Percé war of 1877. As is generally the case with Indian wars, it
originated in the unauthorized intrusion of lawless whites on lands
which the Indians claimed as theirs by virtue of occupancy from time
immemorial. The Nez Percés, whom all authorities agree in representing
as a superior tribe of Indians, originally inhabited the valleys of
Clearwater and Salmon rivers in Idaho, with the country extending
west of Snake river into Washington and Oregon as far as the Blue
mountains. They are first officially noticed in the report of the
Indian Commissioner for 1843, where they are described as “noble,
industrious, sensible,” and well disposed toward the whites, while
“though brave as Cæsar, the whites have nothing to dread at their hands
in case of their dealing out to them what they conceive to be right
and equitable.” (_Comr., 18._) It being deemed advisable to bring them
into more direct relations with the United States, the agent who made
the report called the chiefs together in this year and “assured them
of the kind intentions of our government, and of the sad consequences
that would ensue to any white man, from this time, who should invade
their rights.” (_Comr., 19._) On the strength of these fair promises
a portion of the tribe, in 1855, entered into a treaty by which they
ceded a large part of their territory, and were guaranteed possession
of the rest. In 1860, however, gold was discovered in the country,
and the usual result followed. “In defiance of law, and despite the
protestations of the Indian agent, a townsite was laid off in October,
1861, on the reservation, and Lewiston, with a population of 1,200,
sprung into existence.” (_Comr., 20._) A new treaty was then made
in 1863, by which the intruders were secured in possession of what
they had thus seized, and the Nez Percés were restricted within much
narrower limits. By this treaty the Wallowa valley, in northeastern
Oregon, the ancestral home of that part of the tribe under the
leadership of Chief Joseph, was taken from the Indians. This portion
of the tribe, however, had refused to have part in the negotiations,
and “Chief Joseph and his band, utterly ignoring the treaty of 1863,
continued to claim the Wallowa valley, where he was tacitly permitted
to roam without restraint, until the encroachments of white settlers
induced the government to take some definite action respecting this
band of non-treaty Nez Percés.” (_Comr., 21._) At this time the tribe
numbered about 2,800, of whom about 500 acknowledged Joseph as their
chief.
[Illustration: PL. LXXXVII
CHIEF JOSEPH]
Collisions between the whites and Indians in the valley became more
frequent, and one of Joseph’s band had been killed, when a commission
was appointed in 1876 to induce the Indians to give up the Wallowa
valley and remove to Lapwai reservation in Idaho. Joseph still
refusing to remove, the matter was turned over to General Howard. On
May 3, 1877, he held the first council with Joseph and his followers at
Fort Lapwai. Their ceremonial approach, which was probably in accord
with the ritual teachings of the Dreamer religion, is thus described by
the general:
A long rank of men, followed by women and children, with
faces painted, the red paint extending back into the partings
of the hair—the men’s hair braided and tied up with showy
strings—ornamented in dress, in hats, in blankets with variegated
colors, in leggings of buckskin and moccasins beaded and plain;
women with bright shawls or blankets, and skirts to the ankle and
top moccasins. All were mounted on Indian ponies as various in
color as the dress of the riders. These picturesque people, after
keeping us waiting long enough for effect, came in sight from up
the valley from the direction of their temporary camp just above
the company gardens. They drew near to the hollow square of the
post and in front of the small company to be interviewed. Then
they struck up their song. They were not armed except with a few
tomahawk pipes that could be smoked with the peaceful tobacco or
penetrate the skull bone of an enemy, at the will of the holder.
Yet somehow this wild sound produced a strange effect. It made one
feel glad that there were but fifty of them, and not five hundred.
It was shrill and searching; sad, like a wail, and yet defiant in
its close. The Indians swept around outside the fence and made
the entire circuit, still keeping up the song as they rode. The
buildings broke the refrain into irregular bubblings of sound until
the ceremony was completed. (_Howard, 1._)
At this conference Toohulhulsote, the principal Dreamer priest of
Joseph’s band, acted as spokesman for the Indians, and insisted,
according to the Smohalla doctrine, that the earth was his mother, that
she should not be disturbed by hoe or plow, that men should subsist by
the spontaneous productions of nature, and that the sovereignty of the
earth could not be sold or given away. Continuing, he asserted, “We
never have made any trade. Part of the Indians gave up their land. I
never did. The earth is part of my body, and I never gave up the earth.
