*VIOLET
Mr. Matthieu has lived as a farmer of Oregon, having been able to provide his family with life’s advantages, and himself performing the duties of the good citizen. Besides filling the office of Justice of the Peace in the Provisional Government, he was in 1874 and again in 1878, elected to the Oregon Legislature from Marion County. In 1849 he made the trip to the California gold mines, but was so virulently attacked by fever there as to be compelled to return without making a fortune. In 1858 he took a trip to Canada, by way of Panama, and in 1883, went with the pioneer excursion on the Northern Pacific Railroad. He is now at the age of eighty-two, in good health, of unimpaired memory, good hearing, and unchanged voice; though, having suffered in early life from snow-blindness in the Rocky Mountains, has somewhat lost the use of his sight. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, of high degree. He was in the mercantile business for many years, after 1850, at Butteville, with George Le Roque, and in all business relations and in public affairs has maintained a reputation for unquestioned honesty.
NOTES.
IN REGARD TO INDIAN TRIBES, THEIR ANTIPATHIES, ETC.
Mr. Matthieu says: “I have forgot a great deal. Of the Sioux, where I was, there were the Blackfeet—a large nation; then there were the Ogalallahs. Their chief, when I was there, was called Yellow Hair. His hair was not yellow, but lighter than some others. He was a big fellow, and you could hear him grunt like a grizzly. Then there was a little tribe, the Broken Arrows. They were the meanest set—they would get liquor, and kill each other. I do not suppose there were twenty of them when I left. The Crow nation lived west of Fort Pierre, about one hundred or two hundred miles, and one division of them was the Gros Ventres. The Pawnees were the terror of the Sioux; there were many half-breeds among them. The Sioux did not all have horses. The poorer ones went on foot. But all had buffalo meat. Those that had horses would surprise a herd, and drive them to the Bad Lands, and force many of them over a precipice or into a crevice. Buffalo, when they are stampeded, do not stop at anything, but go over a bluff or into a river. When a crevice is filled full of their bodies the main herd passes on as over a bridge; then the poorer Indians came and helped themselves to the meat.
“West of the Rocky Mountains the Indians were entirely different. It was a new creation. The Snakes, Piutes and Bannocks seemed very much alike—a poor set. The Cayuses were the most powerful, and the meanest. They were strapping big fellows, and rich. I was told by Hudson’s Bay men that they frequently had three or four packs of beaver skins to a tent. That was money. Each pack weighed ninety or one hundred pounds, and the skins were worth $4 or $5 a pound. Some of them had five hundred horses apiece—part work horses; part riding or running horses. When I was among the Snakes I bought a white horse for a buffalo skin and a shirt. But in Grande Ronde I was stopped by a Cayuse chief, who said that the horse was his. I told him I bought it. He said it had been stolen. There was a man traveling with me; his name was Russell. Russell said I had better pay the Cayuse something. So I put down a buffalo robe, a shirt and a handkerchief, and said: ‘You can take whichever you please—these or the horse.’ He took the things, and I took the horse.
“The Cayuses often came into the Willamette Valley to trade horses for cattle. They had some race horses that they would not sell for $500. They were not a large tribe, not able to muster over two hundred or three hundred fighting men at the farthest. They were well armed with guns, but even with bows and arrows could shoot a man through the heart at fifty yards. They were proud and cruel, and showed it in their faces. The Nez Perces had much better faces than the Cayuses. The Sioux did business on honor. If any of their tribe was mean or dissipated he was regarded as a clown; he was not respected.”
AS TO SLAVERY AMONG THE INDIANS.
Among the Sioux, where I was, all captives were regarded as slaves; so I was told by a chief. I saw but one slave—a woman. Men were not often taken alive.