Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/304

The friendship of the same tribe during the Cayuse war is also well known, as well as their welcome and steadfast kindness to the American missionaries. In Joseph's war—when it was shown that Nez Perces were desperate fighters—the main body of the tribe was faithful, and very valuable services were rendered by James Reubens. Just the reason why this tribe has maintained such relations to the Americans would be an interesting study and just theme of minute investigation. During a brief visit to the old tribal station at Lapwai, the writer was fortunate enough to obtain two manuscripts, one of which has never been published; and probably the other has not in its present form. These will be presented here in their historic order: The first being a tradition still current among the Indians, explaining the presence of a remarkable mound in the valley of the Kamiah, and the origin of the various tribes—the Nez Perces, or Nimipu, "the People" as they called themselves, having been derived from the very heart-blood of the primitive monster. The story was related to me by Mr. James Grant, a Nez Perces living on the Lapwai; a man of much intelligence and substance. But, in order to preserve it more exactly in his language, I secured the notes of the same, taken some time ago from Mr. Grant by Dr. O. J. West, United States physician at Lapwai. Doctor West's narrative is understood to have been published in The Western Trail, a magazine devoted to Pacific Coast literature, and published at Tacoma, Washington; but the story is worthy of permanent place in the Oregon Quarterly also. It should be explained that these notes were taken from Doctor West's waste table, he being in San Francisco at the time, by leave of his obliging friends in the agency building at Spalding; and we feel that we violate no trust in transferring them to Oregon literature.