(Mrs. Oregon Jim, from the house Erkigér-i or “Hair-ties” in the town
of Pékwan, speaking): You want to know why old Louisa and I never
notice each other? Well, I’ll tell you why. I wouldn’t speak to that
old woman to save her life. There is a quarrel between her and me, and
between her people and my people.
The thing started, so far as I know, with the bastard son of a woman
from that big old house in Wáhsek that stands crossways—the one they
call Wáhsek-héthlqau. They call it that, of course, because it is
_behind_ the others. It kind of sets back from the river. This woman
lived with several different men; first with a young fellow from the
house next door, and then, when she left _him_, with a strolling fellow
from Smith River. When she left him for a Húpa, they all began to call
her _kímolin_, “dirty.” Not one of these men had paid a cent for her,
although she came of good people. She lived around in different places.
Two of her children died, but a third one grew up at the Presbyterian
Mission.
He had even less sense than the Presbyterians have. He came down to
Kepél one time, when the people there were making the Fish Dam. It
was the last day of the work on the dam. The dam was being finished,
that day. That’s the time nobody can get mad. Nobody can take offense
at anything. This boy heard people calling each other bad names. They
were having a dance. The time of that dance is different from all other
times. People say the worst things! It sounds funny to hear the people
say, for example, to old Kímorets, “Well, old One-Eye! you are the best
dancer.” They think of the worst things to say! A fellow even said
to Mrs. Poker Bob, “How is your grandmother?”; when Mrs. Poker Bob’s
grandmother was already dead. It makes your blood run cold to hear such
things, even though you know it’s in fun.
This young fellow I am telling you about, whom they called Fred
Williams, and whose Indian name was Sär, came down from the Mission
school to see the Fish-Dam Dance at Kepél. He was dressed up. He went
around showing off. He wore a straw hat with a ribbon around it. He
stood around watching the dance. Between the songs, he heard what
people were saying to each other. He heard them saying all sorts of
improper things. He thought that was smart talk. He thought he would
try it when he got a chance. The next day, he went down by the river
and saw Tuley-Creek Jim getting ready his nets. “Get your other hand
cut off,” he said. “Then you can fish with your feet!” Two or three
people who were standing by, heard him. Tuley-Creek Jim is pretty mean.
They call him “Coyote.” He looked funny. He stood there. He didn’t know
what to say.
Young Andrew, who was there, whose mother was from the house called
“Down-river House” in Qóvtep, was afraid for his life. He was just
pushing off his boat. He let go of the rope. The boat drifted off.
He was afraid to pull it back. He went up to the house. “Something
happened,” he told the people there. “I wish I was somewhere else.
There is going to be trouble along this Klamath River.”
The talk soon went around that Coyote-Jim was claiming some money. It
was told us that he was going to make the boy’s mother’s father pay
fifteen dollars. “That’s my price,” he said. “I won’t do anything to
the boy, for he isn’t worth it. Nobody paid for his mother. Also, I
won’t charge him much. But his mother’s people are well-to-do, and they
will have to pay this amount that I name. Otherwise, I will be mad.” As
a matter of fact, he was afraid to do anything, for he, himself, was
afraid of the soldiers at Húpa. He just made big talk. Besides, what he
wanted was a headband ornamented with whole woodpecker heads, that the
boy’s grandfather owned. He thought he could make the old man give it
up, on account of what his grandson had said.
The boy went around, hollering to everybody. “I don’t have to pay,” he
said. “I heard everybody saying things like that! How did I know that
they only did it during that one day? Besides, look at me! Look at my
shirt. Look at my pants.” He showed them his straw hat. “Look at my
hat! I am just like a white man. I can say anything I please. I don’t
have to care what I say.”
Every day somebody came along the river, telling us the news. There
was a big quarrel going on. I was camped at that time, with my
daughter, above Metá, picking acorns. All the acorns were bad that
year—little, and twisted, and wormy. Even the worms were little and
kind of shriveled that year. That place above Metá was the only place
where the acorns were good. Lots of people were camped there. Some paid
for gathering acorns there. My aunt had married into a house at Metá,
the house they call Wóogi, “In-the-middle-House,” so I didn’t have to
pay anything. People used to come up from the river to where we acorn
pickers were camped, to talk about the news. They told us the boy’s
mother’s people were trying to make some people at Smith River pay.
“He’s the son of one of their men,” the old grandfather said. “They’ve
got to pay for the words he spoke. I don’t have to pay.” The thing
dragged on. Three weeks later they told us the old man wouldn’t pay yet.
Somebody died at the old man’s house that fall. The people were getting
ready to have a funeral. The graveyard for that house called Héthlqau,
in Wáhsek, is just outside the house door. They went into that kämethl,
in that corpse-place, what you whites call a cemetery. They dug a hole
and had it ready. They were singing “crying-songs” in that house where
the person had died.
