PL. XC
SMOHALLA CHURCH ON YAKIMA RESERVATION
MacMurray continues:
Coteeakun went on to say that some day Saghalee Tyee would again overturn the mountains and so expose these bones, which, having been preserved through so long a time, would be reoccupied by the spirits which now dwell in the mountain tops, watching their descendants on earth and waiting for the resurrection to come. The voices of these spirits of the dead can be heard at all times in the mountains, and often they answer back when spoken to. Mourners who wail for their dead hear spirit voices replying, and know they will always remain near them. No man knows when it will come, and only those who have observed nature’s laws and adhered to the faith of their ancestors will have their bones so preserved and be certain of an earthly tenement for their spirits. He wanted me to confirm this.
Coteeakun was pacific and gentle. He said all men were as brothers to him and he hoped all would dwell together. He had been told that white and black and all other kinds of men originally dwelt in tents, as the red men always have done, and that God in former times came to commune with white men. He thought there could be only one Saghalee Tyee, in which case white and red men would live on a common plane. We came from one source of life and in time would “grow from one stem again. It would be like a stick that the whites held by one end and the Indians by the other until it was broken, and it would be made again into one stick.”
Some of the wilder Indians to the north have more truculent ideas as to the final cataclysm which is to reoverturn the mountains and bring back the halcyon days of the long past. As the whites and the others came only within the lifetime of the fathers of these Indians, they are not to be included in the benefits of the resurrection, but are to be turned over with all that the white man’s civilization has put upon the present surface of the land.
Coteeakun was for progress—limited progress, it is true—to the extent of fixed homes and agriculture, but he did not want his people to go from their villages or to abandon their religious faith. They were nearly all disposed to work for wages among the farmers, and had orchards and some domestic animals upon whose produce they lived, besides the fish from the rivers. Smohalla opposed anything that pertained to civilization, and had neither cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, nor chickens, and not a tree or vegetable was grown anywhere in his vicinage. Kowse (Peucedanum cous), kamas (Camassia esculenta), berries, fish, and the game of the mountains alone furnished food to his people, whom he advised to resist every advance of civilization as improper for a true Indian and in violation of the faith of their ancestors. I found, however, that he was willing to advise his people to take up lands and adopt the white man’s road, if the government would pension him as it had pensioned Chief Moses, so that while I thought he believed in his religion as much as other sectarians do in theirs, he was tainted by the mercenary desire to live upon his followers unless otherwise provided for by the government.
From Captain E. L. Huggins, Second cavalry, who visited Smohalla about the same time, we obtain further information concerning the prophet’s personality and doctrines. When Smohalla was urged to follow the example of other Indians who had taken up the white man’s road, he replied, “No one has any respect for these book Indians. Even the white men like me better and treat me better than they do the book Indians. My young men shall never work. Men who work can not dream, and wisdom comes to us in dreams.”
When it was argued that the whites worked and yet knew more than the Indians, he replied that the white man’s wisdom was poor and weak and of no value to Indians, who must learn the highest wisdom from dreams and from participating in the Dreamer ceremonies. Being pressed to explain the nature of this higher knowledge, he replied, “Each one must learn for himself the highest wisdom. It can not be taught. You have the wisdom of your race. Be content.”
When the officer contended that even the Indians had to work hard during the fishing season to get food for winter, the prophet answered:
“This work lasts only for a few weeks. Besides it is natural work and does them no harm. But the work of the white man hardens soul and body. Nor is it right to tear up and mutilate the earth as white men do.”
To the officer’s assertion that the Indians also dug roots and were even then digging kamas in the mountains, he replied: