven in which these are the chief pleasures. The river and coast tribes, being accustomed to water and boats, located their heaven on a far away island ; and the spirits were conveyed to the Indian paradise in boats. The prairie tribes, being accustomed to horses as the speediest and best mode of conveyance, sent their dead to heaven on horseback.

We thus see that the habits of life and the surroundings of a people have much to do in their heaven building. The Indian prophet harangues the children of the prairie and forest about a heaven where drumming, dancing and various plays and sports are conducted in a great mat house. The Mohammedan priest tells the followers of Islam of a land of palaces, fountains and delicate perfumes, where beautiful houris and genii are found; and where the soul revels in sensual pleasures. The early Christian fathers preached about a heaven with golden streets, jasper walls, seas of glass and fountains and rivers of life. A higher authority says, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive," what heaven is like; and this is in consonance with reason and philosophy.

reel man, is a belief in what they term "tamanowash." The word is hard to define; an Indian can convey an idea of its meaning only by citing illustrative examples; but it seems to be a species of spirit power, working through a mortal and exercising an influence in the affairs of individuals. Persons through whose mediumship this power acts are known as medicine-men or doctors. The method of initiation into their fraternity is this : A hoy under the age of puberty goes out alone into a lonely place and there remains until a message comes to him. Some wild animal or bird gives forth the sound peculiar to its kind and in an unaccountable way intelligence from the realm of spirit is conveyed to the excited mind of the candidate. If he remembers the words of this supernatural communication to maturity he is a medicine man, having power to use for the blighting or healing of any individual of his race the resources of his patron spirit. This supposed league with the supernatural gives the reputed possessor of it great influence over his less favored brethren, for who of them would not fear a man who has power to bewitch, to cast spells and even to take life by an effort of the will? True, this power may be exercised for the benefit as well as to the detriment of an individual, and indeed it is invoked whenever the Indian is sick with an internal malady, but as diseases of this character are supposed to be the effect of a malevolent use of the tamanowash power, it can, after all, at best accomplish nothing more, even in the hands of its most benevolent possessor than to undo the mischief which, differently applied, it has itself wrought. This belief in tamanowash is also baneful to the Indian in that it makes him too much the slave of the wizard doctor, who is many times the veriest charlatan. But if tamanowash is a curse to the common Indian, it does not always prove an unmixed blessing to the doctor himself, for he is likely at any time to be accused of causing the death of some tribesman, who has fallen a victim to disease. When so accused, his charlatanry comes to the rescue, prompting him to lay the blame on some distant practitioner of sorcery. Occasionally he is unable to escape responsibility in this way, and dies at the hands of an enraged relative of the person he is thought to have murdered with his deadly spell.

Indeed a case of this kind occurred as recently as September of the year 1903 on the Ahtanum river, twelve miles west of North Yakima. The matter was brought to the notice of the civil authorities and a deputy coroner, having repaired to the scene, found the headless trunk of an old woman known as Tisanaway in the wickiup of her son-in-law, Yallup. The victim was a witchdoctor and had incurred the enmity of a number of her tribesmen by giving, as they would express it, "bad medicine" to their kindred. It is thought that this was the cause of her death.

Such were some of the superstitions which held the Indian mind in bondage when benevolent white men began the work of evangelization and education among the Yakima tribes, and such are some of the superstitions which are still enthralling a majority of those tribes, despite the efforts of the government and the missionary. The Indian has everywhere manifested a conservatism truly astonishing. With the fruits of civilization all around him, so that he cannot fail to observe the blessings which flow from intelligent industry, he still clings with pertinacity to his ancient habits and philosophy. Even the certainty that his doom is sealed unless he shall yield to civilizing influences, and that quickly, has failed to arouse him from his lethargy. His race must soon go out of existence as a separate and distinct branch of the human family, without a history, with no monument in the way of art or architecture save a few insignificant trinkets - "unwept, un honored and unsung."

