“Now,” he cried, amid tears, “You see him plainer. Look at him. You are the one who killed him. You are a witch, and you sickened him with sorceries and bad medicine. [[131]]Listen! When we kill anything, we always eat it. Now you eat him!”
This the alleged doctor shrank from doing, and forthwith the enraged father administered a terrific beating. The nose of this unfortunate neighbor was hammered out of all resemblance to a human organ, and other features of him were sadly damaged. They both appeared before me the next day. The father then expressed penitence and disavowed a belief in witches; but I could see that his conversion had been too rapid. In his troubled heart the witches prevailed. He seemed not to mind his sentence of a week at hard labor, having had action for his sorrow.
Having once opened a docket, the word seemed to go forth to the mesas and the cañons to bring in their complaints. The cases became legion. One would begin to examine witnesses in so simple a matter as horse-stealing and record quite a bit of evidence, to discover suddenly that the animal in question had disappeared eleven years gone, the complaint having been duly entered by seven different Indian Agents sitting at this and other Agencies. It became necessary to impose a statute of limitations.
The first real trial concerned a medicine man and his collar-bone. One Horace Greeley, of Sitchumnovi, in the First Mesa District, at that time reputed to be seventy-four years old, and by profession a bone-setter, had not pleased a member of his tribe. Or perhaps he had conjured only too well with the misplaced anatomy of the patient, and charged according to his skill. At any rate, a relative of the patient took umbrage, and proceeded to handle Horace in a rough and unseemly manner. Among other things damaged was Horace’s own collar-bone. He could not very well set this himself, and naturally distrusted his confreres; so he was forced to send for the Agency [[132]]physician; otherwise I should not have heard of the case. But Horace being found with a fractured collar-bone and numerous contusions, the matter was reported, and his complaint entered for the next session of court.
The Regulations of the Indian Service direct that the Court of Indian Offenses shall consist of two or more intelligent and trustworthy Indians, acting as Judges, whose verdicts shall be reviewed by the Indian Agent, should an appeal be taken to him. As many Indians do not understand their right of appeal, the Agent is compelled to be present either to sustain or to overrule the verdicts.
And did I not have two such Judges, all properly commissioned? Did not Hostin Nez have a treasured “pretty paper,” and was not Hooker Hongave an equal Judge? Did not the Government, looking for justice, generously crowd on each of them the princely salary of seven dollars, each and every month, “fresh and fresh”? Now was the time to avail myself of native wisdom.
Photo. by Emri Kopte
JUDGE HOOKER HONGAVE
Indian Court of First Mesa District