THE TWANA OR SKOKOMISH TRIBE
In the days and generations past, when the Indians were the only
people who occupied the shores of Puget Sound, the Twana tribe, now
the Skokomish, lived in the broad strip of territory bordering on the
west side of Hood’s canal and extending back to the top of the Olympic
mountains and reaching from the Skokomish river on the south to Quilcene,
near Port Townsend, on the north. They had for neighbors on the south
and east the Squaxon tribe, while near them on the north and northwest
were the Clallams and Ma-kahs. On the west were the Quillayutes and
Quiniaults, but as the high mountains intervened there was not much
intercourse in that direction, either in peace or war. The Twanas
apparently much preferred peace to war and happiness on their own hunting
and fishing grounds to pillage and robbery, for there are no old-time
battle grounds pointed out now as having been once the scene of great
carnage among them. However, they were Indians and as remarkable for
their extreme and foolish superstitions and baneful practices as any on
the Sound.
They possessed a fine country, especially the beautiful valley of the
Skokomish river, which today is one of the prettiest places in the state.
When the government made a treaty with these Indians and took most of
their land away from them it left them the best section of all their
territory for a permanent home. That was the ground at the mouth of the
river on the north bank. Here resides the remnant of the Twanas, which,
however, is composed of the blood of three former tribes, the Skokomish
proper, Quilcenes and Duhl-ay-lips, the head Indian agent for whom is
stationed at the beautiful agency of Tulalip on the east side of the
Sound.
There are about 200 of these mongrel Indians now living on the
reservation of 5,997 acres at the mouth of the river. Twenty years ago
there were but about 250 of them, so that the decrease in population has
been comparatively very small. In 1880 a census taken that year showed
237 Indians. In 1890, ten years from that time, there had been 100 deaths
on the reservation, but the increase in population from birth alone was
such that the real decrease was not more than fifteen persons. There is
little if any increase to the population from people settling there from
other tribes. This showing is better than that of any Indian tribe on the
Sound, and is undoubtedly due to the isolation on the west side of the
canal and removal from the contaminating influence of worthless white
people. One beneficial effect of late years, really for the past thirty
or forty years, has been the example of a few good farmers who settled in
the fine valley of the Skokomish. Then to, they have always been blessed
with good Indian agents, which cannot be said to have been always the
case at many other reservations. The Indians generally nowadays work well
and want to work and make good lumbermen in the logging camps, earning
almost as much as the white men when the camps are going.
The Indian lands are patented to him but are owned in severalty and
there are many creditable places at Skokomish. There is assigned to a
single Indian from 80 to 170 acres according to whether the land may be
all valley or partially hills. No matter how much or how little land an
Indian may possess, he seldom, if ever, gets beyond the point of a small
truck farmer. If he happens to get under cultivation an area that would
by a stretch of the imagination take the name of a field, he is most sure
to let out the land to a white farmer on an annual cash basis. There are
a few such cultivated fields at Skokomish. A farmer, whether Indian or
white, whose insane desire for gambling will lead him to spend a whole
night out in the woods chanting the monotonous song of the “sing-gamble”
pot-latch, at harvest time is not expected to prove a howling success as
a granger.
In another generation if there are any Twana Indians left they will
probably rate as first-class farmers, for the government is progressing
very well in the matter of training them. The children attend school
ten months in the year, have good instructors chosen from the whites,
and the boys have over them a special instructor whose duty it is to
see that they work half of every week-day with a view of acquiring
methodical and industrious habits. This is abhorrent to the tender Indian
mind, but as the entire education of the Twana youth is one of the
charity undertakings of the government and does not cost the old folks
a cent, they seem to like it and force their youngsters to attend. The
maintenance of the schools is kept up by yearly appropriations and could
be cut off any time if the government cared to do so. In that case the
little Twana might be permitted to spring up as unconscious of the future
as the weeds that infest the door-yard and garden patch of every Indian
domicile. However, among the Twanas there is already a fair standard
of rudimentary education acquired, for every Indian below 30 years of
age can read and write English, and all under 40 can talk the language.
