[E. L. Huggins, Smohalla, The Prophet of Priest Rapids, The Overland Monthly, February 1891]

 

SMOHALLA, THE PROPHET OF PRIEST RAPIDS.

            AT a time when it was generally believed that serious Indian troubles were a thing of the past, a wave of superstition has swept over the remnants of aboriginal humanity still lingering among us, which at one time seemed likely to involve us in one of the bloodiest Indian wars in our history. This superstition, which is known as the " Messiah Craze," recently culminated among the Sioux, where the conditions were more favorable than elsewhere to its dangerous development, and where the arch plotter, Sitting Bull, used this curious fanaticism to further his schemes. But this or a similar superstition has for some years been a source of disturbance and even of bloodshed on other reservations.

            An Indian named Smohalla, living on the Columbia, and revered by his people as a seer and prophet, has for at least ten years been quietly preaching doc-

1891.]  Smohalla, the Prophet of Priest Rapids. 209

trines similar to those that have caused so much excitement among the Sioux.

            These doctrines never formulated into a written creed, and passing at second and third hand to distant reservations, have assumed various different phases, all agreeing, however, in two points. First, that all Indians ought at once to return to the observance of their ancient rites and religious dances, and abandon all efforts at civilization. Second, that some wonderful supernatural interference in behalf of those Indians who adhere to their ancestral practices is close at hand. This supernatural aid will be sudden and irresistible, and will destroy the white man, or reduce him to a condition of inferiority.

            By some it is taught that the Indian is the only real and permanent race, the white man being merely a temporary and unnatural combination of matter and heat, without any soul, but with the power of motion, and many other outward human characteristics. This uncanny simulacrum has been sent to afflict the red man for his sins, but this purpose once served will vanish, while the red race is eternal and indestructible. Sitting Bull taught that the Messiah had appointed a place in the Bad Lands where, at a given time, he would meet all faithful Indians, bringing with him herds of buffalo, and rolling before him an immense earth-wave many fathoms deep, which would bury all the whites, while the Indians would be miraculously buoyed up, or enabled to make their way to the surface.

            The precise nature of Smohalla's teaching was for some time as jealously guarded from the world as the esoteric mysteries of the ancient priesthoods, only a few favored ones being admitted to a full knowledge of his doctrines. It was known, however, that a strict adherence to Indian dress and modes of life was one of the chief corner-stones of the new religion, and that Smohalla's followers looked forward to some terrible convulsion of nature that would destroy the white man, and restore the faithful to possession of the continent. Smohalla's neophytes had been known to boast in unguarded moments of the good time soon coming, when the dust of countless generations of dead Indians would suddenly return to life, slaying alike the pale-faced oppressor, and his contemptible imitator, the "book Indian," recreant to his race and his ancestral gods.

            A horribly fantastic conception this, one well worthy of the Norse mythology so curiously suggested by the name of Smohalla. Suddenly, without warning, in the twinking of an eye, close to and surrounding every white man, woman, and child, spring up a swarm of naked savages. They instantly throttle the pale face. In the grasp of those nervous hands all his science and skill, his improved weapons, are of no avail. A few quickly stifled cries and all is over. The whole continent, from Behring's Straits to the Isthmus is turned into one huge sacrificial stone, from which flows the atoning blood of eighty millions of victims. Our cities that have cost us so much toil become a mighty holocaust, lighting up the scene with an ephemeral glare. Then the country swiftly settles back into its primeval wilderness, -- an Indian paradise uncontaminated by the white man's polluting touch, and filled with buffalo, elk, and other good gifts from the now propitiated Great Spirit to his red children. The memory of the white man's rule will fade away into a dim but horrible dream peopled by ghastly ghouls.

            This wild hope or something like it is secretly and universally cherished by the wild Indians still remaining on the continent, and seduced many even of the semi-civilized and Christianized. For deep in the heart of every Indian, civilized as well as savage, latent though it may be at times, lurks a steady hatred of the white man. This hatred is by no means

210      Smohalla, the Prophet of Priest Rapids. [Feb.

incompatible with feelings of affection and friendship toward individuals of the white race ; for Indians are quite as susceptible to such emotions as ourselves. And indeed has not a similar dream been cherished by every oppressed and subjected race ? – the hope of destroying the oppressor or of becoming the ruler and oppressor instead of the ruled and the oppressed. If as some one has said, hatred, curses, and evil wishes, are in themselves a revenge for wrong, the Indian is indeed richly avenged.

            Smohalla has fixed his residence at Priest Rapids, on the Columbia, (named not for its present prophet, but for some black-robed white man,) and here have been gathered about him for some years a small band of Indians who obeyed his teaching implicitly, while his influence has been more or less felt upon all the reservations, where strange stories, impressive from their very vagueness, have long been afloat, of the mysterious incantations and ceremonies practiced, and the supernatural powers exercised by Smohalla.

            How strangely similar are the phases of superstition, or perhaps of spiritual development, among races as far asunder as the poles ! Here among the Indians of the far Northwest is a religious pretender bearing many of the features of his prototypes, the Mahdis, who with varying degrees of success have been for centuries flitting across the pages of Oriental history. Smohalla is probably like most of them, -- a compound of skillful imposture and sincere belief in his own supernatural gifts, -- a somewhat whimsical combination, which has been the usual capital of the thaumaturgist and seer, and the foundation upon which some of them have built up powerful religions.

            Passing up the Columbia with a cavalry command some years ago, I looked forward with curiosity to a meeting with the dusky seer of Priest Rapids, not hoping to penetrate the arcanum, but determined to draw from him, so far as a pale-faced oppressor might, something of his visions and his hopes.

            While still some days' march from Priest Rapids, I mentioned to a white man my intention of visiting Smohalla, and was told that I would see him that night, as he with a number of his people were camped where I also was to camp. When, therefore, toward sundown, I came upon a group of scantily dressed Indians dancing and chanting on the bank of the river, I supposed Smohalla, elderly and dignified as he had been represented, to be among them. For did not the first king of Israel join with a company of singing and dancing prophets in a babel of prophecy, unhappily lost to the world through the absence of any stenographer? But I learned upon inquiry that Smohalla was not among these dancing prophets. It was added that I would be likely to meet him next day, as he was coming down from Priest Rapids to join them.

            Next day, moving up the sandy shore of the Columbia, strewn with beautiful arrow and spear heads of obsidian and other translucent mineral, I suddenly came upon a small group of Indians who had dismounted to rest. Following their example I scanned their faces carefully, but saw no one whose appearance came up to my ideal of what a prophet should be. They seemed very surly, but presenting them with a little tobacco, open sesame to the savage and often also to the civilized heart, I inquired for Smohalla.

            "He has not yet left Priest Rapids," they said. "You can see him there tomorrow if you wish to."

            But I learned next morning that the only practicable wagon route for wagons to the objective point I was aiming for did not lead through Priest Rapids, but left the Columbia a good many miles below that point. So I gave up for the time the hope of seeing Smohalla.

            That night I encamped in a delightful

1891.] Smohalla, the Prophet of Priest Rapids. 211

little valley about twelve miles from Priest Rapids, and separated from it by a high mountain ridge. I intended to make an early start next day, but two mules were missing, having strayed away during the night. Of course they were the best mules in the train, for ever with mules as with men, "the brightest have gone before us, and the dullest are left behind." Parties were sent out in all directions, but at nine in the morning, the mules had not been found ; and being in no haste I determined not to break camp that day, but instead to climb over the mountain and visit Priest Rapids.

            Leaving camp with two companions, I took a faint bridle path up the steep ascent covered with grass and flowers. We finally reached the top, a long narrow mesa covered with luxuriant bunch grass, untouched apparently by any animal wild or domestic, a veritable " horse heaven," in Western parlance. Galloping across the mesa we came suddenly to the brink of a lofty and almost precipitous bluff, at the foot of which like a slender silver ribbon wound the Columbia River.

            Here we dismounted, and leading our horses began zigzagging on our way painfully downward. Here and there only was the trail faintly discernible. In places we set in motion large sheets of loose stones as fine as macadam, with imminent danger, as it seemed to me, of being carried with the floe into some vertiginous chasm. In other places we found little oases of herbage where we halted to rest, while our horses nipped the bunch grass. At last we reached the bottom, and found between the water and the base of the mountain a narrow strip of level ground, where were grazing some beautiful ponies, which stampeded at our approach, thundering away down the valley like a herd of wild horses.

            Remounting our horses, we continued up the stream, the valley gradually widening, until after riding about two miles we came to the Indian village. The inhabitants were nearly all away, and those that remained were sullen and uncommunicative. Even our tobacco seemed to have but little softening influence upon them, and we were evidently regarded as very unwelcome visitors. Upon asking for Smohalla, I was told that he was in the Kittitas Valley, fifty miles distant, though the information was given with such reluctance that I doubted its truth.

            Leaving this inhospitable village we returned to camp by a longer but better route than that by which we had come. It was sundown when we reached camp, and the mules had not been found. Truly, mules and prophets are a pestiferous lot, elusive and hard to find when you want them, yet they " cry aloud and spare not " when all you ask is to be let alone. Looking that evening at the mountain top between me and Priest Rapids, enveloped in a smoky haze that made its outlines as vague and uncertain as a prophetic utterance, I began to doubt whether Smohalla himself might not be a myth.