So long as the earth keeps me I want to be left alone.” General Howard
finally ordered him under arrest, after which the Indians at last
agreed to go on a reservation by June 14. (_Howard, 2._) A few days
later, councils were held with Smohalla and his people, and with Moses,
another noted “renegade” chief with a considerable following farther
up the Columbia. Both chiefs, representing at least 500 warriors,
disclaimed any hostile intentions and agreed to go on reservations.
Smohalla said, “Your law is my law. I say to you, yes. I will be on
a reservation by September.” (_Howard, 3._) Parties under Joseph and
other leading chiefs then went out to select suitable locations for
reservations, Joseph and his band deciding in favor of Lapwai valley.
Everything was moving smoothly toward a speedy and peaceful settlement
of all difficulties, and the commission had already reported the
successful accomplishment of the work, when a single act of lawless
violence undid the labor of weeks and precipitated a bloody war.
(_Comr., 22._)
One of Joseph’s band had been murdered by whites some time before,
but the Indians had remained quiet. (_Comr., 23._) Now, while the Nez
Percés were gathering up their stock to remove to the reservation
selected, a band of white robbers attacked them, ran off the cattle,
and killed one of the party in charge. Joseph could no longer restrain
his warriors, and on June 13, 1877—one day before the date that had
been appointed for going on the reservation—the enraged Nez Percés
attacked the neighboring settlement on White Bird creek, Idaho, and
killed 21 persons.[4] The war was begun. The troops under Howard were
ordered out. The first fight occurred on June 17 at Hangman’s creek
and resulted in the loss of 34 soldiers. Then came another on July 4
with a loss of 13 more. Then on July 12 another encounter by troops
under General Howard himself, in which 11 soldiers were killed and 26
wounded. (_Comr., 24._)
Then began one of the most remarkable exhibitions of generalship in
the history of our Indian wars, a retreat worthy to be remembered with
that of the storied ten thousand. With hardly a hundred warriors, and
impeded by more than 350 helpless women and children—with General
Howard behind, with Colonel (General) Miles in front, and with Colonel
Sturgis and the Crow scouts coming down upon his flank—Chief Joseph
led his little band up the Clearwater and across the mountains into
Montana, turning at Big Hole pass long enough to beat back his pursuers
with a loss of 60 men; then on by devious mountain trails southeast
into Yellowstone park, where he again turned on Howard and drove him
back with additional loss of men and horses; then out of Wyoming and
north into Montana again, hoping to find safety on Canadian soil, until
intercepted in the neighborhood of the Yellowstone by Colonel Sturgis
in front with fresh troops and a detachment of Crow scouts, with whom
they sustained two more encounters, this time with heavy loss of men
and horses to themselves; then again eluding their pursuers, this
handful of starving and worn-out warriors, now reduced to scarcely
fifty able men, carrying their wounded and their helpless families,
crossed the Missouri and entered the Bearpaw mountains. But new enemies
were on their trail, and at last, when within 50 miles of the land of
refuge, Miles, with a fresh army, cut off their retreat by a decisive
blow, capturing more than half their horses, killing a number of the
band, including Joseph’s brother and the noted chief Looking Glass, and
wounding 40 others. (_Comr., 25._)
Forced either to surrender or to abandon the helpless wounded, the
women, and children, Joseph chose to surrender to Colonel Miles, on
October 5, 1877, after a masterly retreat of more than a thousand
miles. He claimed that this was “a conditional surrender, with a
distinct promise that he should go back to Idaho in the spring.”
(_Comr., 26._) The statement of General Howard’s aid-de-camp is
explicit on this point:
It was promised Joseph that he would be taken to Tongue river
and kept there till spring, and then be returned to Idaho.
General Sheridan, ignoring the promises made on the battlefield,
ostensibly on account of the difficulty of getting supplies there
from Fort Buford, ordered the hostiles to Leavenworth, ... but
different treatment was promised them when they held rifles in
their hands. (_Sutherland, 1._)
Seven years passed before the promise was kept, and in the meantime the
band had been reduced by disease and death in Indian Territory from
about 450 to about 280.