The true specimens of the savage ancestors are the old men and women
yet living, who cannot, rather will not, admit to any knowledge of the
English.
The Indian here is an obdurate, slow-moving being. He will begin a thing
but complete it in a year, or ten years, or never, just as the notion
takes him. At this time the residents have in mind the construction of a
new church. They have gone so far in the undertaking as to have secured
the lumber and floated it from the mill up the river and piled it upon
the bank of the stream on the reservation.
“We got it long time ago,” said one fellow, “to build a new church, but
don’t know whether we will ever build it or not.”
The vicinity of the old lumber pile now seems to be a favorite rendesvous
for the inveterate “sing-gamble” players, for they ride there from all
directions at night time. They light camp fires and, forming a large
circle around it, go through their uncanny practices until the cocks crow
for morning. All the male population of the reservation over age are
voters under the constitution of the United States. They cast their first
vote at the election for delegates to the state constitutional convention
after the passage by Congress of the enabling act. The reservation has
been set off in a precinct by itself, and by this the Indians elect their
own justices of the peace and petty officers without the interference of
the whites and without having anything to do themselves with the election
of officers to govern the white people.
In the very nature of things the Chinook and mother tongues will, in
a few years more, be unknown on the reservation. So rapidly is this
coming about that at this time half the conversation of the reservation
is carried on in English, even when all engaged in it are Indians. At
their sing-gamble and other Indian ceremonies English is as much spoken
as their own tongue. Superstition will only die out of the Indian mind
when the last of the race as dead and gone. On the banks of the lovely
Skokomish it would seem that superstition could have no abiding place.
Yet it is there today as it probably has been in all the past thousands
of years. The beneficent influence of the white man’s religion has
superceded it in its outer and practical application, it is only a few
years ago when the efficacy of the red and black “ta-mahn-a-wis” was
thought to be greater than all the religions of the pale faces in the
world.
There were four kinds of ta-mahn-a-wis, sometimes spelled ta-mahn-o-us,
or spirit practices in vogue among the Twanas as there were among the
great family of Selish Indians in Washington, which included most all,
but not all, the tribes from the Spokane river to Cape Flattery, all
understanding in part a common language. The Cape Indians and Yakimas
are two of the exceptions to the above, according to some of the best
informed men on the subject. The word ta-mahn-a-wis may be and was used
in the sense of a noun, an adjective or a verb. As a noun it means any
kind of a spirit in the spirit world from the Sahg-ha-lie Tyee, or
supreme being—sahg-ha-lie meaning greatest, highest, above—to the klail
ta-mahn-a-wis, or devil, literally, black spirit.
As an adjective a ta-mahn-a-wis stick, stone, person, etc., is a thing
or individual with a ta-mahn-a-wis or spirit either of good or evil in
it. As a verb it is used in the sense of invoking the aid of spirits, as
“mah-mok ta-mahn-a-wis.”
The four kinds of ta-mahn-a-wis of the Indians of the Twana tribe at
least are: The “ta-mahn-a-wis over the sick,” the incantations of the
medicine men; the “red ta-mahn-a-wis,” the “black ta-mahn-a-wis,” and the
“spirit land ta-mahn-a-wis.”
The sick ta-mahn-a-wis was only practiced for the healing of the sick,
and was often a severe and taxing ordeal for the patient if he were
really sick. This ceremony was always conducted by the ta-mahn-a-wis men
assisted by the friends and relatives of the sick in an effort to drive
out the spirit of one that was supposed to have taken possession of the
body of the sick.
The red ta-mahn-a-wis was a winter pastime and was a common arrangement,
a proceeding, so far as its being a part of a religious belief, a kind
of a camp-meeting. The red, or pill ta-mahn-a-wis, was an assembling
together, an invocation, in short, of the spirits for a good season the
following summer. It generally lasted three or four days and consisted
of singing, dancing, the beating of tom-toms, drums and the decoration
of the face and limbs and body invariably with streaks and spots of red
paint. From this it was given the name of the red ta-mahn-a-wis, pill
meaning red.
