Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1 / Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties

by William Denison Lyman

In Volume One, Chapter Three, of Bancroft's "Native Races," there is generalized grouping of the Columbian native tribes which may well be accepted as a study of ethnology, derived from many observations and records by those early explorers most worthy of credence. These general outlines by the author are supported by numerous citations from those authorities. The Colombians occupied, according to Bancroft, all the vast region west of the Rocky Mountains lying between the Hyperboreans on the north and the Californians on the south. They are divided into certain families and these families into nations, and the nations into tribes. There is naturally much inter-tribal mingling, and yet the national and even tribal peculiarities are preserved with remarkable distinctness. Beginning on the northern coast region around Queen Charlotte Island are the Haidahs. South of them on the coast comes the family of the Nootkas, centered on Vancouver Island. Then comes the family of the Sound Indians, and still farther south that of the Chinooks. Turning to the east side of the Cascades, which more especially interests us, we find on the north the Shushwap family, embracing all the inland tribes of British Columbia south of lat. 52°, 30´. This group includes the Okanogans, Kootenais, and others of the border between British Columbia and Northeastern Washington and Northern Idaho and Northwestern Montana. Then comes the Salish family, in which we find the Spokanes, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, Kalispels, and others as far south as the Palouse region. There we begin with the family of Sahaptins, the one which particularly concerns us in Old Walla Walla County. Numerous citations in Bancroft's volume indicate that the early explorers and ethnologists did not altogether agree on the subdivisions of this family. It would seem that the groups have been somewhat arbitrarily made, yet there was evidently considerable effort to employ scientific methods by study of affiliations in language, customs, treaty relations, range, and other peculiarities. In general terms it may be said that the different writers pretty nearly agree in finding some six or eight nations, each divided into several tribes. These are the Nez Perces or Chopunnish, the Yakimas, the Palouses, the Walla Wallas, the Cayuses, the Umatillas, the Wascos, and the Klickitats. The tribes are variously grouped. The modern spelling appears in the above list, but there is a bewildering variety in the early books. This is especially true of Palouse and Walla Walla. The former appears under the following forms: Palouse, Paloose, Palus, Peloose, Pelouse, Pavilion, Pavion and Peluse. The word means "Gooseberry," according to Thomas Beall of Lewiston. Our familiar Walla Walla, meaning, according to "Old Bones," the Cayuse chief, the place where the four creeks meet, the Walla Walla, Touchet, Mill Creek, and Dry Creek, appears as Oualla-Oualla (French), Walla Wallapum, Wollow Wollah, Wollaolla, Wolla-walla, Wallawaltz, Walla Walle, Wallah Wallah, Wallahwallah, Wala-Wala, and Wollahwollah. For Umatilla we find Umatallow, Utalla, Utilla, and Emmatilly. Cayuse has as variants, Cailloux, Kayuse, Kayouse, Skyuse, Cajouse, Caagua, Kyoose, and Kyoots. Doctor Whitman's station, now known as Waiilatpu, appears in sundry forms, as Wyeilat, Willetpu, Wailatpui, and Wieletpoo. Some odd names are found in Hunt, "Nouvelles Annales des Voyages," where it is stated that the Sciatogas and Toustchipas live on Canoe River (apparently the Tucanon) and the Euotalla (perhaps the Touchet), and the Akaitchis "sur le Big-River," i. e., the Columbia. The tribe at the junction of the Columbia and Snake was the Sokulks, apparently a branch of the Walla Wallas. It would seem that the Cayuses occupied mainly the middle Walla Walla region including Mill Creek, the Umatilla, the upper Walla Walla, and across the high lands to the Umatilla River, while the Walla Wallas were from the vicinity of the junction of Dry Creek, the Touchet, and the Walla Walla River to its mouth. It appears that the most of the region now composing Columbia, Garfield, and Asotin counties was occupied by Nez Perces. All the tribes were more or less on the move all the time, to mountains, plains, and rivers, according to the season and variations in the food supply. The Sahaptin family seem to have been in general of the best grade of Indians. Lewis and Clark found the Nez Perces a noble, dignified and honest race, though they say that they were close and reserved in bargaining. Generally speaking, the inland Indians were far superior in physique and in mental capacity to those of the Sound or the lower Columbia. Townsend in his "Narrative" goes so far as to say that the Nez Perces and Cayuses were almost universally fine-looking, robust men. He compares one of the latter with the Apollo Belvedere. Gairdner says that the Walla Wallas were generally powerful men, at least six feet high, and the Cayuses were still stouter and more athletic. Others remarked that very handsome young girls were often seen among the Walla Wallas. With them doubtless, as with other Indians, the drudgery of their lives and their early child-bearing made them prematurely old and they soon lost their beauty.

There seems to have been much variation among these natives as to personal habits and morality. The Nez Perces and Cayuses are almost always described as clean, both of body and character. Palmer in his "Journal," says that the Nez Perces were better clad than any others, the Cayuses well clothed, Walla Wallas naked and half-starved. The last statement seems not to correspond with the observations of Lewis and Clark. Wilkes says that "at the Dalles women go nearly naked, for they wear little else than what may be termed a breech-cloth, of buckskin, which is black and filthy with dirt." About the same seems to have been true of the Sokulks. But among the Tushepaws and Nez Perces and Cayuses the men and women often wore long robes of buffalo or elk-skin decorated with beads and sea-shells. Farnham speaks of the Cayuses as the "Imperial tribe of Oregon, claiming jurisdiction over the whole Columbia region."