This strong testimony to the high character of Joseph, and his people
and the justice of their cause comes from the commissioner at the head
of Indian affairs during and immediately after the outbreak:
I traveled with him in Kansas and the Indian Territory for nearly
a week and found him to be one of the most gentlemanly and
well-behaved Indians that I ever met. He is bright and intelligent,
and is anxious for the welfare of his people.... The Nez Percés
are very much superior to the Osages and Pawnees in the Indian
Territory; they are even brighter than the Poncas, and care should
be taken to place them where they will thrive.... It will be borne
in mind that Joseph has never made a treaty with the United States,
and that he has never surrendered to the government the lands he
claimed to own in Idaho.... I had occasion in my last annual report
to say that “Joseph and his followers have shown themselves to
be brave men and skilled soldiers, who, with one exception, have
observed the rules of civilized warfare, and have not mutilated
their dead enemies.” These Indians were encroached upon by white
settlers on soil they believed to be their own, and when these
encroachments became intolerable they were compelled, in their own
estimation, to take up arms. (_Comr., 27a._)
In all our sad Indian history there is nothing to exceed in pathetic
eloquence the surrender speech of the Nez Percé chief:
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is
dead. Toohulhulsote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the
young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men is dead. It
is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing
to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and
have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps
freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and
see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the
dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad.
From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. (_Sec.
War, 3._)
+Chapter VII+
SMOHALLA AND HIS DOCTRINE
My young men shall never work. Men who work can not dream, and
wisdom comes to us in dreams.... You ask me to plow the ground.
Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s bosom? You ask me to dig
for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? You ask me to
cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men. But
how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?—_Smohalla._
We hear little of Smohalla for several years after the Nez Percé war
until the opening of the Northern Pacific railroad in 1883 once more
brought to a focus the land grievances of the Indians in that section.
Along Yakima valley the railroad “was located through Indian fields and
orchards, with little respect for individual rights,” while the host
of prospective settlers who at once swarmed into the country showed
the usual white man’s consideration for the native proprietors. Some
of the Indians, breaking away from their old traditions in order to
obtain permanent homes before everything should be taken up by the
whites, had gone out and selected homesteads under the law, and the
agent was now using the Indian police to compel them to return to the
reservation, “and the singular anomaly was presented of the United
States Indian agent on the one hand applying for troops to drive the
Indians from their homestead settlements to the reservation a hundred
miles away, and on the other the Indians telegraphing to the military
authorities to send troops to protect them from the Indian police.”
(_MacMurray MS._) In addition to their land troubles the Yakima and
their confederated tribes, among whom were many progressive and even
prosperous Indians, were restive under constant interference with their
religious (Smohalla) ceremonies, to which a large proportion adhered.
In order to learn the nature of the dissatisfaction of the Indians, and
if possible to remove the cause, General Miles, then commanding the
military department of the Columbia, sent Major J. W. MacMurray to the
scene of the disturbance in June, 1884. He spent about a year in the
work, visiting the various villages of the upper Columbia, especially
Pʿnä at Priest rapids, where he met Smohalla, the high priest of the
Dreamer theology, and his report on the subject is invaluable.
Smohalla is the chief of the Wa′napûm, a small tribe in Washington,
numbering probably less than 200 souls, commonly known rather
indefinitely as “Columbia River Indians,” and roaming along both banks
of the Columbia from the neighborhood of Priest rapids down to the
entrance of Snake river. They are of Shahaptian stock and closely
akin to the Yakima and Nez Percés, and have never made a treaty with
the government. Among his own people and his disciples in the
neighboring tribes he is known as Shmóqûla, “The Preacher.”[5] He is
also frequently called Yu′yunipĭ′tqana, “The Shouting Mountain,” from
a belief among his followers that a part of his revelation came to
him from a mountain which became instinct with life and spoke into
his soul while he lay dreaming upon it. Still another name by which
he is sometimes known is Waip-shwa, or “Rock Carrier,” the reason
for which does not appear. The name which belonged to him in youth,
before assuming his priestly function, is now forgotten. For more
than forty years he has resided at the Wanapûm village of Pʿnä on
the west bank of the Columbia, at the foot of Priest rapids, in what
is now Yakima county, Washington. The name Pʿnä signifies “a fish
weir,” this point being a great rendezvous for the neighboring tribes
during the salmon-fishing season. These frequent gatherings afford
abundant opportunity for the teaching and dissemination of his peculiar
doctrines, as is sufficiently evident from the fact that, while his own
tribe numbers hardly two score families, his disciples along the river
are counted by thousands.