The black, or klail ta-mahn-a-wis, was the free masonry of the Twanas
and was without doubt the one great religion of all religious practices
among them. It was a secret society to a very large extent, and none
but the initiated were ever permitted to have anything to do with it.
It was a very severe initiation that candidates had to undergo to get
acquainted with it, and little was ever learned of its mysteries by the
whites. It was practiced at Skokomish as late as 1876, but after that
time it was never seen. At that time it was given out by the participants
that it was to be dead after that. It is said that it is still slightly
followed by the Clallam Indians to this day. No doubt but that among the
residents of the Skokomish reservation there are many Indians who were
initiated into its dreadful mysteries, but their number is probably too
few to revive it. Both men and women were initiated into the practice and
mysteries of the black ta-mahn-a-wis. The significance of this ceremony,
from the secretiveness of the Indians, was never clearly learned by the
old residents, who had most to do with the Indians, and it probably will
never be understood, at least as it was believed in by the various tribes.
In the practice of it, however, the Indians invariably painted themselves
very hideously with black paint, daubing and streaking the face and
limbs, and while going through the ceremony of initiation were without
clothing. Masks made in rude imitation of the wolf head were used, and
these were called shway-at-sho-sin. The mask was adopted by the Twanas
from the Clallam tribe, as was the name and hence the word is the same
in both languages. The Twanas seem to have imported their masks from the
Clallam country in most part, very few of their own make having ever been
found, and these of a less degree of artistic appearance. To a certain
extent the ceremony of the black ta-mahn-a-wis was a public one and many
of the old-timers have witnessed that portion of it. The more important
and probably much more severe part was the private ceremony confined
to the initiated. The public ceremony was a long drawn out affair of
dancing, singing, beating of drums and tom-toms, rattles, etc. During
the progress of the affair the candidates for whose special benefit the
ta-mahn-a-wis was given, were stripped and painted and put through all
manner of gyrations and exercises, the while wearing the wolf mask,
that in the least resemble the antics of the animals they were trying
to imitate. While this was going on the candidates were tied about the
middle with a long rope, the loose end of which was held by other Indians
in order to keep the candidate from running away or from doing harm
to any spectator, for he was supposed to do just like a ferocious and
enraged wolf in all things. The other exercises which are supposed to put
on the finishing touches to the great event, were always carried on in
secret rooms made of their blankets or tents and were never permitted to
be witnessed.
The practice of the spirit land ta-mahn-a-wis was associated with or
founded on a very pretty myth believed in by the old Twanas to the effect
that a year or two perhaps before an Indian died he or she lost his or
her spirit. Spirits from other places, always from below, would visit
the Indian and, quite unaware to the person would take and carry off
the spirit and sail with it to their abiding place, there to hold it in
captivity unless released by spirits from this life. Whenever an Indian
lost his spirit in this way there would always be a little left him
which would be sufficient to last him until he died, by which time every
particle of it was absorbed, vanished, gone. To elaborate the fanciful
theory, there were always living Indians who professed to be able to go
to the spirit land, down below, and see what was going on and recognize
spirits taken from Indians of his own tribe and village. These trips may
be made to the spirit regions at the will of the Indians, sometimes when
off in the hills hunting, or when out on the salt water chasing the whale
or the seal. After a journey of such a character the Indian’s word was
never doubted by his tribe’s people, when he on returning informed them
that he had been on a journey below and had seen the captured spirits of
this or that relative or friend. The next question was as to the recovery
of the spirit, and there were always willing hands ready to assist.
There was always great ceremony, great care and at times extreme caution
to be maintained in this undertaking. The Indians had to make the journey
down below, cross their death river, their river Styx, and perform
various other and wonderful feats, the entire ceremony lasting three or
four days.
The first ceremony, accompanied by a great beating of drums, of rattles,
tom-toms, dancing, singing, chanting and yelling, is that of breaking the
ground to effect an entrance below. This was done by digging a little
hole in the dirt floor of the house where the ceremony was taking place.
This accomplished, other mythical performances were gone through with,
the more important one being “cooning” across the Styx river in a long
procession, where the greatest caution was observed, for the warrior
who should fall off while going over was doomed to die before long. A
bridge was constructed of boards in the house by having two of the boards
resting obliquely against the ends of a third board, which is elevated
to near the roof of the building. The army on the chase for the lost
spirit “cooned it” across this improvised bridge, and were then over the
river Styx into spirit land. They searched for and with great noise and
hubbub found the departed spirit, took possession of it amidst a great
and imaginary battle, and returned to the land of the living. They would
tear about the room during this performance, rant and roar, run out of
and around the house, tear the roof off in their frenzy, which was truly
a genuine article, and then, after having reached the limit of their
strength and exertion, would find the spirit, sometimes in the form of a
rag doll or some other object just as ridiculous, and carry it in triumph
to the Indian who had lost his spirit. This individual, so fortunate in
recovering his spirit, and therefore a new lease of life, is overjoyed
at the thought and laughs and cries alternately, and concluded the
performance by a great manifestation of joy in every conceivable style.
At this ceremony the Indians had an idol which exercised a great power,
in their overwrought imaginations, in the success of the undertaking.
This idol was a very sacred being, and was always kept hid away in the
mountains and never brought out only on such ceremonies. It was never
given up to the whites, and there is probably not now one of these
strange things to be found anywhere. The only one known to have been seen
among the Twana tribe was about four feet long, of very rude carving, in
imitation of a person without arms or feet. In place of feet the idol
ended in a stick, so made that it could be fastened firmly in the ground.
It was raised in the center of the room, and around it the weird and
uncanny ceremony progressed. This idol the Indians named Sh-but-ta-dahk,
but just what its peculiar properties were probably is not known.
Several of the more intelligent and younger men on the reservation were
talked to about this idol or totem, but they did not know anything about
its history or supposed properties. One of the men said that about three
years ago, while going through the woods about three miles back of the
reservation, he came across a cache where there were two of these idols
hid away. They were time-worn and considerably decayed, and as he stated,
had “been there long, long time.” He placed them under an old tree, but
never returned to get them. They had men’s faces carved upon them, and
were undoubtedly genuine Sh-but-ta-dahks.
There is another one about four or five feet long in the possession of
a resident of Lake Cushman, which was found in the woods about ten or
twelve miles back of the present reservation. Many, probably all, of the
Indians of today on the reservation have faith in the Sh-but-ta-dahk and
the ceremony of the spiritland, ta-mahn-a-wis. One, in telling about it,
said that not many years ago a spiritland ta-mahn-a-wis was held, when
one of the Indians fell while crossing the death river, and that a short
time after he died, hence they knew that the spiritland ta-mahn-a-wis was
true.
The theory of the medicine ta-mahn-a-wis is that when a person is sick
some evil spirit has taken possession of the body, sometimes more than
one evil spirit, and of different kinds. It may be that of a bird or
beast, a bear, a panther, wolf, a bluejay or a weasel, or anything
else having hair or feather or scale. It was always the duty of the
ta-mahn-a-wis doctors to find out what kind of a spirit had entered the
body, and then by incantation and ceremony to drive it out. Some dry
board or rail or piece of wood was secured by the friends of the patient
and placed conveniently near, and on this they would beat with sticks to
make as much noise as possible, also bringing into their aid the drum
and tom-toms or rattles. The medicine man would take a bowl of water
by the side of the patient, who had been stretched out on a mat on the
ground, and begin his examinations. He would chant in a monotonous way
and perform various mysterious things about and over the sick person.
Sometimes he would take hold of an arm or a leg and lift apparently with
all his strength without so much as moving the member in the least. When
the din and hubbub would be sufficiently distracting the medicine man
generally discovered what kind of a spirit had taken possession, and was
able to get hold of it. Often he would raise that part of the person in
which the spirit had secured a place of lodgment, and would douse it in
the bowl of water and drown it. At other times he would draw it out of
the body by inhaling it in his own lungs, and would then go to the door
and give a great puff and blow the evil spirit far across the mountains
or water.
