The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ten Years of Missionary Work, by : Eells.

By Rev. M. Eells,
Missionary of the American Missionary Association.

BOSTON:
Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society,
CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE,
Corner Beacon and Somerset Streets.

COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND PUBLISHING SOCIETY

Electrotyped and printed by
Stanley & Usher, 171 Devonshire Street, Boston.

PREFACE.

SAYS Mrs. J. McNair Wright: “If the church can only be plainly shown the need, amount, prospects, and methods of work in any given field, a vital interest will at once arise in that field, and money for it will not be lacking. The missionary columns in our religious papers do not supply the information needed fully to set our missions before the church. Our home-mission work needs to be ‘written up.’ The foreign field has found a large increase of interest in its labors from the numerous books that have been written,—interestingly written,—giving descriptions of the work, the countries where the missionaries toil, and the lives of the missionaries themselves. The Pueblo, the Mormon, and the American Indian work should be similarly brought before the church. A book gives a compact, united view of a subject; the same view given monthly or weekly in the columns of periodicals loses much of its force and, moreover, is much less likely to meet the notice of the young. A hearty missionary spirit will be had in our church only when we furnish our youth with more books on missionary themes.”[1]

It is surprising to find how few books can be obtained on missionary work among the Indians. After ten years of effort the writer has only been able to secure twenty-six{4} books on such work in the United States, and five of these are 18mo. volumes of less than forty pages each. Only five of these have been published within the last fifteen years. Books on the adventurous, scientific, and political departments of Indian life are numerous and large; the reverse is true of the missionary department. Hence it is not strange that such singular ideas predominate among the American people in regard to the Indian problem.

D E D I C A T I O N.

Who has been my companion during these ten years of labor; who has cheered me, and made a Christian home for me to run into as into a safe hiding-place, and who has been an example to the Indians,—these pages are affectionately inscribed.{6}

NOTE.

Much of the information contained in the following pages has been published, especially in The American Missionary of New York and The Pacific of San Francisco. Yet, in writing these pages, so much of it has been altered that it has been impracticable to give quotation-marks and acknowledgment for each item. I therefore take this general way of acknowledging my indebtedness to those publications.{7}

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Indians are in our midst. Different solutions of the problem have been proposed. It is evident that we must either kill them, move them away, or let them remain with us. The civilization and Christianity of the United States, with all that is uncivilized and un-Christian, is not yet ready to kill them. One writer has proposed to move them to some good country which Americans do not want, and leave it to them. We have been trying to find such a place for a century—have moved the Indians from one reservation to another and from one State or Territory to another; but have failed to find the desired haven of rest for them. It is more difficult to find it now than it ever has been, as Americans have settled in every part of the United States and built towns, railroads, and telegraph-lines all over the country. Hence no such place has been found, and it never will be.

Therefore the Indians are with us to remain. They are to be our neighbors. The remaining question is, Shall they be good or bad ones? If{12} we are willing that they shall be bad, all that is necessary is for good people to neglect them; for were there no evil influences connected with civilization(!), they would not rise from their degradation, ignorance, and wickedness without help. When, however, we add to their native heathenism all the vices of intemperance, immorality, hate, and the like, which wicked men naturally carry to them, they will easily and quickly become very bad neighbors. Weeds will grow where nothing is cultivated.

If we wish them to become good neighbors, something must be done. Good seeds must be sown, watched, cultivated. People may call them savage, ignorant, treacherous, superstitious, and the like. I will not deny it. In the language of a popular writer of the day: “The remedy for ignorance is education;” likewise for heathenism, superstition, and treachery, it is the gospel. White people can not keep the civilization which they already have without the school and the church; and Indians are not so much abler and better that they can be raised to become good neighbors without the same.

Impressed with this belief, the writer has been engaged for the past ten years in missionary work{13} with a few of them in the region of Skokomish, and here presents a record of some of the experiences. In the account he has recorded failures as well as successes. In his earlier ministry, both among whites and Indians, he read the accounts of other similar workers, who often recorded only their success. It was good in its place, for something was learned of the causes of the success. But too much of this was discouraging. He was not always successful and sometimes wondered if these writers were ever disappointed as much as he was. Sometimes when he read the record of a failure it did him more good than a record of a success. He took courage because he felt that he was not the only one who sometimes failed. The Bible records failures as well as successes.

TEN YEARS AT SKOKOMISH.

I.

SKOKOMISH.

THE Skokomish Reservation is situated in the western part of Washington Territory, near the head of Hood’s Canal, the western branch of Puget Sound. It is at the mouth of the Skokomish River. The name means “the river people,” from kaw, a river, in the Twana language, which in the word has been changed to ko. It is the largest river which empties into Hood’s Canal; hence, that band of the Twana tribe which originally lived here were called the river people. The Twana tribe was formerly composed of three bands: the Du-hlay-lips, who lived fourteen miles farther up the canal, at its extreme head; the Skokomish band, who lived about the mouth of the river, and the Kol-seeds, or Quilcenes, who lived thirty or forty miles farther down the canal. The dialects of these three bands vary slightly.{16}

When the treaty was made by the United States in 1855, the land about the mouth of the Skokomish River was selected as the reservation; the other bands in time moved to it, and the post-office was given the same name; hence, the tribe came to be known more as the Skokomish Indians than by their original name of Tu-án-hu, a name which has been changed by whites to Twana, and so appears in government reports.

The reservation is small, hardly three miles square, comprising about five thousand acres, nearly two thousand of which is excellent bottom land. As much more is hilly and gravelly, and the rest is swamp land. With the exception of the latter, it is covered with timber.{17}

II.

PRELIMINARY HISTORY.

EVER since the Spanish traders and Vancouver in the latter part of the last century, and the Northwest Fur Company and Hudson’s Bay Company in the early part of the present century, came to Puget Sound, these Indians have had some intercourse with the whites, and learned some things about the white man’s ways, his Sabbath, his Bible, and his God. Fort Nisqually, one of the posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was situated about fifty miles from Skokomish, so that these Indians were comparatively near to it.

About 1850, Americans began to settle on Puget Sound. In 1853 Washington was set off from Oregon and organized into a territory, and in 1855 the treaty was made with these Indians. Governor I. I. Stevens and Colonel M. C. Simmons represented the government, and the three tribes of the Twanas, Chemakums, and S’klallams were the parties of the other part. The Chemakums were a small tribe, lived near where Port Townsend{18} now is, and are now extinct. The S’klallams, or Clallams (as the name has since become), lived on the south side of the Straits of Fuca, from Port Townsend westward almost to Neah Bay, and were by far the largest and strongest tribe of the three. It was expected that all the tribes would be removed to the reservation. The government, however, was to furnish the means for doing so, but it was never done, and as the Clallams and Twanas were never on very friendly terms, there having been many murders between them in early days, the Clallams have not come voluntarily to it, but remain in different places in the region of their old homes. The reservation, about three miles square, also was too small for all of the tribes, it having been said that twenty-eight hundred Indians belonged to them when the treaty was made. There were certainly no more.

The treaty has been known as that of Point-No-Point, it having been made at that place, a few miles north of the mouth of Hood’s Canal on the main sound, in 1855. It was, however, four years later when it was ratified, and another year before the machinery was put in motion, so that government employees were sent to the reservation to teach the Indians. In the meantime the Yakama{19} War took place, the most wide-spread Indian war which ever occurred on this north-west coast, it having begun almost simultaneously in Southern Oregon, Eastern Oregon, and Washington, and on Puget Sound. The Indians on the eastern side of the sound were engaged in it, but the Clallams and Twanas as tribes did not do so, and never have been engaged in any war with the whites. They were related by marriage with some of the tribes who were hostile, and a few individuals from one or both of these tribes went to the eastern side of the sound and joined the hostiles, but as tribes they remained peaceable.

A WAR INCIDENT.

The Clallams were a strong tribe, and large numbers of them lived at an early day about Port Townsend. Here, too, was the Duke of York, who was for many years their head chief and a noted friend of the Americans. About 1850, he went to San Francisco on a sailing-vessel, and saw the numbers, and realized something of the power, of the whites. After his return the Indians became very much enraged at the residents of Port Townsend, who were few in numbers, and the savages were almost all ready to{20} engage in war with them. Had they done so, they could easily have wiped out the place, and the white people knew it. The Indians were ready to do so, but the Duke of York stood between the Indians and the whites. For hours the savage mass surged to and fro, hungry for blood, the Duke of York’s brother being among the number. For as many hours the Duke of York alone held them from going any farther, by his eloquence, telling them of the numbers and power of the whites; and that if the Indians should kill these whites, others would come and wipe them out. At last they yielded to him. He saved Port Townsend and saved his tribe from a war with the whites.

In 1860 the first government employees were sent to Skokomish, and civilizing influences of a kind were brought more closely to the Indians. With one or two exceptions, very little religious influence was brought to bear upon them. Of one of their agents, Mr. J. Knox, the Indians speak in terms of gratitude and praise. He set out a large orchard, and did considerable to improve them. In 1870, when all the Indians were put under the military, these Indians were put under Lieutenant Kelley. The Indians do not speak well of military rule. It was too tyrannical.{21}

III.

EARLY RELIGIOUS TEACHING.

ABOUT 1850 Father E. C. Chirouse, a Catholic priest, came to Puget Sound, and for a time was on Hood’s Canal. He had two missions among the Twanas, one among the Kolseed band, and the other among the Duhlaylips. He baptized a large number of them; made two Indian priests, and left an influence which was not soon forgotten. At a council held after a time by various tribes, the Skokomish and other neighboring tribes of the lower eastern sound were too strong for the Twanas and induced Father Chirouse to leave them. Not long afterward the Indians relapsed into their old style of religion, and on the surface it appeared as if all were forgotten: but when Protestant teachers came among them, and their old religion died, some of the Indians turned for a time to that Catholic religion which they had first learned, as one easier for the natural heart to follow than that of the Protestants.

From 1860 to 1871 but little religious instruction{22} was given to these Indians. At different times Rev. W. C. Chattin, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. D. B. Ward, of the Protestant Methodist Church, taught the school, and each endeavored to give some Christian teaching on the Sabbath, but they found it hard work, for Sabbath-breaking, house-building, trafficking, and gambling by the whites and the Indians were allowed in sight and hearing of the place where the services were held. “If it is wrong to break the Sabbath, why does the agent do so?” “If it is wrong to play cards and gamble, why do the whites do so?” These and similar questions were asked by the Indian children of their Christian teachers. It was somewhat difficult to answer them. It was more difficult to work against such influences. Still the seed sown then was not wholly lost. It remained buried a long time. I have seen that some of those children, however, although they forgot how to read, and almost forgot how to talk English, yet received influences which, fifteen or twenty years afterward, made them a valuable help to their people in their march upward.

In 1871, however, a decided change was made. In that year President Grant adopted what has been known as the peace policy, in which he assigned{23} the different agencies to different missionary societies, asking them to nominate agents, promising that these should be confirmed by the Senate. While it was not expected that the government would directly engage in missionary work, yet the President realized that Christianity was necessary to the solution of the Indian problem, and he hoped that the missionary societies who should nominate these agents would become interested in the work, and encouraged them to send missionaries to their several fields. These agents were expected to coöperate with the missionaries in their special work.

At that time the Skokomish Agency was assigned to the American Missionary Association, a society supported by the Congregationalists. In 1871 they nominated Mr. Edwin Eells as agent for this place, who was confirmed by the Senate, and in May of that year he took charge of these Indians.

Mr. Eells was the oldest son of Rev. C. Eells, D.D., who came to the coast in 1838 as a missionary to the Spokane Indians, where he remained about ten years, until the Whitman Massacre and Cayuse War rendered it unsafe for him to remain there any longer. The agent was born among these Indians in July, 1841. Like most young{24} men on this coast, he had been engaged in various callings. He had been a farmer, school-teacher, clerk in a store, teamster, had served as enrolling officer for government at Walla-Walla during the war, and had studied law. At the age of fifteen he had united with a Congregational church, and had maintained a consistent Christian character. All of these things proved to be of good service to him in his new position, where education, farm-work, purchase of goods, law business, intercourse with government, the ideas which he had received from his parents about the Indians and Christianity, were all needed.

In 1871, soon after he assumed his new duties, he began a Sabbath-school and prayer-meeting. He selected Christian men as employees. These consisted of a physician, school-teacher, and matron, carpenter, farmer, and blacksmith. He also selected men with families as being those who would be likely to have the best influence on the Indians. In 1872 Rev. J. Casto, M.D., was engaged as government physician, and Rev. C. Eells, the father of the agent, went to live with his son, and both during the winter preached at the agency and in the camps of the Indians. During 1874 a council-house was built, with the consent of government,{25} at a money-cost to the government of five hundred dollars—besides the work which was done by the government carpenter. This has since been used as a church, and sometimes as a school-house. During that spring it was thought best to organize a church, for although at first it would be composed chiefly of whites, yet it was hoped that it would have a salutary influence on the Indians, and be a nucleus around which some of the Indians would gather. This was done June 23, 1874, the day after the writer arrived at the place. It was organized with eleven members, ten of whom were whites, and one, John F. Palmer, was an Indian. He was at that time government interpreter. The sermon was by Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D.D., of Portland, superintendent of Home Missions for Oregon and Washington, and one of the vice-presidents of the American Missionary Association; the prayer of consecration by Rev. E. Walker, who had been the missionary associate of Rev. C. Eells during his work among the Spokane Indians; the right hand of fellowship by Rev. A. H. Bradford, a visitor on this coast from Montclair, New Jersey; and the charge to the church by the writer. Thus affairs existed when I came to the place.{26}

IV.

SUBSEQUENT POLITICAL HISTORY.

AS far as the government was concerned, affairs remained much the same until 1880. Then the time agreed upon by the treaty for which appropriations were to be made—twenty years—expired. By special appropriation affairs were carried on for another year, however, as usual. In July, 1881, the government ordered that the carpenter, blacksmith, and farmer be discharged, and Indian employees be put in their places. Some of these were afterward discharged. The next year the three agencies on the sound, the Tulalip, Nisqually, and Skokomish, were consolidated enough to put them under one agent, without, however, moving the Indians in any way. The three agencies comprised ten reservations, which were under the missionary instruction of the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Catholics. By the consolidation there was to be no interference with the religious affairs of the Indians. Mr. E. Eells, the agent at Skokomish, was selected as the{27} one who was to have charge of all, but his head-quarters were moved to the Tulalip Agency, which was under the religious control of the Catholics. Thus, after more than eleven years of residence at Skokomish, he departed from the place; after which he usually returned about once in three months on business. A year later this large agency was divided; the five Catholic reservations were set off into an agency, and the five Protestant reservations were continued under the control of Mr. Eells, whose head-quarters were moved to the Puyallup Reservation, near Tacoma.{28}

V.

THE FIELD AND WORK.

THE work has been about as follows: At Skokomish there were about two hundred Indians, including a boarding-school of about twenty-five children. Services were held every Sabbath morning for them in Indian. The Sabbath-school was kept up, immediately following the morning service. English services were held once or twice a month, on Sabbath evening, for the white families resident at the agency and the school-children. On Thursday evening a prayer-meeting was held regularly. It was in English, as very few of the non-English-speaking Indians lived near enough to attend an evening service, had they been so inclined. Various other meetings were held, adapted to the capacities and localities of the people: as prayer-meetings for school-boys, those for school-girls, and those at the different logging-camps.

Thirty miles north of Skokomish is Seabeck, where about thirty Indians live, most of whom{29} gain a living by working in the saw-mill there. For several years I preached to the whites at this place, about eight times a year, and when there, also held a service with the Indians.

Twenty miles farther north is Port Gamble, one of the largest saw-mill towns on the sound. Near it were about a hundred Clallam Indians, most of whom became Catholics, but who have generally received me cordially when I have visited them two or three times a year. They, however, have obtained whiskey very easily, and between this and the Catholic influence comparatively little has been accomplished.

Thirty-five miles farther on is Port Discovery, another saw-mill town, where thirty or forty Indians have lived, whom I have often called to see on my journeys; but so much whiskey has been sold near them and to them, that it has been almost impossible to stop their drinking, and hence, very difficult to make much permanent religious impression on them. By death and removal for misconduct, their number has diminished so that at one time there were only one or two families left. But the opportunity for work at the mill has been so good that some of a fair class have returned and bought land and settled down.{30}

Forty miles from Port Gamble, and seventeen from Port Discovery, is Jamestown, near Dunginess, on the Straits of Fuca. This is the center of an Indian settlement of about a hundred and forty. Previous to 1873 these Indians were very much addicted to drinking—so much so, that the white residents near them petitioned to have them removed to the agency, a punishment they dreaded nearly as much as any other that could be inflicted on them. The threat of doing this had such an influence that about fifteen of them combined and bought two hundred acres of land. It has been laid off into a village; most of the Indians have reformed, and they have settled down as peaceable, industrious, moral persons. I have generally visited them once in six months, and they have become the most advanced of the Clallam tribe. A school has been kept among them, a church organized, and their progress has been quite interesting—so much so, that considerable space will be devoted to them in the following pages.

Once a year I have calculated to go farther: and twenty miles beyond is Port Angelos, with about thirty nominal Indian residents. But few of them are settlers, and they are diminishing, only a few families being left.{31}

Seven miles further west is Elkwa, the home of about seventy Indians. It was, in years past, the residence of one of the most influential bands of the Clallam tribe, but they are diminishing, partly from the fact that there have been but few white families among them from whom they could obtain work, and, with a few exceptions, they themselves have done but little about cultivating the soil. As they could easily go across the straits to Victoria in British Columbia, about twenty miles distant, where there is little restraint in regard to their procuring whiskey, because they are American Indians, they have been steadily losing influence and numbers. Four or five families have homesteaded land, but as it was impossible for them to procure good land on the beach, they have gone back some distance and are scattered. Hence they lose the benefits of church and school. Still the old way of herding together is broken up, and they obtain more of their living from civilized pursuits.

Thirty-five miles farther is Clallam Bay, the home of about fifty more. This is the limit of the Indians connected with the Skokomish Agency. They are about a hundred and fifty miles from it, as we have to travel. In 1880{32} they bought a hundred and sixty acres of land on the water-front, and are slowly following the example of the Jamestown Indians. This is the nearest station of the tribe to the seal-fisheries of the north-west coast of the Territory; by far the most lucrative business, in its season, which the Indians follow.{33}

VI.

DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF RELIGIOUS WORK.

(a) LANGUAGES.

ONE great difficulty in the missionary work is the number of languages used by the people. The Clallams have one, the Twanas another; about one sixth of the people on the reservation had originally come from Squaxin, and spoke the Nisqually; the Chinook jargon is an inter-tribal language, which is spoken by nearly all the Indians, except the very old and very young, as far south as Northern California, north into Alaska, west to the Pacific Ocean, and east to Western Idaho. It was made by the early traders, especially the Hudson’s Bay Company, out of Chinook, French, and English words, with a few from several other Indian languages, for use in trade. It serves very well for this purpose, and is almost universally used in intercourse between the whites and Indians. Very few whites, even when married to Indian women, have learned to talk any{34} Indian language except this. But it is not very good for conveying religious instruction. It is too meager. Yet so many different languages were spoken by the seven or eight hundred Indians connected with the agency that it seemed to be the only practicable one, and I learned it. I have learned to preach in it quite easily, and so that the Indians say they understand me quite well. The Twana language would have been quite useful, but it is said to be so difficult to learn that no intelligent Indian advised me to learn it. The Nisqually is said to be much easier, and one educated Indian advised me to learn it, but it did not seem to me to be wise, for while nearly all the Twana Indians understood it, as, in fact, nearly all the Indians on the upper sound do, yet it was spoken by very few on the reservation.

Hence I have often used an interpreter while preaching on the Sabbath at Skokomish, for then usually some whites, old Indians, and children were present who could not understand Chinook. At other times and places I constantly used the Chinook language. But a good interpreter is hard to obtain. “It takes a minister to interpret for a minister,” was said when Mr. Hallenback, the evangelist, went to the Sandwich Islands, and{35} there is much truth in it. The first interpreter I had was good at heart, but he used the Nisqually language. While most of them understood it, yet this person had learned it after he was grown, and spoke it, the Indians said, much like a Dutchman does our language. Another one, a Twana, cut the sentences short, so that one of the school-boys said he could have hardly understood all that I said had he not understood English. A third could do well when he tried, but too many times he felt out of sorts and lazy, and would speak very low and without much life. Hence sometimes I would feel like dismissing all interpreters, and talking in Chinook, but then I was afraid that it would drive away the whites, who could not understand it, but whose presence, for their examples’ sake, I much desired. I feared also that it would drive away the very old ones, who sometimes made much effort to come to church, and also that the children, whose minds were the most susceptible to impressions, would lose all that was said. So there were difficulties every way.

The medley of services and babel of languages of one Sabbath are described as follows: The opening exercises were in English, after which{36} was the sermon, which was delivered in English, but translated into the Nisqually language, and a prayer was offered in the same manner. At the close of the service two infants were baptized in English, when followed the communion service in the same language. At this there were present twelve white members of the Congregational church here, and one Indian; two white members of the Protestant Methodist church; one Cumberland Presbyterian, and one other Congregationalist. There were also present about seventy-five Indians as spectators. The Sabbath-school was held soon after, seventy-five persons being present. First, there were four songs in the Chinook jargon; then three in English, accompanied by an organ and violin. The prayer was in Nisqually, and the lesson was read by all in English, after which the lessons were recited by the scholars. Five classes of Indian children and two of white children were taught in English, and one class partly in English and partly in Chinook jargon. There was one Bible-class of Indian men who understood English, and were taught in that language, a part of whom could read and a part of whom could not, and another of about forty Indians of both sexes whose teacher talked{37} English, but an interpreter translated it into Nisqually; and then they did not reach some Clallam Indians. Next followed a meeting of the Temperance Society, as six persons wished to join it. A white man who could do so, wrote his name, and five Indians who could not, touched the pen while the secretary made their mark. Three of these were sworn in English and two in Chinook. The whole services were interspersed with singing in English and Chinook jargon.

This was soon after I came here. During the past year we have often sung in English, Chinook jargon, Twana, and Nisqually, on the same Sabbath. Another medley Sabbath is given under the head of the Jamestown Church, in connection with its organization.

(b) THEIR RELIGION.

Another great difficulty in the way of their accepting Christianity is their religion. The practical part of it goes by the name of ta-mah-no-us, a Chinook word, and yet so much more expressive than any single English word, or even phrase, that it has almost become Anglicized. Like the Wakan of the Dakotas, it signifies the supernatural in a very broad sense. There are three kinds of it.{38}

First. The Black Tamahnous. This is a secret society. During the performance of the ceremonies connected with it, all the members black their faces more or less, and go through a number of rites more savage than any thing else they do. They do not tell the meaning of these, but they consist of starving, washing, cutting themselves, violent dancing, and the like. It was introduced among the Twanas from the Clallams, who practised it with much more savage rites than the former tribe. It is still more thoroughly practised by the Makahs of Cape Flattery, who join the Clallams on the west. It was never as popular among the Twanas as among some other Indians, and is now practically dead among them. It still retains its hold among a portion of the Clallams, being practised at their greatest gatherings. It is believed that it was intended to be purifical, sacrificial, propitiatory.

Second. The Red, or Sing, Tamahnous. During the performance of its ceremonies, they generally painted their faces red. It was their main ceremonial religion. During the fall and winter they assembled, had feasts, and performed these rites, danced and sang their sacred songs; it might be for one night, or it might be for a week or so.

Sometimes this was done for the sake of purifying the soul from sin. Sometimes in a vision a person professed to have seen the spirits of living friends in the world of departed spirits, which was a sure sign that they would die in a year or two, unless those spirits could be brought back to this world. So they gathered together and with singing, feasting, and many ceremonies, went in spirit{40} to the other world and brought these spirits back. This spirit-world is somewhere below, within the earth. When they are ready to descend, with much ceremony a little of the earth is broken, to open the way, as it were, for the descent. Having traveled some distance below, they come to a stream which must be crossed on a plank. Two planks are put up with one end on the ground and the other on a beam in the house, about ten feet above the ground, in a slanting direction, one on one side of the beam, and the other on the other side, so that they can go up on one side and down on the other. To do this is the outward form of crossing the spirit-river. If it is done successfully, all is well, and they proceed on their{41}

journey. If, however, a person should actually fall from one of these planks, it is a sure sign that he will die in a year or so. They formerly believed this to be so, but about twelve years ago a man{42}

did fall off, and did die within a year, so then they were certain of it. Having come to the place of the departed spirits, they quietly hunt for the spirits of their living friends, and when they find what other spirits possess them, they begin battle and attempt to take them and are generally successful. Only a few men descend to the spirit-world, but during the fight the rest of the people present keep up a very great noise by singing, pounding on sticks and drums, and in similar ways encourage those engaged in battle. Having{43} obtained the spirits which they wish, they wrap them up or pretend to do so, so that they look like a great doll, and bring them back to the world and deliver them to their proper owners, who receive them with great joy and sometimes with tears of gratitude.

At other times they go through other ceremonies somewhat different. This form has now mostly ceased among the Twanas, but retains its hold among a large share of the Clallams. The Christian Indians profess wholly to have given it up.

Third. The Tamahnous for the sick. When a person is very sick, they think that the spirit of some bad animal, as the crow, bluejay, wolf, bear, or similar treacherous creature, has entered the individual and is eating away the life. This has been sent by a bad medicine-man, and it is the business of the good medicine-man to draw this out, and he professes to do it with his incantations. With a few friends who sing and pound on sticks, he works over the patient in various ways.

This is the most difficult belief for the Indian to abandon, for, while there is a religious idea in it, there is also much of superstition connected with it. As the Indian Agent at Klamath, Oregon, once wrote: “It requires some thing more{44} than a mere resolution of the will to overcome it.” “I do not believe in it now,” said a Spokane Indian, “but if I should become very sick, I expect I should want an Indian doctor.” It will take time and education to eradicate this idea. It is the only part of tamahnous, which I think an Indian can hold and be a Christian, because it is held partly as a superstition and not wholly as a religion. Some white, ignorant persons are superstitious and, at the same time, are Christians. The bad spirit which causes the sickness is called a bad tamahnous. Soon after I first came here, we spent several evenings in discussing the qualifications of church membership, the main difference of opinion centering on this subject of tamahnous over the sick. I took the same position then that I do now, and facts seem to agree thereto; for, among the Yakamas, Spokanes, and Dakotas, who have stood as Christians many years through strong trials, have been some who have not wholly abandoned it, it remaining apparently as a superstition and not a religion.

CHEHALIS JACK.

As an illustration of the reason why they still believe in it, the following examples are given:—{45}

Chehalis Jack is one of the most intelligent and civilized of the older uneducated Twana Indians. He has been one of those most ready to adopt the customs and beliefs of the whites; has stood by the agent and missionary in their efforts to civilize and Christianize his people when very few other Indians have done so, and was one of the first of the older Indians to unite with the church. He was a sub-chief, and tried to induce his people to adopt civilized customs, setting them an example in building by far the best house erected by the Indians on the reservation, and in various other ways. He was told by some who opposed civilization that because of this some enemy would send a bad tamahnous into him and make him sick. In July, 1881, he was taken sick, evidently with the rheumatism, or some thing of the kind, and the threats which he had heard began to prey upon his mind, as he afterward said. Yet for six weeks he lived at his home a mile from the agency, and would have nothing to do with an Indian doctor. The agency physician attended him, and his rheumatism seemed to leave him, but he did not get well and strong. At last the physician said that he did not believe that any physician could find what was the matter with him. After{46} six weeks thus spent, by the advice of friends he tried some Indian doctors on the reservation, but some in whom he had little confidence. He grew worse. He left the reservation for other Indian doctors, twenty miles away, who said they could cure him, but he did not recover. He came back home, and imported another Indian doctor from a hundred miles distant, but was not cured. We were afraid that he would die, and it was plain to several whites that he was simply being frightened to death. I had long talks with him on the subject, and told him so, but could not convince him of the truth of it. He said: “Tamahnous is true! Tamahnous is true! You have told us it is not, but now I have experienced it, and it keeps me sick.” During the winter the agency physician resigned, and another one took his place in March, 1882. Jack immediately sent for him, but failed to recover. By the advice of white friends, who thought they knew what was the matter with him, he gave up his Indian doctor and tried patent medicines for a time, but to no purpose. He left his home, and moved directly to the agency, being very near us, having no Indian doctor. Thus the summer passed away and fall came. Intelligent persons had sometimes said that if he could be{47} made to do some thing his strength would soon return to him, and he would find that he was not very sick. He had had fourteen cords of wood cut on the banks of the Skokomish River. There was no help that he could obtain to bring the wood to his house except a boy and an old man. He was much afraid that the rains would come, the river would rise, and carry off his wood. He left the agency and returned to his home, and had to help in getting his wood. About the same time he employed another Indian doctor in whom he seemed to have considerable confidence, and between the fact of his being obliged to work and his confidence in the Indian doctor, he recovered. It was the effect of the influence of the mind over the body. The principles of mental philosophy could account for it all, but he was not versed in those principles, and so thoroughly believes that a bad tamahnous was in him and that Old Cush, the Indian doctor, drew it out. Since that time he has worked nobly for civilization and Christianity—but his belief in tamahnous still remains in him. When the question of his joining the church came up, as nothing else stood in the way, I could not make up my mind that this superstition ought to do so, and after two and a half years of church{48} membership the results have been such that I am satisfied that the decision was wise.

ELLEN GRAY.

She was a school-girl, about sixteen years of age, and had been in the boarding-school for several years, nearly ever since she had been old enough to attend, but her parents were quite superstitious. One Friday evening she went home to remain until the Sabbath, but on Saturday, the first of January, 1881, she was taken sick, and the nature of her sickness was such that in a few days she became delirious. Her parents and friends made her believe that a bad tamahnous had been put into her, and no one but an Indian doctor could cure her. They tamahnoused over her some. The agency physician, Dr. Givens, was not called until the sixth, when he left some medicine for her, but it is said that it was not given to her. Hence she got no better, and her friends declared that the white doctor was killing her. The agent and teacher did not like the way the affair was being manœuvered, took charge of her, moved her to a decent house near by, and placed white watchers with her, so that the proper medicine should be given, and no{49} Indian doctor brought in. The Indians were, however, determined, if possible, to tamahnous, and declared that if it were not allowed, she would die at three o’clock A.M. They kept talking to her about it and she apparently believed it, and said she would have tamahnous. But it was prevented, and before the time set for her death, she was cured of her real sickness. But she was not well. Still the next day she was in such a condition that it was thought safe to move her in a boat to the boarding-house, where she could be more easily cared for. The Indians were enraged and said that she would die before landing, but she did not. Watchers were kept by her constantly, but the Indians were allowed to see her. They talked, however, to her so much about her having a bad tamahnous, that all except her parents were forbidden to see her. They also were forbidden to talk on the subject, and evidently obeyed. But the effect on her imagination had been so great that, for a time, she often acted strangely. She seldom said any thing; she would often spurt out the medicine, when given her, as far as she could; said she saw the tamahnous; pulled her mother’s hair, bit her mother’s finger so that it bled, seemed peculiarly vexed at her; moaned most of{50} the time, but sometimes screamed very loudly, and even bit a spoon off. Sometimes she talked rationally and sometimes she did not. But by the fifteenth she was considerably better, walked around with help, and sat up, when told to do so, but did not seem to take any interest in any thing. Every thing possible was done to interest her and occupy her attention, and she continued to grow better for three or four days more, so that the watchers were dispensed with, except that her parents slept in the room with her. But one night she threw off the clothes, took cold, and would not make any effort to cough and clear her throat; and on the twenty-second, she died, actually choking to death. It was a tolerably clear case of death from imagination, easily accounted for on the principles of mental philosophy, but the Indians had never studied it, and still believe that a bad tamahnous killed her. I was afraid that this death would cause trouble, or, at least, that a strong influence against Christianity would result from it, but the certificates of allotment to their land came just at that time, which pleased them so much that the affair was smoothed over.

These and some other instances somewhat similar,{51} though not quite so marked, have led me to make some allowances for the older Indians, which I would not make for whites. With small children, who were too young to have any such belief in tamahnous, I know of not a single instance like these mentioned. Indeed, the Indian doctors have been among the most unfortunate in losing their children, several of them having lost from five to ten infants each.

Some of the older uneducated Indians with the most advanced ideas have said lately that they were ready to give up all Indian doctors, and all tamahnous for the sick; still they would not acknowledge but that there was some spirit in the affair, but they said it was a bad spirit, of which the devil was the ruler, and they wished to have nothing to do with it.

One woman, as she joined the church, wished to let me have her tamahnous rattles, made of deer hoofs, for she said she was a Christian, had stopped her tamahnous, and would not want them any more. Still she thought that a spirit dwelt in them, only she thought it was a bad spirit. Hence she was afraid to have them remain in her house, for fear the spirit would injure her; for the same reason she was afraid to throw them away; she{52} was for the same reason afraid to give them to any of her friends, even to those far away, and so she thought that the best thing that could be done with them was to let me take them, for she thought I could manage them. I was willing, and prize them highly because of the reason through which I obtained them.

Other points in their religious belief did not stand so much in the way of Christianity. They believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, though very different from that of the whites—so much so, that the latter has not received the name of the former; in a Deity called Do-ki-batl by the Twanas, and Nu-ki-matl by the Clallams, who became incarnate and did many wonderful things; in man’s sinfulness and immortality; in the creation, renovation, and government of the world by their great Beings; in a flood, or deluge, the tradition of which has enough similarity to that of the Bible to make me believe that it refers to the same: while it has so much nonsense in it as to show that they did not receive it from the whites; in thanksgiving, prayer, sacrifices, and purification; in a place of happiness for the soul after death, situated somewhere within the earth, and in a place of future punishment,{53} also situated within the earth. The Clallams believed that the Sun was the Supreme Deity, or that he resided in the sun, but I have never been able to discover any such belief among the Twanas. They believe that the spirits dwell in sticks and stones at times, and I have seen one rough idol among the Twanas.

The more prominent of these are gambling, betting, horse-racing, potlatches, and intemperance.

Gambling is conducted in three different native ways, and many of the Indians have also learned to play cards. The betting connected with horse-racing belongs to the same sin. Horse-racing has not been much of a temptation to the Clallams because they own very few horses, their country being such that they have had but little use for them. Nearly all of their travel is by water. The Twanas have had much more temptation in this respect.

One of the native ways of gambling belongs to the women, the other to the men: but there is far less temptation for the women to gamble than there is for the men, because summer and winter, day-time and evening, there is always something{54} for them to do. But with the men it is different. The rainy season and the long winter evenings hang heavily on their hands, for they have very little indoor work. They can not read, and hence the temptation to gamble is great.

One mode of gambling by the men is with small round wooden disks about two inches in diameter. There are ten in a set, one of which is marked. Under cover they are divided, part of them under one hand and the rest under the other, are shuffled around, concealed under cedar-bark, which is beaten up fine, and the object of the other party is to guess under which hand the marked disk is.

The other game of the men is with small bones, two inches long and a half an inch in diameter, or sometimes they are two and a half inches long and an inch in diameter. Sometimes only one of the small ones is used, and sometimes two, one of which is marked. They are passed very quickly back and forth from one hand to the other, and the object is for the opposite party to guess in which hand the marked one is. An accompaniment{55} is kept up by the side which is playing by singing and pounding on a large stick with smaller ones. With both of these games occasionally the large drum is brought in, and tamahnous songs are sung, so as to invoke the aid of their guardian spirits.

In the women’s game usually four beaver’s teeth are used, which have peculiar markings. They are rapidly thrown up, and the way in which they fall determines the number of counts belonging to the party playing. The principle is somewhat the same as with a game of dice. Formerly they bet large sums, sometimes every thing they owned, even to all the clothes they had, but it has not been the custom of late years. When Agent Eells first came to Skokomish, under orders from the Superintendent of Indian Affairs he tried to break up the gambling entirely, but there were hardly any Indians to sustain him in the effort. They would conceal themselves and gamble, do so by night, or go off from the reservation where he had no control, and carry on the game—so for a{56} time he had to allow it, with some restrictions; that is, that the bets must be small, the games not often, but generally only on the Fourth of July, at great festivals, and the like. Occasionally they have had a grand time by gathering about all the Indians on the reservation together, both men and women, and perhaps for four days and nights, with very little sleep, have kept up the game.

On account of their want of employment in the winter and their inability to read, probably the sinfulness of this sin is not so great with them as with whites. Some good, prominent Indian workers have thought that it was hardly right to proscribe a Christian Indian from gambling. I learned of one Protestant church which admitted Indians without saying any thing on this subject, but which tried to stop it after they were in the church; but I could never bring myself to think that a church full of gambling Indians was right, and this became one of the test questions with the men in regard to admittance into the church.

When I first saw the infatuation the game possessed for them I felt that nothing but the gospel of Christ would ever stop it. Among the Clallams off of the reservation none except the Christians have given it up. On the reservation within the{57}

last few years so many of the Indians have become Christians that public opinion has frowned on it, and there is very little, if any, of it, though some of the Indians who do not profess to be Christians, when they visit other Indians, will gamble, although they do not when at home.

The Potlatch is the greatest festival that the Indian has. It is a Chinook word, and means “to give,” and is bestowed as a name to the festival because the central idea of it is a distribution of gifts by a few persons to the many present whom they have invited. It is generally intertribal, from four hundred to two thousand persons being present, and from one to three, or even ten, thousand dollars in money, blankets, guns, canoes, cloth, and the like are given away. There is no regularity to the time when they are held. Three have been held at Skokomish within fifteen years, each one being given by different persons, and during the same time, as far as I know, a part or all of the tribe have been invited to nine others, eight of which some of them have attended.

The mere giving of a present by one person to another, or to several, is not in itself sinful, but this is carried to such an extreme at these times that the morality of that part of them becomes{58} exceedingly questionable. In order to obtain the money to give they deny themselves so much for years, live in old houses and in so poor a way, that the self-denial becomes an enemy to health, comfort, civilization, and Christianity. If they would take the same money, buy and improve land, build good houses, furnish them, and live decently, it would be far better.

But while two or three days of the time spent at them is occupied in making presents, the rest of the time, from three days to two and a half weeks, is spent in gambling, red and black tamahnous, and other wicked practices, and the temptation to do wrong becomes so great that very few Indians can resist it.

When some of the Alaska Indians, coveting the prosperity which the Christian Indians of that region had acquired, asked one of these Christians what they must do in order to become Christians, the reply was: “First give up your potlatches.” It was felt that there was so much evil connected with them that they and Christianity could not flourish together. Among the Twanas, while they are not dead, they are largely on the wane. Among a large part of the Clallams they still flourish.{59}

Intemperance is a besetting sin of Indians, and it is about as much a besetting sin of some whites to furnish intoxicating liquors to the Indians. The laws of the United States and of Washington Territory are stringent against any body’s furnishing liquor to the Indians, but for a time previous to 1871 they had by no means been strictly enforced. As the intercourse of the Indians with the whites was often with a low class, who were willing to furnish liquor to them, they grew to love it, so that in 1871 the largest part of the Indians had learned to love liquor. Its natural consequences, fighting, cutting, shooting, and accidental deaths, were frequent.{60}

VII.

TEMPERANCE.

IN 1871 the agent began to enforce the laws against the selling of liquor to the Indians, and, according to a rule of the Indian Department; he also punished the Indians for drinking. Missionary influence went hand in hand with his work, and good results have followed. For years very few Indians on the reservation have been known to be drunk. Punishment upon the liquor-drinker as well as the liquor-seller has had a good effect. Far more of the Clallams drink than of the Twanas. They live so far from the agent that he can not know of all their drinking, and, if he did, he could not go to arrest them all; and many of them live so close to large towns where liquor is very easily obtained, that it has been impossible to stop all of their drinking. Still his occasional visits, the aid of a few white men near them, and of the better Indians, together with what they see of the evil effects of intemperance on themselves, have greatly checked the evil. Very{61} few complete reformations, however, have taken place among those away from the reservation, except those who have become Christians. In addition, a good share of the younger ones have grown up with so much less temptation than their parents had, and so much more influence in favor of temperance, that they have become teetotalers.

For a long time, beginning with 1874, a temperance society flourished, and nearly all the Indians of both tribes joined it. Each member signed the pledge under oath, and took that pledge home to keep, but in time it was found that the society had no penalty with which to punish offenders sufficient to make them fear much to do so again. The agent alone had that power—so the society died. But the law and gospel did not tire in the work and something has been accomplished.

The agent could tell many a story of prosecuting liquor-sellers; sometimes before a packed jury, who, when the proof was positive, declared the prisoner not guilty; of having Indian witnesses tampered with, and bought either by money or threats, so that they would not testify in court, although to him they had previously given direct testimony as to who had furnished them with the{62} liquor; of a time when some of the Clallam Indians became so independent of his authority that they defied him when he went to arrest them, and he was obliged to use the revenue-cutter in order to take them, and when, in consequence, his friends feared that his life was in danger from the white liquor-sellers, because the latter feared the result of their lawlessness; of a judge who, although a Christian man, so allowed his sympathies to go out for the criminal that he would strain the law to let him go; or, on the other hand, of another judge who would strain the law to catch a rascal; of convicting eight white men at one time of selling liquor to Indians, only to have some of them take their revenge by burning the Indians’ houses and all of their contents. Still in a few years he made it very unsafe for most permanent residents to sell intoxicating liquors to the Indians, so that but few except transient people, as sailors and travelers, dared to do so.

“For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain” the Indian and the liquor-seller can almost rival the “heathen Chinee.” A saloon is on the beach, and so high that it is easy to go under it. A small hole is in the floor under the counter.{63} A hand comes up with some money in it: after dark a bottle goes down, and some Indians are drunk, but nobody can prove any thing wrong.

An Indian takes a bucket of clams into a saloon and asks the bar-tender if he wishes them. “I will see what my wife says,” is the reply, and he takes them to a back room. Soon he comes back and says: “Here, take your old clams, they are bad and rotten.” The Indian takes them, and soon a company of Indians are “gloriously drunk,” a bottle having been put in the bottom of the bucket. Sometimes a part of a sack of flour is made of a bottle of whiskey.

An Indian, having been taken up for drunkenness, was asked in court, in Port Townsend, where he obtained his liquor. “If I tell, I can not get any more,” was the blunt reply. Others have found theirs floating in the river or lying by a tree, which may all have been true, yet some man who understood it was the gainer of some money, which perhaps he found. Many an Indian, when asked who let him have the liquor, has said: “I do not know;” or, “I do not know his name.”

Yet there are stories on the other side which make a brighter picture. In 1875 the Twana and Nisqually Indians met as they had often done{64} during previous years for feasting, visiting, trading, and horse-racing. The first agreement was to meet on the Skokomish Reservation, but continued rains made the race-track on the reservation almost unfit for use, it being bottom land. There was another track on gravelly land about ten miles from Skokomish. On the Sabbath previous to the races the sermon had reference to the subject, because of the betting and danger of drunkenness connected with it. A Nisqually Indian came then and urged the Skokomish Indians to go to the other race-track at Shelton’s Prairie, because the one at Skokomish was so muddy. The Skokomish Indians replied that they did not wish to go to the prairie for fear there would be whiskey there, but that they would go to work and fix their own track as well as they could. One sub-chief, the only one of the chiefs who had a race-horse, said he would not go there. This word was carried to the Nisqually Indians who were camped at the prairie, but they refused to come to Skokomish, and sent their messenger to tell the Skokomish Indians so. Several hours were occupied in discussing the question. In talking with the agent, the head-chief asked him if he would send one of the employees to guard{65} them, should they decide to go to the prairie. The head-chief then went to the prairie and induced the Nisquallys to come to the reservation for the visit, trading, and marriage, which was to take place, and for the races if the track should be suitable. From Wednesday until Saturday was occupied by the Indians as agreed upon, but the weather continued rainy and the track was unfit for use. On Saturday the Nisqually Indians went back to the prairie and invited the Skokomish Indians to go there for the races. On Monday twenty-five or thirty of them went, but this number did not include a chief or many of the better class, the great fear being that they would be tempted to drink. According to the request of the chief, one white man from the reservation went, together with the regular Indian policemen. There were also present ten or twelve other white men from different places, one of whom carried considerable liquor. The Indian policemen on seeing this went to him and told him he must not sell or give any of it to any of the Indians, and he promised that he would not. He was afterward seen offering some to a Nisqually Indian, who refused. When night came it was found that, with three or four exceptions, all of the{66} white men present had drank some, and a few were quite drunk, while it was not known that any of the Indians present had taken any. That the better class of Indians should not go to the races, and that all should earnestly contend against going to that place for fear of temptation; that they asked for a white man to guard them; that an Indian told a white man not to give liquor to his fellow-Indians, and that, while most of the white men drank some, it was not known that any Indian drank at all, although it was not the better class of Indians who were present, were facts which were encouraging.

A sub-chief of the Clallam Indians, at Elkwa, one hundred and twenty miles from the reservation, in 1878, found that an Indian from British Columbia had brought a keg of liquor among his people. He immediately complained before a justice of the peace, who arrested the guilty man, emptied his liquor on the ground, and fined him sixty-four dollars.

The head-chief of the Clallams, Lord James Balch, has for nine years so steadily opposed drinking, and imprisoned and fined the offenders so much, that he excited the enmity of the Indians, and even of their doctors, and also of some{67} white men, much as a good Indian agent does. Although he is not perfect, he still continues the good work. Fifteen years ago he was among the worst Indians about, drinking, cutting, and fighting.

In January, 1878, I was asked to go ninety miles, by both Clallams and Twanas, to a potlatch, to protect them from worthless whites and Indians, who were ready to take liquor to the place. The potlatch was at Dunginess, given by some Clallams. I went, in company with about seventy-five Twanas, and it was not known that more than eight of them had tasted liquor within four years, although none of them professed to be Christians. During that festival, which continued nine days, and where more than five hundred Indians were present, only one Indian was drunk.

More than once a whiskey-bottle has been captured from an Indian, set out in view of all on a stump or box, a temperance speech made and a temperance hymn sung, the bottle broken into many pieces, and the contents spilled on the ground.

The Indians say that the Hudson’s Bay Company first brought it to them, but dealt it out very sparingly, but when the Americans came they{68} brought barrels of it. They seem to be proud that it is not the Indians who manufacture it, for if it were they would soon put a stop to it; nor is it the believer in God, but wicked white men who wish to clear them away as trees are cleared from the ground.

Thus, when we take into consideration the condition of these Indians fifteen years ago, and the present condition of some other Indians in the region who lie beastly drunk in open sight, and compare it with the present status of those now here, there is reason for continued faith in the God of the law and gospel of temperance.{69}

VIII.

INDUSTRIES.

LOGGING, farming in a small way, and work as day-laborers, have been the chief means of civilized labor among the men on the reservation. A large share of their land is first-class, rich bottom land, though all was covered originally with timber. It had been surveyed, assigned to the different heads of families, and certificates of allotment from the government issued to them. Nearly all of them have from one to ten acres cleared, most of which is in hay.

Still when there has been a market for logs at the neighboring saw-mills, they have preferred that work, not because there is more money in it, for actually there is less, but because they get the money quicker. It comes when the logs are sold, generally within three months after they begin a boom. But in regard to their land, they must work some time after they begin to clear it, before it is done; then a year or two longer, before they can obtain much of a crop of hay from it. Hence{70} it has been up-hill work to induce most of them to do much work at clearing land. For several years before their annuities ceased, in 1881, the government made a rule that no able-bodied man should receive any annuities until he had performed labor on his land equal in value to the amount he should receive. From the example of the few adjoining settlers, some are beginning to see that farming is more profitable than logging. The largest share of good timber on the reservation has been taken off during the past twenty years, so that now a number have bought timber off the reservation for logging. They own their own teams, keep their own time-books, and at present attend to all their own business in connection with these camps. In one respect they differ from white folks—in their mode of conducting the business. Instead of one or two men owning every thing, hiring the men, paying all expenses, and taking all the profits, they combine together and unitedly share the profits or losses. When the boom is sold, and all necessary expenses which have been incurred are paid, they divide the money among themselves according to the amount of work each has done. A few have tried to carry on camps as white people do, but have always failed.{71}

Very few now pursue the old avocations of fishing and hunting, except the old ones. Nearly all the able-bodied men work at some civilized pursuit. Take a ride over the reservation on almost any pleasant day, and nearly all the men will be found to be busy at something.

In the winter, however, it is different. They have very little work for rainy days, and so there is more temptation to gamble and tamahnous. “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.”

The women have less temptation than the men in winter. When they have no outdoor work, or it is stormy, they can sew, do housework, make mats and baskets, and all, even the very old ones, are commonly busy at some of these things. Some of them are good washerwomen and some are cooks in the logging-camps. They are by no means so near in a state of slavery as some Indian women in the interior, but are treated with considerable propriety by their husbands.

A few of the young men, after having been in school for a time, have been apprenticed to the trades of carpenter, blacksmith, and farmer, and have done so fairly, that they were employed by the government after the white employees were discharged.{72}

The Clallams have done very little logging or farming. A number have obtained land at Port Discovery, Jamestown, Elkwa, and Clallam Bay, but only a little of it is first-class land, and they have used it for gardens and as a place for a permanent home, so that they should not be driven from one place to another, more than for farming. At Seabeck, Port Gamble, Port Townsend, and Port Discovery, they work quite constantly in the saw-mills; at Jamestown, for the surrounding farmers; at Port Angeles, Elkwa, and Clallam Bay, more of them hunt and fish than elsewhere. A number earn considerable money taking freight and passengers in their canoes. The obtaining of dog-fish oil is something of a business, as logging-camps use a large amount of it. In September there is employment at the Puyallup and surrounding region, about ninety miles from Skokomish, in picking hops. Hop-raising has grown to be a large business among the whites, and Indians have been preferred for picking the hops, thousands of whom flock there every year for the purpose, from every part of the Sound, and even from British Columbia and the Yakama country. Old people, women, and children do as well at this as able-bodied men. It has not, however, always{73} been a healthy place for their morals, as on Sundays and evenings gambling, betting, and horse-racing have been largely carried on. At one time “The Devil’s Playground,” in the Puyallup Valley was noted as the place where Indians and low whites gathered on the Sabbath for horse-racing and gambling, but it became such a nuisance to the hop-growers, as well as to the agents, that they combined and closed it.

A part of the Clallams earn considerable money by sealing, off the north-west coast of the Territory, a very profitable business generally from January to May. In 1883 the taxes of those Clallams who live in Clallam County were $168.30.{74}

IX.

TITLES TO THEIR LAND.

“THE plow and the Bible go together in civilizing Indians,” is the remark of Rev. J. H. Wilbur, who for more than twenty years was one of the most successful workers among them: but neither Indians nor whites feel much like clearing land and plowing it unless they feel sure that the land is theirs.

When the treaty was made in 1855 it was the understanding that whenever the Indians should settle down on the reservation, adopt civilized habits, and clear a few acres of land, good titles would be given to them by the government. With this understanding, not long after Agent Eells took charge, he had the reservation surveyed and divided, so that each head of a family whose home was on the reservation should have a fair portion. He gave them papers, signed by himself, in 1874, describing the land, with the expectation that the government in a short time would give them good titles, he having been thus assured by his superiors{75} in office. Other agents did the same. But new movements by the government with reference to the Indians are usually very slow, as they have no votes, and this was no exception. Agent Eells, as well as others, plead and plead time and again, to have this stipulation in the treaty fulfilled, but for a long time to no purpose. Often he had no reply to his letters. People of both political parties put this as a plank into their platform; those of all religions and no religion; those who opposed the peace policy as well as those who favored it, signed petitions to this effect, but in vain. This delay was the source of much uneasiness to the Indians, more, I think, than any other cause, for men were not wanting who told them that they would be moved away; there were plenty of people who coveted their land, and examples were not wanting of Indians who had been moved from place to place by the government. It has been the only thing which has ever caused them to talk about war. Some Indians left the reservation because they feared they would be moved away. “I am not going to clear land and fence it for the whites to use,” was what one said and others felt.

When the treaty was made it was believed by{76} the Indians that they possessed all the land, and that they sold all except the reservation, to which they supposed they had a good title, at least as good as the United States had, and white people believed the same; but a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1873 reversed this idea, and they learned that they had sold all the land, and that government graciously allowed them to stay on the reservation according to its will. In the spring of 1875 they were forbidden to cut a log and sell it off of the reservation, and found that they had no rights to the land which the government was bound to respect, but if she wished to remove them at any time she could do so.

The question came up early in missionary work. The Indians said: “You profess to be Christians, and you have promised us titles to our land. If these titles come we will believe your religion to be true, but if not it will be evidence that you are deceiving us.”