The Yakima nation first came into conflict with the American settlers shortly after the negotiation of the Stevens treaty of 1855. The story of that treaty and that war has already found place in these pages. None can follow the great Kamiakin in his efforts to form an Indian confederacy and in his conduct of the Yakima war without feeling that he deserves rank among the ablest diplomats and warriors of the western aborigines, and the nation of which he was head chief certainly embraced more than one tribe that might compare favorably in general intelligence and spirit with any other band in the Northwest, though the palm for integrity, sincerity, peaceful disposition and capacity for civilization is usually accorded to the Nez Perces. According to Kuykendall, "of all the Indians of the Northwest, the Klickitats were the most powerful, extending their excursions the farthest into the surrounding country. It is said that the word Klickitat signifies robber or marauder. It was characteristic of the people of that tribe to go almost everywhere and make themselves at home anywhere. Their language impressed itself upon a greater number of people than any other native language of the Northwest. They were the traveling traders, the 'Yankee peddlers' of the tribes in the Northwest. The Chinooks were also great traders in the Indian way; but finding nearly everything they needed to supply their wants in their own country, they seldom made extensive excursions among the surrounding tribes. Their habits of life, their climate and methods of travel created a greater affinity between themselves and the coast and Puget Sound clans. The Klickitats were quite nomadic in their habits ; and the summer time found numerous bands of them making long journeys among distant tribes.

Every year some of them would go east, beyond the head of the Missouri river over into Dakota. They frequently met the Shoshones in Grande Ronde valley and traveled as far south as northern California. In fact, occasional trips were made as far south as the lower Sacramento valley. On the north they ranged far into British Columbia. The objects of these excursions were traffic, gambling, horse-racing and sometimes theft and pillage. These Indians were well supplied with buffalo robes, most of which they obtained from the tribes in Montana and Dakota, exchanging for them horses, shells, beads, knives, guns and articles of clothing which they had bought of the whites or traded for with other Indians. In many places in eastern Oregon and Washington there are yet to be seen old trails on the lines of commerce and communication between the tribes. These trails are sometimes as many as ten or fifteen in number, running parallel and close together; in many instances they are worn deep into the soil."

Besides the Klickitats there were some thirteen other tribes and bands, whose chiefs signed the Stevens treaty. All together constituted the Yakima nation, and occupied a territory extending over many hundreds of square miles of what is now known as the Inland Empire.

After the war of 1855-6, the United States government determined to establish a fort in the territory of these people, and in the fall of 1856 the construction of the post was begun. The site chosen was a place known among the Indians by the name "Mool Mool," referring, it is claimed, to the bubbling springs which there abound. The timbers for practically all the buildings were framed in the east, conveyed around Cape Horn on shipboard, thence up the Columbia river to The Dalles, from which point they were packed on the backs of mules over the mountains via the old military trail to the site chosen. It is said that the building now occupied by Agent Jay Lynch cost $60,000, and that the total amount expended by the government in the construction of the original Fort Simcoe buildings was $300,- 000. The work was so well and thoroughly done that most of the buildings have stood the test of time and are still giving service. They are quaint, old-fashioned structures, interesting relics of the days gone by. The ancient blockhouses are small low buildings constructed of timbers squared with the broad axe and laid one above another. It is not difficult to discern where the port holes originally were, though they are now filled up, and it is pleasant to remember that never once was it necessary to send a bullet through any of them to the heart of an attacking enemy. The blockhouses have long since been devoted exclusively to uses far remote from those for which they were originally designed, as have also all

The establishment of an agency among the Yakimas was one of the provisions of the treaty of 1855, without the fulfillment of which none of the other pledges of the government could be redeemed. Old residents assert that some of the earliest agents were frequently accused of fraud and inefficiency. All this ceased when the Rev. James H. Wilbur was appointed to the general charge of the agency. This worthy representative of the Methodist Episcopal clergy is known among the Indians as Father Wilbur, and they do well to honor him with this reverent and affectionate title, for he deserves a very large share of the credit for whatever progress the Yakimas have made in education and civilization. Speaking of him, John P. Mattoon stated to the writer that he was a very large man, weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds, well proportioned and powerful, dark complexioned and fine looking. He had a Roman nose and wore burnsides. He was quick to think and act, good natured, sensitive, slow to anger, but passionate, resolute and of great courage when aroused ; had a commanding eye and voice and was seldom disobeyed by anyone. He was an excellent preacher. His wife was a small woman, of a retiring disposition, popular with all classes and a great favorite with the Indian women.

Wilbur was appointed superintendent of teaching September 1, i860. With characteristic energy he began, immediately upon going to the agency, to prepare for opening a boarding school for the children of the agency.

