CHAPTER V.
We Move to the Valley of the Umpqua.
We had lived in the Willamette Valley seven years when father and my uncles decided to move to the Umpqua country. Father and Uncle Jesse had admired this part of Oregon very much when they passed through it while on the southern road expedition in 1846. Uncle Jesse settled there first and built the first cabin. When we had crossed the Kalapooya mountains he came to meet us and escorted us to his new home. We camped near his house for about ten days while father and Uncle Charles located their claims. They chose two sections lying directly east of Uncle Jesse's section. Father's section was the easternmost while the home of Uncle Charles was midway between the two, and was the gathering place of the young people of the three families. Looking back across the years, I still can see that gathering of happy young people. Days of toil were nothing, for we had that greatest of life's possessions, youth, with its hopes and dreams. Our first dwelling was built of logs, but in about two years after we settled in the valley a frame house was built. Brother Elisha doing the greater part of the carpenter work. After we were comfortably located, father built a flouring mill on a small stream not far from our dwelling. With the knowledge acquired from his old book on mechanics, Brother Elisha was able to do all the reckoning necessary in laying off the work to be done in making the machinery for the mi'l. This was the first mill for grinding grain built south of the Kalapooya mountains.
A half mile from our house was an Indian village. Here lived a small tribe called the Yangoler or Yoncalla Indians. They belonged to the Kalapooya tribe and spoke the same language. Our grist mill was only a few paces from this village and the footpath used by the Indians passed near the door of the mill. They were frequently in and about the mill and looked upon it as a marvelous thing. We gathered many interesting stories and traditions from these neighbors of ours. The Indian's theory of the origin of the red man is interesting. I first heard this tradition from the lips of a venerable Chemomochot priest or doctor, sixty or more years ago, and I have never found an Indian who was able to add a word to it. All the priests or "medicine men," and I believe, all the people knew this much of their origin. This is the tradition: "In the beginning was a mountain, and on the mountain top was a table of stone. On this table was a deposit of some kind of matter jelly-like in consistence—we would call it protoplasm—and out of this protoplastic mass grew a living being in the form of, and was, a woman. She held in her arms a male child, and when she was fully grown she descended, carrying the child on her bosom, to the base of the mountain, where the two were joined by a wolf. The woman placed the boy astride on the wolf's hack and passed a strap around the child and over the wolf's head above his eyes." This ends the story of the beginning of the red man. It ends abruptly with the group of three persons: Snowats, Iswukaw and Quartux (woman, boy and wolf). Some of ahe Indians believed that when a man died he became the same as a clod of earth or kahte (a stone). Others seemed to believe in the transmigration of souls. I recall a number of times when an Indian, pointing to a wolf which was often seen near the village, suggested that the Quartux was some person, naming some one who had recently died. They regarded the wolf as a sacred animal.
Indians from the village were frequent visitors at our home. One day when a number were there I was reading in a small book which was illustrated. I read from the book and showed some of the pictures to the Indians, expecting them to be greatly surprised, hut they were not, and it appeared from what they said to me and to one another that they had seen "paper that talked," as they expressed it, or had some information in regard to books. This discovery aroused my curiosity and led to the following tradition which I gathered after much labor and many interviews with the Indians. Squiyowhiynoof was a man, a foreigner, of what nationality I could not learn, who came to the tribe from they knew not where. He was a doctor or priest and healed the sick, but I could not learn anything about his methods. He had a book or books which he read and he showed the Indians pictures of a good country up in the heavens. He told them good people would go to this country after death. Another picture was of a place down below where the wicked would go for punishment after death. This priest must have gained considerable influence over the tribe, for he undertook the punishment of those who did not obey his teachings. He had those who took what did not belong to them severely whipped with hazel sprouts. This was a fatal mistake on the part of the priest or doctor, and eventually led to his death. The Indians feared their own native doctors and sometimes put them to death when they failed to restore some patient to health. It seems that a number of Indians came across the hills to the priest's abode intending to kill him, and did kill him. They left his body filled with arrows and fled back across the hills in the direction from whence they had come. When they had reached the hill top they were overtaken by a storm and sought shelter under a large spruce or fir tree whose drooping boughs protected them from the rain. An immense black cloud was seen to hang directly over the tree, and a great flash of lightning was seen to drop from it onto the tree; there was a crash that made the very earth tremble, and a column of white smoke shot up to the very heavens. Then the cloud and smoke passed away and the sky was clear. But the towering tree was gone. When the frightened people came near they saw the broken and shattered tree and all around were the scorched and blackened bodies of the half score of assassins who had sought shelter under the branches and had been punished for their sin by a bolt of fire from the heavens. We children were frequently at this place where a broken and shattered stump still stood. I finally found the grave of the murdered man, doctor or missionary, he must have been. This lonely grave was in the valley, a sunken place six or seven feet long, overgrown with heavy sod, and at one end a slab of wood probably five feet high.