Tuley-Creek Jim’s brother-in-law was traveling down the river in a
canoe. When he got to Wáhsek he heard “crying-songs.” “Somebody has
died up there,” they told him. “We better stop! No use trying to go
by. We better go ashore till the burial is over.” Tuley-Creek Jim’s
brother-in-law did not want to stop. “They owe some money to my wife’s
brother,” he said. “One of their people said something to Jim. They
don’t pay up. Why should I go ashore?” So they all paddled down to
the landing place. They started to go past, going down river. A young
fellow at the landing place grabbed their canoe. “You got to land
here,” he said. “My aunt’s people are having a funeral. It ain’t right
for anybody to go by in a canoe.” The people in the canoe began to get
mad. They pushed on the bottom with their paddles. The canoe swung
around. Coyote-Jim’s brother-in-law stood up. He was pretty mad. They
had got his shirt wet. He waved his paddle around. He hollered. He got
excited.
One of the men on the bank was Billy Brooks, from the mouth of the
river. “Hey! You fellow-living-with-a-woman-you-haven’t-paid-for!” he
said to Billy Brooks, “make these fellows let go of my canoe.”
Billy was surprised. He hadn’t been holding the canoe. And anyway, he
did not expect to be addressed that way. “Läs-son” is what he had heard
addressed to him. That means “half-married, or improperly married, to a
woman in the house by the trail.” Brooks had had no money to pay for a
wife, so he went to live with his woman instead of taking her home to
him. That is what we call being half-married. Everybody called Billy
that way, behind his back. “Half-married-into-the-house-by-the-trail”
was his name.
When Billy got over being surprised at this form of address, he got
mad. He pointed at the fellow in the canoe. He swore the worst way a
person can swear. What he said was awful. He pointed at him. He was mad
clear through. He didn’t care what he said. “Your deceased relatives,”
is what he said to Coyote-Jim’s brother-in-law, in the canoe. He said
it right out loud. He pointed at the canoe. That’s the time he said
“Your deceased relatives.” “All your deceased relatives,” he said to
those in the canoe.
Coyote-Jim’s brother-in-law sat down in the canoe. Nobody tried to stop
the canoe after that. The canoe went down river. Billy Brooks went up
to the house. He waited. After a while the people there buried that
person who was dead, and the funeral was over. “I’ve got to pay money,”
Billy Brooks said to them then. “I got mad and swore something terrible
at Coyote-Jim’s brother-in-law. That was on account of you people. If
you had paid what you owed to Coyote-Jim, Coyote-Jim’s brother-in-law
wouldn’t have gone past your house while you were crying, and you
wouldn’t have held his canoe, and he wouldn’t have addressed me as he
did, and I wouldn’t have said what I did. Moreover, Wóhkel Dave was in
the canoe, and when I said that which I said, it applied to him, too.
I feel terrible mean about what I said. I’ve got to have trouble with
both those men. There were others in the canoe, too, but they are poor
people, and don’t amount to anything. But Dave is a rich man. Now all
this trouble is on your account, and you’ve got to pay me two dollars
and a half.”
The old man at Wáhsek was in trouble. “First my mouse says to
Coyote-Jim what should not in any case have been said,” the old man
complained. (We call illegitimate children “mice,” because they eat,
and stay around, and nobody has paid for them.) “Now on account of what
my mouse said, all this other trouble has happened.”
Everybody was talking about the quarrel now. That is the time they left
off talking about the old man’s troubles, and began talking about what
Billy Brooks said to the Coyote’s brother-in-law in the canoe, and to
Wóhkel Dave. It finally came out that the fellow who was steering the
canoe, and who called Billy Brooks “Läs-son,” was out of the quarrel.
His deceased relatives had been referred to, but, on the other hand,
his father had only paid twenty-five dollars for his mother, so nobody
cared much about him. He talked around but nobody paid any attention,
so he decided that he had better keep still about it, and maybe people
would forget that he had been insulted.
Wóhkel Dave, however, was a man of importance. His people were married
into all the best houses up and down the river. Everybody was wondering
what he and Brooks would do. Billy Brooks was kind of a mean man
himself. He had a bad reputation. One time he even made a white man pay
up for something he did. The white man took a woman from Brooks’ people
to live with him. Brooks looked him up, and made him pay for her.
Everybody was afraid of Brooks. Some people said, “Brooks won’t pay.
He’s too mean. He’s not afraid. He’d rather fight it out.” Other people
said, “That’s all right, as far as ordinary people are concerned.
Wóhkel Dave, though, is not ordinary. His father paid a big price for
his mother. She had one of the most stylish weddings along the river.
Dave won’t let anybody get the best of him.” People used to argue that
way. Some said one thing, and some said another. They used to almost
quarrel about it.
Suddenly news came down the river that Billy Brooks was going to pay
up for what he said. Some one came along and told us that Billy was
going to pay. “He offered twenty-five dollars,” this fellow said. The
next day we heard that Dave wouldn’t take it. He wanted forty dollars.