If, under such a course, the patient did not get well at once, there was,
of course, other evil spirits in the body which must be gotten rid of,
and the process would be repeated with minor variations. By and by the
patient would either get well naturally or die, which ended the matter.
In either case, the potent power of the doctor was never questioned.
The Indians believed that while the body was in possession of the evil
spirit, the Indian’s spirit may take its flight to some distant place
temporarily. It was part of the duty of the medicine man to locate and
bring the absent spirit back. This he did by other and mystical processes
equally as absurd to civilized minds. In one account, which was written
out by an educated brother of a sick boy at the Skokomish reservation,
the departed spirit of the patient was discovered 15 miles distant
at what the Indians called Du-hub-hub-ai, now called by the whites
Humi-humi. The evil spirit always took on very curious shapes when drawn
on paper by the Indians for the edification of the whites. They usually
represented very vaguely images of fish, jelly-fish, imaginary beasts,
etc.
That the Indians of the Skokomish tribe once engaged in war is
evidenced by the existence of implements of battle now preserved on the
reservation. Of their war clubs there is one about twelve inches long,
which weighs three and a half pounds. It is a big wedge shaped affair,
rounded, and recedes sharply to a blunt point. There is a hole drilled
in the handle end by which it could be suspended from the warrior’s
waist with buckskin thongs. This weapon was made, without doubt, by the
Skokomish or Twana tribe.
Another war implement and one much more formidable, is a long copper
club, two feet long, much in appearance like a broad sword. This club
also has a hole in the heavier end, from which to suspend it to the
waist. Both weapons have rude imitations of the Thunderbird on their
heavier ends, and go to show how thoroughly the Thunderbird myth was
believed in and how it pervaded every act and thought of Indian life.
Before the white people came into the country the Indians had to depend
on their own ingenuity for all kinds of implements. Many of these are
yet preserved by the Indians themselves, as well as by the whites. The
Indians are careless, however, and as long as they can get an easy
living, don’t seem to care much what becomes of their old tools. They
have yet a few of the old war clubs, among them, ta-mahn-a-wis rattles,
made out of deer hoofs, bear and beaver teeth, etc. They have a few of
the old style bows and arrows, hunting bows, with quivers of arrows to be
used in the chase or in war. The latter are of a superior workmanship,
and must have occupied lots of extra time in their manufacture. They have
few of the old style dress garments, but have not yet lost the art of
manufacture, as they will for money set about and make very interesting
dresses and coats out of the cedar bark, or from the cat-tail reeds
that grow in the swamps or marsh lands. There is yet preserved several
specimens of the dress of the nobility, made from the hair of the
mountain goat, though it is not unlikely that these latter were secured
in barter from the tribes occupying land on the east side of Puget Sound,
as the mountain goat is not known to have flourished between Puget Sound
and the Pacific ocean.
[Illustration: A GUARDIAN SPIRIT TOTEM]
The Twanas’ and perhaps many of the other Indian tribes’ superstition
as to the origin of the sun and moon is of more than passing interest.
A very long while ago there lived an aged Indian woman who had a son.
He must have been a bright, uncommon lad, for he was not only stolen
from home, but grew up into a young man possessing wonderful powers.
The boy was stolen from the care of his grandmother and carried away to
distant parts, beyond the mountains, where if anyone tried to follow,
the mountains would come together and crush the life out of them. When
the boy’s mother learned he had been stolen she was greatly grieved, and
declared she would find her another son, and so she did. He grew apace
and became also a bright promising lad. By and by, as the days passed
away, the first son found his way back through the treacherous mountains
and surprised his mother when he put in an appearance at home once
more. He does not seem to have been pleased at the prospect of finding
his place at home taken by a brother, and he at once declared he would
change the brother into the moon, and let him rule the world by night,
while he himself would be changed into the sun and govern things by day.
This shows that the family to which this ambitious young man belonged
was a great family, and probably governed the world before that time in
darkness.