"I pledged the department," wrote he in his official report of 1878, "if they would feed the children for a time, until the wild steers could be made oxen and the Indian children could be tamed to drive them, and seed planted and sowed, and time given for it to come to maturity, the school would raise enough for its own subsistence. Provision was made to subsist the children of the school for eight months. I immediately gathered in the larger boys for school and commenced my instruction in yoking the cattle, hitching them to the plow, and with the wild team and wild boys began making crooked furrows on the land chosen for a school farm. In starting out with unbroken team and unbroken drivers, I needed and had a boy or two for every ox in the team, and then it was difficult to keep them on an area of eighty acres. Patience and perseverance in the work soon tamed the cattle and instructed the boys in driving; so good work was done in opening a school farm. We plowed in the fall about twenty acres and sowed wheat, and in the spring plowed ten acres more, that was planted in corn, potatoes and garden vegetables. We fenced eighty acres. When the crops were matured we had 300 bushels of wheat, 500 bushels of potatoes, 40 bushels of corn, with peas, turnips and garden vegetables sufficient for the subsistence of the school and seed in the spring to assist the parents of the children in beginning the work of farming. The work was done wholly by the boys of the school and superintendent of teaching."

The general policy of this efficient worker in the civilization of the Indian, together with some of his views on the Indian question, are set forth with great perspicuity and vigor in another part of the same report. He says :

"I have no affinity for the custom and practice now pursued in many of the agencies of this nation - feeding the Indians in idleness and preparing them, when their treaties are run out, to fight the whites and get a new treaty, and then from year to year and generation to generation be a tax on the industry of the whites. What we want in the Indian service is not more money, but a consolidation of the agencies on good reservations, where the land, if properly cultivated, will be remunerative, where white men could live and prosper; where the Indians are remote from the pestiferous influence of degraded whites ; remote from towns, cities and the great thoroughfares of the country. They want and must have men of God, full of business enterprise, capable of managing their own business and making it thrifty; men who are awake to the interests of this and the world to come ; instructors to educate them by precept and example. Give the Indian agencies through the nation such men as agents, and the muscle and heart of the Indian would be educated, not for the use of the bow and arrow, not for the war dance and scalping knife, but for the plow, for the habits and practices of civilized life ; for mental, moral and physical culture, for the knowledge of the Bible, of God and heaven."

But the labors of Father Wilbur and his worthy successors have not yet succeeded in converting the Yakimas into an industrious, intelligent community of citizens. Though most of them are self-supporting, they get their living more by renting their allotments to the whites than by their own toil. They do, however, spend a portion of each year in the hop fields, but even at this season most of the work is done by the squaws, it being, seemingly, next to impossible to disabuse the minds of the men of the idea that labor is beneath their dignity and to present any incentive to them strong enough to induce them to overcome their natural indolence.

The Yakimas have, however, made some progress toward civilization. Some of them have donned the habits of white men and a considerable proportion are professors of the Christian religion in one form or another. The Indian Methodist church, seven miles nearly due east of Fort Simcoe, has a membership of fifty-two, and its worthy pastor, Rev. J. H. Helm, has in many ways received token that his labors and those of his predecessors have not been in vain. This church is supported by the missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal denomination. Its property consists of an edifice built in 1879, a parsonage erected by Father Wilbur for church purposes and so used until the present building could be provided, and twelve acres of land, irrigated in part. There are two other Methodist Episcopal churches on the reservation, one at Toppenish, the membership of which consists mostly of white renters, and one on the Satus. There is also a Roman Catholic church, a very good building, situated near the Fort Simcoe Methodist church. Its pastor is Father Parrodi.

Besides the Methodist and Catholic Indians, who unitedly number a few hundred, there is a considerable representation of a sect known as the Shakers. This form of religion is of purely Indian origin. Just what the creed of its devotees is the writer does not profess to know, but it seems to mingle some of the doctrines and teachings of Catholicism with Indian superstitions and the emotionalism of the Salvation army. It is claimed by members of this sect that the desire for liquor and gambling, - two of the cardinal vices of Indians, - has, as a result of their religion, been miraculously taken away from them, and Messrs. Helm and Lynch both stated to the writer that this seemed to be indeed true. These gentlemen are inclined to look with favor upon the strange sect, inasmuch as it appears to be bearing the fruit of the Spirit among its members. It is highly probable that even the most nearly orthodox of the Catholic and Methodist Indians are far from free from the superstitions of their forefathers and that their theology, if it could be formulated into a creed, would present some startling divergences from the doctrines of their white brethren.

