SOME INDIAN MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST
More than a century after the Spanish Francescans planted the Cross upon
the Pacific shores, the French, Belgian and Italian Jesuits or _robes
noires_, took their way into the Northwestern wilderness in response
to a cry from the people who lived within its solitudes. Civilization
follows the highways of intercourse with the outer world, so the Western
coast had passed through the struggle of its beginnings and entered
into a period of prosperity and peace, while that territory with the
Rocky Mountains as its general center, was still as primeval as when the
galleons of Juan de Fuca sailed into Puget Sound.
The mellowness of old romance, the warmth of Latin colour, hang over
the Missions of California. The pilgrim lingers reverently in their
cloistered recesses, breathing the scent of orange blossoms, reposing
in the shade of palm and pepper trees. With the song of the sea in his
ears and its sapphire glint in his eye he re-lives the olden days,
weaves for himself out of imagination's threads, a picture as harmonious
in its tones of faded rose and gray as an ancient tapestry. How much
the architectural beauty of these Missions has brought them within the
affectionate regard of the people it is hard to say, but undoubtedly it
has had an influence. The graceful lines of arch and pillar, the low,
broad sweep of roof and corridor, the delicate, yellowish-white of the
adobe outlined against a sky of royal blue, stir the sleeping sense
of beauty in our hearts and make us pause to worship at such favoured
shrines.
It is for precisely the opposite reason that we are drawn to the
Missions of the Northwest. Austere, ascetic in form, they make their
appeal because of their unadorned simplicity. They were originally the
plainest structures of logs, added to as occasion demanded and always
constructed of such homely materials as the surrounding country could
yield. Hands unaccustomed to other labours than telling the rosary or
making the sign of the Cross, hewed forest trees and wrought in wood
the symbol of their teaching. No wonder, then, that the buildings were
small and crude, but their lack of grandeur was the best testimony
to the sacrifice and noble purpose of which they were the emblems.
Overlooked, isolated they stand, passed by and all but unknown. Yet they
are monuments of heroic achievement and devotion; brave men risked their
lives willingly to lay these foundation stones of the faith; bitter
struggles were fought and won in their consecrated shadows and upon them
is the glamour of thrilling episode.
During the seventeenth century a little band of French missionaries of
the order of St. Ignatius journeyed from their native France to Canadian
territory with the purpose of spreading the word of God amongst the
savages of that benighted land. One of them, Father Ignace Jogues,
became the apostle of the Iroquois and died at their hands, a martyr.
Strangely enough, his teachings lived after him and were preserved in a
measure, at least, by those who had murdered him because of the message
he brought.
Years afterwards, about 1815, a small party of Iroquois took their
way from the Mission of Caughnawaga, in the neighbourhood of Sault
St. Louis, on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, and proceeded,
probably in quest of furs, into the little known and perilous ascents
of the Rocky Mountains. This party was headed by one Ignace La Mousse,
his given name being by a curious coincidence, the same as that of the
martyred disciple of the Gospel. He was a man of lordly stature and
puissance indomitable. Upon their wanderings they came to _Spetlemen_,
"the place of the Bitter Root," a mild, fair valley where dwelt a folk
kindly in their natures, who called themselves the Selish. These people
welcomed the Iroquois, made them at home in their lodges and shared with
them the sports of the chase until the visiting Indians were visitors no
more and claimed no other land than this.
From the lips of Old Ignace, as he was known, the Selish heard of a
mysterious faith symbolized by a Cross, a greater medicine than that of
any of the tribes, and of pale-faced, sable-robed priests, who, in the
olden time, taught that faith and died happily in the teaching.
The Selish practiced a simple, spontaneous kind of paganism. They
believed in a Good and Evil Spirit who were constantly at war. These two
powers were symbolized by light and darkness and their heroic battle
was pictured in the alternate triumph of day and night. If buffalo came
in plenty, if elk and moose were slain and the season's yield were rich,
then, according to their notion, the Good Spirit was in the ascendency;
but if, on the other hand, Winter rode down from the mountains while
their larder was low, if fish would not bite and game could not be
caught, the influence of the Evil Spirit prevailed. They believed also,
in a future existence, happy or miserable according to the merit or
demerit of the soul during its mortal life. The worthy shade passed
into eternal Summer time, to a land watered by fair streams and green
with meadows; in these streams were countless fishes and in the meadows
bands of wild horses and endless herds of the beloved buffalo. There the
spirit, united with its family, would ride through all eternity, hunting
amongst the ghostly flocks in the Summer sun of happy souls. But those
who had violated the tenets of the tribe, who had been liars, cowards
or otherwise dishonourable, and those negative offenders who had been
lacking in love for their wives, husbands and children, had sealed for
themselves a bitter fate. These outcasts went to an arctic region of
everlasting snow where false fires were kindled to torment their frozen
limbs with the mocking promise of warmth. Phantom streams offered their
parched lips drink, but as they hastened to the banks to quench their
thirst, the elusive waters were ever farther and farther away. So ever
and anon, through the years that never seemed to die, the shades were
doomed to hurry onward through the night and cold of Winter that knows
no Spring, in misery as dark as the shadow engulfing them. The Lands
of Good and Evil were separated by savage woods, inhabited by hungry
wolves, lithe wild cats and serpents coiled to strike. The wretched
sinner in his prison of ice, might after a period of penance, short or
long, according to the measure of his offense, expiate his sins and join
his brethren in the Happy Hunting Ground.
Besides this general belief held in common by the tribe, they cherished
countless myths such as those of the creation and many lesser fanciful
legends which formed a part of their religion.
Although these Indians were sincere in this simple, half-poetical
mythology, they listened very willingly, like eager children, to Old
Ignace, and from him learned to make the sacred sign and repeat the
white man's prayer. After knowing something of their mysticism it is
not surprising that the greater mysticism of the Catholic Church should
appeal to them; that once having heard the story of a faith much in
accord with many of their elementary, pre-conceived ideas, they should
pursue it tirelessly until they gained that which they most desired.
Time upon time at the councils, the chiefs discussed a means of
getting a Black Robe to come to them. At last, in a mighty assembly,
Old Ignace arose and proposed that a delegation be sent to St. Louis
to pray that an apostle of the church might come to shed the light
of the new faith upon the darkness of the Western Woods. A stir of
approval ran through the attentive people, for it was a great and daring
thing to think of. But who would go? The journey of about two thousand
miles lay over barriers of mountains, rushing torrents, virgin forests
where the sun never shone, and worst of all, penetrated the country of
their hereditary enemies, the Sioux. In spite of these perils, in the
breathless quiet of expectation that had hushed the tribe, four braves
came forward and volunteered to undertake the quest.
The knights of the olden days, who went forth sheathed in armour, in
goodly cavalcades, to the land of the Saracen in search of the Holy
Grail, have gathered about their memory the white light of heroism,
but if their daring and that of these four were weighed impartially,
the Indians would rise higher in the scale of glory. Alone, afoot,
armed only with such weapons as their skill could contrive, they
started out in the Spring of 1831, and in spite of the death that
lurked around them, reached their journey's end with the Autumn. The
tragical aftermath of that heroic adventure followed quickly. The
dangers overcome, the goal won, they failed. Not one among them could
speak a word of French or English. They sought out General Clark who had
penetrated into their lands, but what brought them from across the Rocky
Mountains, through the teeth of perdition to St. Louis, not even he
could guess. Picture the tragedy of being within reach of the treasure
and unable to point it out! Through General Clark the four emissaries
were conducted to the Catholic Church. Monseigneur, the Bishop,
was absent--he whom they had travelled six moons to see. Very soon
thereafter, two of the number fell ill as a result of exposure. In their
sickness, doomed to die in a strange land far, far from the pleasant
glades of their native valley, they made the sign of the Cross and other
feeble gestures which some priests who visited them interpreted rightly
to be an appeal for baptism and the last rites of the church. The
priests accordingly gave them the consolation they prayed for and placed
in the hands of each a little crucifix. So rigidly did they press these
symbols to their breasts, that they retained them even in death. Still
in their final agonies not one word could they tell of that mission for
which they were even then yielding up their lives. They died christened
Narcisse and Paul and were buried in a Catholic cemetery in the City of
St. Louis.
The two survivors, nameless shadows, flitted back into the wild and
were lost forever in the darkness. No tidings of them ever reached the
waiting tribe, so they, too, sacrificed themselves to a fruitless cause.
After these things had happened a Canadian, familiar with the Indians,
informed the good fathers who these children of the forest were and of
their devotion to a Faith, the merest glimmering of which had penetrated
to their remote and isolated valley. Then a priest of the Cathedral
offered to go with one companion to these zealous Indians when the
Spring should make possible the desperate trip.
Meantime, the Selish waited long and anxiously for word from their
delegation. Michel Insula, or Red Feather, "Little Chief and Great
Warrior," small of stature but mighty of spirit, always distinguished
by the red feather he wore, hearing that some missionaries were
travelling westward, fought his way through the hostile country and
arrived at the Green River Rendezvous where Indians, trappers and some
Protestant ministers were assembled. Insula was dissatisfied with the
ministers because they had wives, wore no black gowns such as Old Ignace
described, and carried no crucifix. The symbolism of the Catholic Church
had impressed him deeply and he would have no other faith, so he and his
band returned to their people to tell them that the _robes noires_ were
not yet come and their brave messengers had perished with their mission
unfulfilled.
They were resolute men, these Indians, and never faltering, they
determined to send another party upon the same sacred quest. This time
Old Ignace, he who had first broached the adventure to the council,
arose among the chiefs and warriors and offered to go. He took with him
his two young sons. The Summer was already well spent, but he and the
lads started out undaunted, and after a terrible period of ceaseless
travelling, smitten with cold and hunger, they reached St. Louis, and
Ignace more favoured than the preceding delegation, made known the wants
of his adopted tribe to the Bishop, who listened to him kindly and
promised to send a priest among his people.
Ignace and his sons returned safely to the Bitter Root Valley and
brought the glad tidings to the Selish. But eighteen moons waxed and
waned and though the watchful eyes of the Indians scanned the East,
never a pale-faced father in robes of black came out of the land of the
sunrise.
