Texts of the North American Indian

THE NEZ PERCES, PART 3

HISTORICAL SKETCH

The "non-treaties" continued to refuse annuities, and the friction with the settlers becoming more acute, the Government proposed to establish for the "non-treaties" a reservation in the disputed territory, the Wallowa and the Grande Ronde valleys, buying out the squatters' rights of the white men who had settled on the land. On June 16, 1873, President Grant withdrew from settlement the land between Snake river, the Grande Ronde, and the west fork of the Wallowa. In the meantime some of the bands on Snake river below the Clearwater had come upon the reservation, notably the Alpowaima and the remnants of several other bands that had previously joined them in their home at the mouth of Alpowa creek - about two hundred in all. The "non-treaties" remained in their customary haunts, believing that their right to the Grande Ronde valley was undeniable. Immediately after the establishment of the Wallowa reservation, Governor Grover, of Oregon, addressed a letter to the President protesting against his executive order, advancing the argument that inasmuch as all the Nez Perces had signed the treaty of 1855, therefore they tacitly admitted tribal organization; hence all must be bound by the action of a majority, and as a majority had assented to the treaty of 1863, the Lower Nez Perces had relinquished their rights to any land outside of the new reservation, even though not one of them had signed the treaty. In 1875 the order was withdrawn, and the land restored to the public domain. This was sad news indeed to the Indians, and a keen disappointment to the squatters, who for a year and a half had been waiting for the paltry sums in payment for their improvements. For the real incentive to staking a claim in the valleys of the Wallowa and the Grande Ronde was not that the soil was extraordinary; there were far better lands available. But it was then, as now, almost a national trait to assume that any land claimed by an Indian must be of very exceptional quality; and the pioneers ignored many a potential gardenspot in order to encroach upon the second-rate land of an Indian reservation with as much eagerness and display of judgment as a hundred thousand other Americans have recently exhibited in travelling hundreds of miles past good land open to settlement under the homestead laws, in order to obtain in the national lottery, with the odds a hundred to one against their success, a piece of indifferent or positively sterile land, which must be patented under those same homestead laws. But in this instance the pioneer had rather the better of the argument, for if the soil on which he made his meagre improvements was not of the best, at least there was a likelihood that he would be compensated by a beneficent Government when the Indians' right to the land was confirmed.

The situation in the Nez Perce country grew more difficult. From time to time several Indians were killed either in quarrels over the despoiling of their lands, or in drunken brawls. Whiskey was plentiful and the cause of a great deal of trouble. The agent reported to the Indian commission that settlers were selling whiskey to the Indians and then complaining that they suffered indignities while the Indians were intoxicated.

The possibilities of trouble at about this time are indicated by the following quotation from an informant named Hahafsilaatahat, Grizzly-bear Ferocious, also called Tialinikt, and by the Apsaroke and Sioux, Black Hair.

"Three years before the council with General Howard in 1877, while I was down on Snake river, word came that there was to be a dead feast at Tipahliwam, and I was wanted there. The word came from Wafsamyos, Rainbow, and Pahatush, Shot Five Times, both brave and well-known warriors like m self. We three were to speak before the council of the chiefs. I did not know what it was about. The house of the feasting was of nine fires. When the Kamiahpu, who were church Indians, heard that there was to be a feast, they came, but, although they were not refused admission to the feast, when it was time for the council guards were posted around the council-house, that none of them might spy on us and hear what was said. Jim Lawyer, son of the old Lawyer, was their chief.

