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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.
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.
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....
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
S AYS 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
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D E D I C A T I O N.
D E D I C A T I O N.
TO MY WIFE, S A R A H M. E E L L S, 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....
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NOTE.
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....
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
T HE 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
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TEN YEARS AT SKOKOMISH. I. SKOKOMISH.
TEN YEARS AT SKOKOMISH. I. SKOKOMISH.
T HE 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 compo
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A WAR INCIDENT.
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 e
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III. EARLY RELIGIOUS TEACHING.
III. EARLY RELIGIOUS TEACHING.
A BOUT 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 Chir
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IV. SUBSEQUENT POLITICAL HISTORY.
IV. SUBSEQUENT POLITICAL HISTORY.
A S 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
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V. THE FIELD AND WORK.
V. THE FIELD AND WORK.
T HE 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,
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(a) LANGUAGES.
(a) LANGUAGES.
O NE 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 e
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(b) THEIR RELIGION.
(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. First. The Black Tamahnous. This is a secret society. During the performance of the ceremonies connected wit
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(c) BESETTING SINS.
(c) BESETTING SINS.
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 muc
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VII. TEMPERANCE.
VII. TEMPERANCE.
I N 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
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VIII. INDUSTRIES.
VIII. INDUSTRIES.
L OGGING, 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
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IX. TITLES TO THEIR LAND.
IX. TITLES TO THEIR LAND.
“T HE 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
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X. MODE OF LIVING.
X. MODE OF LIVING.
I N 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 col
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XI. NAMES.
XI. NAMES.
W HITE 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 characteristi
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CORRECTING THOMSON’S PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC.
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, t
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THE FOURTH OF JULY ON SKOKOMISH RESERVATION.
THE FOURTH OF JULY ON SKOKOMISH RESERVATION.
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 mo
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XIV. CHRISTMAS.
XIV. CHRISTMAS.
T HIS 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
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XV. VARIETY.
XV. VARIETY.
“J ACK-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 t
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XVI. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.
XVI. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.
T HE 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
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XVII. SICKNESS.
XVII. SICKNESS.
T HE 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
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THE DEATH OF SKAGIT BILL.
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 funer
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XIX. THE CENSUS OF 1880.
XIX. THE CENSUS OF 1880.
I N 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 expens
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XX. THE INFLUENCE OF THE WHITES.
XX. THE INFLUENCE OF THE WHITES.
S OME 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,
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XXI. THE CHURCH AT SKOKOMISH.
XXI. THE CHURCH AT SKOKOMISH.
T HE 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
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XXII. BIG BILL.
XXII. BIG BILL.
A MONG 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 wa
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XXIII. DARK DAYS.
XXIII. DARK DAYS.
F EBRUARY, 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 n
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XXIV. LIGHT BREAKING.
XXIV. LIGHT BREAKING.
T HERE 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 ou
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XXV. THE FIRST BATTLE.
XXV. THE FIRST BATTLE.
A FFAIRS 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
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XXVI. THE VICTORY.
XXVI. THE VICTORY.
B UT 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
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XXVII. RECONSTRUCTION.
XXVII. RECONSTRUCTION.
S TILL 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 n
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XXVIII. JOHN FOSTER PALMER.
XXVIII. JOHN FOSTER PALMER.
H E 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 ti
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XXIX. M——F——.
XXIX. M——F——.
H E 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 t
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XXX. DISCOURAGING CASES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.
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 Dis
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XXXI. THE CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN.
XXXI. THE CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN.
I N 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 carri
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XXXII. COOK HOUSE BILLY.
XXXII. COOK HOUSE BILLY.
H E 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
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XXXIII. LORD JAMES BALCH.
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
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XXXIV. TOURING.
XXXIV. TOURING.
W HITE 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
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XXXV. THE BIBLE AND OTHER BOOKS.
XXXV. THE BIBLE AND OTHER BOOKS.
N ATURALLY 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 p
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XXXVI. BIBLE PICTURES.
XXXVI. BIBLE PICTURES.
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 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 reservation
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XXXVII. THE SABBATH-SCHOOL.
XXXVII. THE SABBATH-SCHOOL.
F ROM 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 min
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XXXVIII. PRAYER MEETINGS.
XXXVIII. PRAYER MEETINGS.
A NOTHER 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 t
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XXXIX. INDIAN HYMNS.
XXXIX. INDIAN HYMNS.
O UR 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
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XL. NATIVE MINISTRY AND SUPPORT.
XL. NATIVE MINISTRY AND SUPPORT.
B UT 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 traini
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XLI. TOBACCO.
XLI. TOBACCO.
T HE 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
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XLII. SPICE.
XLII. SPICE.
A N 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 o
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XLIII. CURRANT JELLY.
XLIII. CURRANT JELLY.
T HERE 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 mee
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XLIV. CONCLUSION.
XLIV. CONCLUSION.
D R. 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 carefu
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