THE INDIANS.
Some years ago, when life was young and all the world one luring and
beckoning field of adventure, the writer of this modest history spent
five dollars to hear Dan Beard, Ernest Seton Thompson and others,
lecture on “Woodcraft and Indians.” They spoke of the “noble red man,”
and pictured a romantic and heroic being of high ideals and chivalrous
life, whose adventures were clean and admirable, whose domestic life
was happy and blameless. At least one member of the audience went
home from those lectures and shed bitter tears of remorse and shame
because it was his sad lot to be a cowardly pale-face. We mention the
incident because it serves to illustrate the nonsense that is published
broadcast for mercenary reasons, by people who really know the truth.
This chapter does not pretend to be a scholarly dissertation on
the American Indian, but is rather intended to preserve the first
impressions made by the Indians on an interested and uninitiated
observer. For the salient and noticeable traits of these people are
more likely to excite the comment of a newcomer than they are to live
in the hard soil of familiarity.
The Arabs of the Sahara desert, like our own Bannock Indians, wrap
themselves closely in camels-hair blankets during the hottest weather,
which as everyone knows, is extreme in North Africa. They also wrap
their heads in turbans, and explain the custom by saying that it
protects them from the scorching rays of the sun. Otherwise their skin
would blister and dry up with the reflected heat of the desert. This
is probably true, and it is no doubt for some similar reason that the
Indians wear blankets all through the summer. It has been said that the
Indians use a powder of vegetable or mineral character with which they
rub the inside of their blankets, thereby rendering them impervious to
heat rays. Certain it is that an Indian, clad in a blanket, is seldom
seen to perspire, even in the hottest weather, while his civilized
brother drips just as profusely as a white man.
In like manner all strange and seemingly fantastic and heathen customs
have their birth in reason, if we can only detect it. The Indian, for
instance, paints his face as a protection from the dry and arid western
winds, which make some artificial application of grease necessary.
Let those who doubt this take a glance at the parched visage of some
Arizona rancher.
Some people maintain that the Indian is equal in intelligence to
the white man. Common sense tells us that this is not true. No race
mentally equal to the Caucasian would remain for centuries in barbarism
and turn from civilization even when it is thrust upon them. It is
sometimes said that an Indian is a white man’s equal because he can
pass the intelligence test of a twelve year old white boy, this modicum
of intelligence being scientifically sufficient to rescue a white man
from the ranks of the mentally deficient. A man might almost as well be
insane as to escape insanity by a hair’s breadth. And so, also, of his
intellect.
An Episcopalian missionary to the Indians on the Fort Hall reservation,
said in this connection: “I noticed when I first began to work among
these Indians that I could establish no footing of equality between
myself and the bucks, although the latter seemed to be on the most
familiar terms with my twelve-year-old boy. This puzzled me for some
time, and I began to watch the intercourse between my boy and the
Indians. Then I discovered the secret. The mentality of my boy and of
the Indians was on a par. The red men, although adults in years, were
twelve-year-olds in mind. From that time on I talked with them on such
terms and my former trouble was ended.”
For this reason and because of the results so far attained, it seems
very questionable whether it is wise to attempt to civilize these
people, in the ordinary meaning of the term. Christianize them by all
means. But two men practicing the principles of Christianity can live
as happily in a wig-wam as in a palace--perhaps more so, and there is
no reason why we should want the squaws to wear split-skirts because
our own women wear them. There is but little choice, and perhaps the
squaw has the best of it at that. The South Sea islander does not want
us to wear rings in our noses because he does, and it seems hardly
fair that we should wish to throttle the poor Indian with the shackle
that civilization calls a collar, just because we are foolish enough
to wear collars. Christianity alone will bring these people as much
civilization as they need for both their happiness and salvation, and
that is more than many of our own boastful race possess. For the rest,
the Indian, to his honor, be it said, is a child of nature, who loves
his sagebrush and desert freedom, and it is no kindness to tear him
from the life he loves so well. No wonder he hates the white man.
Most of us would hate people who insisted upon making canary-birds,
guaranteed to sing in the parlor, out of us, when we wanted to be
eagles. Perhaps it is some such reason as this that leads the Indians
on the reservation to despise those who live among the whites. The
average Indian who hangs around Pocatello is certainly inferior to his
brother in the sage brush.
Although the Indian is a lazy man, who makes his squaw do most of the
work, he is not without some strain of generosity. The squaw usually
follows along some ten paces behind her husband, and it is no uncommon
thing to see the buck eating a bag of apples or other delicacies and
throwing the cores to his faithful squaw, who devours them with relish.
The Bannocks, in common with all other Indians, have a decided sense
of beauty,--a trait that is seldom noticed, although one of the best
possessed by the red-men. This artistic instinct finds play in the
basket and bead work done by these people. Many of their designs
combine great beauty with great simplicity, and display a taste that
is far from uncultured. In their names, too, the Indians show a love
of the beautiful. Where in the whole wide world can more beautiful
names be found than Wyoming and Arizona, Idaho and Oregon, Nevada and
Oklahoma? Resonant and poetical names they are, suggestive of a bigness
quite commensurate with the vastness of the states they name. It has
been said that the west, inspired by the beauty of her Indian names,
will some day produce a new school of poetry, made possible only by the
poetry of the wild, free red-men.