The chiefs took counsel again. A third time they determined to make
their appeal. Once more Ignace La Mousse led the way and in his charge
were three Selish and one Nez Percé brave. They fell in with a little
party of white people near Fort Laramie, and uniting forces for greater
safety, took up the march together. They journeyed onward unmolested
until they came to Ash Hollow in the land of the warlike Sioux. In that
fateful place three hundred of the hostile tribe surrounded them. The
Sioux, wishing only the scalps of the Selish and Nez Percé, ordered the
white men and Old Ignace who was dressed in the garb of civilization, to
stand apart. The whites obeyed, but Ignace La Mousse, scorning favour
or mercy at the enemy's hands, joined his adopted tribal brethren and
fought with them until they all lay dead upon the plains. So ended the
third expedition.
Once more news of the bloody death of their heroes reached the Selish.
A fourth and last party volunteered to undertake that which now seemed
a hopeless charge. Two Iroquois, Young Ignace La Mousse, so called
to distinguish him from the elder of the name, whose memory was held
honourable by the tribe, and Pierre Gaucher, "Left Handed Peter," set
out, joining a party of the Hudson Bay Fur Company's men and making the
trip in canoes. They finished the journey in safety and obtained from
Monseigneur, the Bishop, the pledge that in the Spring he would send a
missionary to the Valley of the Bitter Root. Young Ignace waited at the
mouth of Bear River through the Winter in order to be ready to guide
the priest to the Selish with the coming of the Spring. Pierre Gaucher
returned hot-footed, in triumph, conveying to the tribe the glad tidings
that their prayer had been answered; that the Great Black Robe was
sending them a disciple to preach the Holy Word. At last, after eight
years of waiting, the Selish were to have granted them their hearts'
desire. From out of the East the pale-faced, black robed father would
come bearing with him the Cross illuminated by the rising sun, casting
the benediction of its shadow upon the people and their land.
When the Selish learned from Pierre Gaucher that the _robe noire_ was
in reality travelling towards their country even then, the Great Chief
assembled his braves and it was decided that the tribe should march
forward to meet and welcome their missionary. Accordingly they started
in good season and on their way met groups of Kalispehlms, Nez Percés
and Pend d'Oreilles, who joined them, swelling their number to about
sixteen hundred souls. The ever increasing cavalcade moved on over pass
and valley, peak and ford, clad in rich furs, war-eagle feathers and
buckskins bright with beads--a gaily coloured column filing through the
woods. Finally, in the Pierre Hole Valley they came upon him who was
henceforth to be their teacher and guide, Father de Smet, whose memory
is held in reverence by the Indians of the present generation.
There was great rejoicing among the Selish, the Nez Percés, the Pend
d'Oreilles and the Kalispehlms. They burst into wild shouts of delight,
swarming around the pale priest, shaking his hand and bowing down
before him. They conducted him to the lodge of the Great Chief, called
the "Big Face," whom Father de Smet has described as one "who had the
appearance of a patriarch." The Chief made Father de Smet welcome in
these words:
"'This day the Great Spirit has accomplished our wishes and our hearts
are swelled with joy. Our desire to be instructed was so great that four
times had we deputed our people to the Great Black Robe in St. Louis to
obtain priests. Now, Father, speak and we will comply with all that you
will tell us. Show us the way we have to take to go to the home of the
Great Spirit.'"
Thus spake the Big Face, Chief of all the Selish, and there before the
assembled peoples of the kindred tribes, he offered to the priest his
hereditary honours as ruler. His renunciation was sincere, but Father de
Smet replied that he had come merely to teach, not to govern them.
That night in the deepening shadow, the children of the forest gathered
together around their new leader and chanted a song of praise. Strange
music swelling from untutored lips and awakening hearts into the wild
silence which had echoed only the howl of native beasts and the war cry
of battle and death! Yet even in that hymn of thanksgiving there was an
undertone of unconscious sadness. It was the beginning of a new epoch.
The old, poetical wood-myth and paganism were gone; the free range
over mountain and plain in the exhilarating chase would slowly give
place to the pursuits of husbandry. And this new, shapeless compound of
civilization and religion was bringing with its blessings, a burden of
obligation and pain. The Indians did not know, the priest himself could
not understand, that he was the channel through which these simple,
happy folk should embark upon dangerous, devouring seas.
* * * * *
[Illustration: LAKE McDONALD FROM McDONALD CREEK]
Father De Smet was a Belgian and he had spent some time with the
Pottowatamies, in Kansas. He understood the Indians well and what was
most important, he loved them. He remained among the Selish long enough
to be assured of their docile nature and sincerity of purpose, then
returned to St. Louis to urge the establishment of a permanent mission
and to ask for assistance to carry on his work. Monseigneur, the Bishop,
listened favourably to his appeal and consequently, in the Spring of
1841, Father De Smet, reinforced with two Italian priests, three lay
brothers and some other man, started for the Rocky Mountains. The Selish
had promised to meet the party at a given place at the base of the Wind
River Mountains, on the first day of July. The Indians waited until
they were driven by hunger to hunt in more likely fields. The Fathers,
learning of this, sent a messenger to recall them, and they hastened
back to greet their apostle and his followers. And of that little band
there were Charles and François, the sons of Old Ignace, the Iroquois,
Simon, the oldest of the tribe, and Young Ignace of great fame, who, we
are told, journeyed for four long days and nights having neither food
nor drink, in his haste to make good his promise to meet the _robes
noires_.
So far was the season advanced that the Selish had started on their
buffalo hunt. Therefore, the priests whose supplies were exhausted,
with their Indian friends, went on to Fort Hall, procured provisions
there, and then proceeded to the Beaverhead River to join the tribe.
