this whipping-system was going to be to them. They said they were willing it should continue, provided they were to receive shirts and pants and blankets as a reward for being whipped. They had been whipped a good many times, and had got nothing for it, and it had done them no good. If this state of things was to continue, it was all good for nothing, and they would throw it away.”
The Secretary of War does not appear to have seen this aspect of his agent’s original efforts in the line of jurisprudence. He says of the report which includes this astounding code, merely that “it furnishes some deeply interesting and curious details respecting certain of the Indian tribes in that remote part of our territories,” and that the conduct of the Nez Percés on the occasion of this important meeting “impresses one most agreeably.”
A report submitted at the same time by the Rev. Mr. Spaulding, who had lived six years as missionary among the Nez Percés, is much pleasanter reading. He says that “nearly all the principal men and chiefs are members of the school; that they are as industrious in their schools as on their farms. They cultivate their lands with much skill and to good advantage, and many more would do so if they had the means. About one hundred are printing their own books with the pen. This keeps up a deep interest, as they daily have new lessons to print; and what they print must be committed to memory as soon as possible. A good number are now so far advanced in reading and printing as to render much assistance in teaching. Their books are taken home at night, and every lodge becomes a school-room. Their lessons are Scripture lessons; no others (except the laws) seem to interest them.”
Even this missionary seems to have fallen under some strange glamour on the subject of the whipping-code; for he adds: “The laws which you so happily prepared, and which were unanimously adopted by the people, I have printed in the form