The agent worked nobly for the object, but receiving no reply for a long time he grew almost discouraged. He could work in only one way, by writing to his first superior officer, hoping that he would successfully press the subject upon those more influential.{77}

About this time, in 1878, I determined to see what I could do through another channel: through the Board of Indian Commissioners, where missionaries would naturally look. Accordingly, in May, a long letter was written to the secretary of the American Missionary Association, and his influence was invoked to work upon the Board. He gladly did so. At the annual meeting of the Congregational Association of Oregon and Washington, in June of the same year, I plead strongly for the same object, whereupon a committee of five of the influential men of the denomination was appointed, who drafted strong resolutions, which were passed and sent to the Board of Commissioners. The fact that the Bannack Indians of Eastern Oregon were then engaged in a war with the whites, and that they had attempted to induce the Indians of Puget Sound to assist in it, was an argument used, and of no small weight. I intended to urge the passage of similar resolutions through the Presbytery of Puget Sound, and the Methodist Episcopal Conference of Oregon, both of whom had missions among the Indians, and were asking for similar favors from the government; but before those bodies met I received a letter from Hon. D. H. Jerome, of the Board of{78} Commissioners, who had been appointed a committee by that Board in regard to titles of Indians to their lands, promising to press the matter upon the department until titles should be issued, or a good reason given for not doing so, and requesting a description of the lands for which titles were asked. I gave the letter to the agent, who had the desired information, and who quickly gave it. The Board nobly fulfilled its promise, and in March, 1881, certificates of allotment were sent to the Indians. They were not wholly satisfactory. The title to the land still remained in the United States. They said that each Indian is entitled to take possession of his land, “and the United States guarantees such possession, and will hold the title thereto in trust for the exclusive use and benefit of himself and his heirs so long as such occupancy shall continue.” It prohibited them from selling the land to any one except other members of the same tribe.

These certificates, however, proved to be better than was at first feared. It was decided that under them the Indians had a right to sell the timber from the land. The Indians were satisfied that they would not be removed, and were quieted.

Efforts are still being made to obtain the patents,{79} and with considerable hope of success, as they have been granted to Indians on three other reservations on Puget Sound through the efforts of Agent Eells, but owing to various causes they have not been obtained as yet for the Skokomish Indians.

The Clallam Indians have bought their land or taken it by homestead, and so have not had the same difficulty in regard to titles. One incident, however, occurred which was rather discouraging. Four of the Clallam Bay Indians, in 1879, determined to secure, if possible, the land on which their houses stood. They were sent to the clerk of the Probate Court, who knew nothing about the land, but told them that it belonged to the government, and offered to get it for the usual fee, nineteen dollars each. They paid him the seventy-six dollars, and he promised to send it to the land-office and have their papers for them in two weeks. They waited the two weeks but no papers came. In the meantime they learned that the man was not to be trusted, although he could lawfully attend to the business, and that the land had been owned by private individuals for fifteen years. He, too, on writing to the land-office, found the same to be true. But the difficulty was{80} to get the money back. This man was an inveterate gambler, and the evidence was quite plain that he had gambled the money off very soon after he received it. I saw him soon afterward, and he told me that it had been stolen, that he would soon get it, and the like. One Indian spent three weeks, and two others two weeks each, in trying to recover it, but failed to do so. Then the agent took it into court, but through an unjust ruling of the judge, or a catch in the law, he was neither compelled to pay it nor punished for his deed. The Indians received about the amount they lost, as witness fees and mileage for their attendance on court. Yet that man, at that time, was also postmaster, United States commissioner, and deputy sheriff, and had offered fifty dollars to the county treasurer, to be appointed his deputy.

This was a strange contrast to the action of the Indians. I felt very sorry for them. For four years we had been advising them to obtain land, and they were swindled in their first attempt. When I saw them, before the case was taken to the court, I was fearful lest they should become discouraged, and offered them ten dollars, saying, “If you never get your money, I will lose{81} this with you: but if you do obtain it, you can then repay me.” One tenth of my income has long been given to the Lord, and I felt that thus much would do as much good here as anywhere. When I first mentioned this to them, they refused to take it, saying that they did not wish me to lose my money, if they did theirs; but two weeks later, when I left the last one of them, he reluctantly took it.{82}

X.

MODE OF LIVING.

IN 1874 most of the Indians of both tribes lived on the ground, in the smoke, in their large houses, where several families resided. That year the agent induced those on the reservation to receive lumber as a part of their annuity goods, and the government carpenter erected small frame-houses for most of them, but left them to cover and batten the houses. They were slow to do so. At first they used them to live in during the summer, but during the winter they found these houses too open and cold and returned to their smoke-houses. It was two or three years before they made them warm enough to winter in them, but since that time nearly all, except a few of the very old ones, have lived off of the ground and out of the smoke. Although the government gave no aid to those living off of the reservation to build them homes, yet about three fourths of them have built for themselves similar or better houses. Many of them have lived near saw-mills where they could easily get lumber for their houses.{83}

All of them dress in citizen’s clothes, and they obtain about three quarters of their living from civilized labor, and the rest by fishing and hunting, supposing that hunting and fishing are not civilized pursuits. Many of them have sewing-machines, bureaus, and lace curtains, while clocks and watches, chairs, bedsteads, and dishes, tables, knives and forks are very common.

Neatness.—It is easier to induce them to have good houses, with board floors, than to keep them clean. Grease is spilled on the floor, and, mingling with the dirt, sometimes makes the air very impure. The men are careless, bring in dirt, and spit on the floor; the women are sometimes lazy, or else, after trying, become discouraged about keeping the house clean.

This impure air has been the cause of the death of many of their children. They breathe the poison, and at last waste away. The older ones are strong and can endure some of it, and, moreover, are in the pure air outdoors much of the time. But the little ones are kept in the house, are so weak that they can not endure such air, and they die. The old Indian houses on the ground had, at least, two advantages over the board floors, although they had more disadvantages. The{84} ground absorbed the grease, as boards can not; and, if the houses became too bad, they could easily be torn down and moved a few yards away to a better place. But good houses are too costly for this.

Time, teaching, and example have, however, worked some changes for the better. There are many of the Indian women who wash, at least, the floors of their front rooms every week. Still the bedrooms, which are not likely to be seen, are often topsy-turvy, and the kitchens often have a bad smell, and the back door needs lime and ammonia. Occasionally, however, a house is found where there is a fair degree of neatness all the way through.{85}

XI.

NAMES.

WHITE people do not usually take kindly to the jaw-breaking Indian names, hence a “Boston” name has generally been given them. But the white men who lived around Skokomish were mostly loggers, who among themselves went by the name of Tom, Jack, Jim, and the like, and seldom put Mr. to any body’s name. As the Indians mingled with them they received similar names, and as there soon came to be several of the same name, they were distinguished by some prefix, usually derived from some characteristic—their size, or the place from which they came. So we had Squaxon Bill, Chehalis Jack, Dr. Bob, Big John, Little Billy, and the like. These were bad enough, but when their children came to take these as their surnames, they sometimes became comical, for we had Sally Bob, Dick Charley, and Sam Pete. Therefore, we soon found that it was best to give every school-child a decent name, and Bill’s son George became George Williams,{86} and John’s boy became Henry Johnson, and Billy’s daughter was Minnie Williamson, and so on. At first, when the older ones were married, it was done with the old Indian nickname, but I soon thought that if in time they were to become Americans they might as well have decent names. So, at their first legal recognition, as at their marriage, baptism, or on entering school, they received names of which they had no need to be ashamed in after years.{87}

XII.

EDUCATION.

THIS has been conducted entirely by the government, but generally in such a way as to be a handmaid to religion. On the reservation a boarding-school has been kept up during the ten years of missionary labor, as well as many years before, for about ten months in the year. About half of the time, including the winter, the school has been kept six hours in the day, and during the rest of the time for three hours; the scholars being required to work the other half of the day—the boys in the garden getting wood and the like, and the girls in the house sewing, cooking, house-keeping, and doing similar things.

The position of the one in charge has been a difficult one to fill, for it has been necessary that the man be a teacher, disciplinarian, handy at various kinds of work, a Christian, and, during the last year and a half after the agent left, he had charge of the reservation; while it was almost as necessary that his wife be matron, with all the{88} qualifications of taking care of a family of from twenty to forty. It has been difficult to find all these qualifications in one man and his wife, who were willing to take the position for the pay which the government was willing to give, for during the later years the pay was cut down to the minimum. It has not been strange that with all the burdens frequent changes have taken place. There have been seven teachers in the ten years, but most of them were faithful, some of them serving until their health failed. Yet the school has been carried on generally in as Christian a way as if the Missionary Society had had charge of it. All of the teachers and their wives have been Christians—not all Congregationalists; for it has been often impossible to obtain such; in fact, only three have been; but there has been a plain understanding with the others that they should teach nothing in regard to religion which conflicted with the teachings from the pulpit—an understanding which has been faithfully kept, with one exception. In 1874 the school numbered about twenty-four scholars, but it gradually increased until it numbered about forty, which was more than all the children of school age on the reservation, though it did not include many of the Clallams. They{89} were so far away that it was not thought wise to compel them to remain so steadily so far away from their parents year after year.

The school has been a boarding-school, for nearly all the children lived from one to three miles away, and it has been impossible to secure any thing like regular attendance if they lived at home, while some have come from ten to seventy miles distant.

Attendance on school has been compulsory—the proper way among Indians. While the parents speak well about the school, and say that they wish to have their children educated, yet, when the children beg hard to stay at home, parental government is not strong enough to enforce attendance, especially as long as the parents do not realize the value of education. The children have not all liked to go to school, and at first some of them ran away. The agent and his subordinates could tell some stories of getting runaway children, by pulling them out of their beds, taking them home in the middle of the night, and the like. In this respect the government had the advantage of a missionary society, which could not have compelled the children to attend school.{90}

There was no provision in the treaty for more than one school, and that on the reservation. But after the Clallams at Jamestown had bought their land, laid out their village, built their church, and become somewhat civilized, they plead so hard for a school, offering the use of the church-building for the purpose, that the government listened to them, and in 1878 sent them a teacher. This was a day-school, because funds enough were furnished to pay only a teacher, and nearly all the children lived in the village within less than a half-mile from the school. A very few of the children walked daily five or six miles to school, and some of the better families of the village did nobly in making sacrifices to board their relations, when the parents would not furnish even the food for their children. This school has varied in numbers from fifteen to thirty children, and has been conducted in other respects mainly on the same principles as the one on the reservation. It has been of great advantage to the settlement.

A few of the rest of the Clallam children, whose parents were Catholics, have sent their children to a boarding-school at Tulalip, a Catholic agency, and others have not gone to school, there being difficulties in the way which it has been almost or quite impossible to overcome.{91}

The schools have been conducted entirely in English. This is the only practicable plan, for the tribes connected with the school speak three different languages, and it is impossible to have books and newspapers in their languages, while teachers can not be found who are willing to acquire any one of these languages sufficiently well to teach it. It is also the only wise plan. If the Indian in time is to become an American citizen,—and that is the goal to be reached,—he must speak the English language, and it is best to teach it to him while young. In large tribes like the Sioux, where the children will speak their native language almost wholly after they leave school, and where there are enough of them to make it pay to publish books and papers in their own tongue, it is probably best to have the schools in their native language, as a transition from one language to the other. This transition will necessarily take a long time among so large a number of Indians, and needs the stepping-stone of native schools and a native literature to aid it. But where the Indian tribes are small, as is the case on Puget Sound, and surrounded by whites with whom they mingle almost daily, who are constantly speaking English to them, this stepping-stone{92} is not needed. It is possible for the next generation to be mainly English-speaking in this region; in fact, most of them will understand it whether they go to school or not, and it is not wise, were it possible, to retard it by schools in the native language.

CORRECTING THOMSON’S PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC.

An incident occurred in the school, in 1878, worthy of note. One of the scholars in arithmetic found four examples which he could not do, and after a time took them to his teacher, Mr. G. F. Boynton, for assistance. After the teacher (who was a good scholar) had tried them to his satisfaction, he found that there was a mistake about the answers in the book and told the boy so, and then, in a half-joking way, said to him: “You had better write Dr. Thomson and tell him about it.” The boy did so, telling also who he was. In due time he received a reply from Dr. Thomson, who said that two of the mistakes had been discovered and corrected in later editions, but that the other two had not before been found; and then he wondered how an Indian boy out in Washington Territory should be able to correct his arithmetic. He invited the boy to continue the correspondence, but I believe he never did.{93}

XIII.

THE FOURTH OF JULY.

THIS day has always been celebrated in some way, at least by a dinner. During the first few years the agent furnished the beef and most of the provisions at government expense. On the Fourth of July, 1874, among other exercises, I married seven couples; on the next Fourth, three couples, and in 1878 four more. Speech-making by some of the whites, explaining the day, and music were interspersed. Long tables have usually been made, on which were dishes, knives, and forks, while beef, bread, tea, coffee, sugar, cake, pie, rice, beans, doughnuts, and such things were the principal food.

It was not until 1878 that they took upon themselves the main burden of the day, both of expense and labor, and since that time they have furnished both. The following, from the Tacoma Herald of July, 1879, will answer for

THE FOURTH OF JULY ON SKOKOMISH RESERVATION.

“Among the Indians, from all appearances, the Fourth of July will probably in time take the{94} place of the potlatch. The latter is spoken of by their white neighbors as being so foolish, while the former is held in such high esteem; and as Indians, like others, enjoy holidays and festivals, it now seems as if the potlatch would be merged into the Fourth, changed a little to suit circumstances and civilization. The potlatch has always been given by a few individuals to invited guests and tribes, presents of money and other things being made to those who came, while in return a great name and honorable character was received. It lasts several days or weeks and is accompanied by gambling, feasting, tamahnous, and the like.

“The Fourth of July on the Skokomish Reservation began about a week beforehand and so lasted as long as a short potlatch. The Nisqually and Puyallup Indians, having resolved to have celebrations of their own, the attendance was smaller than it otherwise would have been. The Chehalis Indians came a full week before the Fourth in wagons and on horseback, while those from Squaxon, Mud Bay, and Seabeck came between that time and the Fourth. A few of the Skokomish Indians were at the head of the celebration, bore most of the expense, and received most of the honor. Other Indians besides these{95} few, however, occasionally invited all the visitors to a feast. The guests, on arriving at Skokomish, brought more or less food with them,—much as at a potlatch, only on a smaller scale,—and they were received with less ceremony. A table a hundred feet long was made in a pleasant shady grove, and here for more than a week—when the guests were not invited to the house of some friend to a meal—they feasted on beef, beans, rice, sugar, tea, coffee, and the like: sitting on benches, eating with knives, forks, and dishes, and cooking the food on two large stoves brought to the grounds for the purpose; visiting, horse-racing, and other sports filled up the rest of the time.

“The Fourth was the central day of the festival and was celebrated in much the same style with the other days, only on a larger scale, there being more Indians present, more flags flying, more firing of guns, and more whites on the grounds. By invitation the whites on the reservation were present and were assigned to a very pleasant place on the grounds, where they might have had tables if they had done as the Indians did: made them for themselves; but, as it was, they picnicked on the ground, while their colored brethren sat at the tables. A few white men, rather the worse for{96} liquor, visited the horse-races after the dinner; but not an Indian is known to have tasted liquor during the week.”

The Clallam Indians seldom have celebrations of their own. They usually attend those of the whites near them, often being invited to take part in canoe-races. There has always been much drunkenness among the whites at these times; the Indians have often been sorely tempted to do the same, and many of them have fallen then who seldom have done so at other times.

The Fourth of July, 1884, in many respects has the best record at the reservation. It was indeed not the greatest, most expensive, or most numerously attended. As the leading ones had decided not to have any horse-racing or betting, the younger ones thought that they could have no celebration, and it was only the day before that they decided to have one. It consisted of a feast, after which they went to the race-track. I felt fearful that some professing Christians would fall, but thought it not best for me to go near that place, but leave them and await the result. When the report came, it was that, while they had some fun with their horses, hardly any of which was regular racing, not a cent had been bet by any one.{97}

XIV.

CHRISTMAS.

THIS day has been celebrated with as much regularity as the Fourth of July, but the former remains yet as our affair, while the latter has passed into their hands. They have no building large enough to contain much of a celebration of the day. The church is at the agency, and is the most suitable building for the purpose, and the exercises naturally center around the school, so the older Indians come to us on Christmas, and we go to them on the Fourth.

Usually there have been some speeches made, and presents from the government, school-supplies to the Indian school-children. Private presents have been made among the whites, but it has only been during the last two or three years that the outside Indians have taken much interest in this custom of ours. Indeed, during the first few years generally but few of them were present. It was far from their homes, the nights were dark, the roads muddy, so that they did not take{98} much interest in it, but as the first school-children have grown up they have kept up the idea they received in school, and imparted it to others, and of late years a good share of them have been present. On Christmas 1882 and 1883 they made quite a number of private presents; more on the last one than ever before. Usually nuts and candy have been provided from contributions by the whites, and apples which are raised at the agency for the older Indians. A Santa Claus Christmas-tree, or something of the kind, has been the usual way for distributing the presents. The report of the Sabbath-school for the year has been a central item in the exercises, showing the attendance, the number of times each has been on the roll of honor, with the distribution of some extra present to those who have been highest on this roll.

In 1878 quite an exhibition was made by the school, consisting of pieces spoken, dialogues, compositions, tableaux, and the like. In 1879 I arranged so that about twenty of the aged Indians, who had neither land nor good houses, came to the agency and had a dinner of rice, beans, bread, and tea. This was new to them, they generally being the neglected ones, but I thought it to be according to the principles of the New Testament.{99}

The celebration for 1883 suited me better than any previous one in many respects. The first part of the exercises were more of a religious service than usual—more of a celebration of Christ’s birth. This idea suited also the minds of the Indians better than to have it mainly consist of sport. The Indian girls did nearly all the singing and playing, six of them playing each one piece on the organ. The year before three of them had done so, but this year it was still better. Then five of the older Indians made speeches, including two of the chiefs and two of the young men who had been in school. This was new for them on this day. More of the Indians also made private presents than ever before. Thus they took up the work, as the whites who previously had done it had been discharged, and it is better for them to do so.

The people at Jamestown for several years have had a celebration of their own, consisting often of a Christmas-tree, and they have borne the whole expense. I have never been present, but they have always been spoken of as enjoyable affairs, a good number of the surrounding whites feeling that it was a pleasant place for them to spend the evening.{100}

XV.

VARIETY.

“JACK-AT-ALL-TRADES and good at some” was the pleasant way in which Dr. Philip Schaff put it, when some of the students in the Theological Seminary at Hartford, Connecticut, had done up some furniture for him, to send to New Haven. I have often been reminded of this, as I have had, at times, to take up a variety of work. Missionaries among the Indians have to be the first part of the sentence and console themselves with the hope that the latter part may sometimes prove true.

On one tour among the Clallams, I find the following: When three miles from home, the first duty was to stop and attend the funeral of a white man. Forty-five miles on, the evening of the next day until late at night, was spent in assisting one of the government employees in holding court over four Indians, who had been drunk; a fifth had escaped to British Columbia and was safe from trial. This kind of business occasionally{101} comes in as an aid to the agent. I seldom have any thing to do with it on the reservation, as the agent can attend to it; but when off from the reservation, where neither of us can be more than once in six months or thereabouts it sometimes saves him much trouble and expense, and seems to do as much good as a sermon. It is of but little use to preach to drunken Indians, and a little law sometimes helps the gospel. The agent reciprocates by talking gospel to them on the Sabbath on his trips.

On reaching Jamestown, the afternoon was spent in introducing an Indian from British Columbia, who had taken me there in his canoe, to the Clallam Indians and the school; and in comforting two parents, Christian Indians, whose youngest child lay at the point of death. The next day she died, and, as no minister had ever been among these Indians at any previous funeral, they needed some instruction. So it was my duty to assist in digging the grave and making the coffin, comfort them, and attend the funeral in a snow-storm.

The Sabbath was spent in holding two services with them, one of them being mainly a service of song; and, as there was a part of the day unoccupied,{102} at the request of the whites near by I gave them a sermon. The next day I found that “Blue Monday” must be adjourned. Years ago the Indians purchased their land, but owing to a mistake of the surveyor, it was necessary that the deeds should be made out again. So, in order to get all the Indians together who were needed, with the proper officer, I walked fourteen miles, rode six in a canoe, and then, after half-past three o’clock, saw that nineteen deeds were properly signed, which required sixty-two signatures, besides the witnessing, acknowledging, and filing of them, which required seventy-six more signatures. The plat of their town—Jamestown—was also filed and recorded. When this was done, I assisted the Indians to obtain two marriage-licenses, after which we went to the church, where I addressed them on two different subjects, and then the two weddings took place, and by nine o’clock we were done.

The monotony of the next day was varied by a visit to the school; helping the chief to select a burying-ground (for their dead had been buried in various places); a walk of ten miles and a wedding of a white couple, who have been very kind to me in my work there, one of them being a member of the Jamestown church.{103}

On my way home, while waiting for the steamers to connect at Port Gamble, I took a trip of about fifty miles, to Port Madison and back, to help in finishing the Indian census of 1880 for General F. A. Walker and Major J. W. Powell; and then on my way home, by the kindness of the captain of the steamer, who waited half an hour for me, I was able to assist the chief in capturing and taking to the reservation the fifth Indian at Port Gamble who had been drunk, and had, by that time, returned from the British side.

The variety of another trip in 1878 is thus recorded: As to food, I have done my own cooking, eaten dry crackers only for meals, been boarded several days for nothing, and bought meals. As to sleeping, I have stayed in as good a bed as could be given me for nothing, and slept in my own blankets in an Indian canoe, because the houses of the whites were too far away and the fleas were too thick in the Indian houses. They were bad enough in the canoe, but the Indians would not allow me to go farther away, for fear that the panthers would catch me. As to work, I have preached, held prayer-meetings, done pastoral work, helped clean up the streets of{104} Jamestown, been carpenter and painter, dedicated a church, performing all the parts, been church organist, studied science, acted for the agent, and taken hold of law in a case where whiskey had been sold to an Indian, and also in making a will. As to traveling, I have been carried ninety miles in a canoe by Indians, free, paid an Indian four dollars for carrying me twenty miles, have been carried twenty more by a steamer at half-fare, and twenty more on another for nothing, have rode on horseback, walked fifty miles, and “paddled my own canoe” for forty-five more.

I have never had a vacation since I have been here, unless such things as these may be called vacation. They are recreation, work, and vacation, all at once. They are variety, and that is rest, the vacation a person needs, with the satisfaction that a person is doing something at the same time.{105}

XVI.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

THE Indian idea of the marriage bond is that it is not very strong. They have been accustomed to get married young, often at fourteen or sixteen years of age, to pay for their wives in money and articles to the value of several hundred dollars, and the men have had, oftentimes, two or three wives.

When they married young, in order that two young fools should not be married together, often a boy was married to an elderly woman, and a young girl to an elderly man, so that the older one could take care of the younger, with the expectation that when the younger one should grow older if they did not like each other they should be divorced.

Such ideas naturally did not suit the government, the agent, or the Bible. The agent has had about all the children of school age in school, and thus had control of them, so that they could not get married as young as formerly. In 1883 the{106} government sent word to prevent the purchase of any more wives, and this has been generally acquiesced in by the Skokomish Indians. Some of the Clallam Indians, however, are so far from the agent, and are so backward in civilization, that it has not been possible to enforce these two points among them as thoroughly as among the Twanas.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in his report for 1878, recommended the passage of a law compelling all Indians who were living together as man and wife to be married. The law has not been made, but the agent worked on the same principles long before 1878—indeed ever after he first took charge in 1871. He urged them to be married, making for a time special presents from government annuities to those who should consent, as a shawl or ladies’ hat, and some consented. Only two couples had been thus married when I went there. It seemed rather comical on the Fourth of July, 1874, when I had been on the reservation only about two weeks, to be asked to join in marriage seven couples, some of whom had children. One Sabbath in 1883 a couple stood up to be married, the bride having a baby in her arms, and she would probably have held it during the ceremony had not my wife whispered{107} to a sister of the bride to go and get it. During the ten years I have married twenty-six couples among the Twanas, and twenty-nine couples among the Clallams, and a number of other Clallams have been married by other persons. Some very comical incidents have occurred in connection with some of these ceremonies. In 1876 I was called upon to marry eleven couples at Jamestown. All went well with the first ten, the head chief being married first, so that the others might see how it was done, and then nine couples stood up and were married with the same set of words. But the wife of the other man was sick with the measles. She had taken cold and they had been driven in, but had come out again, so that she was as red as a beet. Still they were afraid that she would die, and as I was not to be there again for several months they were very anxious to be married so as to legalize the children. She was so near death that they had moved her from their good house to a mat-house, which was filled with smoke. The fire was thrown out, and soon it became less smoky. She was too sick to stand, and only barely able to sit up. This, however, she managed to do in her bed, which was on the ground. Her husband sat beside her and took{108} her hand, and I married them, measles and all. She afterward recovered.

At another time I married a couple who had homesteaded some land, and who had been married in Indian style long before. As they had never seen such a ceremony I took the man aside and explained it to him as well as I was able. After I had begun the ceremony proper, and had said the words: “You promise to take this woman to be your wife,” and was ready to say: “You promise to love and take care of her,” he broke out, saying, “Of course I do! You do not suppose that I have been living with her for the last fifteen years and am going to put her away now, do you? See, there is my boy, fourteen years old. Of course I do!” As it was no use to try to stop him, I did not try, but waited until he was through, when I said: “All right,” and went on with the ceremony, but laughed very hard in my sleeve all the time.

A girl in the boarding-school was to be married, and her schoolmates thought that it ought to be done in extra style. Thanks to the teacher and matron, the supper and their share of the duties passed off in an excellent manner. But five of the girls thought that they would act as bridesmaids,{109} and they were left to manage that part among themselves. Each one chose a young man who had previously been in school to act as her escort. Thinking that they would hardly know how to act with so much ceremony, I invited them to my house fifteen minutes before the marriage was to take place in church, so that I could instruct them. They came on time, but what was my surprise to see the bride and groom and the five girls march into my house, but not a single groomsman, and they thought that it was all right, even if their partners did not come. Those whom they had expected were off in the woods, or at home, or if near by, were far from being dressed for the occasion, while the bridesmaids had spent a long time in getting themselves ready, and were in full dress. What a time I had hunting up partners for them! I had to borrow clothes for those who were on the ground, others whom I wished felt that they had been slighted so long that they did not care to step into such a place then, and the ceremony was delayed some before it could all be arranged. But how I was surprised to see five bridesmaids march in without a single partner!

At another time, as a sub-chief, well dressed, came forward to be married, he began to pull off{110} his coat as if ready for a fight, although his intentions were most peaceable. I told him that it was just as well to let his coat remain on, and he obeyed.

“Married.—Clallam Bay is alive! One of the sensations of the season occurred at that place on the sixteenth of November, and is news, though not published till this late day. Five of the citizens having complied with the laws of the Territory in regard to licenses were married by Rev. M. Eells to their respective partners. Nearly all the inhabitants of the place assembled, without regard to race or color, some of whom had come from miles distant. First came a short address by Mr. Eells on the history of marriage, beginning with the days of Adam and Eve, and setting forth some of the reasons against polygamy and divorce, after which Mr. Charles Hock-a-too and Mrs. Tau-a-yi stood up. Mr. H. has been the only Mormon of the place, having had two whom he called wives, but being more progressive than the Mormons, he boldly resolved to choose only one of them, and cleave only to her so long as they both should live. When the marriage ceremony was over, and he{111} was asked if thus he promised to do, he replied in a neat little speech, fully as long as the marriage ceremony, very different from the consent of some persons whom the public presume to have said yes, simply because silence gives consent. It is impossible to reproduce the speech. It will live in the memories of those who heard it, however, as coming from an earnest heart and being all that could be desired. The bride did not blush or faint, but also made her speech, showing that she knew what was said to her. After this the four other couples stood up, Mr. Long John Smittain and Kwash-tun, alias E-ni-so-ut; Mr. Tom Jim-myak and Wal-lis-mo; Captain Jack Chats-oo-uk and Nancy Hwa-tsoo-ut; also Mr. Old Jack Klo-tasy, father of the Captain, and Mary Cheenith. In regard to the ages of the last two, from what we learn, the familiar lines would apply:—

While she probably is not eighty-five, yet she was old enough to obtain a license and leave her{112} mother. He was about seventy years old. These were all married with one set of words, when congratulations followed—regular hand-shaking, none of those present so far forgetting themselves as to indulge in the (im)propriety of kissing the brides. The ceremony having been concluded, a part of those present, the invited guests (but here there was a distinction as to race and color) sat down to the marriage-feast. It was none of your light, frosted, airy cake (in fact, there was not any cake in sight), but substantial solid bread and the like. [Here the line went down, and the meager accounts we could gather about the elegant and varied costumes worn by the charming brides, the number and appearance of the bridesmaids, etc., had better be supplied from the vivid imaginations of the readers.] All of the high contracting parties, we may say, however, are tax-payers of Clallam County and land-owners. Kloshe hahkwa (“good so”).

Not much of a direct war was waged on plural marriages. They were simply fenced in and allowed to die out. In 1874 there were only five Twana men who had more than one wife, and there were about as many more among the Clallams. Those who had one wife were never allowed to obtain another as long as they were living with{113} the first. When one of the wives died of those who had more than one, or was willingly put away, they were not allowed to take another in her place. On some reservations where plural marriages have been numerous, the plan has been adopted of having the man choose one of his wives as the one to whom he should be legally married; and then, in order to save the others and their children from suffering, they have been told to provide for them until the women should be married to some other man. Among these Indians it has now come to be practically the same. One is the real wife, and the others are so old that they are simply taken care of by their husbands, except when they take care of themselves, until they shall get married again; only they do not get married to any one else, being willing to be thus cared for.

They soon learned that a legal marriage meant more than an old-fashioned Indian one and that a divorce was difficult to obtain. The agent took the position that he had no legal right to grant a divorce even on the reservation, and that if the parties obtained one they must apply to the courts. This involved too much expense, and so not a divorce has been obtained by those legally{114} married. But it has taken a long, strong, firm hand to compel some of the parties to live together, and this made others of them somewhat slow to be legally married. One day I asked a man who had then recently obtained a wife, Indian fashion, if he wished to be married in white style. “I am a little afraid,” he said, “that we shall not get along well together. I think we will live together six months; and then, if we like each other well enough, we will have you perform the ceremony.” It was never done, for they soon separated.

The most severe contest the agent ever had with the Indians on the reservation was to prevent divorce. In 1876 one man, whose name was Billy Clams, had considerable trouble with his wife and wanted a divorce, but the agent would not allow it. He tried every plan he could think of to make them live peaceably together, and consulted with the chiefs and the relations of the parties; but they would still quarrel. At one time he put him in charge of his brother-in-law, a policeman, with handcuffs on; but with a stone he knocked them off and went to the house of his uncle, a quarter of a mile from the agency. To this place the agent went with two Indians and{115} told him to go with him. With an oath Billy Clams said he would not. The agent then struck him with a stick quite severely. Billy got a larger stick, which the agent wrenched from him. Then Billy grabbed the agent around the waist, and, with the help of his uncle, threw him down. The other Indians who went with the agent took them off. Then the agent locked the door and sent the friendly Indians to the agency for two white men, the carpenter and the blacksmith, for help. Twice Billy and his uncle tried to take the key away from the agent, but failed; three times Billy tried to get out of the window, but the agent stopped him. Then they made an excuse that a very old man must go out; and while the agent was letting him go, Billy ran across the room, struck the middle of the window with his head, and went through it; and the agent went so quickly out in the same way, that he lit on Billy’s neck with one foot, after which the window fell on him, and, as he was knocking that off, Billy got away and ran through the woods. Being swift of foot, he escaped; but there had been a fresh fall of snow, and the agent and two white men, with a number of Indians, followed him all day. They, however, could not take him. The agent at night offered a reward of thirty dollars if any of the Indians would bring{116} him in; but their sympathies were too much with him, and at night one sub-chief and his son, with a cousin of Billy Clams, helped him off, and he went to some relations of his at Port Madison, sixty or seventy miles away. The next day Billy’s uncle was put in irons in the jail, and not long after those who had furnished Billy with a canoe, blankets, and provisions also went into the jail, while the sub-chief was deposed. The Indians worked in every way possible to have them released, but the agent said that he would only do so on condition that Billy Clams should be brought in. They had said that they did not know where he was; but in a short time after the agent said this, he came in and delivered himself up and was confined in the jail for six months. But a number of the Indians, including the head chief and a sub-chief, encouraged by some white men near by, had been to a justice of the peace and made out several charges against the agent for various things done during all his residence among them, and had them sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington. The principal charges were for shooting at an Indian (or ordering an employee to do so), burning ten Indian houses, selling annuity goods, collecting large fines for small offences, and having the employees{117} work for him. The real cause of their sending these was the trouble with Billy Clams and his friends. The commissioner sent to General O. O. Howard, in charge of the military department of the Columbia, and requested him to investigate the charges. The commissioner said that on the face of the letter, it bore evidence of being untrue; but still he desired General Howard’s opinion. Accordingly Major W. H. Boyle was detailed for this purpose. He examined six Indians and three white men, as witnesses against the agent, and one white employee in his favor,—giving the agent an opportunity to defend himself,—and found that the charges amounted to so nearly nothing that he went no further.

After Billy Clams had served out his term of six months in jail, he secretly abandoned his wife and took another, and then they ran away to Port Madison. The agent quietly bided his time, found out the whereabouts of the offending party, and, with a little help from the military, had him arrested and conveyed to Fort Townsend, where he worked six months more, with a soldier and musket to watch him. This showed the Indians that they could not easily run away from the agent, or break the laws against divorce, and greatly strengthened his authority among them.{118}

XVII.

SICKNESS.

THE department of the physician has always been a discouraging one. The government, for twenty-five years, has furnished a physician free, and yet it is difficult to induce the Indians to rely on him. There are three reasons for this: (1) The natural superstition an Indian has about sickness. This has been quite fully discussed under the head of native religion. (2) The Indian doctor does not like to have his business interfered with by any one. It is a source of money and influence to him, and he often uses his influence, which is great among the Indians, to prevent the use of medical remedies. (3) If a medicine given by the physician does not cure in a few doses, or, at least, in two or three days, they think it is not strong, or it is good for nothing—so often when medicine is given, with directions how to use it, it is left untouched or thrown away. When using medicine they often employ an Indian doctor, and his practices often kill all the{119} good effects of medicine, so that sometimes the physicians have felt that, when Indian doctors were employed, it was almost useless for them to do any thing.

At the same time there have been some things which have aided our methods very materially. Under the head of native religion, two cases have been given, where it seemed to the Indians as if their mode was true. This has occasionally been the effect with older people. But with young children, too young to go to school, the opposite has been true. Infants have continually died. Their mortality has been very great, when they lived at home, where they could have all the Indian doctors they wanted with no one to interfere. The medicine-men have been especially unfortunate in losing their own children. One Indian doctor has buried twelve and has only three left. Another has buried four and has one left. And others have lost theirs in like proportion. On the other hand, in the school, where we could have more control over them, both as to observing the laws of health and the use of medicine, when they were sick there have been very few deaths. Only five children in ten years have died in school, or been taken fatally sick while{120} there, while the attendance has been from twenty-five to forty.

During November and December, 1881, we passed through a terrible sickness. It seemed to be a combination of scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, and chicken-pox, about which the physician knew almost nothing. It was a new hybrid disease, as we afterward learned. The cases were mostly in the school and in the white families, there being comparatively few among the outside Indians. There were sixty cases in five weeks, an average of two new ones every day. At one time every responsible person in the school was down with it. A number of the children, while all the physician’s family, himself included, had it, and one of them lay dead. Five persons died with it, but not one of them was a scholar. There were then twenty-four scholars, and all but three had it. Nineteen outside Indians had it, of whom three died. The rest, who were sick and died, belonged to the white families and the Indian apprentices and employees. The favor which was shown to the school in saving their lives was of great value to it.

And now the older Indians are gaining more and more confidence in the physician, slowly but{121} steadily, some within a year having said that they will never have an Indian doctor again. In the winter of 1883-84, four Indian children died, and not an Indian doctor was called. In one case the parents had just buried one, and another was fatally sick. The parents came to me and said: “If you can tell us what medicine will cure the child, we will go to Olympia and get it (thirty miles distant). We do not care for the expense, we do not care if it shall cost fifty dollars, if you will only tell us what will cure it.” The child died, but they had no Indian doctor, although its grandfather strongly urged the calling of one. After the death of these two children, the family went to live with an aunt of the mother’s, where they remained about five months. At that time a child of this aunt was sick, and an Indian doctor was called, whereupon the bereaved family left the house, because they did not wish to remain in a house where such practices were countenanced, even if those doing so were kind relations.{122}

XVIII.

FUNERALS.

THE oldest style of burial was to wrap the body in mats, place it in one canoe, cover it with another, elevate it in a tree or on a frame erected for the purpose, and leave it there, burying with it valuable things, as bows, arrows, canoes, haiqua shells (their money), stone implements, clothes, and the like. After the whites came to this region, the dead were placed in trunks, and cloth, dishes, money, and the like were added to the valuables which were buried with them.

But one such burial has taken place within ten years, and that was the daughter of an old man. The next step toward civilization was to bury all the dead in one place, instead of leaving them scattered anywhere they might chance to die, make a long box instead of using a trunk and canoe, and elevate it on a frame made for the purpose only a few feet high, or, perhaps, simply lay it on the ground, erecting a small house over{123} it. This was frequently done during the first few years after I was here.

On the opening of a new burying-ground, in August, 1878, the head chief of the Twanas said to me: “To-day we become white people. At this burying-ground all will be buried in the ground, and no cloth or other articles will be left around, at least, above ground.” At that place this promise has been faithfully kept, as far as I know, though since that time, at other places, they have left some cloth above ground. They often yet fill the coffin, now generally made like those of white people, with much cloth and some other things.{124} A grave-stone, which cost thirty dollars, marks the last resting-place of one man, put there by his wife.

These are grave-enclosures at the burying-ground at the Skokomish Reservation. In Figures 1 and 3 they are covered altogether with cloth, and that which is not colored is white. Figure 3 is chiefly covered with a red blanket; a in Figure 1 is a glass window, through which a red shawl covers the coffin, which is placed a foot or so above the ground. In all grave-enclosures which I have seen where glass windows are placed the coffin is above ground. Sometimes more than one is placed in an enclosure. Figure 2 is almost entirely after the American fashion, and was made last year.—(December, 1877.)

Most of them had a superstitious fear of going near a dead body, for they were afraid that the evil spirit, which killed the deceased was still around and would kill others who might be near. This, together with the fact that they cared but little{125} for Christianity, made them have no desire to have Christian services at their funerals at first. Before I came, only one such service had been held. And, for the first few years after I came, notwithstanding the efforts of both agent and missionary, there were but few such services. Sometimes they would hurry off a deceased person to the grave, and I would not hear of the death until after the burial, much less have a chance to ask whether they wished for such services.

But steady effort, together with the example of the surrounding whites, who, previous to my arrival, had had no minister to hold such services, in time produced a change, so that they wished for them at the funerals of all persons whom they considered of much importance. At the funeral of one poor vagabond, who had almost no friends, I had my own way, and many thought it very strange that I should hold such a service. It was well enough, they said, with persons of consequence, but with such a person they thought it useless.

Not long after they opened their new burying-ground, already spoken of, I was absent from home when one person died. When I returned, a{126} sub-chief said to me: “We felt badly when we buried a person and no white man was present to say a Christian word. We wish that when you are away, you would make arrangements with some of the whites at the agency to attend our funerals, for we want such services.” Since then, I have almost constantly held them, except when they preferred to have the Indian Catholic priest to attend them.

But now a new error arose at the other extreme. This was that such services helped the soul of the deceased to reach heaven. It came from Catholic teaching. I have had to combat it constantly, but some believe it still.

Most of the Clallams now put their dead in the ground. Those who are Catholics have a funeral service by their own priest. In February, 1881, I was at Jamestown, when a child of Cook House Billy died. I went through with the services—the first Christian ones that had ever been held there. They soon asked how they should do if I were absent, and I instructed them as best I could. Since then the Christian part of the community have obtained a minister of any Protestant denomination, if there was one to be obtained, to hold services at their funerals.{127}

THE DEATH OF SKAGIT BILL.

Skagit Bill was in early days an Indian Catholic priest, but afterward went back to his gambling, drinking, and tamahnous. He died in August, 1875, of consumption. When he was sick, he came to the agency, where he remained for five weeks for Christian instruction. He seemed to think the old Indian religion of no value, and wished for something better. Sometimes I thought that he leaned on his Catholic baptism for salvation, and sometimes I thought not. His dying request was for a Christian funeral and burial, with nothing but a plain fence around his grave. The following, from the pen of Mrs. J. M. Walker, and taken from the Pacific Christian Advocate, gives the opinions of one other than myself:—

“Yesterday came to us fraught with solemn interest. Our flag hung at half-mast, reminding us that death had been in our midst and chosen another victim. This time he has not selected one rich in the treasures of this world, of high birth or noble blood, or boasting much culture or refinement. The lowly mien and dusky complexion of the deceased might not have attracted much attention from me or you, kind reader. But{128} such are they whom our blessed Lord delights to honor; and, while we turn wearily from one to another, looking vainly for suitable soil in which to plant the seeds of true righteousness and true holiness, the Holy Spirit descends on some lonely, barren spot, and lo! before our astonished gaze springs into luxuriant growth a plant of rare holiness, meet even to be transplanted into the garden of paradise.

“I think it is not a common thing for a dying Indian to request a strictly Christian burial;[2] brought up as they are in the midst of superstition, with no religion but misty traditions and mysterious necromancy, the very fabulousness of which seems strangely adapted to their nomadic existence—surely no influence less potent than that of God’s Holy Spirit could induce one of them, while surrounded by friends who cling tenaciously to their heathenism and bitterly resent any innovations of Christian faith, to renounce the whole system with its weird ceremonies, and demand for himself the simple burial service used ordinarily by Christians.

“At eleven o’clock A.M. the coffin was brought into the church, and the funeral discourse{129} preached; and we all felt that the occasion was one of deep solemnity. Probably every one present had seen dear friends lying, as this man now lay, in the icy embrace of death, and the keen pain in our own hearts, at the remembrance of our unhealed wounds, made us sympathize deeply with the afflicted mourners in their present bereavement. What is so potent to bind human hearts together in purest sympathy and kindest charity as common woe!

“A beautiful wreath lay upon the coffin, formed and given, I suspect, by the agent’s wife, a lady possessing rare nobility of mind and heart, and eminently fitted for the position she occupies. This delicate token I deemed emblematic; for as each bud, blossom, and sprig fitted its respective place, giving beauty and symmetry to the whole, so all of God’s creatures fit their respective places, and the absence of one would leave a void: and so also in heaven’s economy the diadem of the Prince of Light is set with redeemed souls of nationalities varied and diverse, each so essential to its perfection, that the highest ransom of which even Omniscience could conceive has been paid for it.

“Quite a number of Indians were present, and{130} as the deceased had been with them and they had seen him die happy in his faith in Christ and his atonement, a rare opportunity offered for bringing the truth home to their hearts.

“The Indians here are, for the most part, shrewd and intelligent, capable of reasoning on any subject, where their judgment is not darkened by superstition; but, alas! most of them are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity.... The body was taken for interment to a grave-yard some three miles from here. Our esteemed pastor, Rev. M. Eells, preached the funeral discourse, and also officiated at the grave, aided on each occasion by the usual interpreter [Mr. John F. Palmer], a man of considerable intellectual culture, of gentlemanly bearing, and pleasant address. This man, though greatly superior to any of his race whom I have met, is yet humble and strives to do his fellows good in a quiet, unostentatious manner, worthy the true disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus, which can not fail of great results, whether he live to enjoy them or not.

“What is so refining in its influences as true religion? It expands the mind, ennobles the thought, corrects the taste, refines the manners by the application of the golden rule, and works{131} marvelous transformations in character. May a glorious revival of this pure religion sweep over our land, carrying away the bulwarks of Satan and leaving in their stead the ‘peaceable fruits of righteousness,’ until every creature shall exclaim: ‘Behold, what hath God wrought! Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it!’

XIX.

THE CENSUS OF 1880.

IN the fall of 1880 the government sent orders to the agent to take the census of all the Indians under him for the United States decennial census. To do so among the Clallams was the most difficult task, as they were scattered for a hundred and fifty miles, and the season of the year made it disagreeable, with a probability of its being dangerous on the waters of the lower sound in a canoe. I was then almost ready to start on a tour amongst a part of them and the agent offered to pay my expenses if I would combine this with my missionary work. He said that it was almost impossible for him to go; that none of the employees were acquainted either with the country or the large share of the Indians; that he should have to pay the expenses of some one; and that it would be a favor if I could do it. I consented, for it was a favor to me to have my expenses paid, while I should have an opportunity to visit all of the Indians; but it was December before I was{133} fairly able to begin the work and it required four weeks.

In early life I had read a story about taking the census among some of the ignorant people of the Southern States and the superstitious fear that they had of it, and I thought that it would not be strange if the Indians should have the same fear. My previous acquaintance with them and especially the intimacy I had had with a few from nearly every settlement who had been brought to the reservation for drinking and had been with us some time and whose confidence I seemed to have gained, I found to be of great advantage in the work. Had it not been for these, I would have found it a very difficult task.

The questions to be asked were many—forty-eight in number, including their Indian as well as “Boston” names, the meaning of these, the age, and occupation; whether or not a full blood of the tribe; how long since they had habitually worn citizen’s dress; whether they had been vaccinated or not; whether or not they could read and write; the number of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, dogs, and fire-arms owned; the amount of land owned or occupied; the number of years they had been self-supporting, and the per cent. of support{134} obtained from civilized industries and in other ways.

I began the work at Port Gamble one evening, and after much talk secured nineteen names, but the next forenoon I only obtained six. The men were at work in the mill, and the women, afraid, were not to be found. I then hired an interpreter, a boy who had been in school, and after talking a while had no more difficulty there. The best argument I could use why it was required was that some people said they were nothing but worthless Indians, and that it was useless to try to civilize them; that some of us thought differently and wished for facts to prove it, and when found, that they would be published to the world. And this I did in the Port Townsend Argus and American Antiquarian. One man refused to give me any information because that, years before, a census had been taken and soon after there had been much sickness, and he was afraid that if his name were written down he would die. But I easily obtained the information most needed from others. I was almost through, and was at Seabeck, the last town before reaching home, when I found the only one who was at all saucy. He gave me false names and false information generally,{135} as I soon learned from another Indian present and it was afterward corrected. The ages of the older ones were all unknown, but the treaty with the tribe was made twenty-five years previous, and every man, woman, and child was present who possibly could be, and I could generally find out about how large they were then. When I asked the age of one man he said two years, but he said he had two hundred guns. He was about forty-three years old and had only one gun. To obtain the information about vaccination was the most difficult, as the instructions were that they should show me the scars on the arm if they had been vaccinated, and many of them were ashamed to do this. As far as I knew, none of them made a false statement. When about half-way through I met Mr. H. W. Henshaw, who had been sent from Washington to give general information about the work, and he absolved them from the requirement of showing the scar. He said that all that was needed was to satisfy myself on the point. On this coast, a dime is called a bit, although in reality a bit is half a quarter, and the Indians so understand it. In finding how nearly a pure Clallam one man was, I was informed that he was partly Clallam and partly of another{136} tribe. But when I tried to find out how much of the other tribe I was told: “Not much; a bit, I guess.”

I was instructed to take the names of not only those who were at home, but of a number who were across the straits on the British side, whose residence might properly be said to be on this side. In asking about one man I was told that he had moved away a long time ago, very long, two thousand years, probably, and so was not a member of the tribe.

It struck me that some pictures of myself, with descriptions of them would have adorned Harper’s Monthly as well as any of Porte Crayon’s sketches. With an old Indian man and his wife I sat on the beach in Port Discovery Bay all day waiting for the wind to die down, because it was unsafe to proceed in a canoe with the snow coming down constantly on one of the coldest days of the year, with a mat up on one side to keep a little of the wind off, and a small fire on the other side; and, at last, we had to give up and return to Port Discovery, as the wind would not die. I waked up one morning on the steamer Dispatch to have a drop of water come directly into my eye, for there was a hard rain, and the steamer overhead (not{137} underneath) was leaky. I got up to find my shirt so wet that I dared not put it on, while the water in the state-room above me was half an inch deep and was shoveled out with a dust-pan. I walked from the west to the east end of Clallam Bay, only two miles, but while trying to find a log across the Clallam River I wandered about a long time in the woods and brush, wet with a heavy rain, and when I did find it it reached just not across the river, but within a few feet of the bank, and I stood deliberating whether it was safe or not to make the jump; trying to jump and not quite daring to run the risk of falling into the river, sticking my toes and fingers into the bank, and the like, but at last made the crossing safely. It took half a day to travel those two miles. I ate a Sunday dinner at Elkwa, between church-services, of some crumbs of sweet cake out of a fifty-pound flour-sack, so fine that I had to squeeze them up in my hands in order to get them into my mouth. An apple and a little jelly finished the repast—the last food I had. At Port Angeles I rode along the beach on horseback at high tide, and at one time in trying to ford a slough I found we were swimming in the water. I partly dried out at an Indian house near by, taking the{138} census at the same time. Again, the steamer Dispatch rolled in a gale, while the water came over the gunwales, the food and plates slid off the tables, the milk spilt into gum boots, the wash-dish of water upset into a bed, and ten minutes after I left her at Dunginess the wind blew her ashore, dragging her anchors. But there were also some special providences on the trip. “He who will notice providences will have providences to notice,” some one has said, and I was reminded of this several times. I came in a canoe from Clallam Bay to Elkwa, the most dangerous part of the route, with the water so smooth that a small skiff would have safely rode the whole distance, thirty-five miles, to have a heavy storm come the next day, and a heavy gale, when I again went on the water, but then a steamer was ready to carry me. The last week, on coming from Jamestown home, in a canoe, I had pleasant weather and a fair north wind to blow me home the whole time, only to have it begin to rain an hour after I reached home, the commencement of a storm which lasted a week. Strange that a week’s north wind should bring a week’s rain. I have never noticed the fact at any other time.

But the most noticeable providence of all was{139} as follows: On my way down, the good, kind people of Seabeck, where I occasionally preached, made me a present of forty dollars, and it was very acceptable, for my finances were low. At Port Gamble I spent it all and more, too, for our winter supplies, as I did not wish to carry the money all around with me, and, also, so that I might get at Port Townsend those things which I could not find at Port Gamble. I often did so, and ordered them to be kept there until my return. About three days later I heard that the store at Port Gamble was burned with about every thing in it, the loss being estimated at seventy-five thousand dollars. The thought came into my mind, Why was that money given to me to be lost so quickly? On my return I went to Port Gamble to see about the things and to my great surprise I found that only about two wheelbarrow loads of goods had been saved, and that mine were among them. They had been packed and placed at the back door. The fire began in the front part, so they broke open the back door, and took the first things of which they could lay hold, and they were mine, and but little else was saved.

When I arrived at Seabeck the kind ladies of the place presented my wife with a box containing{140} over thirty dollars’ worth of things as a Christmas present. Among these was a cloak. During my absence she had been trying to make herself one, supposing that she had cloth enough, but when she began to cut it out to her dismay she found that with all the twisting, turning, and piecing that she could do, there was not cloth enough, so she had given it up and made a cloak for our little boy out of it. She naturally felt badly, as she did not know how she should then get one. “All these things are against me,” said Jacob, but he found that they were all for him. Others besides Jacob have found the same to be true.

In the Clallam tribe there were then 158 men, 172 women, 86 boys, and 69 girls; a total of 485 persons. Six were on or near the reservation, 10 near Seabeck, 96 at Port Gamble, 6 at Port Ludlow, 22 at Port Discovery, 12 at Port Townsend, 18 at Sequim, 86 at Jamestown, 36 at or near Dunginess. (Those at Sequim and near Dunginess were all within six miles of Jamestown.) Fifty-seven at Port Angeles (but a large share of them were across the straits on the British side), 67 at Elkwa, 24 at Pyscht, and 49 at or near Clallam{141} Bay. There were 290 full-blooded Clallams among them, and the rest were intermingled with 18 other tribes. Fifteen were part white. During the year previous to October 1, 1880, there had been 11 births and 9 deaths. Forty-one had been in school during the previous year, 49 could read and 42 write; 135 could talk English so as to be understood, of whom 69 were adults; 65 had no Indian name; 33 out of 123 couples had been legally married.

They owned 10 horses, 31 cattle, 5 sheep, 97 swine, 584 domestic fowls, and 137 guns and pistols, most of them being shot-guns. Thirty-four were laborers in saw-mills; 22 were farmers. There were 80 fishermen, 23 laborers, 17 sealers, 15 canoe-men, 6 canoe-makers, 6 hunters, 3 policemen, 11 medicine-men, 4 medicine-women, 1 carpenter, 2 wood-choppers, 1 blacksmith, and 40 of the women were mat and basket makers. Twenty-eight persons owned 576 acres of land with a patented title, four more owned 475 acres by homestead, and twenty-two persons, representing 104 persons in their families, cultivated 46 acres.

During the year they raised 2,036 bushels of potatoes, 14 tons of hay, 26 bushels of oats, 258 bushels of turnips, 148 bushels of wheat, 20{142} bushels of apples, 5 of plums, and 4 of small fruit. They had 113 frame-houses, valued by estimate at $5,650, four log-houses, worth $100, twenty-nine out-houses, as barns, chicken-houses, and canoe-houses, two jails, and two churches. They cut 250 cords of wood; received $1,994 for sealing, $646 for salmon, and $1,000 for work in the Port Discovery mill. I was not able to learn what they had earned at the Seabeck and Port Gamble saw-mills. Two hundred and eleven of them were out of the smoke when at home. I estimated that on an average they obtained seventy-two per cent. of their living from civilized food, the extremes being fifty and one hundred per cent.

Twana Indians.—This census was taken by government employees mainly, and some of the estimates differed considerably from what I should have made. Probably hardly two persons could be found who would estimate alike on some points. They numbered 245 persons, of whom there were 70 men, 84 women, 41 boys, and 47 girls. The residence of 49 was in the region of Seabeck, and of the rest on the Skokomish Reservation. There were only 20 full-blooded Twanas, the rest being intermingled with 15 other tribes; 24 were partly white. During the year there were 8 births{143} and 3 deaths. Twenty-nine had been in school during the previous year; 35 could read, and 30 could write; 68 could talk English; 37 had no Indian name. Out of 67 couples 23 had been legally married. They owned 80 horses, 88 cattle, 44 domestic fowls, and 36 guns. There were 42 farmers, 4 carpenters, 2 blacksmiths, 4 laborers, 7 hunters, 20 fishermen, 21 lumbermen and loggers, 1 interpreter, 1 policeman, 6 medicine-men, 7 washer-women, 6 mat and basket makers, and 1 assistant matron. Forty-seven of them, representing all except about 40 of the tribe, held 2,599 acres of unpatented land, all but 40 of which was on the reservation. They raised 80 tons of hay and 450 bushels of potatoes during the year. They owned 60 frame-houses valued at $3,000. All but 25 were off of the ground and out of the smoke. It was estimated that on an average they obtained 78 per cent. of their subsistence from civilized food, the extremes being 25 and 100 per cent., but these estimates were made by two different persons who differed widely in their calculations.{144}

XX.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WHITES.

SOME of this has been good and some very bad. Wherever there is whiskey a bad influence goes forth, and there is whiskey not far from nearly all the Indian settlements. Still it must be acknowledged that the influence of all classes of whites has been in favor of industry, Christian services at funerals, and the like, and against tamahnous and potlatches. Around Skokomish—with a few exceptions of those whose influence has been very good—there are not many who keep the Sabbath and do not swear, drink whiskey, and gamble; but this influence has been partially counteracted by the employees on the reservation. It has not been possible to secure Christian men who could fill the places, but moral men have at least generally been obtained. It has been one of the happy items of this missionary work, that a good share of those who have come to the reservation as government employees, who have not at the time of their{145} coming been Christians, have joined the church on profession of their faith before they have left. The Christian atmosphere at the agency has been very different from that of a large share of the outside world. The church is within a few hundred yards of the houses of all the employees, and thus it is very convenient to attend church, prayer-meetings, and Sabbath-school. Thus those persons who were not Christians when they came, found themselves in a different place from what they had ever been. There are many persons who often think of the subject of religion; wish at heart that they were Christians, and intend at some time to become such, but the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the people with whom they associate, choke the good thoughts. But let such people be placed in a Christian community, where these influences are small, and breathe a Christian atmosphere, and the good seed comes up. So it has been among the happy incidents of these ten years to receive into the church some of these individuals.

Two brothers, neither of whom were Christians, but whose mother was one, were talking together on the subject of religion, at Seattle, when one of them said that he believed it to be the best way.{146} Not long after that the other brother came to the reservation, where he became a Christian. He then wrote to his brother, saying, “I have now found by experience that it is the best way.”

Another man and his wife had for years been skeptical, but were like “the troubled sea which can not rest,” and were sincere inquirers after truth. In the course of time, after thorough investigation, they became satisfied of the truth of the Bible, as most people do who sincerely seek for light, and became Christians. A year afterward the gentleman said: “This has been by far the happiest year of my life;” and many times in prayer-meetings and conversation did they speak in pity of their old companions who were still in darkness and had not the means of obtaining the light which they had found.

Several of the children of the employees also came into the church; one of them, eleven years old, being the youngest person whom I ever received into church membership. Such events as these had a silent but strong influence upon the Indians, as strong I think as if these persons had been Christians before they came to the reservation. Thirteen white persons in all united with the Skokomish church, on profession of faith, and twenty-three by letter.{147}

At Jamestown it was different. There was only a school-teacher as a government employee, and he was not sent there until 1878. There are only a few church privileges or Christians in the county, but fortunately a good share of the Christians have lived near to the Indian village, the Indians have worked largely for them, and I have sometimes thought that their influence has had as much to do in elevating the Jamestown people as that of the missionary and agent.

“Hungry for preaching” was the way I felt about one old lady in 1880, who was seventy-six years old. With her son she walked two and a half miles to Jamestown to church to the Indian service in the morning, then a mile further to a school-house where I preached to the whites in the afternoon, and then home again—seven miles in all; and she has done it several times since, although now nearly eighty. She often walks to the Indian services when there is no white person to take charge of it.

On one communion Sabbath a lady too weak from ill-health to walk the three quarters of a mile between her house and the Indian church was taken by her husband on a wheelbarrow a good share of the way. In 1883 an old gentleman{148} seventy-three years of age stood up with four Indians to unite with the church—the oldest person I ever saw join a church on profession of faith. As we went home he said: “This is what I ought to have done forty years ago.” Such influences as these have done much to encourage these Indians.{149}

XXI.

THE CHURCH AT SKOKOMISH.

THE church was organized June 23, 1874, the day after I arrived, with eleven members, only one of whom was an Indian, John F. Palmer, who was government interpreter. I did not come with the expectation of remaining, but only for a visit. I had just come from Boise City, Idaho, and more than half-expected to go to Mexico, but that and some other plans failed, when the agent said that he thought I might do as much good here as anywhere, and the sentiment was confirmed by others. Rev. C. Eells had been here nearly two years, had been with the church through all its preliminary plans, and it was proper that he should be its pastor, and he was so chosen at the first church meeting after the organization. He almost immediately left for a two months’ tour in Eastern Washington, and wished me to fill his place while I was visiting. The next summer he spent in the same way, only wintering with us. His heart was mainly set on work in that region, where he had spent{150} a good share of his previous life. He felt too old, at the age of sixty-four, to learn a new Indian language, and so from the first the work fell into my hands, but he remained as pastor. When it was decided that I should remain, the American Missionary Association gave me a commission as its missionary, and I served as assistant pastor for nearly two years. In the spring of 1876 the pastor left for several months’ work in the region of Fort Colville, hardly expecting to make this his residence any longer; hence he resigned, and in April, 1876, I was chosen as his successor.

During most of this time the congregations continued good, though once in a while the Indians would get very angry at some actions about the agency, and almost all would stay away from church, but the average attendance until the spring of 1876 was ninety. At that time the disaffection resulting from the trouble with Billy Clams, as spoken of under the subject of Marriage and Divorce, caused a considerable falling off, so that the average attendance for the next two years was only seventy. Although the people got over that disaffection in a measure, yet one thing or another came up, so that while in 1879 and 1880 the average attendance was better, the congregation never wholly returned until the fall{151} of 1883. A Catholic service sprang up in 1881, which took away a number, and which will hereafter be more fully described among the Dark Days.

From the first there were a few additions to the church, but more of them during the first few years were from among the whites, several of them being children of the employees, than from among the Indians. When the Indians began to join, all the accessions, with one exception, were from among the school-children, and others connected with the work at the agency until 1883. Gambling, horse-racing, betting, and tamahnous had too strong a hold on them for them to easily give up these practices.

“Our hearts were gladdened last Sabbath by receiving into our church three of the Indian school-boys, each of them supposed to be about thirteen years old. We had kept them on virtual probation for nearly a year, until I began to feel that to do so any longer would be an injury both to themselves and others. Their conduct, especially toward their school-teacher, although not perfect, has been so uniformly Christian that those who were best acquainted with them felt{152} the best satisfied in regard to their change of heart. Said a member of our church of about fifty years’ Christian experience: ‘I wish that some of the white children whom we have received into the church had given half as good evidence of being Christians as these boys give.’ On religious subjects they have been most free in communicating both to their teacher and myself by letter. I have thought that you might be interested in extracts from some of them, and hence send you the following.

“I am going to write to you this day. Please help me to get my father to become a Christian” (his father is an Indian doctor) “and I think I will get Andrew and Henry” (the other Christian boys) “to say a word for my father. I want you to read it to my father.”

“August 3, 1877.

“My Dear Beloved Father,—Your son is a Christian. I am going off another road. I am going a road where it leadeth to heaven, and you are going to a big road where it leadeth to hell. But now please return back from hell. I was long time thinking what I shall do, then my{153} father would be saved from hell. I prayed to God. I asked God to help my father to become a Christian.”

“You have not read the Bible, for you can not read, but you have heard the minister read it to you. You seem not to pay good attention, but you know how Jesus was crucified; how he was put on the cross; how he was mocked and whipped, and they put a crown of thorns, and he was put to death.

“Oh, how I love all the Indians! I wish they should all become Christians. If you please, tell them about Jesus’ coming. It makes me feel bad because the Indians are not ready.”

“The first time I became a Christian, I found it a very hard thing to do, but I kept asking Jesus to help me, and so he did, for I grew stronger and stronger. So, my friends, if you will just accept Jesus as your King, he will help you to the end of your journey. You must trust wholly in Jesus’ strength, and yield your will, your time, your talents, your reputation, your strength, your{154} property, your all, to be henceforth and forever subject to his divine control—your hearts to love him; your tongues to speak for him; your hands and feet to work for him, and your lives to serve him when and where and as his Spirit may direct. Don’t be proud, but be very good Christians; be brave and do what is right.

“Your young friend,

“—— ——”

It is but just to say now that the first two of these have been suspended from the church for misconduct, and still stand so on our record. The other one has done a good work, and has been one of the leaders of religion with the older people, sometimes holding one and two meetings a week with them and teaching the Bible class of fifty on the Sabbath.

The Twanas and the Clallams were formerly at war with each other, and even now the old hostile feeling, dwindled down to jealousy, will show itself at times. A like unpleasant feeling has often been shown between the whites and Indians, yet, on the first Sabbath in April, 1880, three persons united with the church and received baptism, who belonged one to each of these three classes. Another noticeable fact was the reason which{155} induced them to become Christians. In reply to my question on this point, each one, unknown to the other, said that it was because they had noticed that Christians were so much happier than other people. Two of them had tried the wrong road with all their heart, and had found to their sorrow that “the way of transgressors is hard.”

The large diminution in 1876-77 was caused by the removal of employees. The same cause operated in 1881-82, for then the Indians were believed to be so far advanced in civilization that the government thought it wise to discharge all of the employees except the physician and those at work in the school. During that year the church also granted letters to seven of its members who lived at Jamestown, to assist in organizing a church there. Thus when the reasons for the reduced membership of that year were considered there was no particular cause for discouragement, but rather for encouragement. One white man and one Indian have been ex-communicated.

The next year the agent moved away, and while he still retained his membership in the church, and aided it financially almost as much as when he resided here, still his absence has been felt, as from the beginning he had been its clerk and treasurer, for a part of the time its deacon, and his councils had always been of great value.

The absentees grew in number mainly because white employees moved away, and did not always unite with another church.{157}

On July 4, 1880, the first Indian infant was baptized. Some cases of discipline have been necessary, four being now suspended. Most cases of discipline have resulted favorably.{158}

XXII.

BIG BILL.

AMONG those who about thirty years previous had received Catholic instruction and baptism was Big Bill. He was one of the better Indians. When in 1875 I went to their logging-camps to hold meetings, as related under the head of Prayer-meetings, he seemed to be a leading one in favor of Christianity. When I offered to teach them how to pray, sentence by sentence, the other Indians selected him, as one of the most suitable, in their opinion, thus to pray. I never knew him to do any thing which was especially objectionable, even in a Christian, except that he clung to his tamahnous, and at times he seemed to be even trying to throw that off. Quite often he would have nothing to do with an Indian doctor when he was sick, although he was related to some of them—then again he would call on them for their assistance. In time consumption took hold of him, together with some other disease, and he wasted away. He wanted to join the church and be baptized.{159} One reason given was that he had heard of another Indian far away who had been sick somewhat as he was, who was baptized and recovered. Of course this reason was good for nothing, and he was told so, yet because of his previous life and his Christian profession this point was overlooked as one of the things for which we should have to make allowance, and he was received into the church May 9, 1880. I had made up my mind not to ask him to unite with the church, notwithstanding his apparent fitness in some respects, because of doubts which I had on other points, but when he made the request it seemed to me as if a new aspect were put on the affair, and I was hardly ready to refuse.

He came to church as long as he was able, though he lived two miles away, and always seemed glad to see me. But his sickness was long and wore on his mind. His nervous system was affected. Before he died he saw some strange visions when he was not asleep. His visions combined some Protestant teaching, some of the Catholic, and some of their old native superstitions, and had reference especially to heaven. He sent for me to tell me about them, but I was not at home. When I returned three or four{160} days afterward I went to see him. I found that Billy Clams, the leader of the Catholic set, was there, and I suspected that his weak mind was turning to that religion of which he had been taught in his younger days. It was so. I often went to see him, and he always received me well, yet he kept up his intimacy with Billy Clams. He told me much of his visions, and seemed hurt that I did not believe them to be as valid as the Bible. Amongst other things in his visions he saw an old friend of his who had died many years previous, and this friend taught him four songs. They were mainly about heaven, and there was not much objection to them, except that they said that Sandyalla, the name of this friend, told him some things. This was a species of spiritualism perpetuated in song. He taught these songs to his friends. When he could no longer come to church he instituted church services at his house, twice on each Sabbath and on Thursday evening, to correspond with ours. Hence I could not attend them, and his brothers, who leaned toward the Catholic religion, and Billy Clams had every thing their own way. When I went to see him he was glad to have me sing and hold services in my way. The whole affair became mixed. He died{161} June, 1881, and his relations asked me to attend the funeral. I did so. They also prepared a long service of his own and Catholic song and prayers, of lighted candles and ceremonies which they went through with after I was done. (It was the first and last funeral in which they and I had a partnership.)

He had two brothers and a brother-in-law, the head chief, who inclined to the Catholic religion. They had always given as an excuse for not coming to church that as Big Bill could not come they went to his house for his benefit and held services. But after his death their services did not cease. They kept them up as an opposition, partly professing that they were Catholics, and partly saying that their brother’s last words and songs were very precious to them, and they must get together, talk about what he had said and sing his songs. In course of time this proved a source of great trouble—one of the most severe trials which we had. More will be told of this under the head of Dark Days.

About the only good thing, as far as I knew, in connection with these visions, was that they induced him to give up his tamahnous, or Indian doctors, and he advised his relations to do the{162} same. He said that in his visions he had learned that God did not wish such things.

After his death his brother told me that Big Bill had foretold events which actually took place, as the sickness and death of several persons, and so they believed his visions to have come from God. It may have been so. I could not prove the contrary, but it was very hard for me to believe it. Big Bill never told me those prophecies, nor did his brother tell me of them until after each event occurred. Singly after each death or sickness took place I was informed that he had foretold it.{163}

XXIII.

DARK DAYS.

FEBRUARY, 1883, covered about the darkest period I have seen during the ten years. It was due to several causes.

(1) The Half-Catholic Movement.—Ever since I have been here some of the Indians leaned toward the Catholic Church, when they leaned toward any white man’s church, because of their instruction thirty years ago. In 1875 some of them spoke to me quite earnestly about inviting Father Chirouse, a prominent Catholic missionary, to come here and help me, a partnership about which I cared nothing. The matter slumbered, only slightly showing itself, until the time of the sickness and death of Big Bill. For two or three years previous to this Billy Clams professed to have reformed and become a Christian, but it was Catholic Christianity he had embraced, and he often held some kind of service at his house, occasionally coming to our church; but very few, if any, were attracted to it. After Big Bill’s death the{164} affair took definite shape, there being a combination of Big Bill’s songs and prayers and those of Billy Clams. The head chief was brother-in-law to Big Bill, and threw his influence in favor of the opposition church, and a considerable number were attracted to it. Religious affairs thus became divided and a number lost interest in the subject and went nowhere to church.

(2) John Slocum.—Affairs went on this way from June, 1881, until November, 1882; their efforts apparently losing interest for want of life. At that time John Slocum, an Indian who had many years before lived on the reservation, but who had for six or seven years lived twelve or fourteen miles away, apparently died, or else pretended to die, I can not determine which, though there is considerable evidence to me and other whites that the latter was true. The Indians believed that he really died. He remained in that state about six hours, when he returned to life, and said that he had been to heaven and seen wonderful visions of God and the future world. He said that he could not get into heaven, because that God had work for him to do here, and had sent him back to preach to the Indians. According to his order a church was built for him, and he held{165} services which attracted Indians from all around. At first his teaching agreed partly with what he had learned from me, partly with the Catholic religion, and partly with neither, but he was soon captured by the Catholics, baptized, and made a priest. There was much intercourse between him and Billy Clams and friends. Their waning church was greatly revived and ours decreased.

(3) Mowitch Man.—Mainly through the influence of John Slocum, another Indian on the reservation, Mowitch Man, who had two wives, but had some influence, was roused to adopt some religion. His consisted partly in following John Slocum, but largely in his own dreams. For a time he affiliated somewhat with Billy Clams and his set, but not always, being rather too dreamy for them, and at last there came a complete separation and we had a third church.

(4) White Members.—Owing to orders from the government, the agent and all of the white employees, except the school-teacher, the physician, and an industrial teacher, were removed. The school-teacher and wife were excellent people, and willing to do all that they could, but he had taken charge about the first of February and every thing was new to him. The government had promised{166} an industrial teacher to aid him, but the one procured had been drowned while coming on the steamer Gem, that had been burned, and an old gentleman had to be taken in his place for a time, who was good and willing, but unable to do what was required. This threw additional work on the school-teacher, which almost crushed him, and I dared not call on him for much help, but rather had to assist him. He and his wife were the only white resident members the church had except the pastor and his wife.

(5) The Government Physician.—Unfortunately the physician proved to be the wrong man in the wrong place, but was retained for a time because it was impossible to obtain any one else who was better. When the agent left the previous fall, by orders from Washington, he was in charge of the reservation until February. His moral and religious influence in many points was at zero. The less said about him the better, but we had to contend against his influence.

(6) Indian Church Members.—Previous to this time nineteen Indians had been received into the church on the reservation. Of these four had died, two had been suspended, and another ought to have been, but for good reasons was suffered to{167} remain for a time; two more were sisters of Billy Clams, and had gone with his church, but were not suspended because the church thought it best to be lenient with them for a time on account of their ignorance and the strong influence brought to bear on them; three had moved away, and there were seven left, three of whom were school-girls.

The previous summer there were two young men who had assisted considerably in church work, and I was hoping much from them, but one of them in getting married had done very badly, had been locked up in jail and suspended from the church, and thus far, although I had kindly urged him, and it had been kindly received as a general thing, yet he had refused to make the public acknowledgment which the church required of him. The other, with so many adverse influences to contend against as there then were on the reservation, found it hard work to stand as a Christian without doing much as a teacher.

During the previous spring there had been considerable religious interest, and four men with their families had taken a firm stand for the right, but in August one of them for wrong-doing had been put in jail, and in the fall two others had fallen into betting and gambling at a great Indian{168} wedding, and the remaining one, a sub-chief, whom I thought a suitable candidate for church membership, had declined to unite with the church when I suggested the subject to him.

(7) An Indian Inspector.—About the last of January, 1883, an inspector visited the reservation. I would not speak evil of our rulers, and personally he treated me with respect, and gave me all the privileges for which I could ask: but he was a rough, profane man. I have been much in the company of rough loggers and miners, but never, I think, met a man who was so rough and impolite in the presence of ladies as he was, nor have I ever had so many oaths repeated in my house, nor have my children heard so many from dirty, despised, heathen Indians for a long time, if ever. His intercourse with the Indians was more rough and profane than with me, and any thing but a help to their morality. He so offended Chehalis Jack, the only chief who remained on our side, that he did not come to church for a month. The influence he left with the school-children was also largely against religion. Through his influence my interpreter either refused to interpret, or did the work in so poor a manner that all were disgusted with him.{169}

This seemed to cap the climax, and during February hardly an Indian who could not understand English came to church. There were present only the school-children, a very few whites, and occasionally a very few of the older Indians, nearly all of whom had previously been in school, so that I did not have occasion to preach in Indian during the whole of that month.

I felt somewhat discouraged, and then thought more seriously of leaving than at any other time during the ten years. I however determined to wait until July, during which time I expected to have opportunities to consult with several whose advice I valued, and in the meantime await further developments.{170}

XXIV.

LIGHT BREAKING.

THERE was one good result from the whole excitement: it kept the subject of religion prominently before the people. It did not die of stagnation, as it had almost seemed to do during some previous years. In my visits I was well treated and was asked many questions on the subject. I was welcomed at two or three of the logging-camps during the winter for an evening service, where I talked Bible to them as plainly as I could. They at least asked me to go to them, although they would not come to our church. A constant call, too, came for large Bible pictures. In March a barrel came from the Pearl-street Church in Hartford, Connecticut, full of clothes and substantial good things, the value of which I estimated at about a hundred and twenty dollars. This came when the whites were mostly gone, salary failing, and seemed to be a voice from above, saying, “You go on with the work and I will take care of the support.”

During the month of March some of the older{171} Indians came back again to church, so that I could hold the service in Indian. There had been three whom I had been willing to receive into the church for some time, and during the latter part of the month I found two more. The sub-chief who had declined joining in January was one of them and a policeman was another—both men of influence. So, on the first Sabbath in April, the five were received into the church, and we rejoiced with trembling. These had seen the whole opposition; they had mingled with its followers and had refused to join them, and hence were not likely to wander off into those errors. This was more of the older Twana Indians who had never been in school than had united with the church since its organization. These gave up horse-racing, betting, gambling, and all of tamahnous except that which had reference to the sick, to which they held as a superstition but not a religion. I felt that on this point they were as children, or persons with their heads and hearts in the right direction but with their eyes only half-open. In July two Indian women and a school-girl were added to the number and in October another school-girl and a woman. These drew with them so many that we had a respectable congregation.{172}

XXV.

THE FIRST BATTLE.

AFFAIRS went on about the same until August. The report then was that Billy Clams had been to John Slocum’s and that they had arranged to have a great time. He came back and an invitation was extended to the whole reservation to go to John Slocum’s, where it was said that four women were to be turned into angels; they would receive revelations directly from heaven, and many wonderful things would be done. Two logging-camps out of four were induced to shut down completely for the time, and some people went from one other. They were told that they would be lost if they did not go; that the baptism of those whom I had baptized was good for nothing, being done with common water, and that they must go and be baptized again, and that the world was coming to an end in a few days. About thirty-five Indians went from here and many others from other places, and there was great excitement. Some Catholic ceremonies{173} were held, something similar to the old black tamahnous ceremonies being added to them. These put the patient into a state somewhat like that of mesmerism, baptizing it with the name of religion. Visions were abundant; four people, it was said, died and were raised to life again; women, professing to be angels, tried to fly around. People went around brushing and striking others until some were made black for a week, the professed intent being to brush off their sins. A shaking took hold of some of them, on the same principle, I thought, that fifty years ago nervous jerks took hold of some people at the South and West at their exciting camp-meetings; and this continued with them afterward until they gained the name of the shaking set. Some acted very much like crazy people, and some indecent things were done. It was reported that they saw myself, Mowitch Man, and others in hell; that I was kept on the reservation to get the lands of the Indians away from them, and that I told lies in church. Such reports came to the reservation after a few days that the teacher here, who was in charge of the reservation, thought that he had better go and see it and perhaps try to stop it. He took two policemen and the interpreter with him and went{174} there. He stayed one night and talked to them so plainly that they returned a day or two afterward; but their nervous excitement was not over. Some of them, as they returned, went to their homes, and a little cooling off, together with the talk of their friends, brought them to their senses; but about half of the number kept on. They mainly consisted of those who had been at work in the logging-camp of David, Dick & Co. Dick was head chief, and David was a brother of Big Bill and, next to Billy Clams, was the leader in the excitement. Their camp was eight miles from the reservation; but for about two weeks they stayed on the reservation, singing, brushing off sins, shaking, and professing to worship God in their own way. The excitement and other things, however, made Ellen, the wife of David, sick; in a few days her infant child died, and they thought she was about to die. Chief Dick was sick for more than a week. One of David’s oxen, worth about a hundred and fifty dollars, mired, and for want of care died; and it seemed as if God were taking things into his own hands. The shaking set now said that all tamahnous was bad and that they would have no Indian doctor for their sick. Ellen had a sister who lived at the{175} Chehalis, a day and a half’s ride distant, and she was sent for. When she came she was determined to have an Indian doctor, and with considerable of a war of words she conquered Ellen’s husband and the whole set, and took Ellen off to an Indian doctor. There were two or three in the logging-camp who were tired of the affair, for they had lost three weeks of the best of weather for work, so they reorganized their shattered forces and moved to their camp. Ellen’s husband and son, who also belonged to the set, now neglected her. They furnished her almost nothing, neither food, clothes, nor bedding, and when she wished to have her little boy, they would not allow it. If they could have had control of her they would have taken her to their camp, taken care of her, and held their ceremonies over her; they came twice to see her, but the Indian doctors would not be partners with their shakings, and drove them off. On the eighth of September she died, and her sister had possession of the body. All of the members of our church, Indian doctors, and all who were opposed to the shaking set, now joined company with her sister. They asked me if the body might be brought to our church and kept there until the coffin should be{176} made, and if I would hold the funeral services. This had often been done in previous funerals, and I could not well have said no if I had wished so to do. I consented, but saw plainly that it was more than an ordinary request. They feared that her husband would come and claim the body. Before her death she had requested her sister not to give her body to her husband because he had neglected her so. The contest was to be over this, and they thought that if the body was in my possession her husband would probably not obtain it. A strange contest. But the body was brought to the church and left there. About noon the next day I met her husband and several friends about three miles from the agency, apparently coming to it. They asked about the body, and I told them all about it. They said that they were coming to the agency, and wanted to take the body, have their services over it, and bury it. I was being drawn into the contest, but with my eyes open. As a general thing, a man certainly had a right to the body of his wife. But they left, as I thought, a place of escape, by saying that they should go and see her sister. If she gave them the body, they would take it and bury it in their way, but if not, they wished me to hold{177} funeral services over it and bury it in the best manner possible. I was satisfied with that remark, for I wished, if possible, to let them fight it out. I came home immediately, and told our side these things, most of whom where gathered at the agency. After this the coffin was finished; she was placed in it, a few words were said, and I was requested to keep the body until the next day, when the funeral was to take place. Three hours had now passed since I came home, but David and company had not arrived. They had turned aside and held their services during that time. All of our side started for their homes. But they had not gone far, and I had only been at my house a few minutes, when I was called to the door to meet Ellen’s husband and son, Chief Dick, Billy Clams, and others. They asked me where the body was, and I told them. They said that her son wished to see his mother. I had no objections. Her son then said that he should take the body to his house, keep it for three days with lights burning at her head and feet, and then bury her with their ceremonies. He did not ask me for her, but said he should take her. Had her husband said so, I should have been in an awkward position. I asked if they had seen her sister and{178} obtained her consent, as they had said they would do. They replied that they had not seen her. I told them that the body had been placed in my charge for the night, and I should not give it up until her sister had consented; that when any thing, be it a horse or a trunk, was left in my possession, I expected to care for it until the one who placed it with me called for it; that I had waited three hours for them to come, and they had not done so, and that they had not been to see her sister, as they had promised to do; that if they would go and see her sister, and gain her consent, I would willingly give it up. I appealed to the physician, then present, and temporarily in charge of the agency, for protection. He had been here only about six weeks, and was at first a little afraid that they would take it out during the night. But I was not afraid of that. Such an act would kill their religion, and Billy Clams had been in jail too much to dare to advise such an act. I told them I should not unlock the church to let them see her unless they promised to let her remain. They at last consented to all my propositions. Had I yielded then I would have gained great enmity from all of our side, who had been at much expense to put her propperly{179} in the coffin, and would have made no friends on the other side. They promised to bring her sister down the next morning and settle it. The next morning Billy Clams came alone, and when I asked if all were soon coming, he replied that it was all settled; that they had talked with her sister some the previous night, and also on that morning; that her sister’s words had been very fierce, and that they had concluded, since the body was in the church, it was not best to take it out, and that I should have complete control of the funeral; that they would not come to the church if I did not wish them to do so, but that they would wait on the road to the grave until the services were done, for they would like to go to the grave, if I had no objections. I replied that I was glad of their decision, and that I would be very glad to have them all attend the services in the church. They all came; were very cordial to our side. Some of them took especial pains to cross themselves and shake hands with my children and myself. We all went to the grave together; her son made presents to all there: and the first battle was fought and won by our Great Captain.{180}

XXVI.