The Shakers are not the only sect that has arisen among Indians in comparatively recent years. In the seventies the famed Smohollah began preaching his celebrated "Dreamer" religion, a development of the old Indian idea of spirit. It borrowed nothing from Christianity; indeed it had its root in bitter enmity toward the white race. Smohollah lived on the Columbia at least part of the time with a small following of his own, a branch, it is said, of the Spokane tribe. He held religious dances, presiding over the ceremonies as medicine man, and dwelling persistently in his harangues upon a revelation he claimed to have received from spirit land to the effect that in the near future all the deceased Indians were coming out of their graves with physical bodies and were going to unite with their' quick brethren in a tremendous effort to drive the whites from the country. The Indians of the east were to do likewise, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific a high carnival of war was to be held. When the white men were all killed or driven out the barbarism of the ancient days was to be once more established and the Indian was to revel and hunt and roam as in the glorious, golden past. This religion was certainly well calculated to appeal to the Indian imagination, the only objection to it - its utter lack of truth - being a small one to the minds of men long inured to the thraldom of superstition. The preaching of Smohollah was not in vain. Considerable excitement was stirred up among the Indians of the Northwest and these "Dreamer" doctrines no doubt incited some to take part in the wars of 1877 and 1878 who might otherwise have remained at peace.

That a religion so manifestly absurd should have gained a hearing and a following as recently as the later seventies is good evidence of the hold which the ancient barbarism still had upon the savage mind and heart. Neither can it be claimed that this hold has yet been loosened, though it is certain that constant contact with the whites is slowly breaking down the power of superstition among the Indians of the Yakima reservation. This is resulting not so much from direct instruction as from the fact that the two races are fusing their blood, so that the number of half-breeds and quarter-breeds is increasing and the number of pure Indians suffering a corresponding diminution. Of course the more white there is in any individual, the greater his affinity for the customs and habits of the white race. Naturally, then, the ancient code of laws, the ancient religion, with its feasts and dancing, and all the ancient observances and customs must soon go into oblivion. The new environment and conditions have already forced great mutations in the life of the Indians, and with change of habits must come the decline of the related ceremonials. Thus it happens that the war dance and the scalp dance have lost their significance, and when indulged in at all are merely spectacular performances; indeed the end of Indian wars must soon mean the end of the pow-wows, and dances and drills and savage chivalry, which are concomitants of Indian belligerence. Other changes in the red man's mode of life are alike inimical to his savage ceremonies. The policy of gathering Indians upon reservations has in itself, aside from direct efforts to civilize and Christianize them, had a marked effect in destroying the ancient usages; the policy now in vogue of inducing the red man to accept lands in severalty and dispose of the surplus to the government will go a long way further in the same direction ; yet such is the conservatism of the Indian that we may expect some vestiges of his ancient beliefs, ceremonial observances and superstitions to persist until he shall have drawn his latest breath.

No attempt will here be made to describe the different dances, religious, remedial and social, the methods of courtship, the marriage customs, the mode of sepulture, or the criminal codes once in vogue among the tribes now on the Yakima reservation. Neither can a complete picture of their present habits be essayed ; but it is thought that the narration of the observations and experiences of one or two white men will add something to the interest of the chapter and perhaps to the volume of general knowledge regarding the Indians. Walter Scott Elliott, speaking of Indian dances, says:

"The medicine man executes many weird incantations to awe the ignorant savages into subjection to his rule. Their religious dances, called 'Kulla Kulla' or bird dances, sometimes last for weeks at a time, during which the medicine man offers up supplications to their high 'tyee' for the sick and distressed. 'Chinook' dances for the early coming of spring are engaged in toward the close of winter. Their dancing is merely jumping up and down and 'howling' in a sort of singsong.

"White men are not allowed usually to attend their dances, but the writer started out one night determined on seeing the performance. The chanting of a hundred voices could be distinctly heard over a mile away, getting louder and louder as I neared the camp. When I got within forty yards of the tepees, several dozen dogs announced my arrival, but the uproar inside prevented their alarm from being heard. I proceeded up to the 'curtain' door, and seeing nothing dangerous, slowly raised the flap and crawled into the hallway or 'chute' which led into the main room of the tepee, then, plucking up a little courage, walked boldly in.

