Saga of Chief Joseph

by Helen Addison Howard

  Nor did the scene materially change after the missionaries had come to the Northwest. The people of Tu-eka-kas continued to live in their primitive valley of winding waters, a happy, healthy, and contented band. By the year 1844 the chief had become the father of two sons by his Nez Perce wife. The elder, who was to become known as Young Joseph, was born in 1840—probably in the summer, as in 1878 he made the following statement: “I was born in eastern Oregon, thirty-eight winters ago”;14 and it was during the summer that his father’s band visited the Wallowa Valley. The younger son, Alokut, was born two or three years after his brother. They grew to look so much alike that white people thought them twins.

  As documentary records are lacking, the following account of Young Joseph’s probable early life is drawn from material in H. J. Spinden’s “The Nez Percé Indians.” Without doubt the age-old life of the summer camp went on. Little Joseph rambled about the village, a naked, copper-skinned boy, and his beady black eyes sharply observed its every detail. He watched the women busy with pestle and mortar grinding flour from the roots of camas, and others placing berries on tule mats to dry in the sun. A few would pause in their work to smile at the chief’s little son. Several of the women had sharp, disk-shaped fragments of boulders picked up in the nearby streams, and with these they were scraping the hides of deer and elk.

  With childish curiosity the lad stared at young men fashioning spearheads and arrow points of obsidian rock found in the John Day region of Oregon. One young man, noticing the boy’s interest, showed him an arrowhead. The child fondled the smooth symmetry of it, running his chubby palm over its hard, shiny surface.

  Curiosity led the boy to the outskirts of the village where two warriors were plucking from captive eagles their first feathers, which they would use to adorn their warbonnets. Later, the choice feathers of second growth would be taken and the bird then given its freedom. Other eaglets, though, would be stolen from their nests and raised until the feathers had been obtained.

  During his wanderings about the camp, little Joseph passed old men and women who sat outside their lodges to bask in the afternoon sun, while they dreamed perhaps of battles with the fierce Blackfeet in the buffalo country, or gossiped about their friends and relatives in other villages. A few grandmothers were busy sewing beads on buckskin garments for their grandchildren.

  Then a group of little girls and small boys, naked like himself, attracted the sharp, bright eyes of the lad. The children sat in a circle about an aged warrior, listening to his tale of the white men with beards and glass eyes that came into their country many moons ago. Little Joseph, delighted, squatted among the group to hear again the story of Lewis and Clark—the first whites ever to be seen by the Nez Perces—although his father had recited it so many times that he already knew it by heart.

  These strange white people came in September, the month of the hunting moon, the old warrior told his young listeners, and met Chief Twisted Hair’s band on the Weippe prairie in what is now northern Idaho. The Nez Perces gave the strangers supplies of camas root and held a big feast for them and exchanged presents. After a short stay the visitors left their horses and saddles to be cared for by Chief Twisted Hair’s tribe while they sailed down the great river to the ocean. Upon their return the following spring, everything they had left with the Indians was returned to them in good condition.

  The leaders of these white people were great men, the old warrior declared, and not like the whites who now traveled in wagons through the Grande Ronde country to the northwest. Lewis and Clark did not wish to buy furs, to teach “spirit law,” or to plow up the Earth-Mother for farms. They were content with the friendship of the Nez Perces, and as proof of their good will, they gave each chief a bronze disk with curious symbols carved upon it. Peace between red and white men was their message, which the Nez Perces cherished in their hearts. Although little Joseph did not know it, Patrick Gass recorded in his Journal: “The Nez Perce were better than the Flatheads, and the Flatheads were the whitest Indians Lewis and Clark had ever seen before . . . Weippe Prairies.”

  In speaking of this expedition years later, Young Joseph said:

  All the Nez Percés made friends with Lewis and Clarke, and agreed to let them pass through their country, and never to make war on white men. This promise the Nez Percés have never broken. No white man can accuse them of bad faith, and speak with a straight tongue.15

  All the testimony bears out the truth of these words of Young Joseph. Truly, he, at least, spoke “with a straight tongue.”

  Summer evenings were long in the valley of winding waters. Slowly the sun disappeared behind the mountains, its last rays flecking the peaks to the east with tints of burnished gold that gradually faded to purple in the afterglow. Breezes sprang up to rustle through the prairie grass, and the women built up the fires before the lodges, while the men wrapped buffalo robes about them to ward off the evening chill.

  It was especially around the campfires inside the lodges on winter nights that little Joseph and other children would gather to hear the old men tell tribal legends. In answer to such questions as have been asked by children of all races since the beginning of time, of whence the people came, these tellers of tales would recite the myth of the origin of the Nez Perces.

  A huge monster from the sea, the great Iltswetsix,16 roamed the Kamiah Valley in north Idaho. So enormous was his appetite that he sucked everything into himself, and was soon devouring all the animals in the land. When Spi-li-yai,17 or Coyote (the fabled knave of Indian mythology), heard of this, he left the Umatilla country to engage in a test of strength with the monster. Upon reaching Kamiah, Coyote concealed himself under a grass bonnet and tied his body down with a wild grapevine. Then he defied Iltswetsix to pull him into his cavernous mouth. The great beast sucked and sucked, until slowly the ropes gave way and Coyote was drawn into the monster’s stomach. But Coyote had not yet lost the contest. Taking a knife that he had concealed in his belt, he began to cut out the sea demon’s heart, and so killed him. Then Coyote carved his way out of the monster’s body.

  At once Fox, who had witnessed the duel, joined him. Since Coyote did not know what to do with the body, Fox suggested that they cut it up and make people. So, from the head came the Flathead Indians; from the feet, the Blackfoot tribe; and thus from each part they made a different nation of Indians. Finally, only the heart remained. As Coyote held it aloft, the beast’s blood dropped to the ground and from these drops more people sprang up. They were taller, stronger, nobler, and wiser than the others—these were the Nez Perces. The Great Spirit Chief, who rules above, was well pleased with Coyote, and, lest the people forget this wonderful deed, he turned the heart into a large stone, and it may be seen yet in the Kamiah Valley.

  After the storyteller had finished, little Joseph stretched out on his bed of buffalo robes, lying beside his younger brother, Alokut. The older people retired, and the fires died down to glowing embers. From somewhere in the darkness the brothers heard the soft tones of a wooden flageolet as some brave played and chanted his love song to the maiden of his choice. The young man would be standing in the cold and snow outside her father’s lodge. Then the high-pitched howl of a coyote, long-drawn and weird, sounded from the dark, wooded hills and lulled little Joseph and Alokut to sleep.

  2

  The Coming of the Missionaries

  The Nez Perces waited three years for the white men to bring them the teachings of the “spirit law.” The Methodist Church was the first to respond. That denomination sent out Jason Lee and his associates, among whom was his nephew, Daniel Lee. The party of missionaries traveled into the Northwest with the trading expedition of Nathaniel J. Wyeth and William L. Sublette. Early in July, 1834, they met Lawyer’s band of Nez Perces in the vicinity of Fort Hall on Snake River. But Lee and his assistants did not tarry long among these Indians, for they had instructions to make their way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

  The next missionaries to arrive were Dr. Marcus Whitman, a p
hysician, and the Reverend Samuel Parker. They came in August of the following year and held a religious council with the Nez Perces at the rendezvous on Green River. So delighted and impressed was Dr. Whitman with these Indians that he returned East to make arrangements for founding a mission, while Parker continued to the settlements on the lower Columbia. Whitman was accompanied to the States by two Nez Perce boys, one the son of a chief. The youths wished to learn the English language.

  The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which then included the Presbyterian and Congregational denominations, commissioned Whitman for missionary work among the Nez Perces. In the spring of 1836 he again started West, bringing as his assistants his bride, the former Miss Narcissa Prentiss, the Reverend and Mrs. Henry H. Spalding, and W. H. Gray. A party of Nez Perces met them at the Green River rendezvous in the present state of Wyoming, and some of the Indians accompanied the missionaries to the Columbia River Valley.1

  At Fort Vancouver they visited Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay post, who advised them to devote their religious efforts to the Cayuse Indians and the Nez Perces. So Dr. Whitman built his mission in the fertile Walla Walla Valley at a place called Waiilatpu.

  Acting on the request of Tack-en-su-a-tis, a Nez Perce chief, also called Rotten Belly, Spalding located his home November 29, 1836, on Lapwai Creek near its confluence with the Clearwater River in the present north Idaho. During that winter he built the Presbyterian mission house. Besides teaching the “spirit law,” Spalding also taught the Indians how to till the soil and how to raise crops of wheat, corn, potatoes, and other foods. His wife opened a mission school to teach the youngsters the elementary essentials of “readin’, ’ritin’, and ’rithmetic,” while their elders learned the principles of agriculture. Spalding also introduced cattle, sheep, and hogs.

  Then in December, 1842, all the far-flung bands composing the Nez Perce nation held a council at Lapwai with Dr. Elijah White, subagent of Indian Affairs west of the Rocky Mountains; Thomas McKay, a stepson of Dr. McLoughlin; Cornelius Rogers; Baptiste Dorion; and the Hudson’s Bay trader, Archibald McKinley. At this council Dr. White proposed a system of criminal laws, to which the Indians agreed by acclamation. He then suggested that they elect a head chief over all the bands of the Nez Perce nation. Their tribal custom had never recognized the rule by majority, even within the various bands. Members of each band voluntarily followed the counsel and advice of their chief, who was assisted by minor chiefs or headmen under him, and by medicine men. But anyone could dissent and do as he pleased, and still remain a member of the band. Each tribe had its war chief, subject to the head chief, the position being granted by majority vote.

  It is important to understand the Nez Perces’ idea of political economy, because of the tragic misunderstanding it brought upon Joseph’s band in his dealings with the government officials, when Lawyer’s decisions, expressed in the Treaty of 1863, were accepted by the various commissions as representing the wishes of the entire Nez Perce nation. Thus the adoption of Dr. White’s proposal to elect a tribal head not only violated tribal custom, but also laid the foundation for the troubles which culminated in the Nez Perce War of 1877.

  Ellis, secretly sponsored by Dr. White, received the election as head chief. He had been educated at the mission school on the Red River. In addition, twelve sub-chiefs were chosen, among whom was Tu-eka-kas.

  Meantime, the influx of American settlers into the Oregon country, dominated by the British-owned Hudson’s Bay Company, promoted dissatisfaction and unrest among emigrants as well as among the Indian tribes of the Columbia Basin.

  Dr. White was relieved of his post by a new administration in Washington and returned East. After he left in August of 1845, the provisional legislature of Oregon elected Governor Abernethy to the newly created office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs. With the passing of White, the Nez Perces disregarded their laws and reverted to the aboriginal customs of their forefathers. Ellis was killed in the buffalo country in 1848, which left the position of head chief vacant.2 Lawyer, the son of Chief Twisted Hair who befriended the Lewis and Clark expedition, was afterwards elected, but not with the nation’s full sanction.

  During the time that the Reverend Henry Spalding and his wife continued to preach the gospel to the Nez Perces at Lapwai (Place Where the Butterfly Dwells),3 Chief Tu-eka-kas visited the mission and listened to the words of the Presbyterian missionary. The chief desired his people to learn the “white man’s Book” and the many useful things taught the Indians by these strangers. A few Nez Perces were learning to write their own language from the grammar Spalding had devised, and some could read the Gospel of St. Matthew which he had translated into their native tongue.

