The Okanogans, unacquainted with the destination of the migratory birds, believed that they flew to the spirit land, at the approach of winter, whence they returned with the coming of spring. ↩
This attributive power of the medicine man to accomplish fatal injury from great distances, is not at all unusual. Yoom’-tee-bee; “bitten by a grizzly bear,” a prominent Chief of the Yakimas, was suddenly and mortally stricken in 1910, by a Columbia River medicine man, sixty miles away. One of his followers in describing the death of this chieftain said to me:
“I saw him kill Yoom’-tee-bee, just the same as if you stick a knife in his breast.”
Yoom’-tee-bee was a physically strong man and from all outward appearances in the prime of health. His demise was attended by some strange and rather startling occurrences. ↩
Among some, if not all, the Columbia River tribes, to see a star within the halo, or “lodge” of the moon, denotes a death not far delayed. If a bright star, it will be a young person; if a dim star, an old person. A shooting star is also a precursor of death and should never be watched. If ending in an explosion of sparks, the victim is to be one of wealth and prominence. See note 52.
The raven is a bird of ill omen, ever flying in the vanguard of disease and scourges. See Legends of the Yakimas; by the writer of this note. ↩
The partisan historian has ever loyally refrained from touching on the moral shortcomings of our border heroes. The Indian wives of two United States army officers who rose to national and international distinction, were well known in this far northwest; both of them leaving mixed-blood offspring. The grandson of one of them told me that his grandmother never spoke of her white husband without weeping, always declaring to kill him, should she ever meet him. ↩
Kee-lau-naw: Okanogan for “grizzly-bear.” ↩
The general reader does not realize the gross and petty wrongs to which the individual Indian is subjected, even in the courts of justice. The following are but a few coming under my own personal observation.
A young Yakima of good repute when sober, tanked on the white man’s “firewater,” attempted to ride his horse upon the veranda of a suburban home. Failing in this, he rolled from his saddle and was soon in a drunken stupor. The Sheriff was notified and an officer brought the unconscious redskin to the lockup. In the Police Court the next morning, he was find “Ninety Dollars for Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct.”
Just nineteen days from this occurrence, a degenerate though sober white renegade, rode to the teepee of some Indian hop pickers not far from the city, where he found an aged squaw and her young granddaughter alone. Dismounting he assaulted the girl, who, with the venerable grandmother, fought her assailant. Becoming enraged, he beat the young woman with a heavy quirt with which he was armed, bruising her about the neck and shoulders in a frightful manner. He rode away when the girl fell insensible to the ground. These Indians were of the “better class,” and although the same Sheriff who was so prompt in the other case was notified, and the miscreant was well known, no arrest was made.
I saw a policeman take two free drinks at different bars and within ten minutes go out and arrest a perfectly sober Yakima minor, whose pockets when searched yielded up a solitary fish hook and line and a ten penny nail. This lad, clean and well dressed, spent a night in a vermin-infested cell overcrowded with drunks, and next morning, despite a presentation of facts, the boy was fined by a booze-fighting police judge for “Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct.” It is solace to know that within a few days this same “Judge” was beaten up by carousing white companions in a drunken saloon brawl.
A young Yakima was convicted in the Superior Court for a minor offence and sent to the penitentiary. The evidence was largely circumstantial and one of the acting jurors confided to me that, had the boy been a white man, he would have been acquitted, but as an Indian he was convicted. The victim was guilty of no greater crime than that of wearing a bronzed skin, the bestowment of nature’s God.
A Yakima was arrested on a stabbing affray; had his hearing and was entitled to freedom. He was ill, it was winter time, and his family was suffering; yet still he was held in durance vile. I went to the Prosecutor, a deacon in a prominent church, and was blandly informed that “through professional courtesy” the Injun was being retained until his counsel could collect the residue of an exorbitant fee—actual imprisonment for debt. ↩
The bent poles forming the skeleton frame of the sweat house were regarded as the bones, especially the ribs of the once living “Chief of the Animal World.” ↩
“Lodge of the night-sun.” Alluding to the halo, or circle observed about the moon under certain atmospherical conditions. (Refer to note 47.) A very similar belief in this celestial death omen prevailed among the hill-people of the Trans-Allegheny; and it is also found in northern Scotland, if not of still more universal range. As forecasting weather conditions, a tribesman of the Columbia River will say in connection with the halo and the stars: “The moon is throwing aside his children! A change is coming in the weather.” ↩
The Soma-ash-hee always appears in a dream or vision, in the nature of a communication or revelation from the major deity, or Great Spirit. The mediumistic channel of this enigmatical impartation may be an animal, bird, reptile, or some inanimate object;