The priests stayed only a few days among the Indians who were absorbed
in the chase, and again took up their journey with the Bitter Root
valley as the chosen place of permanent rest. There they had determined
to build the Mission, "the house of the Great Spirit," and there the
Selish promised to join them after the hunt was over in the Fall. Along
the course of the Hell Gate River they took their way and at last came
safely within the green refuge of the valley to lay down their burden
and build their church. They selected a fair spot near the present site
of Stevensville and laboured long to fashion the pioneer home of the
Faith which they called The Mission of St. Mary's. The good priests
went farther still and re-named the valley, the river watering it and
the highest peak, St. Mary's, so anxious were they in their zeal to
eradicate every trace of the old, pagan beliefs of their converts, even
to the names of the valleys, lakes and hills!
The element of incongruity and pity in this, the zealous fathers did
not appreciate. That a jagged, beetling crest, the home of the thunder
cloud, the womb whence issues glacier and roaring stream, fit to be
Jove's dwelling, should bear the mild title of St. Mary's, did not
shock their notions of the eternal fitness of things. Happily, the
valley with its rose-starred brocade of flowers, is still the Bitter
Root and a re-awakening interest is calling the old names from their
long oblivion to take their places once again, vesting peak and stream
and grassy vale with a significance of meaning totally wanting in the
artificial foreign titles forced on them by those who neither knew nor
cared for their tradition and sentiment. And even the ancient gods and
spirits are no longer despised as evils antagonistic to the salvation
of the soul. Lafcadio Hearn expressed pity for the cast-off Shinto
gods whose places were usurped by the deities of the Buddhist creed.
Likewise, the best Christian amongst us, if he looks beneath the surface
into the heart of things, must be conscious of a vague regret for the
quaint, mythical lore which cast its glamour over the wilderness; for
the poor, vanished phantoms of the wood and the gods who have fallen
from their thrones. Sometimes in the remotest mountain solitudes we
dare to acknowledge thoughts we would not harbour elsewhere. Under the
pensive appeal of the still forests, the heaven-reaching peaks and
stream-songs, we wonder if upon the heights, in deep-bosomed caverns,
those sad exiles dwell, casting over the cloistered groves a subtle
melancholy, evasive as the shadow of a cloud, fleeting as the sigh of
the Summer wind.
But the good fathers of St. Mary's had no such thought for the ancient
paganism and its symbols. They were busy planting the Cross, building a
chapel, the best that their strength and skill could erect, and other
structures necessary for their protection and comfort. It was a labour
of love, as much a religious rite as the saying of the Mass, and verily,
the ring of the hammers must have seemed in the ears of those devoted
men, endless _aves_ and _pater nosters_. Finally the work was done. A
comfortable log cabin, large enough to hold nearly the assembled tribe,
stood in the valley, and when the Indians returned from the hunt, they
were joyful in this, their reward, for all those brave attempts to bring
the Light into the Wilderness.
The Mission completed, Father De Smet travelled to Fort Colville in
Washington, a journey of more than three hundred miles, to procure
seeds and roots, and on his way he stopped among the Kalispehlms, the
Pend d'Oreilles and the Coeur d'Alenes, all of whom welcomed him and
listened attentively to the message he brought. He took back to his
Selish charges at St. Mary's "a few bushels of oats, wheat and potatoes"
which he and his brethren sowed. The Indians, like children, watched
with wonder, the planting, sprouting, ripening and reaping of the crop,
a thing hitherto unknown to them, though husbandry on a small scale had
been practiced at an earlier date by some of the Eastern tribes.
But however truly the Indians loved their new teachers, the _robes
noires_, and however sincerely they accepted the tenets of their
faith, they still persisted in buffalo hunts, which twice a year took
them into the contested country, and upon these expeditions, fired
with excitement, alive with all the heritage of passion inspired by
the chase, the war path and the intoxication of glory handed down
to them through an ancestry so ancient as to be lost in the dimness
of beginnings, they forgot for a time, at least, the life of order,
industry and religion they had pledged themselves to lead. Therefore,
one of the new priests, Father Point, accompanied them on the hunt, but
in the abandon of those days when every sense was strained to find the
prey, and every nerve was as tense as the bow-string 'ere it speeds the
arrow to its mark, it was impossible to preach to them the gentle word
of Christianity, so the Fathers gave up these attempts and remained at
the Mission awaiting the return of their straying converts, a situation
which was to result sadly for St. Mary's. Meantime the work was growing.
The Pend d'Oreilles and Coeur d'Alenes had asked for missionary
priests and Father De Smet needed more helpers in the new land.
From St. Mary's, the Mother Mission, Father Point and Brother Huet
went forth to minister to the Coeur d'Alenes, where they established
the Mission of the Sacred Heart. A third Mission, St. Ignatius, was
founded amongst the Kalispehlms on the Pend d'Oreille River. With these
two offshoots from the parent stem of St. Mary's, it was necessary for
Father De Smet to seek re-inforcement abroad, but before he sailed he
started westward three new recruits from St. Louis.
It must have been an inspiring sight when this humble priest, fresh
from the western woods, the scent of the pines exhaling from him, the
breadth of vast distances in his vision, the simplicity of the Indians'
racial childhood reflected in his own nature, stood before his August
Holiness, Pope Gregory XVI., in the grandeur of the Vatican at Rome,
and there, amidst the pomp and ostentation, the wealth and luxury of
the headwaters of that Church which sends its streams to the utmost
corners of the earth, pled the cause of the lowly Indian. More imposing
still, it must have been, when His Holiness arose from his throne and
embraced this apostle from the great, New World. The Pope sought to
make the priest a bishop, but Father De Smet chose to remain as he was,
and certainly in the eyes of unprejudiced laymen, he gained in simple
dignity more than he foreswore in ecclesiastical honors.
This trip of Father De Smet to Europe has a peculiar interest in that
it was the means of bringing into the West, besides numbers of pioneer
Sisters, and clergy, a man so beloved, so revered that his name--Father
Ravalli--is known by Catholic and Protestant, Indian and White alike,
through the whole of the Rocky Mountain region. Those who knew the
gentle old man loved him not only for his spirituality, but for his
human sweetness. He possessed that breadth of sympathy which sheds mercy
on good and bad equally, commiserating the fallen, pitying the weak.
He was a native of Ferrara, Italy, and at a very early age decided to
become a missionary priest. That he might be most useful materially
as well as religiously, he fitted himself for his work. He graduated
in _belles lettres_, philosophy, the natural sciences, and became a
teacher in these branches of learning, in several cities of Italy.
Under a skilled physician of Rome he studied medicine; in a mechanic's
shop he learned the use of tools; finally, in a studio, he practiced
the rudiments of art which he always loved. So he came to the Indians
bringing with him great human kindliness, and the knowledge of crafts
and homely pursuits that made their lives more easy and independent.
It was he who devised the first crude mill, the means of giving the
people flour and bread, he who by a hundred ingenious devices lightened
the burden of their toil. But most of all was his practice of medicine
a mercy. To stricken infancy or old age he was alike attentive; to
dying Christians he bent with ready ear and alleviating touch, or
as compassionately eased the last throes of highwaymen, heretic or
murderer. Over the bleak, snowy passes of the mountains, heedless of
hardship or danger, he hurried in answer to the appeal of the sick,
no matter who they were or where they dwelt. And though often those
who went before or came after him were robbed, he was never molested.
The most desperate of the "road agents" respected him and suffered
him to pass in peace on his way. Gently brave, like the good bishop in
_Les Miserables_, his very trustfulness was his safeguard. Perhaps as
striking an example of his forethought as we can find is the fact that
he trained a squaw to give intelligent care to women in the throes of
childbirth. There is no record of the mothers and babes spared thus, but
there were many, and even the letter of the monkish law never stayed his
helping hand or curbed his humane devotion. The more ascetic brethren
who lived in colder spiritual altitudes, looked doubtfully upon Father
Ravalli's impartial ministry; the more astute financiers who held the
keys to the Church's coffers, frowned upon his unrewarded toil, and
there comes a whisper through the years that there were times when he
was an object of charity because he never asked reward for the surcease
of suffering his patient vigils brought.
He travelled from one to another of the Northwestern missions and even
to Santa Clara, California, but he is known best and loved most as the
Apostle of the Selish at St. Mary's. Indeed, looking back through the
perspective of time at the plain, little Mission crowned as with an
aureole, one figure stands out clearly among the pious priests, who, in
turn, presided at its altar, and this figure is Father Ravalli.
His grave, marked by a shaft of stone, is within the shadow of the
church in the valley of the Bitter Root, and it was fitting he should
lie down to rest where he had laboured so long and lovingly. A
generation hence, when the hallowed places of the West become shrines
about which pilgrims shall gather reverently, this mountain-tomb of
the gentle old priest will be visited and written of. Meantime, he
sleeps as sweetly for the solitude, and those whose lives he made more
beautiful by his presence think of him at peace as they turn their eyes
heavenward to the infinite rosary of the stars.
In spite of the progress of the beneficent work and the fresh blood that
had infused new strength into the cause, dark days were to cast their
shadow upon the little Mission of St. Mary's. No power could restrain
the Selish from the chase, and during their absence twice a year, the
colony left behind, consisting only of the priest and those too aged
or sick to follow the tribe, were menaced by the Blackfeet and Bannock
Indians. The old feud was fanned red hot by the Selish killing two
Blackfeet warriors who invaded the very boundaries of the Mission with
hostile intent. The threats from the Blackfeet became more terrible.
They lurked in the thick timber and brush around the stockade which
enclosed the Mission, and, finally, while the tribe was absent on a
buffalo hunt, a rumour reached the anxious watchers that the hostiles
would descend in a great war party upon the defenseless community. And
indeed, they were roused by war whoop and savage yell to see swarming
around their weak barricade, the dreaded enemy. Father Ravalli was in
charge of the Mission at that time and he and his companions prepared
themselves for the death which seemed inevitable. But the Blackfeet,
probably seeing that only a man stricken with years, two young boys and
a few aged women and little children were all of their hated foe who
remained at St. Mary's, retreated to the brush. One of the two boys
ventured to the gate to make sure the Blackfeet were gone and was shot
dead. This tragical incident and the more awful menace it carried with
it to those who were left at the mercy of the invading tribes, and
another reason we shall now consider, led to the temporary abandonment
of St. Mary's.
