CHURCH AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK AT S’KOKOMISH, W.T.
BY REV. MYRON EELLS.
June 22d and 23d, 1874, this church was organized with eleven members, only one of whom was an Indian. But while there was only one Indian, it was hoped that God would bless the work so that others would be induced to come in, and we have not been wholly disappointed. Since that time twenty-eight Indians and half-breeds have joined it and our new church at Jamestown, near Dunginess, besides thirteen whites who have joined on profession, and thirteen more by letter, making seventy-five in all, including the first members. Forty-five Indian marriages have taken place here in a Christian way, and twenty-seven funerals. All of those married, who are alive, are still living together, owing mainly to the Agent. Christian services at funerals are something about which the Indians at first cared very little, and often have the dead been hurried off to burial without even letting me know that any one was dead; and their burying-ground with its small houses and clothes, cloth and other things, was a curiosity to visitors. But after a time, having made some slow improvements, they opened a new burying-ground, and when the first grave was made the chief said to me: “To-day we become white people. We do not like the idea of having cloth and other things around our graves, and we expect that there will be none of it here.” That was nearly four years ago, and there are now no such things visible. At a later day I was absent when one person died, and no white man was present at the funeral; but when I returned, the Indians asked me to make arrangements so that if I should necessarily be absent some Christian white man should go and help them bury their dead in a Christian manner.
A prayer-meeting was begun here as soon as the present Agent came (before there was a church or minister), which has been constantly maintained, and its influence has gone into all the Christian work here. But it has been too old for some of the children, and too far away and in a wrong language for many of the Indians; hence it has been supplemented by children’s, ladies’ and Indian prayer-meetings.
It has been my custom, as I have been able, to hold such meetings with the Indians at their logging camps. The following incidents show a change. About six years ago they said they did not know how to pray or what to say. So to help them we would say a sentence and let one whom we supposed to be the most suitable in heart repeat over the prayer, line after line. One evening something comical struck one, and he burst out laughing in the midst of his prayer. At another time a hunter came home during a prayer-meeting, and, without any regard to it, came in, throwing down his saddle and things, and talking very much as if there were no prayer-meeting there. That Indian of late has been one of the leading ones to pray. Another evening, when I was through and was leaving I said “Good night,” and the reply came, “Good night,” but as I was outside the door and shutting it, the words were added in a not very complimentary way, in a lower tone and yet so that I heard them, “old man.” That Indian, after going to great lengths in gambling, has been one during the past few months to try to induce his relations to enter the right road.
I have been reminded of these incidents lately by way of contrast, because of the earnest requests that have come to me, during the past few months, to go to the same place, and the earnest and apparently hearty thanks which have come from the same persons and the same camp for the same work.
About eight years ago an Indian was wandering around during Sabbath-school time, and was asked why he was not inside the church. His reply was, that the services were so much in English that they were dry to him. Only when the time came for singing the Chinook song was he interested. There was only one song, then, but the necessity for them seemed to grow until there were enough to make our little book, in 1878, “Hymns in the Chinook Jargon Language.” Indians living away from the Reservation have learned to sing them who have learned but little else about the Gospel, because they could not sing them without learning them. They have carried and sung them down the straits to Cape Flattery and across the straits to British Columbia, to Indians I probably never shall see, and some Gospel truths have gone with them. The Indians of both tribes, however, Twanas and Clallams, felt that another important step had been taken when last spring they could sing in their own native language.
In our Sabbath-school we have always followed the plan of having the scholars commit five or six verses a week to memory, and most of those who have done the best in this respect have come into the church. Eight out of ten of the highest on the list for 1878 are now members, and the same proportion holds good for some other years. In all, twenty-seven have come in on profession of faith from the Sabbath-school.
INDIANS WATCHING A TRAIN.