Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884

by Myron Eells

Time, teaching, and example have, however, worked some changes for the better. There are many of the Indian women who wash, at least, the floors of their front rooms every week. Still the bedrooms, which are not likely to be seen, are often topsy-turvy, and the kitchens often have a bad smell, and the back door needs lime and ammonia. Occasionally, however, a house is found where there is a fair degree of neatness all the way through.

XI.
NAMES.

WHITE 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 characteristic—their size, or the place from which they came. So we had Squaxon Bill, Chehalis Jack, Dr. Bob, Big John, Little Billy, and the like. These were bad enough, but when their children came to take these as their surnames, they sometimes became comical, for we had Sally Bob, Dick Charley, and Sam Pete. Therefore, we soon found that it was best to give every school-child a decent name, and Bill’s son George became George Williams, and John’s boy became Henry Johnson, and Billy’s daughter was Minnie Williamson, and so on. At first, when the older ones were married, it was done with the old Indian nickname, but I soon thought that if in time they were to become Americans they might as well have decent names. So, at their first legal recognition, as at their marriage, baptism, or on entering school, they received names of which they had no need to be ashamed in after years.

XII.
EDUCATION.

THIS has been conducted entirely by the government, but generally in such a way as to be a handmaid to religion. On the reservation a boarding-school has been kept up during the ten years of missionary labor, as well as many years before, for about ten months in the year. About half of the time, including the winter, the school has been kept six hours in the day, and during the rest of the time for three hours; the scholars being required to work the other half of the day—the boys in the garden getting wood and the like, and the girls in the house sewing, cooking, house-keeping, and doing similar things.

The position of the one in charge has been a difficult one to fill, for it has been necessary that the man be a teacher, disciplinarian, handy at various kinds of work, a Christian, and, during the last year and a half after the agent left, he had charge of the reservation; while it was almost as necessary that his wife be matron, with all the qualifications of taking care of a family of from twenty to forty. It has been difficult to find all these qualifications in one man and his wife, who were willing to take the position for the pay which the government was willing to give, for during the later years the pay was cut down to the minimum. It has not been strange that with all the burdens frequent changes have taken place. There have been seven teachers in the ten years, but most of them were faithful, some of them serving until their health failed. Yet the school has been carried on generally in as Christian a way as if the Missionary Society had had charge of it. All of the teachers and their wives have been Christians—not all Congregationalists; for it has been often impossible to obtain such; in fact, only three have been; but there has been a plain understanding with the others that they should teach nothing in regard to religion which conflicted with the teachings from the pulpit—an understanding which has been faithfully kept, with one exception. In 1874 the school numbered about twenty-four scholars, but it gradually increased until it numbered about forty, which was more than all the children of school age on the reservation, though it did not include many of the Clallams. They were so far away that it was not thought wise to compel them to remain so steadily so far away from their parents year after year.

The school has been a boarding-school, for nearly all the children lived from one to three miles away, and it has been impossible to secure any thing like regular attendance if they lived at home, while some have come from ten to seventy miles distant.

Attendance on school has been compulsory—the proper way among Indians. While the parents speak well about the school, and say that they wish to have their children educated, yet, when the children beg hard to stay at home, parental government is not strong enough to enforce attendance, especially as long as the parents do not realize the value of education. The children have not all liked to go to school, and at first some of them ran away. The agent and his subordinates could tell some stories of getting runaway children, by pulling them out of their beds, taking them home in the middle of the night, and the like. In this respect the government had the advantage of a missionary society, which could not have compelled the children to attend school.

There was no provision in the treaty for more than one school, and that on the reservation. But after the Clallams at Jamestown had bought their land, laid out their village, built their church, and become somewhat civilized, they plead so hard for a school, offering the use of the church-building for the purpose, that the government listened to them, and in 1878 sent them a teacher. This was a day-school, because funds enough were furnished to pay only a teacher, and nearly all the children lived in the village within less than a half-mile from the school. A very few of the children walked daily five or six miles to school, and some of the better families of the village did nobly in making sacrifices to board their relations, when the parents would not furnish even the food for their children. This school has varied in numbers from fifteen to thirty children, and has been conducted in other respects mainly on the same principles as the one on the reservation. It has been of great advantage to the settlement.

A few of the rest of the Clallam children, whose parents were Catholics, have sent their children to a boarding-school at Tulalip, a Catholic agency, and others have not gone to school, there being difficulties in the way which it has been almost or quite impossible to overcome.