The young man kept his word and wrought the marvelous changes, and it
must have occasioned great surprise next morning when the people got up
and found all the land aglow with light and beauty. But as the sun got up
higher, the people doubtless wished for their darkness back again, for
it got awfully hot. The brother—as the sun—in his great wrath burned so
fiercely that the heat dried up all the rivers of the country and killed
off all the fishes, and the people of the land sweltered and died in the
suffocating heat that pervaded everything.
The brother saw that things could not last long in this way, and he
decided on a change. So he changed things about, made his weaker and
younger brother into the sun and himself into the moon, and this worked
better. Ever since that day there has always been “a man in the moon,”
and a boy in the sun, but the light of the latter is too strong for the
boy’s face to be seen.
The Skal-lal-a-toot was a name applied, it seems, to the stick
ta-mahn-a-wis, or spirits of the woods which are accredited with the
power to change people into toads, birds, beasts, etc., and keep them as
long as they like, or until they see fit to return them to their proper
form.
People there are infected with the evil eye, in the imagination of the
Indian, and such they always try to avoid—especially so with children,
and hence a charm in the form of a rattle was always provided to hang
over the bed or cradle of the child. If a person entered the room and
made pleasant with the child, and took the rattle, all well and good.
If he avoided the child and rattle and acted suspiciously, look out for
him—he was one possessed of the evil eye, and was cultus.
[Illustration: WOLF-MASK—Used in the ceremony of the Black Ta-mahn-a-wis
by the Skokomish or Twana Indians]
Such persons were invested, in the Indian mind, with the spirit power,
and through the influence of this evil eye men and children were wrought
upon by the Skal-lal-a-toot and changed to various forms of birds,
beasts, trees, stones, etc. These evil-eyed geniuses were able to exert
this influence for bad to great distances, from the Sound to the Columbia
river, and infect individuals there with its baneful influence, the same
as if they were by their side.
The Indians used in this connection a mask, which might be called the
crying mask, for it seems to have been used as a kind of “Winslow’s
soothing syrup” to make the children stop crying. A representation of
one of these masks made out of cedar wood and still in good preservation
is shown in a sketch herein. The mask is nothing more than a flat
board-like piece, longer than the ordinary shingle, with the face cut
into it by a series of holes. It was placed in front of the person’s
face, and the mother or person using it would suddenly appear before the
child to be quieted, singing a peculiar monotone song. It was simply a
repetition of the word “skal-lay-a, skal-lay-a,” with the last syllable
drawn out indefinitely. Doubtless the charm worked well, and such
practices probably had as much to do with the establishment of the seeds
of superstition in the infantile mind as any after teaching could have
had.
The Puget Sound Indian generally appears to have been but very slightly
advanced in the art of carving and what work that is left is of a very
crude workmanship. A few good specimens are found among them but it is
questionable if any of them are original. In the illustrations is the
rude carving of the bear totem on the stem of a canoe found among the
Skokomish Indians, though the canoe might have come from the northern
Indians who followed more closely the practice of decoration of the canoe.
In comparison to this is shown a carving, the figurehead of the old bark
Enterprise which has lain a wreck on the beach at Agate pass, near the
Old-Man-House reservation, Port Madison, since some time in the early
50’s. This figurehead was removed from the old hulk and is now among the
Indian relics of the old pioneer, William Deshaw. The carving is the work
of native East Indians, according to the story of the skipper of the old
bark. He came with his vessel from Calcutta to Puget Sound, and while in
a port of East India went out with the nobility on a tiger hunt. Securing
one, he expressed a desire to have a carving of the head for his vessel
in honor of the hunt, and by direction of the rajah or some other high
potentate it was made for him by the natives. It is of teak wood and well
preserved and hard as flint almost. The figurehead was adorned with large
eyes of pearl which after the old bark was wrecked were removed. When the
captain expressed a desire to have a tiger head like the animal killed,
the Indians set to work and in just two weeks had it completed and at the
vessel when it was put on. A good story was told by William Deshaw on
Mr. Meigs, the mill owner, at the time the old bark fell to pieces while
lying at the mill wharf. It was a calm day, no wind, but the bark all of
a sudden went to pieces from sheer age. The mizzen mast went by the board
on the very day that Mr. Meigs was in Seattle getting insurance on the
vessel as he had just about concluded a purchase of her. Meigs returned
to the mill that evening and seeing the wreck said to her old skipper:
“Well, I guess you’d better get that old hulk out of here or it will be
tearing down of my wharf.” They started in to get the old hulk away from
the wharf and she was hauled across the narrow stretch of water onto the
beach. As the tide went out she careened over and as Deshaw says, “just
naturally wilted away.” The old bark still lies on the beach where she
was left twenty-five years or more ago, and the sand has drifted in and
about her till it is in places eight and ten feet deep and she is almost
lost to view.