"The council was held at night. White Bird, Tuhulhufsut, Joseph, Alokut, Looking Glass, and others were there. ' Joseph, son of the Joseph who signed the treaty of 1855, was chief of the bands on upper Snake river, and -particularly of the Inantoinnu, who were at the mouth of the Grande Ronde. Alokut was his younger brother. White Bird was chief of the Lamtama, on Whitebird creek, and was the most influential man among the Salmon River bands. Tuhul hufifit was a tiwat and chief of the Pikunanmu, on Snake river above the mouth of the Imnaha, and Looking Glass, son of the Looking Glass who was present at the council of 1855,.was chief at Hasotoin. After the chiefs had assembled, we three warriors were called before them. White Bird sat at the end. This did not signify that he was of any more importance than the others. Looking Glass said: 'Brothers, 3 - - - - een called to hear our plans. The question is, if the Waiilatpu [the Cayuse, Umatilla, and WaIlawalla], the people of Moses [the Sinkiuse], and ourselves shall fight with the white people. This plan is before the council-house today. We have called you to come and speak.' White Bird said to me, 'Brother, speak., and show your heart.' I answered, 'Let Pahatush do our talking.' Pahatush said, 'No, cousin, I would rather let you speak for us, and whatever you say will be for us also.' I said, 'Aa!' Then I got up and spoke: 'It is a long time we three have been struggling to get miohatowit [chieftainship]. We have been among many tribes ghting and bringing back scalps and horses, but we have not yet won chieftainship. I do not want to break my record! [The thought is, that since short-haired scalps are worthless, it would not only be useless to fight white men, but it would reall disparage the worth of previous exploits in fighting Indians.] White Bird said, 'Piha61gh, speak.' Pahatush said: 'It matters not, I am old, older than this Hahats-ilaatahat, but we made up our minds that he should speak for us. What he has said is good. That is our heart.' Looking Glass said: 'Aa, brothers. I do not like to fight the white man.' Kulkul-shnini, an old chief, said: 'I do not like to fight the white men either I am glad you young men have spoken so.' Nobody else spoke. The council disbanded.

"Before this council and feast, White Bird had been going to the country of Joseph and Alokut and discussing with them the possibilities of successful war with the white people. Others had gone to Waiilatpu, and others even to the Shoshoni, our old enemies. After the council with General Howard, nobody had any intention to fight. Joseph, Alokut, White Bird, all had made up their minds to go to the reservation." The fallacious argument of Governor Grover was adopted by the commission appointed in 1876 to meet the "nontreaties" at Lapwai and recommend to the Government a course of procedure. General 0. 0. Howard, commanding the Department of the Columbia, was a member of the commission. The Indians were still unwilling to give up their land, but the report of the commission was that by participation in the treaty of 1863 they had acknowledged a tribal organization, and should therefore be compelled to come to the reservation. Yet it was well known to everybody concerned that there was in fact no such thing as the "Nez Perce nation," and that each individual band was regarded as exercising full control over its own territory. In 1875 Howard had reported: "I think it a great mistake to take from Joseph and his band of Nez Perce Indians that valley; . . . and possibly Congress can be induced to let these really peaceable Indians have this poor valley for their own." Yet the commission reported: "While the commission give all due respect to the precedents and authorities in the Government dealing with Indians and to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States,- which recognized an undefined right of occupancy by Indians to large sections of the country., yet in view of the fact that these Indians do not claim simply this, but set up an absolute title to the lands, an absolute and independent sovereignty, and refuse even to be limited in their claim and control, necessity, humanity, and good sense constrain the Government to set metes and bounds., and give regulations to these 'nontreaty' Indians...And if the principle usually applied by the Government, of holding that the Indians with whom they have treaties are bound by the majority, is here applied, Joseph should be required to live within the limits of the present reservation."

In the face of this, Howard, in an attempted justification, had the temerity to deprecate in these words the argument of Governor Grover, which the General's commission had adopted as its own: "So much for our ideas of justice. First, we acknowledge and confirm by treaty to Indians a sort of title to vast regions. Afterward, we continue, in a strictly legal manner, to do away with both the substance and the shadow of title."

The history of the Nez Perces, when studied as a part of the North American Indian's conflict with civilization, is convincing that there was absolutely no course, policy, or conduct open to him which insured fair treatment, nor was there any road open to him which seemed materially to alleviate the situation or to stay the grasping encroachment. The inert, unorganized Indians of southern California were literally crowded from the earth. The fact that they, with their pacific disposition, made no resistance, had no modifying effect on the covetous settler, nor did it cause the Government to reach to them a helping hand in appreciation of their good behavior. They suffered through good conduct. The warlike, haughty tribes of the plains stood the imposition as long as they could, and then their longsmouldering resentment broke into flame and they struck back as only Indians can, and they suffered through their hostility. The Nez Perces, a mentally superior people, were friendly from their first contact with white men, and as a tribe they always desired to be so. Their history since 1855, and particularly in the war of 1877, tells how they were repaid for their loyalty to the white brother.