As in all frontier communities, many amusing incidents have transpired
between the Indians and whites. Probably everyone in Pocatello knows
“Stonewall” Johnson and probably no one in Pocatello knows horseflesh
better than he. One day Mr. Johnson bought a horse from an Indian. The
animal had seven diseases--all fatal--but Mr. Johnson, with infinite
skill and patience, gradually cured him of them all. He nursed the
dying beast back to health and made a valuable horse of him. From time
to time the Indian dropped around to inspect the animal. One fine day,
when the cure was fully effected, the Indian deliberately entered the
field where the horse was grazing in care of Mr. Johnson’s little boy,
mounted and rode away, leaving the youngster to carry the news home.
Mr. Johnson has never seen either horse or Indian since. It is said
that the only way to bind a bargain with the Indians is by a deed of
sale. On the other hand, the missionary previously mentioned, says that
he would rather lend money to an Indian than to a white man, as the
former never fails to repay the loan.
We have spoken of the Indian’s sense of beauty. He is also cruel, and
his cruelty is written on his face. Imagine, then, the dismay and
terror of a missionary’s wife, who, with her husband, alighted one dark
night at a little way station just north of Pocatello. The depot was
locked, and while the missionary went to look for a night’s lodging,
his wife disposed herself comfortably on a soft and well-filled
gunnysack lying on the station platform. Presently the gunnysack
moved, stretched a pair of moccasined legs, and said “Woof!” The lady
eventually recovered, but whether the Indian did, the story does not
tell.
While possessing much innate nobility, the Indian sometimes appears in
a ridiculous light. It is said that when a part of the reservation was
thrown open a few years ago, and the red-men reimbursed in cash, many
of them invested their money in vehicles. They bought every old wagon
for miles around, and when the supply ran low, took what they could
get. So it happened that one buck bought an old hearse. In the body
of this he was wont to carry his numerous papooses, who gazed at the
passing throng with their squat faces pressed flat against the windows,
while the proud parents occupied the driver’s box.
These people have a strange aversion to the camera, probably as
to something uncanny and not understood. They believe that to be
photographed saps the strength. At the last sun dance held in the
Bottoms near Pocatello, it was necessary to pay one old centenarian
five dollars to induce him to pose for one snapshot.
Among the common-places of former days that are fast passing away are
the wild horses. These animals still roam the plains of Bannock county,
but they are becoming more scarce every year. They travel in bands of
fifteen or twenty and are very bold. They will approach within close
range of a human being and feed unconcernedly under his gaze, but at
the sound of the human voice they become terror-stricken and stampede
away in great confusion. Some daring men rope these animals during the
summer months and break them in for saddle use, but their wild blood is
never really tamed. It is necessary to break their spirit with cruelty
before they are of any use, and then they are apt to relapse at any
time. When one escapes from captivity it is said that he will travel
hundreds of miles with unerring instinct back to the plains whence he
was taken.
The fact that a large portion of the land included in Bannock county
was set apart for and inhabited by Indians retarded its settlement for
many years. The Indians were hostile to the white men, few of whom
settled in the vicinity, except employes of the stage lines running
from Salt Lake to Butte, government agents, etc.
The Shoshone--in the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for
1913, this name is spelt Shoshoni--and Bannock Indians now living
on the Fort Hall reservation are types of the great Lemhi family.
The Shoshone, or Snake Indians, are fairly honest, intelligent and
peaceable, although all the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains are
inferior to those living to the east. The Bannocks are more cunning,
sly, and restless than the Shoshones. The Shoshone family, of which
the Bannock is a branch, are thought to have come originally from
California. While the name Shoshone is commonly supposed to mean
“snake,” some authorities hold that it means “inland.” These Indians
are more pretentious in dress and ornamentation than those living
farther south, and possess no mean skill in the art of pottery. Ross,
an authority on Indian affairs, says: “The Snakes have been considered
as a rather dull and degraded people, weak in intellect and wanting
in courage. And this opinion is very probable to casual observer, at
first sight or when they are seen in small numbers, for their apparent
timidity, grave and reserved habits, give them an air of stupidity. An
intimate knowledge of the Snake character will, however, place them on
an equal footing with that of other kindred nations, both in respect to
their mental faculties and moral attributes.”
The different tribes or families of these Indians speak different
dialects, but have a sign language that is understood by all. Although
stolid and silent in their intercourse with white men, they are
vivacious and even garrulous among themselves. The play of their hands
when they talk with signs resembles the conversation of deaf mutes.
Another writer says: “The Bannocks of Idaho are highly intelligent and
lively, the most virtuous and unsophisticated of all the Indians in the
United States.”
These Indians were at least intelligent enough to devise a system of
hieroglyphics, examples of which are still to be seen on the lava rocks
to the west and south of Pocatello, although the Indians of today
seem to have lost the art of reading them, and their contents remain a
mystery. They are recent enough in execution to have survived the wear
of wind and weather, but how interesting it would be if we could read
the crude romance they tell--some memorable page of barbarous history
or some forgotten tragedy of desert life!
There are in the neighborhood of Pocatello also some old Indian
forts--crude constructions of dug-outs and mountain boulders,
interesting only on account of their origin. The curious may find one
about two miles out of Pocatello, to the left of the road that winds
back from West Sublette street. It probably differs in no way from
those built by the Indians of this vicinity two thousand years ago,
and were they to construct another today it would be impossible except
by age, to tell the new from the old. Civilization rolls on apace, and
today’s triumph of mechanism is the scrap heap of tomorrow, but the
stolid Indian, imperturbable and uninterested, remains much the same,
yesterday, today and apparently forever.