“Yes; everybody will live again some time.”
“You suppose a bad Indian get up, walk ’bout again, all the same a good man?”
“They will all rise, but they won’t all be good.”
“What for the Sunday man tell that? He say Jesus Christ die for bad Indian too? Say he go to
heaven all the same as a good Indian, good white man; that aint fair thing. I don’t no like such religion.”
A few days afterwards the man who reported this dialogue passed near the grave of an Indian, and found it covered with stones and logs. He learned afterwards, that Push-wash had explained to other Indians the meaning of the “Sunday-man’s talk,” and they had piled stones and logs on the graves of their enemies, to prevent them rising from the dead.
The reader will thus appreciate the necessity for sending ministers who are qualified to preach to these people; otherwise they may do the savage more harm than good. Farther on in the work I shall discuss more fully this most important of all questions, with special reference to the difficulties in the way of treating with the Indians, in consequence of their numerous and peculiar religious beliefs, which few white men know anything about.
I left Siletz with a favorable opinion of the people, and the prospects before them. Notwithstanding the many impediments in the way of their civilization, the transformation from a wild savage to a semi-civilized life had been wrought in fourteen years.
In this connection I submit the last annual report of Hon. Ben. Simpson,[1] late United States Indian agent at Siletz. I do so, because whatever of progress these people may have made was under his administration as Indian agent, and believing the short history presented by him will be of interest to my readers.
[1] See Appendix.