  Tu-eka-kas gravely embraced the “spirit law.” Indeed, he and Chief Timothy were Spalding’s first two converts. In his diary for November 17, 1839, the missionary reports: “I proceeded to marry Joseph & his wife lawfully his wife taking the name of Arenoth.”4 Tu-eka-kas appears to have been devoutly religious, and used his influence among his people to spread the teaching of Christianity. He even “assisted in the teaching and took the responsibility for the discipline.”5 Spalding baptised him, giving him the name of Joseph, and in 1845 the chief’s eldest son, then five years of age, was also given the same name.

  By this time little Joseph and his brother, Alokut, were going to the day school,6 while their parents attended the religious services. The boys were not old enough to learn to read and write much English, but they no doubt enjoyed being with the older students.

  Until the fall of 1847, except for minor difficulties, the Spaldings continued to reap a spiritual harvest among the peace-loving Nez Perces. But the course of Whitman’s efforts at the Cayuse mission, 120 miles to the south and west, did not fare so well. The dreaded measles broke out among his Indians during the autumn. Ignorant of the cause, the superstitious Cayuses believed the missionary was making bad medicine for them. With savage treachery they fell upon Dr. Whitman on November 29, 1847, killing him and fourteen other whites, including Mrs. Whitman. Those whom they spared—mostly women and children—they took as prisoners. They then proceeded to loot or destroy the mission buildings.

  Upon learning of the massacre, Spalding, who had just left the Walla Walla settlement, hurried home to his wife and children at Lapwai. When he arrived, he asked for an escort to the nearest fort, since he feared that all the Northwestern Indians would start a wholesale murder of the whites. He accepted the offer of forty Nez Perce warriors who volunteered to guide him to safety, first to Craig’s ranch and later to The Dalles, Oregon.

  Even though deserted by their missionary, the Nez Perces continued to practice their faith as the months passed by, with a few devout souls like Timothy conducting the services. But Tu-eka-kas had cause to ponder the invincibility of the Book.

  After the Whitman Massacre, renegade Nez Perces, among them some from the camp of Tu-eka-kas, looted the Spalding home at Lapwai. This brought on a strained feeling between the chief and the Reverend Henry Spalding when he finally returned to the mission for a brief visit months later. It may be the reason why the chief refused to go into the first council of 1863 until Perrin Whitman arrived to interpret, although Spalding was ready and willing to do so. It probably explains, also, why Tu-eka-kas left the vicinity of Lapwai and returned to the Wallowa Valley.

  Another contributing cause to his departure from Lapwai, undoubtedly, was the unfriendly attitude of Chief Big Thunder,7 who, freed from Spalding’s restraining influence, ordered Tu-eka-kas and his band to leave the valley in which they were encamped, as it belonged to him and his tribe.

  After much dissension, the chief led his people back to their old home and never again practiced the white man’s religion. But the message of peace and friendship with the whites, implanted by Lewis and Clark, was still cherished in the hearts of the people of Tu-eka-kas, and nurtured there by the teachings of the missionary.

  Soon after the Whitman Massacre
regular troops and several companies of volunteers were sent to campaign against the Cayuses in revenge for the murder of the whites. When guilty members of the Cayuse tribe fled into the hills, some of the volunteers suspected the Nez Perces of abetting their escape and favored an attack upon the latter. For a while it seemed that the innocent Nez Perces would be involved in the trouble. With the arrival of Colonel Gilliam and his regulars at Waiilatpu, a council was arranged through the efforts of William Craig, who acted in behalf of the Nez Perces.

  This meeting took place in March, 1848, and was attended by two hundred and fifty warriors led by Tu-eka-kas, who approached the council grounds under an American flag and carried a New Testament in his hand as proof of his good faith toward the Americans.8

  General Palmer, Indian agent for Oregon, was favorably impressed by the attitude of the Nez Perces, and told them to return to their homes for the spring planting, and to continue their peaceful relations with the whites.9