The chief wealth of the tribes of Old Walla Walla County was in horses. Doctor Tolmie expressed the supposition that horses had come from the southward at no very long time prior to white discovery. It is well known that a prehistoric horse, the hipparion, not larger than a deer, existed in Oregon. Remains of that creature have been found in the John Day Basin. But there is no evidence that there was a native horse among the Indians of Oregon. Their "Cayuse horses," to all indications, came from the horses of California, and they, in turn were the offspring of the horses brought to Mexico and Southern California by the Spanish conquerors. At the time of the advent of the whites, horses existed in immense numbers all through the Columbia Valley. It was not uncommon for a Walla Walla, Umatilla, Cayuse, or Nez Percé chief to have bands of hundreds, even thousands. Canoes were a highly esteemed possession of the Indians on the navigable rivers, and they had acquired marvelous skill in handling them. The lower Columbia Indians spent so much time curled up in canoes that they were distorted and inferior in physique to the "bunch-grass Indians."

Like all barbarian people the Indians of the Columbia Valley were next door to starvation a good part of the time. They gorged themselves when food was plentiful, and thus were in distress when the bounty of Nature failed, for there was no accumulated store as under civilized conditions. Their food consisted of deer, elk, and other game, in which the whole Blue Mountain country with the adjoining plains abounded, and of salmon and sturgeon which they obtained in the Columbia and Snake rivers by spearing and by ingenious weirs. They also obtained an abundance of vegetable food from the camas and couse which were common, and in fact still are in this region. Rather curiously, considering the fertility of this Walla Walla County, there are very few wild berries, nuts, or fruits. The huckleberry is practically the only berry in large quantities and wild cherries the only kind of wild fruit.

Such were the physical conditions, hastily sketched, of the natives of Old Walla Walla County. Their mental and moral characteristics may be derived in a degree from the events narrated in the pages which follow. In their best estate they were faithful, patient, hospitable, and generous. In their worst estate, in which the whites more usually found them, they seemed vindictive, suspicious, cruel, and remorseless. Too many cases of the former type occurred to justify any sweeping condemnation. One of the finest examples of Indian character in its better light is shown by an event in this region narrated by Ross Cox in his "Adventures on the Columbia River." The party of trappers of the Northwestern Fur Company, of which Cox was one, was on its way from Astoria to "Oakinagan," as he calls it—a company of sixty-four in eight canoes. When at a point in the Columbia about equidistant between the mouth of the "Wallah Wallah" and that of the Lewis (Snake), a number of canoes filled with natives bore down upon their squadron, apparently without hostile design. But within a few minutes the Indians evinced the purpose of seizing the canoes of the whites and plundering them by violence. It was soon give and take, and arrows began to fly. Pretty soon one of the company, McDonald, seeing an Indian just at the point of letting fly an arrow at him, fired and killed the Indian. A struggle ensued, but the whites broke loose and defended themselves sufficiently to reach an island, which must have been the one nearly opposite the present Two Rivers. It was a gloomy prospect. Cox says that they had pretty nearly given up hope of escaping, and had written farewell notes which they hoped might reach their friends. It was a dark, gloomy night in November, with a drizzling rain. During the night the party saw signal fires on the shore to the northwest, followed by others to east and west. Soon after a large band of ravens passed over, the fluttering of whose wings they could hear. This had a most depressing effect on the superstitious Canadians, and one of them declared that the appearance of ravens at night was an infallible sign of approaching death. Mr. Keith, one of the Scotchmen, seeing the gloomy state of their minds and wishing to forestall the effect, instantly joined the conversation, declaring that while there was such a general fear of a night flight of ravens, yet it never worked disaster unless the flight was accompanied by croaking. But when ravens passed over without croaking, they were a harbinger of good news. Much relieved, the Canadians regained their nerve and shouted out, "you are right, you are right! Courage! There is no danger!" The beleaguered band on their dismal retreat waited for the dawn, making all preparations for resistance to the death. Early in the morning the party crossed to the north bank of the river, and there waited developments. A large force of Indians soon appeared, well armed, and yet ready for a parley. The whites sent forward their interpreter, Michel, to indicate their willingness to parley. A group of thirty or forty of the relatives of the dead Indians advanced chanting a death song, which, as they afterwards learned, was about as follows: "Rest, brothers, rest! You will be avenged. The tears of your widows shall cease to flow, when they behold the blood of your murderers; and your young children shall leap and sing with joy, on seeing their scalps. Rest, brothers, in peace; we shall have blood."

The events which followed this lugubrious song cannot be better told than by following the vivid narrative of Cox:

"They took up their position in the center; and the whole party then formed themselves into an extended crescent. Among them were natives of the Chimnapum, Yackaman, Sokulk, and Wallah Wallah tribes. Their language is nearly the same; but they are under separate chiefs, and in time of war always unite against the Shoshone or Snake Indians, a powerful nation, who inhabit the plains to the southward.

"From Chili to Athabasca, and from Nootka to the Labrador, there is an indescribable coldness about an American savage that checks familiarity. He is a stranger to our hopes, our fears, our joys, or our sorrows; his eyes are seldom moistened by a tear, or his features relaxed by a smile; and whether he basks beneath a vertical sun on the burning plains of the Amazonia, or freezes in eternal winter on the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean, the same piercing black eyes, and stern immobility of countenance, equally set at naught the skill of the physiognomist.

"On the present occasion, their painted skin, cut hair, and naked bodies, imparted to their appearance a degree of ferocity from which we boded no good result. They remained stationary for some time and preserved a profound silence.

"Messrs. Keith, Stewart, LaRocque, and the interpreter, at length advanced about midway between both parties unarmed, and demanded to speak with them; upon which two chiefs, accompanied by six of the mourners, proceeded to join them. Mr. Keith offered them the calumet of peace, which they refused to accept, in a manner at once cold and repulsive.