In those early days, the missions being the only habitations within many
hundreds of miles, became the refuge and abiding place during bitter
weather, of French-Canadian and mixed breed trappers, who in milder
seasons ranged over the mountains and plains in pursuit of furs. These
half-savage men were undoubtedly a picturesque part of the old, woodland
life and their uncouth figures lent animation and colour to the quiet
monotone of the religious communities. In the first quarter of the last
century we find mention of French-Canadians employed by the Missouri Fur
Company, appearing on New Year's Eve, clad in bison robes, painted like
Indians, dancing _La Gignolee_ to the music of tinkling bells fastened
to their dress, for gifts of meat and drink. These trappers were, in
the day of St. Mary's Mission, a licentious, roistering band with easy
morals, consciences long since gone to sleep, who did not hesitate to
debauch the Indians, and who feared neither man nor devil. They went
to St. Mary's as to other shrines, and under the pretext of practicing
their religion, lived on the missionaries' scanty stores and filled
the idle hours with illicit pastimes. It is said that they became
revengeful because of the coolness of their reception by the priests,
and maliciously set about to poison the Selish against the beloved
_robes noires_. However this may be, whether the wayward, capricious
children strayed or not, it is certain that they would not sacrifice the
buffalo hunt for priest nor promise of salvation, so the Mission was
dismantled and leased; its poor effects packed and the Apostles of the
Faith started out again to seek refuge in new fields. At Hell's Gate,
the inferno of the Blackfeet, they parted; Father Ravalli to wend his
way to the Mission of the Sacred Heart among the Coeur d'Alenes; the
rest, under the escort and protection of Victor, the Lodge Pole, Great
Chief of the Selish and father of Charlot, followed the Coriacan defile
to the Jocko River and finally arrived at St. Ignatius, the Mission of
the Kalispehlms.
For a time we leave St. Mary's in the sad oblivion of desertion, while
those who had tended its altar, poor pilgrims, toiled over diverse
trails toward different destinations.
It is not necessary to follow the varying fortunes of the few, small
missions in the Northwestern wilderness, included then within the vast
territory called Oregon. Each has its pathetic story of privation and
danger, which may be found complete and detailed in ecclesiastical
histories written by priests of the order.
We shall pass on to the Mission of St. Ignatius, whither the party from
St. Mary's sought refuge, which, in the course of time absorbed some
of the lesser institutions and became, as we shall see, the religious
center of several tribes. The Mission of St. Ignatius was the same
founded by Father Point on the banks of the Pend d'Oreille River
among the Kalispehlms in the year 1844. The original location proved
undesirable, so ten years later the Mission was moved to a site chosen
by the advice of Alexander, Chief of the tribe. A wonderful revelation
it must have been when the Indian guide, leading the priests through a
pass in the mountains, the secret of his people, showed them the vast
sea of flowing green--the valley of Sin-yal-min--barred to the East
by the range of the same name. There ever-changing shades of violet
and lights of gold altered the mien of these mountains whose jagged
peaks showed white with snow, from whose deep bosoms burst a water-fall
plunging from mighty altitudes into the emerald bowl of the valley.
This was veritably a kingdom in itself, and no white man had trodden
the thick embroidery of wild flowers and grass. It had been a gathering
place for many tribes. Within its luxuriantly fruitful limits, berries
and roots grew in plenty and game abounded in the neighbouring hills.
In the very palm of Sin-yal-min the new Mission of St. Ignatius was
builded. There could scarcely have been a more ideal spot for church
and school, forming the nucleus of an agricultural community. There
gathered parties of the upper and lower Kalisphelms, upper Kootenais,
Flat Bowes, Pend d'Oreilles and Selish, to pitch their tipis in the
shadow of the Mission Cross. Many of these Indians made for themselves
little farms where they laboured and lived. Entire families of Selish
moved from the Bitter Root valley to be near the _robes noires_ they
loved. St. Ignatius possessed an advantage that bound the Indians to
it by permanent ties and that was its schools. Four pioneer Sisters
travelling into the Rocky Mountain region under the guidance of two
priests and two laymen, from their home mission in Montreal, founded
at St. Ignatius the first girls' school among the Indians of the
territory. Not long thereafter the priests established a similar school
for boys, where they taught not only the French and English languages
and the rudiments of a simple education, but also such handicrafts as
seemed most necessary to the development of industry. In saddle-making
particularly, the boys excelled, and wonderful specimens of leather
work have gone forth from the Mission shops. Thus, largely through
its practical industry St. Ignatius grew into a powerful institution.
Building after building was added to the group until a beautiful village
sprang up, half hidden among clumps of trees and generous vines. On
the outskirts of this community rows of tiny, low, thatch-roofed log
cabins were built by the Indians to shelter them when they assembled
to celebrate such feasts as Christmas, Good Friday and that of St.
Ignatius, their patron Saint.
The fates favoured St. Ignatius. In the year of its removal the
Hell's Gate treaty was signed wherein the bounds of the reservation
were re-adjusted, making the new mission the center of that rich
dominion. The treaty of the Hell Gate, participated in by the Selish,
the Pend d'Oreilles and some of the Kootenais, was the same, it may
be remembered, wherein Victor, the father of Charlot, insisted upon
retaining possession of the Bitter Root Valley "above the LoLo Fork" for
himself and his people, unless after a fair survey by the United States,
the President should deem it best to move the tribe to the Jocko. This
agreement was entered into in 1855. Seventeen years went by. The Indians
declare that no survey was ever made during that time nor were they
furnished with school teachers, skilled artisans and agriculturalists
to instruct them, as had been promised on the part of the government.
