PEC-WAN COLONEL.
Pec-wan Colonel (his Indian name was Me-quin) had been for the last
fifty or sixty years, the richest Indian among the lower Klamaths.
When standing erect he was probably a little over six feet, of medium
build and was very graceful in his movement. He was a fine looking
man, and every inch an aristocrat. He was a descendant of a very
wealthy family on both sides of the house, and his mother was born
in the Cor-tep village, about one half-mile below Pec-wan village.
There was five boys and two girls of his mother’s family, his Uncles,
Aunts, and Grandmother on his father’s side, belonged to the upper
division of the tribe, and they too were a wealthy family. Pec-wan’s
mother was from a family of doctors, his mother and her two sisters
being doctors, his mother was without question the most noted and
prominent woman doctor that the lower rivers had among them, for the
past seventy-five years or more. When she married his father, whom
they called Cor-tep-pish, by his being married to a Cor-tep woman, she
married a man of a very wealthy family, and when her mother and father
died they cut her off, and did not give her any part of the riches of
her own family, but divided it among the four sisters and two brothers.
She had five children, three girls and two boys, the Colonel being the
third child, and he followed close in his mother’s ways. She would go
out and sit on her door-steps of the front porch, stoop over with her
elbows on her knees, and comb her hair over her face with her fingers,
then rest her chin on her hands, and sit gazing into the distance, and
other ways, thereby causing all to be afraid of her except the Talth
and their families, over whom she had no control. All the wealthy and
slave classes became sorely afraid of her. Whenever the people would
see her sitting thus, they began to murmur among themselves, saying
that she was trying to make some one sick, and that some body would
be sick. If some one should become sick anywhere within a distance of
a number of miles from her, their first thought was that she had made
them sick, and she was the one that could cure them. These doctors
are paid in advance for their services, and when they came after her,
instead of accepting what pay they brought and offered to her, she
would talk with the greatest of shrewdness, comment on the case and
demand of them the most valuable articles which she knew they had, and
would scheme to get all she could. She seemed to have a magic power
to cure, and did cure in most cases as she had perfect confidence in
herself, and gave perfect confidence to the sick one of her ability
to make them well; somewhat on the same principal of the Christian
Scientist among the people of today. But for this pay the doctor has
to cure the sick person, and if the patient should die within a year
from the time the doctor prescribed for them, she is compelled to
give back all that was given to her. This doctor seldom had to return
her fee and gathered wealth in abundance, and succeeded in her shrewd
practice. Taking from her brothers and sisters the entire fortune
that her mother and father had left them, she had power and influence
among her people. She tried to make doctors of her three daughters,
but they became the most commonest kind. She turned nearly all of her
fortune wealth over to her son, the Colonel, and while he did not have
the shrewdness of his mother, he managed in the long run by deaths
and otherwise, to get possession of the greater part of the wealth of
so many rich relations, that he too had power and influence above his
people. His walk, manner and very actions, were very impressive to any
one that met him. He would never eat in a white man’s house, my house
was the only white man’s house he was ever known to stop in over night,
and eat at the table. He was very liberal in his own house, and the
white man has had many meals at his table. Pec-wan Colonel was born at
Pec-wan village, where the Talth lodge is located.
A full blooded Klamath Indian, born of wealthy parents but of the
middle class, and with all of his wealth and influence could not become
a Talth, therefore he could at all times and on all occasions keep
his place; he knew where he could come in, and where to keep back with
perfect ease. He was closely related to the Talth families, and when it
came to festivals, he could and did lead them all with more deer skins,
silver grey fox skins and other kinds, with enough strings of turk-tum
and cheek to cover the breast of all who danced, besides long and
valuable flints, both red and black and all kind of dancing fixtures.
He always kept a large camp with plenty of provisions, and plenty of
women to cook and wait on the crowds, he was very liberal and fed many.
He was mean to his slaves and cared nothing for visiting Indians of
other tribes, only his own Klamath people, and to all of these he was
closely related to, far up the river, and he visited them as far up as
they lived. In the large festivals he could draw on the Pech-ic-las,
his relatives, for whatever he wanted to keep him at all times in the
lead. He had but one wife, she was also of a wealthy family, and when
he thought at one time to take another wife she told him plainly, that
there would be no two wives for her, that she could and would go to her
father’s home and not return, so he gave up the notion and remained
with her.
She was a good woman, very kind of disposition and pleasant of manner;
she never had any children, and has been dead now for about twelve
years. There is a nephew of his named Pec-wan Harry, he married a woman
who lived close to the mouth of the river at Wah-kell village and he is
now called Wah-kell Harry, and they have quite a family of children,
and to him went nearly all of the wealth. He too is a fine looking man
of the same build as Pec-wan Colonel.