THE VICTORY.

BUT although cast down, they were not destroyed. I was a little surprised to see how strongly they still clung to their religion. They returned to their camp, held their services often from six o’clock until twelve at night, shook by the hour, lit candles and placed them on their heads and danced around with them thus, sang loud enough to be heard for miles away, acted much like Indian doctors, only they professed to try to get rid of sins instead of sickness, and so acted that in the physician’s opinion it was likely to make some of them crazy. When Ellen was first taken sick I had more than half-expected that she would die, for I believed that Providence would take away one of their number before their eyes would be open enough to see the foolishness of it—but I hoped that one death would be enough. In the meantime the agent made us a flying visit, and made some threats of what he might do if the foolishness was not stopped. As long as it was{181} purely a Catholic church he felt that he had no right to interfere, but now the Catholic ceremonies were a very small part, merely like a thin spreading of butter over something else, and he knew that if a Catholic priest had charge he would have locked them up very quickly. He proposed to visit us again about the middle of October, and spread a report that if they did not stop he might depose the chiefs and banish Billy Clams. He had the right to do the latter, because, when Billy Clams had returned to the reservation a few years previous, after having resided at Port Madison for quite a time, he was allowed to come only on promise of good behavior. His misdeeds were not to be forgotten, but only laid on a shelf for future reference, if required. But this threat apparently did not frighten them. The chiefs did not care if they were deposed, were about ready to resign, and did not wish to have any thing more to do with the “Boston” religion or the agent. Billy Clams was ready, if need be, to suffer as Christ did: he was willing to be a martyr.

The agent came, as he had promised to do, and spent eight days with us. He first took time to look over affairs quite thoroughly, and felt a little afraid to begin the contest, fearing that it would do more injury to fight them than to let them{182} severely alone. But at last he decided that when so many of the Indians who were trying to do right were calling for help in the battle, and that since he would thus have quite a strong Indian influence to support him, it was not right or wise for him to refuse their appeal. He first sent for the two chiefs. They came, putting on quite a show of courage. He talked to them quite strongly, and they resigned. It was better for the agent that they should do so, than that he should depose them, and they preferred to do so, in order that they could say to the rest of the Indians that they did not care. But the tide was turning. As soon as they had resigned the other Indians did not spare them, but ridiculed them until they became very crestfallen. On the Sabbath the agent told all the Indians that he wished them to come to church. They did so, and he talked to them on the religious aspect of the affair as far as was proper on that day. The next day he held a council. He did not threaten Billy Clams, but told him how there had always been trouble where Indians had tried to have two religions at the same place; how in order to prevent this trouble the government, eleven years previous, assigned different agencies to different denominations, and he advised him to return to Port Madison, from{183} which he had come, where the Indians were all Catholics, if he wished to be one. He made a long speech, as strong as he could, on the subject, told them that the shaking part of the religion must be stopped on the reservation, and appointed new chiefs, on whom he could depend, to see that this order was enforced. They were conquered, and consulted what was best to do. They all agreed to abandon the shaking part of the so-called religion. A part were in favor of keeping up the purely Catholic religion, but the tide had turned too much for this. Other Indians had overcome their fears and talked strongly, and at last they decided to abandon every thing in connection with their services. The first that I knew of this decision was that Billy Clams came to me and told me of this decision, and said that his set were now without any religion, and that if I would go and teach them they would be glad to have me do so, but if not, they should go without any services. I replied that I would gladly teach them, and went that evening to hold a service with them. There were two young men in the band who had long been in school. These now took hold well, read to their friends from the Bible, made and taught them new songs, and the victory was gained.{184}

XXVII.

RECONSTRUCTION.

STILL the process of reconstruction was slow. The wounds which had been made were deep, and distrust reigned between the two parties for a time. Although conquered, all were not converted, and some of them at times longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt. Two things gave much opportunity for gossip during the following winter. The business of logging had gone down and the Indians had little to do. Also, during the previous summer, the chiefs had not attended to their proper business, and had let a number of crimes go unpunished, especially drunkenness, and the new board of chiefs had so many to punish that it created considerable feeling. At first the shakers took hold well in our meetings, as well as if they were one with us. But a child of one of them was taken fatally sick, and while nothing could be proved, yet there was evidence enough to convince most of the Indians and whites that there was a little shaking among them, and then{185} the other Indians lost confidence in their sincerity and did not longer want them as leaders of religion, and so they dropped into the common ranks.

A slightly new element also kept affairs disturbed. It was Big John. At the time of the big meeting in August he was present and was attacked with the shaking as badly as any one. His wife belonged in that region, and so he did not return to the reservation with the other Indians, and was not here when the victory over them was obtained. He went to Mud Bay and set up a party of his own, and he carried the shaking farther than the originators had done. He even out-Heroded Herod. He claimed to be Christ, a claim which was allowed him by his followers, and at the head of about seventy-five of them he rode through the streets of Olympia with his hands outstretched as Christ was when crucified. After the conquest had been made at Skokomish, he was ordered by the agent to return home, as he was creating so much trouble among other Indians under Agent Eells. But he was slow to obey. He came once in November, when he was so attacked in regard to his claims of being Christ by the school-teacher and{186} the Indians, that he gave up this claim and said he was only a prophet. As he had not brought his wife with him, he returned to her, and it was not until several orders had been given for him to come home, and policemen had gone for him more than once, that he came. His orders then were to remain on the reservation, and stop shaking. He remained here for a time, but kept up a quiet kind of shaking more or less of the time. At last he left the reservation and went back without permission. He was again brought home and locked up for about four weeks. This conquered him, and he made but little further trouble, and this pretty effectually killed the return of any on the reservation to shaking.

Three of the shaking set have now been admitted to the church, after six and nine months’ probation.

Off of the reservation this shaking spread. It took almost entire possession of the Indians on the Chehalis Reservation, and entered the school in such a way that the agent and school-teacher there felt obliged to stop it by force, or allow the school to be broken up.

At Squaxon there were no government employees and it was not possible to put a complete{187} stop to it there, so it was allowed to have its own way more. Their great prophecy has been that the world would come to an end on the Fourth of July, 1884, but, although they assembled and held a big meeting, and waited for the expected result, it did not come, and so their faith has been somewhat shaken, although now they have extended the time one year. Going to various places to obtain work has also broken them into very small parties, and also occupied them, so that at present it seems to be dying.{188}

XXVIII.

JOHN FOSTER PALMER.

HE was born near Port Townsend, about 1847, and belonged to the now extinct tribe of the Chemakums. His father died when he was very young, through the effects of intemperance, and also many others of his relations, and this made him a bitter opponent of drinking.

When ten years old he went to live with the family of Mr. James Seavey, of Port Townsend, and went with them in 1859 to San Francisco, where he remained for a year or two. He then embarked on a sailing-vessel, and spent most of the time until 1863 or 1864 near the mouth of the Amoor River, in Asiatic Russia. Returning then to Puget Sound, he served under the government at the Neah Bay Reservation for a time, but about 1868 he came to the Skokomish Reservation, where he ever afterward made his home, serving as interpreter a large share of the time, eight years under Agent Eells.

Twana, Nisqually, Clallam, and Chinook jargon, also the Russian and English, and could read and write English quite well. He had a library worth fifty dollars, and took several newspapers and magazines, both Eastern and Western, although he only went to school two or three weeks in his life. To Mr. Seavey’s family, and the captain’s wife on the vessel when in Russian waters, he always felt grateful for his education.

When the church was organized at Skokomish, 1874, he united with it, being the first Indian to do so. He lived to see twenty others unite with it. On two points he was very firm: against intemperance and the heathen superstitions: being far in advance of any member of the tribe on the latter point, with the exception of M. F., soon to be mentioned—in fact, it was truly said of him, that he was more of a white man than an Indian.

He loved the prayer-meeting, and while temporarily living at Seabeck, a short time before his death, where he was at work, thirty miles from home, he returned to Skokomish to spend the holidays, and remained an additional week so that he might be present at the daily meetings of the Week of Prayer. He constantly took part in the prayer-meetings, and with the other older male{190} members of the church took his turn in leading them.

He had no children of his own, but brought up his wife’s two sisters. When he united with the church, he said: “Now I want my wife to become a Christian,” and he lived to see her and her two sisters unite with the church. The elder of them married, and her child, Leila Spar, was the first Indian child who received the rite of infant baptism, July 4, 1880. He was killed instantly at Seabeck, February 2, 1881, while at work at the saw-mill, having been accidentally knocked off from a platform, and striking on his head among short sharp-cornered refuse lumber and slabs about ten feet below. The side of his head was crushed in, and after he was picked up he never spoke, and only breathed a few times. He was far in advance of his tribe, and has left an influence which will be felt for many years to come. It was a pleasure once for me to hear a rough, swearing white man, in speaking of him, say: “John Palmer is a gentleman!”{191}

XXIX.

M——F——.

HE was a full-blooded Twana Indian, but from his earliest infancy lived with his step-father, who was a white man. A part of the time he lived very near to the reservation, and afterward about thirty miles from it. The region where he lived was entirely destitute of schools and church privileges. His step-father, however, when he realized that the responsibility of the moral and Christian training of his children rested wholly upon himself, took up the work quite well. His own early religious training, which had been as seed long buried, now came back to him, and he gave his children some good instruction which had excellent effect on M. Still when he was twenty-two years of age he had never been to church, school, Sabbath-school, or a prayer-meeting. He was a steady, industrious young man, had learned to farm, log, build boats,—being of a mechanical turn of mind,—and had built for himself a good sloop. When he was twenty-one{192} he had learned something of the value of an education from his lack of it, for he could barely read and write in a very slow way, and was tired of counting his fingers when he traded and attended to business. Therefore he saved his money until he had about two hundred dollars, and when he was twenty-two he requested the privilege of coming to the reservation and going to school. It was granted, not like other Indian children, for they were boarded and clothed at government expense, but because his step-father was a white man he was required to board and clothe himself, his tuition being free. He willingly did his part. This was a little after New Year’s, 1877. He improved his time better than any person who has ever been in school, oftentimes studying very late. Thus he spent three winters at school, working at his home during the summers.

A few days before he left for home at the close of his first winter was our communion season. On the Thursday evening previous was our preparatory lecture and church-meeting, and the man and his wife where he was boarding presented themselves as candidates for admission. Nothing, however, was said him about it. Indeed it is doubtful whether much had ever been said to him{193} personally on the subject, for he was of a quiet disposition. But a day or two afterward he spoke to the family where he was boarding and said that he would like to join the church, but had been almost afraid to ask. The word was soon passed to my father, and the first I knew about it was that he came to me and said: “See, here is water, what doth hinder me from being baptized?” I said: “What do you mean by that?” His reply was: “I do not know but that we have just such a case among us.” And then he explained about M. Another church-meeting was held and he was received into the church on the following Sabbath. Previous to this he had never witnessed a baptism or the administration of the Lord’s Supper.

When he had finished going to school, he received in 1879 the appointment of government carpenter on the reservation, the first Indian ever in that place, and the first Indian employee on the reservation except the interpreter receiving the same wages as a white man. He remained in this position a few years, when his health failed and he resigned. No fault was found with his work, for he was very faithful and steady, and could be depended on to work alone, or to be in{194} charge of apprentices and others with no fear that the work would be slighted. He afterward, for a time, lived mainly with the whites, as the government cut down the pay for all Indians so low that he could earn much better wages elsewhere. He often lived with a very rough class of whites at saw-mills and among loggers, but he held fast to his profession. In his quiet way he spoke many an effectual word for Christ, and gained the respect of those with whom he mingled by his consistent Christian life. Lately, however, he has gone to the Puyallup Reservation, where he has secured a good piece of land and has taken a leading part among those Indians.{195}

XXX.

DISCOURAGING CASES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.

F. A. was a Clallam, and one of the earlier school-boys. He had left the reservation previous to 1874 and lived and worked with his friends at Port Discovery. In April, 1875, he returned with three of his Port Discovery friends on a visit in good style. He said that he had worked steadily, earned hundreds of dollars, and he gave a brother of his in school quite a sum; that he had taught a small Indian school; that he was trying to have church services on the Sabbath; that the Indians at Port Discovery were about to buy some land for one hundred and fifty dollars; and that he had now come for advice, religious instruction, school-books, and the like. The agent furnished him with school-books and papers, and I gave him four written prayers, two Chinook-jargon songs, and a Testament. This was only a week after Balch and some of the Indians at Jamestown had visited us, who were{196} making good progress. One of the employees on seeing F. A. come, just after the other (Clallam) Indians had visited us, said: “The agent is making his influence felt far and wide for good.” But before F. A. left he wanted to be made head chief of the tribe. The agent said that the present chief was doing well, that he had no good reason for removing him, and that he would not do so unless a majority of the tribe desired it, but that he would make F. A. a policeman if he wished so to be. But he did not want this. He said that after what he had told his friends before leaving home, he would be ashamed to go back without his being made chief. His three friends said also that they wished him to be chief. This showed that something was wrong, and by the time all was ferreted out, it was found that he had procured the horses for his party at Olympia at a high price, which he had said the agent would pay, that his style was all put on, and that in reality he was very worthless. It cost his friends more than twenty dollars to pay for the use of the horses, which he had afterward to work out, as he had no money. He tried to run away with one of the girls not long afterward, and never said any thing more about his school, church, and land.{197} In 1883 he returned to the reservation to live, but does not help the Indians much in regard to Christianity.

L. was from Port Ludlow, fifty-five miles away, a half-breed, and was in school for a year or two. In the fall of 1879 he took hold well in prayer-meetings, and wished to join the church; but he was too desirous for this, it seemed to me, and answered questions too readily. The church deliberated long about him, for several were not fully satisfied, yet, on the whole, it was thought best to receive him, and it was done in January, 1880. The next summer he went home to remain, but while in most respects he has been steady and industrious, having a good reputation about not drinking or gambling, yet he does not honor a Christian profession.

M. was a half-breed school-boy, and was brought up in school. After the first three school-boys began to think that they were Christians, he joined them. After having been a year on probation, he was received into the church in July, 1878, when he was thirteen or fourteen years old. He did fairly until he left the reservation, three or four years afterward, when he went to a white logging-camp where his brother and brother-in-law were at work. Logging-camps are not{198} noted for their morals, and their influence on a young man can not be good in this respect. He remained steadier than most whites around him, and his instruction is not lost, but his Christian life is sadly dwarfed, if it can be seen at all.

W. was among the first three of the school-boys to join the church, after a full year’s probation, at the age of about thirteen. He stood well for about two years, while in school, as a Christian, endured considerable persecution, and was especially conscientious. But as he grew older he went the wrong way. His father was a medicine-man, and this probably had something to do with his life, for when he went out into the outer Indian world he seemed to grow peculiarly hardened, so that he seldom came to church or Sabbath-school, and did not treat religion with the respect which the older Indians did who made no pretensions to Christianity. For immoral conduct we were at last obliged to suspend him.

As I look over the church-roll I find that nearly all the first Indian members were from the school; then came the earlier uneducated Indians, and then the later ones. It makes me sad when I see how many of the first ones who have been educated have been suspended before they were settled in life. Yet it must be said that those school children{199} prepared the way for the earlier uneducated Indians, and these likewise prepared the way for the later ones. This second class watching the failures of the first learned wisdom and stood firmer, and the last class learning more wisdom by further observation have stood still firmer.

Simon Peter was one of the better Indian boys of the Twanas, and was in school about as soon as he was old enough. A younger brother, Andrew, was one of the first three of the school-boys to join us in January, 1877, and, like the brothers in the Bible, where Andrew first found Christ and then led his brother Simon to him, so now Andrew evidently led Simon along until, in January, 1878, he joined the church. He belonged to a good family and was well respected and I hoped much from him in the future, but in this I was doomed to disappointment, for consumption had marked him as its own, and in June, 1879, he died. Just before he died he took his brother’s hand, said he hoped this brother would not turn back from Christianity as some boys had done, and thus held him till he died. A young man of the Puyallup tribe, who is now an Indian preacher, told me that he owed his conversion to a letter he received from Simon Peter. Thus, “being dead, he yet speaketh.”{200}

XXXI.

THE CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN.

IN the section about the Field and Work some account has been given of the beginning of civilization at this place. The Indians there had at first no help from the government, because they were not on a reservation. They had, however, some worthy aspirations, and realized that if they should rise at all they must do so largely through their own efforts. This has been an advantage to them, for they have become more self-reliant than those on the reservation, who have been too willing to be carried.

The agent, on some of his first visits to them, gave them some religious instruction, and at times they gathered together on the Sabbath for some kind of religious worship, which then consisted mainly in singing a song or two and talking together.

In March, 1875, their chief, Lord James Balch, while on a business visit to the reservation, was very anxious to obtain religious instruction. All{201} was given to him that I could furnish, which consisted of instruction, a Chinook song or two, and a few Bible pictures. He returned with more earnestness to hold meetings at home.

My first visit to them was the next fall, in a tour with the agent, and then their village was named Jamestown, after their chief. Since then I have generally been able to spend two Sabbaths, twice a year, with them.

They continued their meetings, and usually met in one of their best houses for church on the Sabbath. After a time they selected one of their number, called Cook House Billy, to pray in their church services, as he had lived for some time in a white family, could talk English, and knew at least more about the external forms of worship than the rest.

In 1877 the Indians began to think about erecting a church-building for themselves. They originated the idea, but it was heartily seconded by the agent and missionary. About the time of its dedication Balch said it was no white man who suggested the idea of building it to him, but he thought it must have been Jesus. It was so far completed by April, 1878, as to be dedicated on the eighth of that month.{202}

About a hundred and twenty-five persons were seated in the house: ninety Clallams, ten Makah Indians, and twenty-five whites. The house is small, sixteen by twenty-four feet. It was made of upright boards, battened and whitewashed. It was ceiled and painted overhead. It was not quite done, for it was afterward clothed and papered and a belfry built in front, but was so far finished as to be used. Although not large or quite finished, yet there were three good things about it: it was built according to their means, was paid for as far as it was finished, and was the first church-building in the county. Its total cost at that time, including their work, was about a hundred and sixty-six dollars. Of this, thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents were given by white persons, mostly on the reservation, four dollars were given by Twana Indians, and some articles, as paint, lime, nails, windows, and door, came from their government annuities, it being their desire that these things should be given for this purpose rather than to themselves personally. It was the first white building in the village, and had the effect of making them whitewash other houses afterward.

The evening before the dedication the first{203} prayer-meeting ever among them was held. Five Indians took part, most or all of whom were accustomed to ask a blessing at their meals. This prayer-meeting has never since been suffered to die.

It was not, however, until the next December that any of them became members of the church. Then two men joined. They really united with the church at Skokomish, although they were received at Jamestown. For a time this became a branch of the Skokomish church. The first communion service was then held among them. Only five persons in all participated in the communion.

No more of those Indians joined until April, 1880, when four more became members, two of whom were Indians, and the next December two more joined.

A rather singular incident happened a year later. Some of the older Indians, including the chief, were not satisfied with the slow growth of the church; but instead of remedying affairs by coming out boldly for Christ, they chose three young men, who were believed to be moral at least, and asked them to join and help the cause along. These consented, although they had never taken any part in religious services or been known{204} as Christians. As I was not informed of the wish until Sabbath morning, I did not think it wise to receive them then, but replied that if they held out well until my next visit, in five months, I should have no objection. They were hardly willing at first to wait so long, but at last submitted. Before the five months had passed, one of them, the least intelligent, had gone back to his old ways, where he still remains, and the other two were received into the church, one of whom has done especially well and has been superintendent of the Sabbath-school. Yet it always seemed a singular way of becoming Christians, more as if made so by others than of their own free will, they simply consenting to the wishes of others. God works in various ways.

During the winter of 1880-81 a medicine-man made a feast on Sabbath evening and invited all the Indians to it. It was to be, however, a bait for a large amount of tamahnous, which was to take place. The Indians went, the members of the church as well as the rest, leaving the evening service in order to attend it. The school-teacher felt very badly and wrote me immediately about it; but a little later he learned that on that same evening the Christian Indians, feeling that they{205} were doing wrong, left the place before the feast was over, went to one of their houses, where they held a prayer-meeting and confessed their sin, and on the following Thursday evening, at the general prayer-meeting made a public confession. We could ask for nothing more, but could thank the Holy Spirit for inclining them thus to do before any white person had spoken to them about it.

Knowing of four new ones who wished to join the church in April, 1882, I thought that the time had come to organize them into a church by themselves. So letters were granted by the Skokomish church to seven who lived at Jamestown, and the church was organized April 30, 1882, with eleven members, nine of whom were Indians. The services were in such a babel of languages that their order is here given: Singing in Clallam and then in English; reading of the Scriptures in English; prayer by Rev. H. C. Minckler, of the Methodist-Episcopal church, the school-teacher; singing in Clallam; preaching in Chinook, translated into Clallam; singing in Chinook; baptism of an infant son of a white church member in English; prayer in English; singing in English; propounding the articles of faith and covenant in English, translated into Clallam, together with the baptism{206} of four adults; giving of the right hand of fellowship, in English, translated into Clallam; prayer in Chinook; singing in Chinook; talk previous to the distribution of the bread, in Chinook, translated into Clallam; prayer in English; distribution of the bread; talk in English; prayer in Chinook, followed by the distribution of the cup; singing in English a hymn in which nearly all the Indians could join; benediction in Chinook. A number of their white neighbors gathered in, to the encouragement of the Indians, six of whom communed with us.

The next fall three more joined, and seven more in 1883, one of whom was a venerable white-haired white man, over seventy years old. In the fall of that year five infants were baptized, the first belonging to the Indians in the history of the church.

In the fall of 1883 three of them accompanied me on a missionary tour to Clallam Bay. They gave their time, a week, and the American Missionary Association paid their expenses. It was the first work of the kind which they had done, and I was pleased with their earnestness and zeal. The previous spring I had been there, and there were some things which made me feel as if such a{207} trip might do good. Still it is a hard field because a majority of the men are over fifty, and, being in the majority, practise and sing tamahnous, and go to potlatches a good share of the time during the winter. There is very little white religious influence near them.

When the day-school first began, in 1878, the teacher, Mr. J. W. Blakeslee, began also a Sabbath-school. His successor, Rev. H. C. Minckler, carried it on until he resigned in April, 1883, and no other teacher was procured until early in 1884; but then they chose one of their own church members, Mr. George D. Howell, who had been to school some, and still carried on the school. He served until November, when he temporarily left to obtain work, and Mr. Howard Chubbs was chosen as his successor.

In 1880 they procured a small church-bell, the first in the county, and added a belfry to the church.

Not all, however, of the people in the village can be called adherents to Christianity. There is a plain division among them. Some are members of the church, a few who are not attend church, and some hardly ever go, but profess to belong to the anti-Christian party.{208}

It is worthy of note that while Clallam County had so many people in it as to be organized into a county in 1854, and had in 1880 nearly six hundred white people, yet these Indians have the only church building in the county, the only church-bell, hold the only regular prayer-meeting, and at their church and on the Neah Bay Indian Reservation are the only Sabbath-schools which are kept up steadily summer and winter. One white person, who lives not far from Jamestown, said to me on one Sabbath, in 1880, as we came away from the church: “It is a shame, it is a shame! that the Indians here are going ahead of the whites in religious affairs. It is a wonder how they are advancing, considering the example around them.”{209}

XXXII.

COOK HOUSE BILLY.

HE will always be known by this name, probably, though on the church roll his name is written as William House Cook. He is a Clallam Indian, of Jamestown. His early life was wild and dissipated, he being, like all the rest of his tribe, addicted to drunkenness. At one time, when he was living at Port Discovery, he became quite drunk. He was on the opposite side of the bay from the mill, and, wishing for more whiskey, he started across in a canoe for it; but he was so drunk that he had not gone far before he upset his canoe, and had it not been for his wife, who was on shore and went to his rescue, he would have been drowned.

In his early life he mingled much with the whites. He lived with a good white family some of the time; worked in a cook-house at a saw-mill for a time, where he gained his name; and once went to San Francisco in a ship. Thus he learned to speak English quite well, and he knew more about{210} civilized ways, and even of religion, than any of the older Indians at Jamestown. He entered willingly into the plan to buy land, and soon after the people there first began to hold some kind of services on the Sabbath, they selected him as the one to pray, hardly because he was better than all the rest, though he was better than all with two or three exceptions, but because he had been more with the whites, and knew better how to pray. Soon after this, and long before he joined the church, a report, which was probably true, was in circulation that he had once or twice secretly drank some. Thereupon the chief took him and talked strongly to him about it. The chief did not wish him to be minister to his people if he was likely to do in that way, and at last asked him if he thought he had a strong enough mind to be a Christian for one year. The reply was, Yes. Then the questions were successively asked if he was strong enough to last two years, five years, ten years, all his life, and when he said Yes, he was allowed to resume his duties as leader of religion.