[Illustration: PL. LXXXVIII
DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBES OF THE UPPER COLUMBIA REGION IN WASHINGTON,
OREGON AND IDAHO INCLUDING ALL THOSE OF THE SMOHALLA AND SHAKER
RELIGIONS BY JAMES MOONEY 1894]
Smohalla was born about 1815 or 1820, and is consequently now an old
man, although still well preserved, and with his few scattering locks
unchanged in color. At the time of the Nez Percé war he was in the
full vigor of manhood. His appearance in 1884 is thus described by
Major MacMurray: “In person Smohalla is peculiar. Short, thick-set,
bald-headed and almost hunch-backed, he is not prepossessing at first
sight, but he has an almost Websterian head, with a deep brow over
bright, intelligent eyes. He is a finished orator. His manner is mostly
of the bland, insinuating, persuasive style, but when aroused he is
full of fire and seems to handle invectives effectively. His audience
seemed spellbound under his magic manner, and it never lost interest
to me, though he spoke in a language comprehended by few white men and
translated to me at second or third hand.” By another writer who met
him a year later he is described as rather undersized and inclining
toward obesity, with “a reserved and cunning but not ill-natured
countenance, and a large, well-shaped head. His manners were more suave
and insinuating than is usual with Indians.” He had a comfortable
appearance, his moccasins and leggings were new, and he rode a good
pinto pony. (_Huggins, 1._)
In his youth he had frequented the Catholic mission of Atahnam among
the Yakima, where he became familiar with the forms of that service
and also acquired a slight knowledge of French. Whether or not he
was a regular member of the mission school is a disputed point, as
it is asserted by some that he has never worn the white man’s dress
or had his hair cut. The influence of the Catholic ceremonial is
plainly visible in his own ritual performance. In his early manhood he
distinguished himself as a warrior, and had already come to be regarded
as a prominent man when he first began to preach his peculiar theology
about the year 1850. There can be no question that the rapid spread of
his doctrines among the tribes of the Columbia materially facilitated
their confederation in the Yakima war of 1855–56. It is said that he
aspired to be the leader in this war, and that, to attain this end, he
invited all the neighboring bands to attend a council at his village of
Pʿnä, but failed to accomplish his object.
Shortly after the close of the war, probably about 1860, the incident
occurred which wrought an entire change in his life, stamping him as
an oracle and prophet beyond peradventure, and giving to his religious
system the force of authority which it has ever since retained. He had
already established a reputation as a medicine-man, and was believed
to be “making medicine” against the life of Moses, the noted chief of
a tribe farther up the river, who was greatly in dread of his occult
powers, and forced a quarrel in order to rid himself forever of his
rival. A fight resulted, and Smohalla was nearly killed. It is said
that he was left on the ground as dead, but revived sufficiently to
crawl away and get into a boat on the bank of the Columbia near by.
Bleeding and disabled, he was carried down at the mercy of the current
until he was finally rescued from his perilous position by some white
men, far below. His recovery was slow. When it was completed, unwilling
to return in disgrace to his own country and probably still dreading
the anger of Moses, he determined to become a wanderer.
Then began one of the most remarkable series of journeyings ever
undertaken by an uncivilized Indian. Going down the Columbia to
Portland and the coast, he turned south, and, stopping on the way at
various points in Oregon and California, continued beyond San Diego
into Mexico. Then, turning again, he came back through Arizona, Utah,
and Nevada to his former home on the Columbia, where he announced that
he had been dead and in the spirit world and had now returned by divine
command to guide his people. As he was thought to have been killed in
the encounter with Moses, and as he had disappeared so completely until
now, his awe-stricken hearers readily believed that they were actually
in the presence of one who had been taken bodily into the spirit world,
whence he was now sent back as a teacher.
On the occasion of MacMurray’s visit, says that authority, “Smohalla
asked me many geographic questions, and I spread out a railroad map,
marking the situation of Priest rapids, Portland, and Vancouver
barracks, and he traced with a straw down the coast line to below San
Diego. He asked where San Bernardino was, and paused long over this.
He recognized the ocean or ‘salt chuck,’ with many other geographic
features and localities, but he would neither admit nor deny having
been at Salt Lake City, although he admitted having been in Utah,
knew the lake and adjacent mountain chains, and said that he had seen
Mormon priests getting commands direct from heaven. He dwelt long over
Arizona, and remarked, ‘_bad-a Inchun_.’”