The face mask shown in the illustrations herewith, now hangs on the walls
of Wm. Deshaw’s store at Agate pass and was given him many years ago by
a chief from the straits tribes, and was given with the assurance that
it was one of the most powerful charms the Indians possessed. It was
particularly efficacious in keeping off the “evil eye” and all that was
necessary to be done was to keep it hung up where everyone who entered
the building could see it as he entered. If the person entering was
possessed of the evil eye, after seeing it he would be powerless to do
any evil.
[Illustration: WOLF-MASK—Made by Skokomish Indians, now in possession of
Rev. Myron Eels]
Deshaw had performed a great kindness for the Indian, and had won his
everlasting gratitude. The Indian had no money, nor could money have
bought the charmed mask, but he gave it up in return for the kindness of
saving his daughter’s life.
One day a band of the Indians had come up sound and camped on the beach
at the reservation for a few days. While there an Indian daughter of
the chief got sick and a terrible hubbub was raised by the Indians in
their efforts to drive away the evil eye that had fallen upon her. The
medicine men exhausted all their powers and could not bring her around.
Deshaw went across the passage to see what all the noise was about and
found the girl stripped and lying on a mat on the beach with the medicine
men beating her body with hot rocks. Blood was oozing from her ears and
nostrils and she was almost dead. He quickly drove the medicine men away,
had her wrapped in blankets and carried across the water to his trading
post. Here proper treatment and medicine brought her around and in a day
or two she was in swimming as lively as any of the other children. Before
leaving the old chief went to see Deshaw, told him he was poor and had
no money, but some day would come and give him something. Time passed,
and when another year had rolled around, one day there walked into the
trading post an Indian with something rolled up under his arm. The bundle
was neatly wrapped up in a lot of skins, there being a beaver, marten and
silver gray fox skin among them. Deshaw had forgotten the circumstance of
the sick child and forgotten the man, but thought he had seen him at some
previous time. Watching his opportunity, the old chief took the white
man off to one side and recalled the incident and gave him the mask, and
told him what it was and what to do with it. Deshaw followed instructions
and apparently the mask has served its purpose well. “The evil eye” has
remained aloof from the trading post, and it looks as if, like the old
bark above referred to, it and its genial proprietor will continue to
jog on down Time’s broad way until they fall to pieces together, “just
naturally wilt away.”
The totem on page 41 was one very efficacious in their superstitions
regarding children. It was given to Deshaw in 1861 by Charley G’Klobet,
an Indian of prominence in the early days. It was the guardian spirit of
children before mentioned herein. The medicine men, who were supposed to
get their powers from it would not part with one of them to save their
life, so deep and strong was their superstitious belief in regard to it.
In their incantations over it they would kneel before it at night on
mats spread out, and with their long, greasy hair done up in weird and
fanciful knots, their face and bodies painted and besmeared with paints,
run around it, talking to it, praying to it and caressing it until they,
in their over-wrought imaginations had imbibed all the information it
possessed in regard to the children.
The totem has a long nose, over-hanging brow, two big bead eyes, with
streaks of white paint across the face half way between the eyes and
mouth. There are daubs of blue paint all about the mouth and chin
and a small streak of blue around the neck. There is a circle on the
breast cut with a knife and radiating from the two upper arcs are small
three-pronged notches cut in by the same process much resembling a bird’s
claw and intended to represent the superstition of the great white eagle,
from which, and a great whale, the Indians there are said to have sprung.