After this he remained so consistent that he was one of the first two in Jamestown to unite with the church, in December, 1878, when he was{211} supposed to be about thirty-three years old. The road supervisor in his district sent his receipt for road taxes to him one year, addressing it to Rev. Cook House Billy.

When the church was organized at Jamestown in 1882, he was unanimously elected as deacon, and he has ever since filled that position.

Once, five or six years ago, when in Seattle, he was asked by a Catholic Indian of his own tribe, belonging to Port Gamble, to drink some whiskey, but he declined. When urged time and again to do so he still refused, giving as his excuse that he belonged to the church. “So do I,” said his tempter “but we drink, and then we can easily get the priest to pardon us by paying him a little money.” “That is not the way we do in our church,” said Billy.

But afterward, two years ago, he was very strongly tempted, and yielded, while at Seattle. It was known, and soon after his return home he made his acknowledgement to the church. On my next visit to them in the fall he was reprimanded, and suspended as deacon for five weeks. He often spoke of this fall of his, and seemed to be very sincere in his repentance. In 1883, just before he and nearly all the Indians of his village{212} were going to Seattle again, either to fish or on their way to pick hops, he sent me a letter in which was written: “One day I was talking in meeting to them and said I hoped they would none of them follow my example last summer about drinking, for I had never got over it. I feel ashamed and feel bad every time I think about it, and hoped none of them would have occasion to feel as I did.”

He is of a bright, sunny disposition, always cheerful, and has done more for school and church than any of the rest of his tribe, unless it may be the head chief, Balch. Sometimes he has boarded three children free of cost, so that they might go to school, whose parents, if alive, lived far away.

In 1881 two of his children died, a fact of which the opponents of religion made use against Christianity, and he was severely tried, but he stood firm. In 1883, with two others, he went to Clallam Bay with me to preach the gospel to those Indians, the first actual missionary work done by either Indian church. When he left his wife was sick but, as he had promised to go, she would not keep him back, and he was willing to trust her with God. When we returned she was well.

His wife is a true helpmeet to him. She did{213} not join the church for a year and a half after he did; but he afterward said that she was really ahead of him, and urged him to begin and to stand fast. When I examined her for reception into the church, I noticed one expression of hers which I shall always remember. In speaking of her sorrow for her sins, she said that her “heart cried” about them. An expression was in use, which I also often used, that our hearts should be sick because of our sins; but I had never used her expression, which was deeper. She is the foremost among the women to take part in meeting, often beseeching them with tears to turn into the Christian path.{214}

XXXIII.

LORD JAMES BALCH.

A FEW years previous to the appointment of Agent Eells, in 1871, this person was made head chief of the Clallams, although, until about 1873, he could get drunk and fight as well as any Indian. At that time he took the lead in the progress for civilization near Dunginess, as related in Chapter V.; and, although once after that, on a Fourth of July, he was drunk, yet he has steadily worked for the good of his tribe. He has had a noted name, for an Indian, as an enemy to drunkenness, and his fines and other punishments on his offending people have been heavy. He gave more than any other one in the purchase of their land, and, in 1875, it was named Jamestown in honor of him. He has taken a stand against potlatches, not even going six miles to attend one when given by those under him. For a long time he was firm against Indian doctors, though a few times within about three years he has employed them when he has been sick, and no white man’s{215} remedies which he could obtain seemed to do him any good. He was among the first three Indians to begin prayer, a practice which he kept up several years. But when in 1878 the other two united with the church, Balch declined to do so, although I had expected him as much as I had the others. He gave as his excuse that as he was chief, he would probably do something which would be used as an argument against religion—an idea I have found quite common among the Indian officers. In fact, a policeman once asked me if he could be a policeman and a Christian at the same time. Balch said that whenever he should cease being chief, he would “jump” into the church. He has continued as chief until the present time, and his interest in religion has diminished. At one time he seemed, in the opinion of the school-teacher, to trust to his morality for salvation. Then he turned to the Indian doctors, gave up prayer in his house, and now by no means attends church regularly. Still he takes a kind of fatherly interest in seeing that the church members walk straight; and the way in which he started and has upheld civilization, morality, education, and temperance will long be remembered both by whites and Indians, and its influence will continue long after he shall die.{216}

XXXIV.

TOURING.

WHITE people have almost universally been very kind to me, the Indians generally so, but the elements have often been adverse. These have given variety to my life—not always pleasant, but sufficient to form an item here and there; and there is nearly always a comical side to most of these experiences, if we can but see it.

One day in February, 1878, I started from Port Gamble for home with eight canoes, but a strong head-wind arose. The Indians worked hard for five hours, but traveled only ten miles and nearly all gave out, and we camped on the beach. It rained also, and the wind blew still stronger so that the trees were constantly falling near us. I had only a pair of blankets, an overcoat, and a mat with me, but having obtained another mat of the Indians, I made a slight roof over me with it and went to sleep. About two o’clock in the morning I was aroused by the Indians, when I learned that a very high tide had come and{217} drowned them out. My bed was on higher ground than theirs, but in fifteen minutes that ground was three or four inches under water. We waded around, wet and cold, put our things in the canoes and soon started. There was still some rain and wind, and it was only by taking turns in rowing that we could keep from suffering. In four hours we were at Seabeck, where we were made comfortable, but that was a cold, long, dark, wintry morning ride.

I started from Jamestown for Elkwa, a distance of twenty-five miles, on horseback, but, after going ten miles, the horse became so lame that he could go no farther. I could not well procure another, so I proceeded on foot. Soon I reached Morse Creek, but could find no way of crossing. The stream was quite swift, having been swollen by recent rains. The best way seemed to be to ford it. So, after taking off some of my clothes, I started in. It was only about three feet deep, but so swift that it was difficult to stand, and cold as a mountain stream in December naturally is. But with a stick to feel my way, I crossed, and it only remained for me to get warm, which I soon did by climbing a high hill.

Coming from Elkwa on another trip on horseback,{218} with a friend, we were obliged to travel on the beach for eight miles, as there was no other road. The tide was quite high, the wind blowing, and the waves came in very roughly. There were many trees lying on the beach, around which we were compelled to canter as fast as we could when the waves were out. But one time my friend, who was just ahead, passed safely, while I was caught by the wave which came up to my side, and a part of which went over my head. It was very fortunate that my horse was not carried off his feet.

Once I was obliged to stay in one of their houses in the winter, a thing I have seldom done, unless there is no white man’s house near, even in the summer, when I have preferred to take my blankets and sleep outside. The Indians have said that they are afraid the panthers will eat me; but between the fleas, rats, and smoke (for they often keep their old-fashioned houses full of smoke all night), sleep is not refreshing, and the next morning I feel more like a piece of bacon than a minister.

Traveling in February with about seventy-five Indians, it was necessary that I should stay all night in an Indian house to protect them from unprincipled white men. The Indians at the village{219} where we stayed were as kind as could be, assigning me to their best house, where there was no smoke; giving me a feather-bed, white sheets, and all very good except the fleas. Before I went to sleep I killed four, in two or three hours I waked up and killed fourteen, at three o’clock eleven more, and in the morning I left without looking to see how many there were remaining.

But Indian houses are not the only unpleasant ones. Here we are at a hotel, the best in a saw-mill town of four or five hundred people; but the bar-room is filled with tobacco-smoke, almost as thick as the smoke from the fires which often fills an Indian house. Here about fifty men spend a great portion of the night, and some of them all night, in drinking, gambling, and smoking. The house is accustomed to it, for the rooms directly over the bar-room are saturated with smoke, and I am assigned to one of these rooms. Before I get to sleep the smoke has so filled my nostrils that I can not breathe through them, and at midnight I wake up with a headache so severe that I can scarcely hold up my head for the next twenty-four hours. It is not so bad, however, but that I can do a little thinking on this wise: Who are the lowest—the Indians, or these whites? The smoke is of equal thickness: that of the Indians, however,{220} is clean smoke from wood; that of the whites, filthy from tobacco. The Indian has sense enough to make holes in the roof where some of it may escape; the white man does not even do that much. The Indian sits or lies near the ground, underneath a great portion of it; the white man puts a portion of his guests and his ladies’ parlor directly over it. Sleeping in the Indian smoke I come out well, although feeling like smoked bacon, and a thorough wash cures it; but sleeping in that of the white man I come out sick, and the brain has to be washed.

In August, 1879, with my wife and three babies, and three Indians, I was coming home from a month’s tour among the Clallams, in a canoe. One evening from five o’clock until nine the rain poured down, as it sometimes does on Puget Sound. With all that we could do it was impossible to keep dry. Oilcloth, umbrellas, and blankets would not keep the rain out of the bottom of the canoe, or from reaching some of our bedding. At nine o’clock we reached an old deserted house with half the roof off, and we crawled into it. The roof was off where the fire-place was situated, so we tried to dry ourselves, keep warm, and dry some bedding, while holding umbrellas over us, in order that every thing should not get wet as fast{221} as it was dried. As soon as a few clothes got dry, we rolled up a baby and he was soon asleep; and so on for three hours we packed one after another away, until I was the only one left. But the rest had all of the dry bedding. There was one pair of blankets left, and they were soaked through. I knew that if I attempted to dry them I might as well calculate to sit up until morning. So I warmed them a little, got close to the warm places, pulled on two or three more wet things, pulled up a box on one side to help keep warm, leaned up my head slantingwise against a perpendicular wall for a pillow, and went to sleep. Some writers say that a person must not sleep in one position all night; if he does he will die. I did not suffer from that danger during that night. The next morning we had to start about five o’clock because of the tide, without any breakfast. When about eight o’clock we reached a farm-house, and warmed up, where the people spent most of the forenoon getting a good warm breakfast for us, free of all charges, we did wish that they could receive the blessing forty times over mentioned in the verse about the cup of cold water, for it was worth a hundred cups of cold water that morning. No one of us, however, took cold on that night.{222}

Only once have I ever felt that there was much danger in traveling in a canoe. I was coming from Clallam Bay to Jamestown in November, 1883, with five Indians. We left Port Angeles on the afternoon of the last day with a good wind, but when we had been out a short time and it was almost dark, a low, black snow-squall struck us. There was no safe place to land, and we went along safely until we reached the Dunginess Spit, which is six miles long. There is a good harbor on the east side of it; but we were on the west side, and the Indians said that it was not safe to attempt to go around it, for those snow-squalls are the worst storms there are, and the heavy waves at the point would upset us. It was better to run the risk of breaking our canoe while landing than to run the risk of capsizing in those boiling waters. So we made the attempt, but could not see how the waves were coming in the darkness, and after our canoe touched the beach, but before we could draw it up to a place of safety, another wave struck it, and split it for nearly its whole length. But we were all safe. Fortunately we were only seven miles from Jamestown; so we took our things on our backs and walked the rest of the way, all of us very thankful that we were not at the bottom of the sea.{223}

XXXV.

THE BIBLE AND OTHER BOOKS.

NATURALLY most of the Indians did not care to buy Bibles at first. They were furnished free to the school-children, and, like many other things that cost nothing, were not very highly prized, nor taken care of half as well as they ought to have been. Still they learned that it was the sacred Book and when one after another left school most of them possessed a Bible. I had not been here long when an Indian bought one, and, having had the family record of a white friend of his written in it, he presented it to the man, who had none. It caused some comment that an Indian should be giving a Bible to a white man. When the first apprentices received their first pay, a good share of their earnings were invested in much better Bibles than they had previously been able to buy.

The following item appeared in The San Francisco Pacific in March, 1880:—{224}

“The following facts speak volumes. Let all read them.—[Chaplain Stubbs, Oregon Editor.]

“During 1879 I acted as agent of the Bible Society for this region. The sales amounted to over twenty-two dollars to the Indians, out of a total of thirty-two dollars. Of the seventy-five Bibles and Testaments sold, thirty-nine were bought by them, varying in price from five cents to three dollars and thirty cents. These facts, with other things, show that there is some literary taste among them. Not many of the older ones can read, hence do not wish for books; but many have adorned their houses with Bible and other pictures, twenty of them having been counted in one house, nearly all of which were bought with their money. In the house of a newly married couple, both of whom have been in school, are twenty-seven books, the largest being a royal octavo Bible, reference, gilt. The Council Fire is taken here. In a room where four boys stay, part of whom are in school, and the rest of whom are apprentices,—none of them being over seventeen years old,—will be found The Port Townsend Argus and The Seattle Intelligencer. On the table is an octavo Bible, for the boys have prayers every evening by themselves,{225} and two of them have spent about five dollars each for other books, “Christ in Literature” being among them. At another house are three young men who have twenty volumes. One of them has paid twenty dollars for what he has bought; Youmans’s Dictionary of Every-day Wants, Webster’s Unabridged, Moody’s and Punshon’s Sermons being among them. He was never in school until he was about twenty-two years old and nine months will probably cover all the schooling he ever had. Here will be found The Pacific. In another house the occupant has spent about fifty dollars for books, and his library numbers thirty volumes. Among them will be found an eighteen-dollar family Bible, Chambers’s Information for the People, “Africa” by Stanley, Life of Lincoln, and Meacham’s Wigwam and Warpath. Here also, is The Pacific, The West Shore Olympia Courier, The Council Fire, and The American Missionary. This man never went to school but two or three weeks, having picked up the rest of his knowledge. When Indians spend their money thus, it shows that there is an intellectual capacity in them that can be developed.”

It has been, however, and still is, somewhat difficult to cultivate in many of them a taste for{226} reading, so as to continue to use it when older. This is not because of a want of intellectual capacity, but for three other reasons. First, as soon as they leave school and go back among the uneducated Indians, there is no stimulus to induce them to read. The natural influence is the other way, to cause them to drop their books. Second, like white people who remain in one place continually, they are but little interested in what is going on in the outside world. Third, in most books and papers there are just enough large difficult words which they do not understand to spoil the sense, and thus the interest in the story is destroyed. Yet notwithstanding these discouragements, the present success together with the prospect that it will be much greater in the future, as more of them become educated, is such as to make us feel that it pays.{227}

XXXVI.

BIBLE PICTURES.

IT is very plain that Indians who can not read, and even some who can read, but only a little, need something besides the Bible to help them remember it. Were white people to hear the Bible explained once or twice a week only, with no opportunity to read it, they would be very slow to acquire its truths. It hence became very plain that some good Scripture illustrations would be very valuable. I could not, however, afford to give them to the Indians, nor did I think it best, as generally that which costs nothing is good for nothing. But to live three thousand miles from the publishing-houses and find what was wanted was difficult, for it was necessary that they should be of good size, attractive, and cheap. For eight years I failed to find what was a real success. Fanciful Bible-texts are abundant, but they convey no Bible instruction to older Indians. Small Bible pictures, three or four by four or six inches are furnished by Nelson & Sons, and others, but{228} they were too small to hang over the walls of their houses and they did not care to buy them. I often put them into my pocket, when visiting, and explained them to the Indians, and so made them quite useful. The same company furnished larger ones, about twelve by eighteen inches, which were good pictures. The retail price was fifty cents. I obtained them by the quantity at about thirty-seven cents and sold them for twenty-five, but they were not very popular. It took too much money to make much of a show. The Providence Lithograph Company publish large lithographs, thirty by forty-four inches, for the International Sabbath-school Lessons, which were somewhat useful. I obtained quite a number, second-hand, at half-price, eight for a dollar, and often used them as the text of my pulpit preaching, but when I was done with them I generally had to give them away. They were colored and showy but too indefinite to be attractive enough to the Indians to induce them to pay even that small price for them.

At last I came across some large charts, on rollers, highly colored, published by Haasis & Lubrecht, of New York. They were twenty-eight by thirty-five inches, and I could sell them for{229} twenty-five cents each, and they were very popular. They went like hot cakes—were often wanted faster than I could get them, although I procured from twenty to forty and sometimes more at once. Protestant and Catholic Indians, Christians and medicine-men, those off the reservation and on other reservations as well as at Skokomish, were equally pleased with them, so that I sold four hundred and fifty in twenty-one months. They were large, showy, cheap, and good, care being used not to obtain some purely Catholic pictures which they publish.

“The Story of the Bible,” “Story of the Gospel,” and “First Steps for Little Feet in Gospel Paths,” also have proved very useful for those who can read a little but can not understand all the hard words in the Bible. Their numerous pictures are attractive, and the words are easy to be understood.{230}

XXXVII.

THE SABBATH-SCHOOL.

FROM the first a Sabbath-school has been held on the reservation. Previous to the time when Agent Eells took charge, while Mr. D. B. Ward and Mr. W. C. Chattin were the school-teachers, they worked in this way. But there was no Sabbath-school in the region which the Indians had seen; the white influences on the reservation by no means ran parallel with their efforts, and it was hard work to accomplish a little. In 1871 Agent Eells threw all his influence in favor of it before there were any ministers on the reservation or any other Sabbath service, with the agent as superintendent. After ministers came, it was held soon after the close of the morning service. The school-children and whites were expected to be present, as far as was reasonable, and the older Indians were invited and urged to remain. Sometimes they did and there was a large Bible class, and sometimes none stayed.

A striking feature of the school has been the{231} effort made to induce the children to learn the lesson. Sometimes they were merely urged to, and sometimes the agent compelled them so to do, much as if they were his own children. Six verses have usually been a lesson sometimes all of them being new ones, and sometimes three being in advance and three in review. Those who committed them all to memory were placed on the roll of honor, and those who had them all perfectly received two credit-marks; so that if there were no interruption on any Sabbath in the school, 104 was the highest number that any one could obtain. During 1875 the record was kept for fifty Sabbaths, and the highest number of marks obtained by any of the Indian children was forty-eight, by Andrew Peterson. Eighty-eight were obtained by each of two white children, Minnie Lansdale and Lizzie Ward. Twenty of the Indian children were on the roll of honor some of the time. During 1876 Miss Martha Palmer, an Indian girl, received eighty-six marks out of a possible hundred. The next highest was a white girl, then a half-breed girl, then an Indian boy, and then a white boy. During 1877 the same Martha Palmer received ninety-six marks, the highest number possible that year, there having{232} been no school on four Sabbaths. In 1878 Martha Palmer and Emily Atkins each committed the six verses to memory and recited them perfectly at the school during forty-nine Sabbaths, there having been no school on three Sabbaths. That was the best report during the ten years. The highest number in 1883 was by Annie Sherwood, but the number of credit-marks was only forty-eight.

Sometimes we followed the simplest part of the Bible through by course and sometimes used the International Lessons. The former plan was in many respects better for the scholars, as the International Lessons skipped about so much that the children often lost the connection; they were sometimes not adapted for Indians, and the children would lose the quarterlies or their lesson-papers. The latter plan was for some reasons better for the teachers, as they could get helps in the quarterlies to understand the lesson which they could not well get elsewhere. Sabbath-school papers with a Bible picture in them and an explanation of it were valuable. Such at last I found in The Youth’s World for 1883. Once a month, while I had them, I gave the papers to the teachers the Sabbath previous and told the scholars{233} to learn a few verses in the Bible about the picture. Then every child received the paper on the Sabbath, and the story was explained.

At first nearly all the teachers were whites; but in time, as the whites moved away and the young men and women became older and more competent, they took up the work. About half of the teachers during the last two years were Indians. Agent Eells was superintendent of the school from its beginning in 1871 until 1882, when his head-quarters were removed to another reservation, since which time I have had charge. When the agent left he received from the school a copy of Ryle’s Commentary on John, in three volumes, which present was accompanied by some very appropriate remarks by Professor A. T. Burnell, then in charge of the school.

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,” said Christ, and we found this to be true; the committing to memory of so many verses produced its natural effect. The seed sown grew. Eighteen Indian children out of the Sabbath-school have united with the church.

The average attendance on the school at Skokomish has varied. From June, 1875, to June, 1876, it was eighty-five, and that was the highest.{234} From June, 1881, to June, 1882, it was forty-seven, which was the lowest. The dismissal of employees and their families and the “dark days,” of which mention has been made, caused decrease for a time.{235}

XXXVIII.

PRAYER MEETINGS.

ANOTHER of the first meetings established on the reservation under the new policy was the prayer-meeting along with the Sabbath-school. To those white people near the reservation who cared but little for religion, and who had known the previous history of the reservation, a prayer-meeting on a reservation! ah, it was a strange thing, but they afterward acknowledged that it was a very proper thing for such a place. That regular church prayer-meeting has been kept up from 1871 until the present time, varied a little at times to suit existing circumstances. The employees and school-children were the principal attendants, as it was too far away from most of the Indians for them to come in the evening. But few of the children ever took part. Too many wise heads of a superior race frightened them even if they had wished to do so. The average attendance on it has varied from twenty-two in 1875 to thirty-eight in 1880. Previous to 1880, it ranged below thirty—since then above that number.{236}

To suit the wants of the children we had boys’ prayer-meetings and girls’ prayer-meetings. Sometimes these were merely talks to them, and sometimes they took part. In the summer of 1875 the white girls first made a request to have one. I had been to our Association and on my return I reported what I had heard of a children’s meeting at Bellingham Bay. Two of the girls were impressed with the idea and made a request for a similar one. Indian girls were soon invited to come and more or less took part. It was not long before from its members some came into the church. For a long time my mother had charge of this. She died in 1878, after which my wife took charge. The white girls at last all left and only Indian girls remained in it. They have often taken their turn in leading the meeting.

Although for two or three years I had asked a few boys to come to my house from time to time to teach them and try to induce them to pray, yet they never did any thing more than to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, until February, 1877. Then three boys came and asked for instruction on this subject, and soon we had a prayer-meeting in which all took part. Previous to that school-boys had seemed to be interested in religion, but when they{237} became older and mingled more with the older Indians they went back again into their old ways; but none ever went as far as these did then—none ever prayed where a white person heard them or asked to have a prayer-meeting with their minister. During that summer the interest increased and it grew gradually to be a meeting of twenty with a dozen sometimes taking part, but all were not Christians. After a few months of apparent Christian life, some found the way too hard for them and turned back, yet a number of them came into the church.

But all of these meetings did not reach the older Indians. They were too far away to attend, and, had they been present, the meeting was in an unknown tongue. So in the summer of 1875 I began holding meetings at their logging-camps. They were welcomed by some, while with some, especially those who leaned toward the Catholic religion and the old native religion, it was hard work to do any thing. In these meetings I was usually assisted by the interpreter John Palmer. At our church services and Sabbath-school it was very difficult to induce them to sing or to say any thing. There were enough white folks to carry them and they were willing to be carried. At our first meetings{238} with them they sang and talked well, but preferred to wait a while before they should pray in public. They did not know what to say, was the excuse they gave. On reading I found that the natives at the Sandwich Islands were troubled in the same way; and I remembered that the disciples said: “Lord, teach us how to pray, as John also taught his disciples;” so we offered to teach them how, for they professed to be Christians. One of us would say a sentence and then ask one of the better ones to repeat it afterward. I remember how something comical struck one of the Indians during one of these prayers and he burst out laughing in the midst of it. Feeling that a very short prayer would be the best probably for them to begin with alone, I recommended that they ask a blessing at their meals. This was acceptable to some of them. I taught them a form, and they did so for that fall and a part of the winter. I once asked one Indian if he ever prayed. His reply was that he asked a blessing on Sabbath morning at his breakfast. That was all, and he seemed to think that it was enough.

When winter came the logging-camps closed and they went to their homes. They were too far off to hold evening services with them, because of{239} the mud, rain, and darkness, and, as they had but little to do, I took Tuesdays for meetings with them. About the first of December we induced four of them to pray in a prayer-meeting without any assistance from us. This meeting was three hours long. It seemed as if a good beginning had been made, but Satan did not propose to let us have the victory quite so easily. In less than a week after this the Indians were all drawn into a tribal sing tamahnous, and all of these praying Indians took some part, though only one seemed to be the leader of it. That was the end of his praying for years. The agent told him that he had made a fool of himself and he said that it was true. In 1883 he was among the first to join the church and since then he has done an excellent work. Still I kept up the meetings during the winter. The Indian, however, is very practical. His ideas of spiritual things are exceedingly small. His heaven is sensual and his prayers to his tamahnous are for life, food, clothes, and the like. So when they began to pray to God, they prayed much for these things, and when they did not obtain all for which they asked, they grew tired. Others then laughed at them for their want of success. I talked of perseverance in prayer.{240}

Not long after this the trouble with Billy Clams and his wife, as already related under the head of marriage, occurred. He escaped at first, but others were put in jail for aiding him. At one of the first meetings after this trouble began, I asked one to pray, but he only talked. I asked another and he said “No,” very quickly, and there was only one left. Soon after this, they held a great meeting to petition the agent to release the prisoners. The only praying one prayed earnestly that this might be done. The petition was rightfully refused. The other Indians laughed at him for his failure, and that stopped his praying in public for a long time, with one exception. Once afterward we held a meeting with them and after some urging a few took part, but it was a dying affair. Notwithstanding all that they had said about being Christians, the heart was not there, and until 1883 hardly any of the older uneducated Indians prayed in public in our meetings. Of those four, one left the reservation and became a zealous Catholic; one has apparently improved some; one was nearly ruined by getting a wife with whom he could not get along for a time, and at last became a leader in the shaking religion; and one, as already stated, has done very well.{241}

The next summer, 1876, I visited their logging-camps considerably, and was well received by some, while others treated me as coldly as they dared, doing only what they could not help doing. But they did not take as much part in the meetings as they had done the previous summer, talking very little and praying none. Their outward progress toward religion had received a severe check. As has been the case with some other tribes, Satan would not give up without a hard struggle. Like some of the disciples, they found the gospel a hard saying, could not bear it, and went back and walked no more with Christ.

The business of logging was overdone for several years, and during that time I was not able to gather them together much for social meetings. I worked mainly by pastoral visiting. In the winter of 1881-82 some of them went to the Chehalis Reservation and attended some meetings held by the Indians there and were considerably aroused. They again asked for meetings and held them, but while they were free to talk and sing, they were slow to pray. Logging revived, and I held meetings quite constantly with them during the next two years.

At that time four of them professed to take a{242} stand for Christ. Gambling was a besetting sin of some of them, but with some help from the school-boys, who had now grown to be men, they passed through the Fourth of July safely, although there was considerable of it on the grounds, and two of them were strongly urged to indulge. The other two were absent. But in the fall there was a big Indian wedding with considerable gambling and horse-racing, and then two fell. Another did a very wrong thing in another way and was put in jail for it, and that stopped his praying for a time, though he has since begun it again. The other was among the first of the older Indians to join the church in 1883, and he has done a firm good work for us since.

In other camps I was welcomed also, but it has ever been difficult to induce them, even the Christians, to pray or speak much in public. Those prayer-meetings have usually been what I have had to say. Occasionally they speak a little; but, not being able to read, their thoughts run in a small circle, and they are apt to say the same things over again, and they tire of it unless something special occurs to arouse them. “You speak,” they often say to me, when I have asked them to say something. “You know something{243} and can teach us; we do not know any thing and we will listen.” It is a fact that what we obtain from the Bible is the great source of our instruction for others; still if we are Christians and know only a little, the Spirit sometimes sanctifies that even in a very ignorant person so that he may do some good with it.