"The sight which met my eyes defies accurate description. I was in a room about fifty by twenty feet; two campfires were burning some distance apart, the dim light casting a lurid glare over the vast assembly of painted faces. The dancers were formed in two lines facing each other with alternate men and women. Each of the men carried a bow and arrow in his left hand and in his right a single arrow with point upward. The women were in their gayest dresses, but carried nothing in their hands. No one apparently noticed me at first, so deeply were they interested in the dance. Finally, however, a big savage-looking Indian motioned me inside and compelled me to take off my hat and dance, which I did, much to the general amusement.

"Very soon the medicine man made his appearance with solemn tread, going up and down between the lines of dancers, uttering the most heart-rending cries and pulling at his hair, as if he were in the greatest agony, finally stopping over the campfire and leaning on a wand, his head being bent downward, he chanted away at regu- lar intervals, between which the dance proceeded as before. Then a little, old, dried-up man hopped around the room, handing each one a little camas root, which he carried in a buckskin sack. At this juncture the savage-looking Indian turned to me and said, 'Go home now,' which order was promptly obeyed."

An interesting incident of personal experience was related by Agent Jay Lynch in a recent conversation with the writer. Mr. Lynch had always lived on terms of amity with Chief Teanana, who was later killed by one of his dusky brethren, and about the year 1893 the chieftain manifested his good will by inviting his white friend to attend certain festivities which were then in progress on the Yakima river. Teanana said he wished to make an Indian of Mr. Lynch, and requested that he present himself for initiation on a fixed date. Mr. Lynch appeared at the time and place appointed, and found a large tepee covering a space perhaps thirty by one hundred feet in dimensions, in the center of a cleared and leveled tract of two or three acres. When he got within a quarter of a mile of the spot he was halted by the two Indians that had been deputed to await him. One of these remained with him, while the other went to announce his arrival to the Indians at the big tepee. Presently four horsemen made their appearance, dressed in full regalia and on the backs of steeds gaily caparisoned and decorated. These escorted him to the tent, one riding in front, one on each side of his team and buggy and one behind. When he arrived at the clearing, drums began to sound inside the tent and the crowd started to chant, but the leader paused not in his march. He took Mr. Lynch in a circle around the tent, the horses walking. A second revolution was made in a full trot and then a third at a still higher speed, the movements of the marchers apparently increasing with the tempo of the drum beats and chanting within. This final revolution completed, the music stopped; the leader came to a halt and Mr. Lynch was invited to alight from his buggy and follow the directions of two guides who now took charge of him, and conducted him to the door of the tepee, where the sentry was alarmed by a series of raps. Some conversation in the Indian tongue was now held between the escort without and the watchman within, after which the door opened and Mr. Lynch was led inside. He made a swift reconnoisance of the premises. Indians were standing in four elliptical rows around the tepee, the men on one side and the women on the other, while in the center was a space of bare ground, smooth and clean as a tennis court. At the west end of the tepee stood Chief Teanana, gorgeously arrayed in all the finery the Indian taste could command, with drummers on his right and left. Behind him on the wall, painted on tanned, white skins, were crude representations of the sun, moon and stars; also other pictures whose signification could not be surmised by the uninitiated. In front of the chief some six or eight feet a small fagot fire was burning.

Three times Mr. Lynch was paraded around the fire and in front of the assembled red men; then he was stationed before the chieftain, who addressed him in language which, being interpreted, signified that he now recognized him as a brother and should always consider him one of the Indian people. The drum beating and chanting which had accompanied the inarching always, had, of course, ceased when the chief began to speak.

At the conclusion of his brief remarks to Mr. Lynch, Teanana addressed at some length the general assembly, referring to the tepee in which they were and comparing it unfavorably with the houses in which their wealthier forefathers were wont to meet, houses many times constructed of stone. He gave a 'fanciful account of the creation, spoke of the earth as the Indian's mother, referred to a flood which destroyed nearly all the people; stated that what they then and there did had been done by their forefathers from time immemorial; referred to the Creator as the father who lived beyond the sun ; asserted that in olden times there were many prophets among the Indians who lived in such close touch with this great father that they were able to foretell the future; that they had long foreseen the coming of the whites and had advised the Indians to treat them as brothers, inasmuch as all were children of the same father. At one point in his discourse the chieftain enumerated in a kind of prayer of thanksgiving the different foods used and blessings enjoyed by the red man, the people repeating each sentence after him in a sort of chant. Then the chief would sav something like "We thank thee, O God, for the fish in the river," and when the words had been sung by the other Indians, he would say: "We thank thee, O God, for the bright, clear water," the response to which was a repetition of the same language in chant. In this way the whole category of blessings was enumerated and thanks offered for each, first by the chief speaking and then by the people singing.

