Trails Through Western Woods

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Title: Trails Through Western Woods

Author: Helen Fitzgerald Sanders

Release Date: April 14, 2013 [EBook #42527]

Language: English

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TRAILS THROUGH

WESTERN WOODS

Lake Angus McDonald

TRAILS THROUGH

WESTERN WOODS

By

Helen Fitzgerald Sanders

Illustrations from Photographs

by the Author

NEW YORK & SEATTLE

THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY

1910

Copyright, 1910, by

THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY

Published, July 1, 1910

THE PREMIER PRESS

NEW YORK

DEDICATION

To the West that is passing; to the days

that are no more and to the brave,

free life of the Wilderness that

lives only in the memory of

those who mourn its loss

PREFACE

The writing of this book has been primarily a labour of love, undertaken in the hope that through the harmonious mingling of Indian tradition and descriptions of the region—too little known—where the lessening tribes still dwell, there may be a fuller understanding both of the Indians and of the poetical West.

A wealth of folk-lore will pass with the passing of the Flathead Reservation, therefore it is well to stop and listen before the light is quite vanished from the hill-tops, while still the streams sing the songs of old and the trees murmur regretfully of things lost forever and a time that will come no more. We of the workaday world are too prone to believe that our own country is lacking in myth and tradition, in hero-tale and romance; yet here in our midst is a legended region where every landmark is a symbol in the great, natural record book of a folk whose day is done and whose song is but an echo.

It would not be fitting to close these few introductory words without grateful acknowledgment to those who have aided me toward the accomplishment of my purpose. Indeed, every page brings a pleasant recollection of a friendly spirit and a helping hand. Mr. Duncan McDonald, son of Angus, and Mr. Henri Matt, my Indian friends, have told me by word of mouth, many of the myths and chronicles set forth in the following chapters. Mr. Edward Morgan, the faithful and just agent at the Flathead Reservation, has given me priceless information which I could never have obtained save through his kindly interest. He secured for me the legend of the Flint, the last tale told by Charlot and rendered into English by Michel Rivais, the blind interpreter who has served in that capacity for thirty years. Chief Charlot died after this book was finished and he lies in the land of his exile, out of the home of his fathers where he had hoped to rest. From Mr. Morgan also I received the account of Charlot's meeting with Joseph at the LoLo Pass, the facts of which were given him by the little white boy since grown to manhood, Mr. David Whaley, who rode with Charlot and his band to the hostile camp.

The late Charles Aubrey, pioneer and plainsman, furnished me valuable data concerning the buffalo.

Madame Leonie De Mers and her hospitable relatives, the De Mers of Arlee, were instrumental in winning for me the confidence of the Selish people.

Mrs. L. Mabel Hight, the artist, who has caught the spirit of the mountains with her brush, has added to this book by making the peaks live again in their colours.

In conclusion I would express my everlasting gratitude to Mr. Thomas H. Scott, of Lake McDonald, soldier, mountain-lover and woodsman, who, with unfailing courage and patience, has guided me safely over many and difficult trails.

For the benefit of students I must add that the authorities I have followed in my historical references are: Long's (James') "Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1819-20, Maximilian's Travels in North America, Father De Smet's Oregon Missions, Major Ronan's History of the Flathead Indians, Bradbury's Travels, Father L. B. Palladino's Indian and White in the Northwest," and the Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology.

Helen Fitzgerald Sanders.

Butte, Montana,

April 5, 1910 .

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE GENTLE SELISH

TRAILS THROUGH

WESTERN WOODS

CHAPTER I

THE GENTLE SELISH

I

W HEN Lewis and Clark took their way through the Western wilderness in 1805, they came upon a fair valley, watered by pleasant streams, bounded by snowy mountain crests, and starred, in the Springtime, by a strangely beautiful flower with silvery-rose fringed petals called the Bitter Root, whence the valley took its name. In the mild enclosure of this land lived a gentle folk differing as much from the hostile people around them as the place of their nativity differed from the stern, mountainous country of long winters and lofty altitudes surrounding it. These early adventurers, confusing this tribe with the nations dwelling about the mouth of the Columbia River, spoke of them as the Flatheads. It is one of those curious historical anomalies that the Chinooks who flattened the heads of their children, should never have been designated as Flatheads, while the Selish, among whom the practice was unknown, have borne the undeserved title until their own proper and euphonious name is unused and all but forgotten.

The Selish proper, living in the Bitter Root Valley, were one branch of a group composed of several nations collectively known as the Selish family. These kindred tribes were the Selish, or Flatheads, the Pend d'Oreilles, the Cœur d'Alenes, the Colvilles, the Spokanes and the Pisquouse. The Nez Percés of the Clearwater were also counted as tribal kin through inter-marriage.

Lewis and Clark were received with great kindness and much wonder by the Selish. There was current among them a story of a hunting party that came back after a long absence East of the Rocky Mountains, bearing strange tidings of a pale-faced race whom they had met,—probably the adventurous Sieur de La Vérendrye and his cavaliers who set out from Montreal to find a highway to the Pacific Sea. But it was only a memory with a few, a curious legend to the many, and these men of white skin and blue eyes came to them as a revelation.

The traders who followed in the footsteps of the first trail-blazers found the natives at their pursuits of hunting, roving over the Bitter Root Valley and into the contested region east of the Main Range of the Rocky Mountains, where both they, and their enemies, the Blackfeet, claimed hereditary right to hunt the buffalo. They were at all times friendly to the white men who came among them, and these visitors described them as simple, straight-forward people, the women distinguished for their virtue, and the men for their bravery in the battle and the chase. They were cleanly in their habits and honorable in their dealings with each other. If a man lost his horse, his bow or other valuable, the one who found it delivered it to the Chief, or Great Father, and he caused it to be hung in a place where it might be seen by all. Then when the owner came seeking his goods, the Chief restored it to him. They were also charitable. If a man were hungry no one said him nay and he was welcome even at the board of the head men to share the best of their fare. This spirit of kindliness they extended to all save their foes and the prisoners taken in war whom they tortured after the manner of more hostile tribes. In appearance they were comparatively very fair and their complexions a shade lighter than the palest new copper after being freshly rubbed. They were well formed, lithe and tall, a characteristic that still prevails with the pure bloods, as does something of the detail of their ancient dress. They preserve the custom of handing down by word of mouth, from generation to generation, their myths, traditions and history. Some of these chronicles celebrate events which are estimated to have happened two hundred years or more ago.

Of the origin of the Selish nothing is known save the legend of their coming out of the mountains; and perhaps we are none the poorer, for no bald historical record of dates and migrations could be as suggestively charming as this story of the people, themselves, colored by their own fancy and reflecting their inner life. Indeed, a nation's history and tradition bear much the same relation to each other as the conventional public existence of a man compared with that intangible part of him which we call imagination, but which is in reality the sum-total of his mental inheritance: the hidden treasure of his spiritual wealth. Let us look then, through the medium of the Indian's poetic imagery, into a past rose-hued with the sunrise of the new day.

Coyote, the hero of this legend, figures in many of the myths of the Selish; but they do not profess to know if he were a great brave bearing that name or if he were the animal itself, living in the legendary age when beasts and birds spoke the tongue of man. Likely he was a dual personality such as the white buffalo of numerous fables, who was at will a beautiful maiden or one among the vast herds of the plains. Possibly there was, indeed, such a mighty warrior in ages gone by about whose glorified memory has gathered the half-chimerical hero-tales which are the first step toward the ancestor-worship of primitive peoples. In all of the myths given here in which his name is mentioned, except that one of Coyote and the Flint, we shall consider him as an Ideal embodying the Indians' highest conception of valor and achievement.

Long, long ago the Jocko was inhabited by a man-eating monster who lured the tribes from the hills into his domain and then sucked their blood. Coyote determined to deliver the people, so he challenged the monster to a mortal combat. The monster accepted the challenge, and Coyote went into the mountains and got the poison spider from the rocks and bade him sting his enemy, but even the venom of the spider could not penetrate the monster's hide.

Coyote took counsel of the Fox, his friend, and prepared himself for the fray. He got a stout leather thong and bound it around his body, then tied it fast to a huge pine tree. The monster appeared with dripping fangs and gaping jaws, approached Coyote, who retreated farther and farther away, until the thong stretched taut and the pine curved like a bow. Suddenly, the tree, strained to its utmost limit, sprang back, felling the monster with a mortal stroke. Coyote was triumphant and the Woodpecker of the forest cut the pine and sharpened its trunk to a point which Coyote drove through the dead monster's breast, impaling it to the earth. Thus, the Jocko was rid of the man-eater, and the Selish, fearing him no more, came down from the hills into the valley where they lived in plenty and content.

The following story of Coyote and the Flint is of exceptional interest because it is from the lips of the dying Charlot—Charlot the unbending, the silent Chieftain. No word of English ever profaned his tongue, so this myth, told in the impressive Selish language, was translated word for word by Michel Rivais, the blind interpreter at the Flathead Agency, who has served faithfully and well for a period of thirty years.

"In the old times the animals had tribes just like the Indians. The Coyote had his tipi. He was hungry and had nothing to eat. He had bark to shoot his arrow with and the arrow did not go through the deer. He was that way a long time when he heard there was Flint coming on the road that gave a piece of flint to the Fox and he could shoot a deer and kill it, but the Coyote did not know that and used the bark. They did not give the Coyote anything. They only gave some to the Fox. Next day the Fox put a piece of meat on the end of a stick and took it to the fire. The Fox had the piece of meat cooking there and the Coyote was looking at the meat and when it was cooked the Coyote jumped and got the piece of meat and took a bite and in it was the flint, and he bit the flint and asked why they did not tell him how to kill a deer with flint.

"'Why didn't you tell me?' the Coyote asked his friend, the Fox. 'When did the Flint go by here?'

"The Fox said three days it went by here.

"The Coyote took his blanket and his things and started after the Flint and kept on his track all day and evening and said, 'Here is where the Flint camped,' and he stayed there all night himself, and next day