The Clallam prayer-meetings at Jamestown have been different. They began them when I visited them only once in six months, hence they had to take part or give them up. They were not willing to do the latter, therefore they have had to do the former. Sometimes eight or ten take part. They seem to expect that if a person join the church he will take part in the prayer-meeting, and the children of thirteen or fourteen years of age do so with the older ones. Thrown on their own resources in this respect, as well as in others, it has had its advantages.{244}

XXXIX.

INDIAN HYMNS.

OUR first singing was in English, as we knew of no hymns in the languages which the Indians could understand. In the Sabbath-school prayer-meeting and partly in church we have continued to use them, as the children understand English, and it is best to train them to use the language as much as possible. “Pure Gold” and the Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs, as used by Messrs. Moody and Sankey, have been in use among the Indian children for the last twelve years. Two or three of the simplest English songs which repeat considerably have also been learned by many of the older Indians, who understand a little of our language, as: “Come to Jesus!” and “Say, brothers, will you meet us?” Yet all these did not reach the large share of the older Indians as we wished to reach them. “What are you doing out here?” “Why do you not go to Sabbath-school?” were questions which were asked one Sabbath by the wife of the agent{245} to an Indian who was wandering around outside during that service. His reply was that as the first part of the exercises and the singing were in English they were very dry and uninteresting to him. Only when the time came for singing the Chinook song was he much interested. That was in 1874, and there was only one such song, which the agent had made previous to my coming; but the want of them, as expressed by that Indian, compelled us to make more. The first efforts were to translate some of our simpler hymns into the Chinook language, but this we found to be impracticable, with one or two exceptions. The expressions, syllables, words, and accent did not agree well enough for it; so we made up some simple sentiment, repeated it two or three times, fitted it to one of our tunes, and sang it. In the course of time we had eight or ten Chinook songs. They repeated considerably, because the older Indians could not read and had to learn them from hearing them, somewhat after the principle of the negro songs. Major W. H. Boyle visited us in 1876, and was much interested in this singing. He took copies of the songs and said he would see if he could not have them printed on the government press belonging to the War{246} Department, at Portland, free of expense; but I presume he was not able to have it done, as I never heard of them again.

In my visits among white people and in other Sabbath-schools I was often called upon to sing them, and was then often asked for a copy; so often was this done that I grew tired of copying them. Encouraged by this demand and by Major Boyle’s interest in them, I thought I would see if I could not have them published. I wrote to several other reservations, asking for copies of any such hymns which they might have, hoping that they also would bear a share of the expense of publishing them; but I found that most of them had no such songs, and, to my surprise, some seemed to have no desire for them. So I was compelled to carry on the little affair alone. I was unable to bear the expense, but fortunately then Mr. G. H. Himes, of Portland, consented to run all risks of printing them, and so in 1878 a little pamphlet, entitled “Hymns in the Chinook Jargon Language,” was printed, and it has been very useful. The following, from its introductory note, may be of interest:—

“These hymns have grown out of Christian work among the Indians.... The chief peculiarity{247} which I have noticed in making hymns in this language is that a large proportion of the words are of two syllables, and a large majority of these have the accent on the second syllable, which renders it almost impossible to compose any hymns in long, common, or short metres.”

The following remarks were made about it by the editor of The American Missionary:—

“It is not a ponderous volume like those in use in our American churches, with twelve or fifteen hundred hymns, but a modest pamphlet of thirty pages, containing both the Indian originals and the English translations. The tunes include, among others, ‘Bounding Billows,’ ‘John Brown,’ and ‘The Hebrew Children.’ The hymns are very simple and often repeat all but the first line. The translations show the poverty of the language to convey religious ideas.... It is no little task to make hymns out of such poor materials. Let it be understood that these are only hymns for the transition state—for Indians who can remember a little and who sing in English as soon as they have learned to read. This little book is a monument of missionary labor and full of suggestion as to the manifold difficulties to be encountered in the attempt to Christianize the Indians of America.”{248}

Since then I have made a few others which have never been printed, one of which is here given. The cause of it was as follows: One day I asked an Indian what he thought of the Christian religion and the Bible. His reply was that it was good, very good, for the white man, but that the Indian’s religion was the best for him. Hence in this hymn I tried to teach them that the Bible is not a book for the white people alone, but for the whole world—an idea which is now quite generally accepted among them. In all we now have sixteen hymns in Chinook, five in Twana, five in Clallam, and two in Nisqually.

Tune, “Hold the Fort.”

(1) Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bible kloshe,
Kópa kónoway Bóston tíllikums
Yáka hías kloshe.

CHORUS.

Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bible kloshe,
Kópa kónoway tíllikums álta,
Yáka hías kloshe.

(2) Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bible kloshe,
Kópa kónoway Síwash tíllikums
Yáka hías kloshe.{249}

CHORUS.

Sághalie Tyee, etc.

(3) Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bible kloshe,
Kópa kónoway King George tíllikums
Yáka hías kloshe.—Cho.

TRANSLATION.

(1) God, His paper—
His Bible is good;
For all American people
It is very good.

CHORUS.

God, His paper—
His Bible is good;
For all people now
It is very good.

(2) God, His paper—
His Bible is good;
For all Indian people
It is very good.

(3) God, His paper—
His Bible is good;
For all English people
It is very good.

By changing a single word in the third line to Pa sai ooks (French), China, Klale man (black men, or negroes), we had other verses.{250}

In time I, however, became satisfied that the Indians would be better pleased if they could sing a few songs in their native languages; but it was very difficult to make them, as I could not talk their languages, and so could not revolve a sentence over until I could make it fit a tune. The Indians, on the other hand, were too young or too ignorant of music to adapt the words properly to it for many years. I had, however, written down about eighteen hundred words and sentences in each of the Twana, Clallam, and Squaxon dialects of the Nisqually language, for Major J. W. Powell at Washington, and could understand the Twana language a very little, and this knowledge helped me greatly. Some of the older school-boys became interested in the subject, and so we worked together. After some attempts, which were failures, we were able in 1882 to make a few hymns which have become quite popular. Some the Indians themselves made, and some they and I made. The following samples are given of one in each language:—

The following is a translation of our hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” so literally that it can be sung in both languages at the same time. The other two verses have also been likewise translated.

As an illustration of the difficulty I had, the following is given. I wished to obtain the chorus to the hymn, “I’m going home,” and obtained the expression, “I will go home,” in Clallam, in the following seven different ways. The last one was the only one that would fit the music.

As a literary curiosity I found that the old hymn, “Where, oh, where is good old Noah?” to the tune of “The Hebrew Children,” could be sung in four languages at the same time, and this was the only English hymn that I was ever able to translate into Chinook jargon, thus:—

These sentences can be mixed up in these languages in any way, make good sense, and mean almost precisely the same. I found no other hymn in which I could do likewise, but the chorus to “I’m going home” can be rendered similarly in the English, Twana, and Clallam.

Clallams are much more natural singers than the Twanas. For this reason, and also because there have never been enough whites in church to do the singing for them, there has never been any difficulty in inducing them to sing in church. But for very many years it was different with the{255} Twanas. When the services were first begun among them the singing was in English and they were not expected to take part in it. When hymns were first made in the Chinook jargon there were so many whites to sing in church, that the Indians did not seem to take hold. They would sing well enough at their camps, the boys would sing loud enough when alone at the boarding-house or outdoors, but when they came to church they were almost mum. The whites and the school-girls did most of it. It is only within the past year or two that a perceptible change has been made for the better.{256}

XL.

NATIVE MINISTRY AND SUPPORT.

BUT little has been done in these respects except to sow the seed, but if the work shall continue another ten years I trust that more will be accomplished. Since I have been here I have worked with the idea that in time the Indians ought to furnish their own ministers and support them. It will, however, naturally take more time to raise up a native ministry than a native church, native Christian teachers than native Christian scholars. These must come from our schools after long years of training. Owing to a lack of early moral training among them,—the want of a foundation,—the words of Paul on this subject have appeared to me to have a striking significance, more so than among whites, although they are true even among them: “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.”

All people are tempted to be proud, but owing to this lack of foundation, Indians are peculiarly{257} so. A little knowledge puffeth up, and, to use a common expression, they soon get the “big-head.” That spoils them for the ministry. My first hope of this kind was that John Palmer would turn his attention to the subject, but he had a family before I knew him, and I never could induce him to look much in that direction. In the spring of 1882 two young men who had been in school from childhood took hold well. They began to talk with the Indians, to assist me in holding meetings, and to take charge of them in my absence. I felt that they were too young,—less than twenty-one,—and yet at times I could see no other way to do; but I had reason to fear that both felt proud of their position. During the next summer one of them, in getting married, fell so low that we had to suspend him from the church for almost a year, and the other for a time went slowly backward. Both have come up again considerably, and the latter has done quite well for the last year in holding lay-meetings. I pray “the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”

As to the support of the ministry, I always felt a delicacy in speaking of the subject, because I was the minister. For several years, as long as{258} very few of the older Indians were members of the church, and the ones who were members were scholars without money, it was difficult to say much. As soon as some of the school-boys were put to work as apprentices, I broached the subject to them, talked about it, and gave them something to read on it. While they were apprentices and employees most of them gave fairly. The agent urged them to do so, but compelled none, and a few refused entirely. But when they left the government employ and the agent moved away, they stopped doing what they had never liked to do.

The older Indians, when they did come into the church, were hardly prepared for it. The Catholic set said that if the people joined them they would have nothing to pay. One of the Catholics told me that the only reason why I wanted to get him into the church was to obtain his money. It had been revealed to them that it was wrong to sell God’s truth. These arguments, somewhat similar to those used years ago by some of the more ignorant people in the Southern and Western States, coupled with the natural love of money, has made it very difficult to induce even the members of the church to contribute for the support of their pastor. One of them once almost found fault{259} with me for taking the money contributed at a collection by whites at Seabeck, where I often preached, and he thought I ought not to do so.

The Indians at Jamestown have done somewhat differently. In their region, when there has been preaching by the whites, generally a collection is taken. Noticing this, of their own accord, in 1882 when I went to them, they passed around the hat and took up a collection of three dollars and forty-five cents, and they have sometimes done so since.{260}

XLI.

TOBACCO.

THE use of tobacco is not as excessive among the Twanas as among many Indians—not as much so as among the Clallams. Seldom is one seen smoking or chewing, though a large share of the Indians use it a little. Yet not much of a direct war has been waged against it. There have been so many greater evils against which it seemed necessary to contend that I hardly thought it wise to speak much in public against it. Still a quiet influence has been exerted against it. The agent never uses it, and very few of the employees have done so. This example has done something.

The following incident shows the ideas some of them have obtained. About 1876 the school-teacher heard something going on in the boys’ room. He quietly went to the key-hole and listened to see if any mischief were brewing. The result was different from what he had feared. The boys were holding a court. They had their judge and jury, witnesses and lawyers. The culprit was{261} charged with the crime of being drunk. After the prosecution had rested the case, the criminal arose and said about as follows: “May it please your honor, I am a poor man and not able to pay a lawyer, so I shall have to defend myself. There is a little mistake about this case. My name is Captain Chase [a white man of the region]. I came to church on Sunday; the minister did not know me. I was well dressed, and the minister mistook me for another minister. So when he was done, he asked me to say a few words to the Indians. I was in a fix, for I had a large quid of tobacco in my mouth. I tried to excuse myself, but the minister would not take no for an answer. So at last I quietly and secretly took out the tobacco from my mouth [suiting his words with a very apt illustration of how it was done], threw it behind the seat, and went up on the platform to speak. But I was not sharp enough for the Indians. Some of them saw me throw it away, and they thought a minister had no business with tobacco, and that is why I am here; besides I was a little tipsy.” I have enjoyed telling this story to one or two tobacco-using ministers.

Somewhat later a rather wild boy wrote me, asking me to allow him to enter the praying band of Indian boys. He promised to give up his bad{262} habits; and among others he mentioned the use of tobacco, which he said he would abandon.

Within the past year a number of the older Indians have abandoned its use. I have a cigar which was given me by one man. He said that when he determined to stop its use, he had a small piece of tobacco and two cigars, and that for months afterward they lay in his house where they were at that time, and he gave me one of them. Most of those who stopped using it belonged to the shaking set. It was one of the few good things which resulted from that strange affair. But they have been earnestly encouraged to continue as they have begun in this respect.

A white man who has an Indian woman for a wife told me the following. For years both he and his wife used tobacco, himself both chewing and smoking. When she professed to become a Christian, she gave up her tobacco and tried to induce him to do the same, and at last he did so far yield as to stop smoking; but he continued to chew. All her talk did not stop him. But he saw that when he had spit on the floor and stove, she would get a paper or rag and wipe it up, and hence he grew ashamed and stopped chewing in the house, using only a little—when he told me—in the woods when at work.{263}

XLII.

SPICE.

AN experience which is not very pleasant comes from the vermin, especially the fleas—not a refined word; but the most refined society gets accustomed to it here because they have to do so, and the more so the nearer they get to the native land of these animals—the Indians. I stood one evening and preached in one of their houses when I am satisfied that I scratched every half-minute during the service; for, although I stood them as long as I could, I could not help it. I would quietly take up one foot and rub it against the other, put my hand behind my back or in my pocket, and treat the creatures as gently as I could, and the like, so as not to attract any more attention than possible.

But then Indian houses are not their only dwellings. At one place I once stayed at a white man’s house, who was as kind as he knew how to be: but backing for twenty years with very few neighbors except Indians is not very elevating; it is one of{264} the trials of the hardy frontiersman. I tried to go to sleep—one bit; I kicked—he stopped; I shut my eyes—another wanted his supper; I scratched; and so we kept up the interminable warfare until three o’clock, when sleep conquered for two hours. The next day, on the strength of it, I preached twice, held a council, tramped five miles, and talked the rest of the time. That night mine host, having suspected something, proposed that we take our blankets and go to the barn. I was willing, and we all slept soundly; but the hay was a year old, and in that region sometimes innumerable small hay-lice get on it—a fact of which I was not aware. They did not trouble us during the night; but when we arose the next morning our clothes, which had lain on the hay, were covered with thousands of them. Every seam, torn place, button-hole, and turned-over place was crowded with the lilliputians. It took me three quarters of an hour to brush them from my clothes. However, it did not hurt the clothes or me. My better two-thirds would have said that they needed brushing.

Twice while traveling to Jamestown have I been obliged, when within twenty miles of the place, to stop all day Saturday because of heavy{265} head-winds, when I was exceedingly anxious to be at Jamestown over the Sabbath. That day was consequently spent not where I wished to be. It seemed to me to be a strange Providence; but I have since been inclined to believe that my example in not traveling on the Sabbath, when the Indians knew how anxious I was to reach the place, was worth more than the sermons I would have preached.

“In the school on the Indian reservation where I live twenty-five or thirty Indian children are taught the English language. At one time a new boy came who knew how to talk our language somewhat but not very well. Soon after he came he was at work with the other boys and the teacher, when, in pronouncing one English word, he did not pronounce it aright. He was corrected but still did not say it right. Again he was told how, but still it seemed as if his tongue were too thick; and again, but he did not get the right twist to it. At last one of the scholars thought that he was doing it only for fun and that he could pronounce it correctly if he only would do so, so he said: ‘O boys, it is not because his tongue is crooked but because his ears are crooked!’{266}”

What does Paul say? “Five times received I forty stripes save one.” Well, I have never been treated so, for the people are as kind as can be. “Shipwrecked”? No, only cast twice on the beach by winds from a canoe. “A night and a day in the deep”? No, only a whole night and a part of several others on the mud-flats, waiting for the tide to come. No danger of drowning there. So I have determined to take more of such spice if it shall come.{267}

XLIII.

CURRANT JELLY.

THERE is, however, another side to the picture, more like currant jelly. The people generally are as kind as they can be. “We will give you the best we have,” is what is often told me, and they do it. Here is a house near Jamestown, where I have stopped a week at a time, or nearly that, once in six months for about six years, and the people will take nothing for it. For seventy-five miles west of Dunginess is a region where a man’s company is supposed to pay for his lodgings at any house. I meet a man, who offers to go home, a half a mile, and get me a dinner, if I will only accept it. A girl, with whose family I was only slightly acquainted, stood on the porch one day as I passed, and said: “Mister, have you been to dinner? You had better stop and have some.” A hotel-keeper, who had sold whiskey for fifteen years, put me in his best room, one which he had fitted up for his own private use, and then would take nothing for it. The Superintendent{268} of the Seabeck Mills, Mr. R. Holyoke, invited me to go to his house whenever I was in the place, and would never take any thing for it. It amounted to about four weeks’ time each year for five or six years, and yet he would hardly allow me to thank him. Others, too, at the same place, have been very kind. The steamer St. Patrick for two years and a half always carried myself and family free, whenever we wished to travel on it, and during that time it gave us sixty or seventy-five dollars’ worth of fare. Captain J. G. Baker, of the Colfax, said to me, six or seven years ago: “Whenever you or your family, or an Indian whom you have with you to carry you, wish to travel where I am going, I will take you free.” He has often done it, sometimes making extra effort with his steamer in order to accommodate me. The steamers Gem and McNaught also made a rule to charge me no fare when I traveled on them.

Indians, too, are not wholly devoid of gratitude. It is the time of a funeral. They are often accustomed at such times to make presents to their friends who attend and sympathize with them. “Take this money,” they have often said to me at such times, as they have given me from one to three dollars. “Do not refuse—it is our custom;{269} for you have come to comfort us with Christ’s words.” At a great festival, where I was present to protect them from drunkenness, and other evils equally bad, they handed me seven dollars and a half, saying, “You have come a long distance to help us; we can not give you food as we do these Indians, as you do not eat with us; take this money, it will help to pay your board.” But when I offered to pay the gentleman with whom I was staying, Mr. B. G. Hotchkiss, he too would take nothing for the board. The good people of the Pearl Street Church in Hartford, Connecticut, sent us a barrel of things in the early spring of 1883, whose money value I estimated at considerably over a hundred dollars, and whose good cheer was inestimable in money, because it came when our days were the darkest.

God has been very good to put it into the hearts of so many people to be so kind, and not the least good thing that he has done is that he has put that verse in the Bible about the giving a cup of cold water and the reward that will follow.{270}

XLIV.

CONCLUSION.

DR. H. J. MINTHORNE, superintendent of the Indian Training School at Forest Grove, Oregon, once remarked to me, “that, in the civilization of Indians, they often went forward and then backward; but that each time they went backward it was not quite so far as the previous time, and that each time they went forward it was an advance on any previous effort.” I have found the same to be true. They seem to rise much as the tide does when the waves are rolling—a surge upward and then back; but careful observation shows that the tide is rising.

There is much of human nature in them. In many respects—as in their habits of neatness and industry, their visions, superstitions, and the like—I have often been reminded of what I have read about ignorant whites in the Southern and Western States fifty years ago, and of what I have seen among the same class of people in Oregon thirty years ago.{271}

Soon after I came here, an old missionary said to me: “Keep on with the work; the fruits of Christian labor among the Indians have been as great or greater than among the whites.” I have found it to be in some measure true. Something has, I trust, been done; but the Bible and experience both agree in saying that “God has done it all.” I sometimes think I have learned a little of the meaning of the verse, “Without me ye can do nothing,” and I would also record that I have proved the truth of that other one, “I am with you alway,"—for the work has paid.

I went to Boise City, in Idaho, in 1871, with the intention of staying indefinitely, perhaps a lifetime, but Providence indicated plainly that I ought to leave in two and a half years. When I came here, it was only with the intention of remaining two or three months on a visit. The same Providence has kept me here ten years and I am now satisfied that his plans were far wiser than mine. So “man proposes and God disposes.” The Christians’ future and the Indians’ future are wisely in the same hands.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Among the Alaskans, pp. 271, 272.

[2] It was not at that time, at this place.

[3] Added to the Jamestown Church, and inserted here to give a view of the whole work.

	Added by Letter.	Added on Profession of Faith.	Of those Joining on Profession, these were Indians.	Dismissed by Letter.	Died.	Excommunicated.	Membership on Last Day of Fiscal Year.	Absentees.
Organized with	9	2	1				11
June, 1874-75	2						13
June, 1875-76	4	4	1				21
June, 1876-77	2	2	2	9			16	2
June, 1877-78		3	3				19	2
June, 1878-79		6	4		2	1	22	4
June, 1879-80	4	11	7	1			36	5
June, 1880-81	2	5	3		3		40	10
June, 1881-82	2	5	4 [3] 5	16			31	13
June, 1882-83	1	5	6 [3] 5	6			31	13
June, 1883-July, 1884	1	18	7 [3] 17	5	1	1	43	10
Total	27	61	64	37	6	2

Introduction	11
I.
Skokomish	15
II.
Preliminary History	17
III.
Early Religious Teaching	21
IV.
Subsequent Political History	26
V.
The Field and the Work	28
VI.
Difficulties in the Way of Religious Work	33
(a) Languages	33
(b) Their Religion	37
(c) Besetting Sins	53
VII.
Temperance	60
VIII.
Industries{8}	69
IX.
Titles to their Lands	74
X.
Mode of Living	82
XI.
Names	85
XII.
Education	87
XIII.
Fourth of July	93
XIV.
Christmas	97
XV.
Variety	100
XVI.
Marriage and Divorce	105
XVII.
Sickness	118
XVIII.
Funerals	122
XIX.
The Census of 1880	132
XX.
The Influence of the Whites	144
XXI.
The Church at Skokomish{9}	149
XXII.
Big Bill	158
XXIII.
Dark Days	163
XXIV.
Light Breaking	170
XXV.
The First Battle	172
XXVI.
The Victory	180
XXVII.
Reconstruction	184
XXVIII.
John Foster Palmer	188
XXIX.
M—— F——	191
XXX.
Discouraging Cases and Disappointments	195
XXXI.
The Church at Jamestown	200
XXXII.
Cook House Billy	209
XXXIII.
Lord James Balch	214
XXXIV.
Touring{10}	216
XXXV.
The Bible and Other Books	223
XXXVI.
Bible Pictures	227
XXXVII.
The Sabbath-School	230
XXXVIII.
Prayer-Meetings	235
XXXIX.
Indian Hymns	244
XL.
Native Ministry and Support	256
XLI.
Tobacco	260
XLII.
Spice	263
XLIII.
Currant Jelly	267
XLIV.
Conclusion	270

TEN YEARS OF M I S S I O N A R Y W O R K AMONG THE INDIANS AT SKOKOMISH, WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 1874-1884.

PREFACE.

D E D I C A T I O N.

NOTE.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

TEN YEARS AT SKOKOMISH.

I. SKOKOMISH.

II. PRELIMINARY HISTORY.

A WAR INCIDENT.

III. EARLY RELIGIOUS TEACHING.

IV. SUBSEQUENT POLITICAL HISTORY.

V. THE FIELD AND WORK.

VI. DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF RELIGIOUS WORK.

(a) LANGUAGES.

(b) THEIR RELIGION.

CHEHALIS JACK.

ELLEN GRAY.

(c) BESETTING SINS.

VII. TEMPERANCE.

VIII. INDUSTRIES.

IX. TITLES TO THEIR LAND.

X. MODE OF LIVING.

XI. NAMES.

XII. EDUCATION.

CORRECTING THOMSON’S PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC.

XIII. THE FOURTH OF JULY.

THE FOURTH OF JULY ON SKOKOMISH RESERVATION.

XIV. CHRISTMAS.

XV. VARIETY.

XVI. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

XVII. SICKNESS.

XVIII. FUNERALS.

THE DEATH OF SKAGIT BILL.

XIX. THE CENSUS OF 1880.

XX. THE INFLUENCE OF THE WHITES.

XXI. THE CHURCH AT SKOKOMISH.

XXII. BIG BILL.

XXIII. DARK DAYS.

XXIV. LIGHT BREAKING.

XXV. THE FIRST BATTLE.

XXVI. THE VICTORY.

XXVII. RECONSTRUCTION.

XXVIII. JOHN FOSTER PALMER.

XXIX. M——F——.

XXX. DISCOURAGING CASES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.

XXXI. THE CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN.

XXXII. COOK HOUSE BILLY.

XXXIII. LORD JAMES BALCH.

XXXIV. TOURING.

XXXV. THE BIBLE AND OTHER BOOKS.

XXXVI. BIBLE PICTURES.

XXXVII. THE SABBATH-SCHOOL.

XXXVIII. PRAYER MEETINGS.

XXXIX. INDIAN HYMNS.

XL. NATIVE MINISTRY AND SUPPORT.

XLI. TOBACCO.

XLII. SPICE.

XLIII. CURRANT JELLY.

XLIV. CONCLUSION.

TEN YEARS

OF

M I S S I O N A R Y W O R K

AMONG THE INDIANS
AT
SKOKOMISH, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.
1874-1884.

I.

SKOKOMISH.

II.

PRELIMINARY HISTORY.

III.

EARLY RELIGIOUS TEACHING.

IV.

SUBSEQUENT POLITICAL HISTORY.

V.

THE FIELD AND WORK.

VI.

DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF RELIGIOUS WORK.

VII.

TEMPERANCE.

VIII.

INDUSTRIES.

IX.

TITLES TO THEIR LAND.

X.

MODE OF LIVING.

XI.

NAMES.

XII.

EDUCATION.

XIII.

THE FOURTH OF JULY.

XIV.

CHRISTMAS.

XV.

VARIETY.

XVI.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

XVII.

SICKNESS.

XVIII.

FUNERALS.

XIX.

THE CENSUS OF 1880.

XX.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WHITES.

XXI.

THE CHURCH AT SKOKOMISH.

XXII.

BIG BILL.

XXIII.

DARK DAYS.

XXIV.

LIGHT BREAKING.

XXV.

THE FIRST BATTLE.

XXVI.

THE VICTORY.

XXVII.

RECONSTRUCTION.

XXVIII.

JOHN FOSTER PALMER.

XXIX.

M——F——.

XXX.

DISCOURAGING CASES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.

XXXI.

THE CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN.

XXXII.

COOK HOUSE BILLY.

XXXIII.

LORD JAMES BALCH.

XXXIV.

TOURING.

XXXV.

THE BIBLE AND OTHER BOOKS.

XXXVI.

BIBLE PICTURES.

XXXVII.

THE SABBATH-SCHOOL.

XXXVIII.

PRAYER MEETINGS.

XXXIX.

INDIAN HYMNS.

XL.

NATIVE MINISTRY AND SUPPORT.

XLI.

TOBACCO.

XLII.

SPICE.

XLIII.

CURRANT JELLY.

XLIV.

CONCLUSION.