Smohalla now declared to his people that the Sa′ghalee Tyee, the Great
Chief Above, was angry at their apostasy, and commanded them through
him to return to their primitive manners, as their present miserable
condition in the presence of the intrusive race was due to their
having abandoned their own religion and violated the laws of nature
and the precepts of their ancestors. He then explained in detail the
system to which they must adhere in future if they would conform to
the expressed will of the higher power. It was a system based on the
primitive aboriginal mythology and usage, with an elaborate ritual
which combined with the genuine Indian features much of what he had
seen and remembered of Catholic ceremonial and military parade, with
perhaps also some additions from Mormon forms.
His words made a deep impression on his hearers. They had indeed
abandoned their primitive simplicity to a great extent, and were now
suffering the penalty in all the misery that had come to them with the
advent of the white-skin race that threatened to blot them out from the
earth. The voice of the prophet was accepted as a voice from the other
world, for they knew that he had been dead and was now alive. What he
said must be true and wise, for he had been everywhere and knew tribes
and countries they had never heard of. Even the white men confirmed his
words in this regard. He could even control the sun and the moon, for
he had said when they would be dark, and they were dark.
If genius be a form of insanity, as has been claimed, intense religious
enthusiasm would seem to have a close connection with physical as well
as mental disease. Like Mohammed and Joan of Arc, and like the Shaker
prophet of Puget sound, Smohalla is subject to cataleptic trances,
and it is while in this unconscious condition that he is believed to
receive his revelations. Says MacMurray:
He falls into trances and lies rigid for considerable periods.
Unbelievers have experimented by sticking needles through his
flesh, cutting him with knives, and otherwise testing his
sensibility to pain, without provoking any responsive action. It
was asserted that he was surely dead, because blood did not flow
from the wounds. These trances always excite great interest and
often alarm, as he threatens to abandon his earthly body altogether
because of the disobedience of his people, and on each occasion
they are in a state of suspense as to whether the Saghalee Tyee
will send his soul back to earth to reoccupy his body, or will, on
the contrary, abandon and leave them without his guidance. It is
this going into long trances, out of which he comes as from heavy
sleep and almost immediately relates his experiences in the spirit
land, that gave rise to the title of “Dreamers,” or believers
in dreams, commonly given to his followers by the neighboring
whites. His actions are similar to those of a trance medium, and if
self-hypnotization be practicable that would seem to explain it. I
questioned him as to his trances and hoped to have him explain them
to me, but he avoided the subject and was angered when I pressed
him. He manifestly believes all he says of what occurs to him in
this trance state. As we have hundreds of thousands of educated
white people who believe in similar fallacies, this is not more
unlikely in an Indian subjected to such influence.
In studying Smohalla we have to deal with the same curious mixture of
honest conviction and cunning deception that runs through the history
of priestcraft in all the ages. Like some other prophets before him,
he seeks to convey the idea that he is in control of the elements and
the heavenly bodies, and he has added greatly to his reputation by
predicting several eclipses. This he was enabled to do by the help
of an almanac and some little explanation from a party of surveyors.
In this matter, however, he was soon made to realize that a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing. He could not get another almanac, and
his astronomic prophecies came to an abrupt termination at the end of
the first year. Concerning this, Major MacMurray says:
He showed me an almanac of a preceding year and asked me to
readjust it for eclipses, as it did not work as it had formerly
done. I explained that Washington (the Naval Observatory) made new
ones every year, and that old ones could not be fixed up to date.
He had probably obtained this one from the station agent at the
railroad, now superseded by a new one, who had cut off Smohalla’s
supply of astronomical data. My inability to repair the 1882
almanac for use in prognosticating in 1884 cost me much of his
respect as a wise man from the east. (_MacMurray MS._)
Smohalla had also a blank book containing mysterious characters, some
of which resembled letters of the alphabet, and which he said were
records of events and prophecies. MacMurray was unable to decide
whether they were mnemonic or were simply unmeaning marks intended to
foster among his followers the impression of his superior wisdom. It is
probable that they were genuine mnemonic symbols invented by himself
for his own purposes, as such systems, devised and used by single
individuals or families, and unintelligible to others, are by no means
rare among those who may be called the literary men of our aboriginal
tribes.
[Illustration: PL. LXXXIX
SMOHALLA AND HIS PRIESTS]