For a true premise from which to consider the Nez Pierce war and the events which led to it, we must consider the componency of the group. As has been previously shown, each village or band had its own chief, and when any one of these, village chiefs presumed to be head-chief of the different bands, it was merely assumption on his part: he mistook political ambition for fact.

The Nez Perces, were but semi-nomadic. Their habitat through traditional and mythic times included the same valleys which we took from them by right of might. By the fact that they had always dwelt in these beautiful valleys, securing their sustenance as a very gift from nature, and also by reason of their earth-mother religion, they were attached to the land to a greater degree than were the average tribe. All the Shahaptian groups speak a great deal of the earth as mother, but the Nez Perces seem to have been the high-priest of the earth-mother religion. This was their ever-ready argument in all councils: "The earth is my mother. Can I sell her body? You ask me to plow and plant. How can I tear up my mother's flesh?" This prejudice against parting with land and till ing the soil was not a mere whim, but was based on a deep-rooted 0 religious doctrine. Holahholah-tamaluit (invisible law) is the name applied by the Nez Perces to the supreme law of nature. This law or power placed them on the earth, and it was this belief that made them so strongly oppose the Government's demand that they give up their native valleys and concentrate the bands on one reserva tion. This belief is similar to the teachings of many of the Indian prophets, dreamers, medicine-men, or whatever we may see fit to call the religious leaders of Indian tribes, who, through fasting and abstinence, become the spiritual heads of the people. It was the plea of Tenskwatawa the Shawnee Prophet, and of his brother the remarkable Tecumtha.

This doctrine, that one should not in any way till the soil, but rather should subsist by the natural products of the earth, shows one of the strong parallelisms in human thought and the religious instinct. Dr. Paul Carus, in an interesting article on the develop ment of the god-thought, particularly comparing Yahveh of biblical tribes with the infinite among our Indians, cites many instances where the presumably divine instructions are against all tilling of the soil.

"The religion of the Rechabites is apparently the origina I Yahveh cult, whose most obvious feature is a religious consecration of the nomad life in the step es with an outspoken aversion to all civiliza tion as an aberration From the God-ordained estate of life."

"We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us., saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever: Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days ye shall dwell in tents."

"And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it."

"Even in the days of Gideon, the Israelites did not live in cities and houses, as did the Canaanites, but in tents, and Gideon selected for his band those only who would even spurn the use of the hand as a substitute for a drinking vessel and lapped the water like dogs."

"And the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself. . . . And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand ."

Among no Indians with whom the author is acquainted was the religious concept that the soil should not be tilled so manifest as among the Nez Perc6s. It was constantly expounded by their priests, who made it their supreme argument.

This indigenous religious doctrine was made the most of by the priesthood in their endeavor to hold the people close to the primitive faith; and disregard for the existence of such inherent religious belief is fatal to a satisfactory understanding of their history. Particularly in the past people have been too prone to assume that one belief was religion and the others idle superstition. The fact of the Christian religion's great superiority does not in any way change or affect what the Indian's own religion meant to him, and he was as apt to resent interference with his beliefs as are those possessing contrary ones. Consequently, in considering the Nez Perce war the reader must not lose sight of the fact that the "non-treaty" faction of the tribe were contending not alone for their home-land but for the religion of their fathers.

It is said that Joseph was ill-tempered and despondent when informed that the President had finally opened the Wallowa valley to settlement. He soon took new courage, however, no doubt feeling that as the matter had been so long in abeyance, there was yet hope that he might retain his much beloved home-land. He and the other "non-treaty" chiefs were soon to learn that primitive man has no alternative but to accept the decree of his superior. He could as well try to stay an avalanche of the mountain by stepping in its path. The injustice of the Government's position in no degree modified the command that the people were to be placed on the reservation. General Howard had his orders, and he had no choice but to move them, or kill them for not complying. That the latter was the outcome was no doubt more a matter of accident than of deliberate purpose on the part of any of the actors in the tragedy.

EDWARD S. CURTIS