Summarily the Selish were called upon to sign a second agreement, the
Garfield treaty, which deprived them of their ancestral home and drove
them forth to share the Jocko Reservation in common with the allied
tribes. This was at once an impetus to the fortunes of St. Ignatius and
a mortal blow to St. Mary's.
That pioneer shrine, abandoned on account of the depredations of the
Blackfeet, remained dark and silent for sixteen years. The Selish
mourned the loss of their friends and teachers, the _robes noires_. In
spite of the absence of the church's influence, save such intermittent
inspiration as the occasional visit of a priest, the Selish prayed and
waited. And surely, poor, impulsive children that they were, if they
had been misled by tale-bearing, mixed breed trappers, their digression
was dearly expiated. During those sixteen years they remained faithful
to the cause which four delegations of their number had braved danger,
privation and death to win.
In the meantime the West was changing. The first stern, ascetic days
were passing when the best of men's characters was called into active
existence to cope with immediate hardship; when every nerve rang true,
tuned to the highest bravery and that magnificent indifference to death
which makes heroes. The cry of gold ran through the length and breadth
of the land and the headlong rush of adventurers, good and bad, from the
four corners of the earth, all bent on wealth, changed the spirit of the
western world. In that mad stampede, men, spurred by the lust of gain,
pushed and crowded each other, and with such competition, who thought
of or cared for the Indian? His day was done; the accomplishment of his
ruin was merely a matter of years. Moreover, the lower element of the
reckless, pillaging crew of gold seekers brought with it the vices of
civilization--drink and the game.
Change the ideal which inspires a deed and the deed itself is changed.
That first, stern West which taught men not to fear by surrounding them
with danger, made heroes of them because they had braved the unknown
for some noble purpose, religion, the simple love of Nature or another
reason as good; but in these altered conditions where debauching gain
was the one object of their quest, though they spurned death as the
pathfinders had done, their bravery sank to bravado and dare-deviltry
because their purpose was sordid.
With this invasion of the wilderness the whole aspect of the mission
work underwent a change. The masked man on horseback stalked the trails;
the bizarre glamour of the dance hall flaunted its coarse gaiety in the
mushroom camps' thronged streets; the saloon and gaming house brought
temptation to the Indian, and generally he fell. It was also true that
in more than one instance the precedent of bloodshed was set by brigand
whites, sowing the seeds which were later to bear a red harvest of war.
So, when St. Mary's opened her doors in 1869, it was upon a period of
transition. If the placid image of Our Lady, looking through half
closed eyelids, could have seen and understood the metamorphosis what
a shock would have smitten her sainted soul! The painted, war-bent
Blackfeet were gone far back into their fastnesses, but here and there,
thick and fast, came the white settler, peaceful, cold, inevitable,
overwhelming, bringing ruin to the old life and its people--the
beginning of the end. And that calm, just Mother of Mankind would have
seen the timid shadow-shapes of the Selish melting into the gathering
twilight, at once welcoming the stranger to the land and relinquishing
it to him, retiring step by step before the great, white inundation. It
is useless to prolong the story. The climax had to come, and come it
did, swiftly, cruelly, with a dark hint of treachery that we, of the
superior race are too willing to excuse and condone. By the Garfield
Treaty, which, by a curious anomaly, never very lucidly explained,
bears the sign of Charlot, son of Victor, hereditary chief of the
Selish, that he, a man in his sane senses swears he never signed, the
tribe renounced all claim to the land of their fathers and consented to
betake themselves to the Jocko reservation. During the twenty-two years
of the existence of St. Mary's as an Indian Mission, after its second
opening, the fathers, among them Father Ravalli, watched over and tended
their decreasing charge. The numbers of the red hosts dwindled; the
falling off of the people through new and unnatural conditions thinned
their ranks, but surer still, was the admixture of the white strain, so
corrupting in most cases to the unfortunate in whom the two race strains
commingle. But in spite of the Garfield Treaty, notwithstanding the
exodus of the main body of the Selish, St. Mary's faithful to the end,
drew to her little altar the last, failing remnant of the tribe--the
splendidly defiant Charlot and his band. At last, in 1891, they accepted
the inevitable and rode away to the land of their exile resigning to
the conquering race their blood-right to the Bitter Root. This was the
death of St. Mary's. It remained standing, a church of the whites, but
an Indian mission no more. In looking back through the years, their
mercies and their cruelties, it is a sorrowfully sweet thing to remember
that Father Ravalli, guardian spirit of the Selish, lay down to rest
before the ultimate change, the final expulsion, while the first light
of the wilderness from the altar of St. Mary's still shone, however
faintly, to show the way.
The sequel of St. Ignatius is, happily, less pathetic in its unfolding.
The life that ebbed from St. Mary's flowed amply into the newer
Mission's growing strength and to-day it stands, substantial and
prosperous in the valley of Sin-yal-min. Though the same tragedy is
about to be enacted, the expulsion, less summary, leaving to the
individual Indian his garden patch, St. Ignatius remains a beacon to
the dusky hosts, poor frightened children who cling to this last hope,
promising as it does a happiness born of suffering, an ultimate reward
which not even the white man can take away. A handsome new church,
frescoed by an Italian brother, does service instead of the old chapel,
venerable with age that hides behind the sheltering trees. In front of
the modern church stands the great, wooden Cross erected by the early
fathers, which the Indians kneel to kiss before they go to Mass. And
to the right, covered with wild grass, and that neglect of which such
vagrant growths are the emblem, is the old cemetery where so many weary
pilgrims who travelled long and painfully over difficult trails, have
sought peace past the power of dreams to disturb.