At the close of Teanana's address the Indians engaged in a series of songs and dances, the latter consisting mostly in a simple swaying motion of the body. This part of the program ended, Mr. Lynch's conductor turned to him and said: "I will now shake hands with you, Indian fashion." He placed his hand over his heart, directing the white man to do the same, then extended it palm upward. Mr. Lynch also extended his hand in the same manner. The Indian clasped it and three times elevated it as high as possible, then unclasped and both men returned their hands to their hearts. The Indian then explained that the placing of the first position of the hand signified "good heart," while its extension palm upward and subsequent inversion above the hand of the other man meant a willingness to give whenever occasion required. The next day, which was Sunday, was given up to songs, prayer, exhortation and feasting. The method of cooking the salmon was described by Mr. Lynch. He said that fagot fires were made all around the large tepee and before these a row of Indians stationed themselves, each holding a whole fish by means of a forked stick, within roasting distance of the flame.

Most of the Indians on the Yakima reservation have accepted land in severalty, but they have not yet seen fit to accept any of the proposals of the United States government for the sale of the lands remaining after all allotments have been made. The government is still exercising its guardianship over them and still making efforts to educate and civilize them. It maintains an industrial school at Fort Simcoe, in which at the time of the writer's visit were about one hundred and seventy pupils ranging in ages from six to sixteen years, though most of them were under twelve. The day is divided between the study of the common branches and those things calculated to render the pupil industrious and capable of earning a respectable livelihood. The boys are taught agriculture and gardening and the handicraft of the blacksmith or the carpenter, while the girls receive instruction in making clothing, cooking, dish washing, laundry work and everything a good housekeeper should know. The regular teachers in the literary department of the school at present are W. H. Embree and Mrs. Venesia Kampmeir; the industrial teacher is Joe Sam, an Indian, occupying the position temporarily ; the carpenter, James S. Anglea; the blacksmith, Charles Barnaby, a half breed ; the girls' matron, Mrs. W. L. Shawk ; the boys' matron, Miss Ethel Frizell ; the cook, Miss Anna Steinman ; the laundress, Miss Lydia Spencer, an Indian lady. Hon. Jay Lynch is agent and superintendent of the industrial school ; G. Dawe McQuesten, clerk; Charles E. Roblin, assistant clerk, and Dr. W. L. Shawk, agency and school physician. The government property at Fort Simcoe consists of the school with four class rooms and a general assembly room, the boys' and girls' dormitories, eight dwelling houses, two commissary buildings, the agent's office, the doctor's office and government medical dispensary, and some buildings originally designed as barracks for the soldiers but now used for store rooms and shops. There is a general merchandise store across the street from the school buildings, but it belongs to J. D. Coburn, the postmaster and post trader.

The agency and school buildings are tastefully arranged in a beautiful cove in the foothills of a spur of the Cascades, known locally as the Simcoe range. Beautiful oak groves add to the attractiveness of the spot, while the view it commands of the valley stretching away to the Yakima river is simply magnificent. As indicated by its old Indian name, the place is well supplied with springs, but for the convenience of all concerned a water system has been installed, of which Superintendent Lynch, in his report for 1901, said : "The water system is a gravity system and water is conducted through four-inch mains, from a distance of about two miles up the canyon to an elevated reservoir on a hill near the school. This furnishes a fine pressure throughout the buildings and an excellent pressure for fire protection for the buildings of the school and agency. The fire hydrants are conveniently located for the protection of all the school buildings and the agency buildings, except the barn."

A general idea of the entire reservation may be gathered from what is said of it in the superintendent's report for the year 1902: "The reservation contains about 800,000 acres, of which about 300,000 acres have been allotted. All of the land that there was any practical way of irrigating was allotted to the Indians some time ago, when the last allotting agent was here, consequently the remaining portion of the reservation is very poor land and is practically worthless for farming purposes and remains tribal lands, where water cannot be secured for irrigation. A great portion of the unallotted lands is in the mountains, part of which is timbered. I estimate that there are about 75,000 acres of good price timber lands distant from forty to sixty miles from the railroad and inaccessible at present. These tribal lands afford or produce only a small amount of vegetation during a short portion of the early summer, and on account of the lack of rains dry up and supply but a very limited grazing for stock."