They argued back and forth. It was February before they got it settled.
Billy had to pay twenty dollars in money, a shot-gun made out of an
army musket, bored out, and a string of shell money, not a very good
one. The shells were pretty small, but the string was long—reaching
from the chest bone to the end of the fingers.
The next thing that happened is what involved me and old Louisa. It
came about because Billy didn’t have twenty dollars in cash. He had to
get hold of the twenty dollars. About that time, certain Indians stole
some horses. They were not people from our tribe. They were Chilula
from Bald Hills, or people from over in that direction somewhere. Those
people were awful poor. They couldn’t pay for a woman. They couldn’t
pay for anything. They had to marry each other. In the springtime they
got pretty wild. They were likely to do things. This time they took
some horses from a white man. This white man complained to the agent
at Húpa. So some soldiers from Húpa went out to chase these Indians.
Billy Brooks was a great hunter. He has been all over everywhere,
hunting and trapping. The soldiers needed a guide. They offered Billy
twenty-five dollars to serve as a “scout” for the Government, to chase
these Indians. So Billy, because he had to have twenty dollars, went as
a scout, that time.
The soldiers went to Redwood Creek. Billy Brooks went along. There was
a sergeant and six men, they say. Two of the men went to that Indian
town six miles above the mouth of Redwood Creek, the name of which is
Otlép. That town belongs to the Chilula. These two soldiers went there,
looking for the men who stole the horses. There was trouble after a
while at that place. The soldiers got into a quarrel with the Indians.
The trouble was about a woman. One of the soldiers wanted her, but
the woman would not go with him. She did not feel like it. I don’t
know exactly what happened, but the soldier insisted, and the woman
insisted, and finally her relatives told the soldier that if the woman
didn’t want to, she didn’t have to. There was a fight that time. There
was a tussel about the soldier’s revolver. Somebody got hit over the
head with it. The front sight was sharp. That soldier had filed down
the sight on his revolver, to make it fine. That sight dug into a man’s
face, and cut it open, from his jaw bone up to his eye.
There was big trouble there that time, they say. Everybody got to
hollering. That woman had a bad temper. She hit a soldier with a
rock. She broke his head open. The man whose face was cut open went
for his gun. He couldn’t see very well. He didn’t get the percussion
cap on properly. He tried to shoot the soldier, but the gun wouldn’t
go off. The cap had dropped off the nipple. The soldier saw the Indian
aiming the gun at him, so he fired at the Indian. There was blood in
the soldier’s eyes, for the woman had cut his head open with a rock.
So he missed the Indian who was aiming at him, but he hit old Louisa’s
nephew, Jim Williams. The bullet went through his thigh. Two years
passed before Jim Williams could walk straight after that.
Now that is the trouble between old Louisa and me. Her nephew was
hurt, and she blames Billy Brooks, because Billy Brooks was with the
soldiers, helping them, the time this happened. Billy would never “pay
up” for this. One time it was reported that he was going to pay, but he
never did.
Now Billy is a relative of mine by marriage. His sister married my
father’s brother’s oldest boy. That old woman, whose nephew was shot,
doesn’t like me, because I am a relative of Billy who guided the
soldiers.
One time she played me a dirty trick. My nephew was fishing with a
gill-net on the river here. The game warden made a complaint and had
him arrested, for he had one end of his net fast to the bank. That old
woman, that old Louisa, went to Eureka and told the judge there, that
one end of the net was fast to the bank. They say she got money for
doing that. Somebody said she got two dollars a day. My nephew was put
in jail for sixty days. I am not saying anything to that old woman,
but I am keeping a watch on her. If anybody talks to her, then I have
nothing to do with them.
One time a white man from down below came along this river, asking
about baskets. He wanted to know the name of everything. He was
kind of crazy, that fellow. They used to call him “Häpó’o,” or
“Basket-designs.” He was always asking, “What does that mean?” or “What
is the name of that?” He wanted to know all about baskets. He talked to
old Louisa for a day and a half about her baskets. Then he came through
the fence to my house. I wouldn’t say a word to him, and he went away.
My friends won’t talk to Louisa, or her friends. It will be that way
forever.
It all goes back to that boy Sär. If he had not talked about
Tuley-Creek Jim having only one hand, Jim’s brother-in-law would not
have paddled past a house where there was a person lying dead, and his
canoe would not have been seized, and there would have been no quarrel
about the canoe, and Billy Brooks would not have sworn at anybody, so
he would not have had to pay money, and he would not have hired out
as a scout to the Government, and the fellow in Redwood Creek would
not have been shot, and old Louisa would not have testified about my
nephew. To make people pay is all right. That is what always happens
when there is a quarrel. But to put my nephew in jail is not right.
I’ll never speak to that old lady again, and neither will any of my
people.