Here, as we have seen, upon feast days the Indians come, the scattered
bands gathering from mountain and valley, clad in gala attire. Their
ranks are thinning fast. The once populous nation of the Selish is
shrunk to between three and four hundred souls, still the little village
often holds a thousand Indians all told, from the different neighbouring
tribes. And sometimes, bands from far away, distinguished by diversified
language, curious basketry and articles of handicraft, come as
spectators to the feasts.
Until a few years ago these religious festivals were preceded by solemn
rites of expiation. A kind of open air court was held, the chiefs
sitting in judgment upon all offenders and acting in the capacity of
judges. The whole tribe assembled to watch with impassive gravity the
austere spectacle of the accusation, sentence and chastisement of those
who had broken the law. All malefactors were either brought before
the chiefs, or spurred by conscience, they came forward voluntarily,
confessed their guilt and prayed to be expurgated of sin through the
sting of the lash. When the accusations and confessions were finished,
the multitude dropped upon their knees and prayed. Then those arraigned
were examined and such of them as the chiefs decreed guilty, were
sentenced and immediately suffered the penalty. A blanket was spread
upon the earth and the offender lay on this, his back exposed to the
raw-hide lash which marked in welt-raising strokes the degree of his
transgression. Even while he smarted, never wincing under this ordeal,
the spectators at the bidding of the chiefs, prayed once again for
the culprit's reformation and forgiveness. Such was the practice of
the Selish handed down from the earliest days. The time and place of
the chastisement were regulated in these later years by the Catholic
festivals, but public punishment with the lash was a custom of the
tribe before the missionaries penetrated the West. The confession, the
judgment and the whipping they believed to be a complete expiation;
having suffered, the sin-soiled were made clean, and thus purified, they
met and mingled with the best of their brethren on equal terms, without
further reproach. This was a simple and summary form of justice, suited
to the people whom it controlled,--was in fact the natural outgrowth of
their moral and ethical code--and it is a pity that the ancient law,
together with much besides that was desirable in the pristine life of
the Indian, has been stamped out beneath the master's iron heel.
One cannot take leave of the missions of the Northwest without looking
back upon Father De Smet, their founder, and the work which he began.
Through his devotion missions were established among many different
nations, even the unyielding Blackfeet falling under the spell of
gentleness. And he who lived most of his life either in the wilderness
or labouring elsewhere for what he believed to be the salvation of its
benighted children, died at last at St. Louis in 1873, after meditative
and reminiscent years spent in recording his travels and his triumphs.
There are some subtle questions crying out of the silence which are not
to be pushed back unspoken, even though we can find no answer to their
riddle. How far have the missionaries succeeded? If completely, why does
the Christian Indian still dance to the Sun? And did those Fathers in
their errand of mercy blindly pass to the people they would fain have
saved from annihilation the fate they strove to spare them from? Who can
say?
The Indians were probably in their racial infancy when the maturer ranks
marched in and absorbed, or otherwise destroyed them. It would seem that
with them it is a case of arrested development. If left to themselves,
through centuries they might have brought forth a civilization
diametrically opposite to our own. That they never could nor can
assimilate or profit by our social and educational methods has been
sufficiently proved. Their race instincts are essentially as foreign to
ours as those of the Hindu, and their evolution must have necessarily
proceeded along totally different lines. The Indians were decreed to
work out their own salvation or die, and the latter thing has come to
pass. One might go on painting mental pictures of what would have been
the result if the free, forest-born red race had thrived and grown into
maturity. Certainly in their decadence, their spirit-broken second
childhood, we find the germ of an original moral sense, of tradition and
poetry, even of religion, which might have borne rich fruit.
The Oriental is to us an enigma, and we recognize in his makeup psychic
qualities but slightly hinted of in ourselves. So in the Indian we
must acknowledge a race of distinct and separate values that we can
never wholly know or understand. The races are products of countless
centuries begotten of habit and environment; we cannot put aside these
growth-accumulations builded like the rings of the pine, nor can we take
that which the Creator made and re-create it to suit our finite ends.
Therefore, instead of helping the Indian we are merely killing him,
kindly perhaps, with comforts, colleges and sacraments, but none the
less surely striking at his life.
And though they are still amongst us, picturesque figures which we value
chiefly as relics of a gaily-coloured past, the Indians are the mystery
of our continent. They speak to us, they smile at us, they sit within
our churches and use our tongue, but for all that they remain forever
strangers. What pagan beliefs vibrating through the chain of unrecorded
ancestry, what hates, loves, aspirations and bitter griefs, separate
from our comprehension as the poles, thrill out of the darkness of
yesterday and die unspoken, unformed, beneath those calm, bronze brows?
They are a problem to be studied, never solved; a riddle one with the
Sphinx, the Cliff Dwellers and the Aztec ruins. For, after all is said,
what do even the good Fathers, with candle, crucifix and creed, know of
their primal souls, of the unsounded depths of their hearts?
_THE PEOPLE OF THE LEAVES_
[Illustration: FRANCOIS]