Lolokes-psis was the name of a native doctor of the Yangolers. This name means literally fire nose (Lolokes, fire and psis, nose). This Indian had a nose almost as red as fire. He was a very interesting man and I frequently whiled away my leisure hours in his company. One day I went with him to visit a fish trap some of his people had in a small stream. As we were walking along a foot path I saw a large rattlesnake crawling slowly across the path directly before us. I immediately began a search for a stick or stone, intending to kill the snake, but Lolokes-psis objected, assuring me the snake was friendly as he would soon prove. He gathered a reed stalk about two feet long, then began chanting or singing a most peculiar song, at the same time stroking the back of the snake with the wand. Back and forth, very gently, went the wand and more weird became the song, until the snake ceased to move and lay at full length as straight as a rod. The doctor then sank slowly to his knees near it, placing his right hand, palm upward, in front of the snake. Incredible as this may seem, it is nevertheless a fact, that the snake began moving slowly up the Indian's arm to his shoulder, then doubling back, lay along his arm with its head in the palm of his hand. He carried it this way a few paces. When I ventured near the snake shot out its forked tongue in a threatening manner and Lolokes-psis said to me, "Wake tenas siah," that is, "not so near." He then dropped on one knee and slowly lowered his arm until his hand rested on the ground when the snake slid down without showing any signs of anger or fear, and crawled away into the grass. Unreasonable as this account may appear, it is faithfully and truly told. Like the Moqui Indians, and some other tribes in New Mexico and Arizona, Lolokes-psis seemed to have had power to charm and render harmless the rattlesnake.
In this village near us lived the chief of the Yangolers. He was universally known as Chief Halo. His was a noble character; he awoke early to an appreciation of the great advantages enjoyed by the white man. The food afforded by the cultivation of the soil, the growing of grain and vegetables, were to him a revelation. He often expressed his gratitude for the rich gleaning the settlers' grain fields afforded his people, and for the abundant supply of vegetables given them. He was pleased when he saw us plowing up the soil of his beautiful valley. No effort had been made to treat with the natives for their land at the time we settled in the Umpqua Valley, and nothing was done for a number of years afterward, but the chief never complained that we came and established homes. Five or six years after we settled in the country Chief Halo built a new house. We furnished him with ra 5 ls to fence a few acres and were always ready to assist and encourage him in his ambition to become a "Boston," the Indian name for the white people. When we were helping him to harvest his first crop of wheat he was very proud. He tried three languages in his efforts to express his appreciation and his idea of the evolution accomplished in him since the coming of the white man. Finally an agent appeared to treat with the Indians and purchase the country of them. There had been peace between the settlers and these natives from the first, and our title to the country was good as far as they were concerned. However, the Indians were invited to assemble, a fat ox was slaughtered and a feast prepared. The Indians responded with alacrity. Of course they were not much enlightened as to the important business to come before the assembly. The promise of houses, farms and agricultural implements and a yearly food supply to be given them on the reservation appealed strongly to the majority of the Indians. Of course the agent spoke to the Indians through an interpreter, and the Indians answered through the same medium. Chief Halo said, "I will not go to a strange land." This was not reported to the agent. When the tribe arrived on the reservation without the chief the agent was troubled, and came to our house to get father to go with him to visit the chief. We boys went with them. When Halo saw us coming he came out of his house and stood with his back against a large oak tree which grew near the door. We approached in our usual friendly fashion, but the chief was sullen and silent. He had lost faith in the white man. The agent said, "Tell the old Indian he must go to the reservation with the other people, that I have come for him." The chief understood and answered defiantly, "Wake nika klatawa," that is, "I will not go." The agent drew his revolver and pointed it at the Indian when the chief bared his breast, crying in his own tongue as he did so, "Shoot! It is good I die here at home. My father died here, his grave is here. 'Tis good I die here and am buried here. Halo is not a coward, I will not go." "Shall I shoot him?" said the agent. "No!" cried father, his voice hoarse with indignation. The chief, standing with his back against the giant oak, had defied the United States. We returned home leaving the brave old man in peace. Father and my uncles protected the old chieftainand his family and they were allowed to remain in their old home. I have read histories of Oregon, volumes of memoirs and many tales of the early days, but have never found anything relating to Chief Halo. He was a character worthy to be remembered. Should coming generations learn to know him as he was, they will see a noble figure standing with face uplifted and eyes wide with wonder and delight to behold the coming of civilization. This noblest and last sachem of the natives of the Umpqua Valley has slept with his fathers "Lo these many years." And his people; where are they? Their war songs, and their songs of exultation and lamentation these hills and valleys will hear no more.
In the summer of 1853 the Rogue River Indians swept down upon the straggling settlements in Southern Oregon, murdering the inhabitants, burning homes and carrying away captives. There was a call for volunteers and father organized a company or detachment known as "Captain Lindsay Applegate's company of mounted volunteers." Brother Elisha was then twenty-one years of age, I was seventeen, and we both enlisted for the war. The tribe inhabiting the Rogue River Valley was small and has been estimated at eight hundred people; less than half were warriors. This tribe was divided into small bands or tribes under sub-chiefs. Chief John, as he was called by the whites, was head chief of all these tribes, their great war chief. A treaty was made with these Indians in September, 1853, at our encampment, which was between the upper Table Rock and Rogue River. After the treaty had been made Chief John and his son visited our camp. The son was about my age, only a boy. We had many interesting talks together, and I liked and admired the young chief.
But here my little story must end. Of those courageous men and women who made that half year's journey to Oregon in 1843, only a little handful are left, like the last leaves on a tree. But those who have gone on their last long journey lived to see the wilderness bloom—lived to know that the railroad trains were flashing across the plains and mountains over which they had toiled with their weary ox teams in the long ago. May their sleep be sweet in the bosom of the land they struggled so hard to gain and loved so well.