            Some weeks later I was encamped on a tributary of the Yakima. It was a perfect Indian summer afternoon, and I sat in front of my tent admiring the changing tints of autumn, when I became aware of colors still brighter than the yellow maple leaves moving among the branches, and soon three mounted Indians in gorgeous red and yellow turbans and other belongings emerged from the grove near by. O my prophetic soul, I was not at all thinking of Smohalla, but I divined at once that this was he.

            Moving at the gait between a walk and a trot to which Indian ponies are trained, he came straight to me, reined up, and with the laconic announcement, " Nika Smohalla" (I am Smohalla), uttered in a soft, deliberate voice, dismounted, as did also his two younger companions.

212      Smohalla, the Prophet of Priest Rapids. [Feb.

            " Welcome, Smohalla. Sit down and have a cup of coffee."

            Smohalla, seer, dreamer, religious reformer, doctor, and in short all around medicine man or tamanawous, proved to be a rather undersized Indian, about sixty years old, with a form inclining toward obesity, a reserved and cunning, but not ill-natured countenance, and a large and well shaped head. His manners were more suave and insinuating than is usual with Indians. His teeth were worn to the gums, a very common peculiarity with elderly Indians in this region, caused by eating fish dried along the wind-swept shores of the Columbia, and filled with fine sand in the process.

            The prophet business seemed to be fairly prosperous with him at the time. His pinto pony was a good one of its kind, worth forty dollars, his moccasins and leggins were new, and his " fair round belly," with good fat salmon lined, no doubt, indicated that his larder, whether supplied by ravens or through some more prosaic medium, was well provided.

            "You wanted to see me," he said abruptly, after a short silence.

            "Yes," I replied, " but it was for nothing special. I had heard of Smohalla, and I wanted to make his acquaintance."

            " But you inquired for me more than once, and you climbed over the mountain at Priest Rapids to see me."

            " Yes," said I. " I was looking for mules and for Smohalla that day, and found neither one. I was disappointed. But you are here now, and I am glad."

            " Then you did not come to see about the land ? " he asked.

            " What land ? " I replied. " I have nothing to do with land."

            A slight change passed over his countenance, but whether from relief or disappointment I could not say.

            " I and my people live on a little piece of bottom land at Priest Rapids," he explained, " and some white men want to take it from me. I thought you came to see about it."

            " No, I never heard of it before ; but I hope you may be allowed to keep it. But," I continued, " the white people are so numerous they have not enough land for all, and as the Indians do not cultivate their land or make much use of it, the white man naturally thinks he ought to have it. If you would plow up your land and plant it, you would be more likely to keep it."

            " The white man has plenty of land," said Smohalla. " I knew an Indian who went to Washington, and he passed for days through good uncultivated land east of the Rockies. And I am told that beyond the great sea some men have big tracts fenced in just to keep a few deer and grouse. Nobody interferes with these men. Yet white men come from these very countries, and say the Indian must not keep his land because he hunts over it instead of plowing it. I know a man on the lower Columbia, who for years has had a big piece of bottom land that is neither plowed up or grazed over, but no one disturbs him, because he is a white man. I will not plow my land, but if I did, it would not protect me. Joseph's people had good fields and gardens, but they were driven away. I have no pity for them. They had no business to plant fields like white men. Many Indians are trying to live like white men, but it will do them no good. They cut off their hair and wear white men's clothes, and some of them learn to sing out of a book.

            Here one of Smohalla's henchmen gave utterance to his contempt and indignation in a prolonged ugh. The other young Indian looked at him in surprise, as if astonished that he should venture to intrude his feelings into so important a conference, after which they both relapsed into their former stolidity, with faces as expressionless as those of Englishmen, and made no further sign during the interview.

1891.]              Smohalla, the Prophet of Priest Rapids. 213

            Smohalla continued : " No one has any respect for those book Indians. Even the white men like me better and treat me better than they do the book Indians."

            I remembered Smohalla's words with a smile a few days afterwards, when I saw upon a reservation a " prominent Indian," in battered stovepipe hat, slop-shop clothes bought on contract by the agent, a hymn book under his arm, and moccasins on his feet. Smohalla is indeed a more picturesque and interesting study than the Reverend Paul Good Thunder, even in the matter of dress, and Herr Teufelsdröckh gravely asserts that the only true distinction between man and man is clothes, without which we would all alike be but poor forked creatures.

            However, I will leave Smohalla long enough to say, All honor to the Reverend  Good Thunder, in his efforts to civilize himself and his tribe.

            "But Smohalla," said I, "the country is all filling up with white people and their herds. The game is nearly all gone. Would it not be better for your young Indians to learn the white man's work ?"

            "My young men shall never work," said he with a wave of the hand, including numerous imaginary Indians, as well as the two seated near by. " Men who work cannot dream, and wisdom comes to us in dreams."

            " But your young men have to work hard during the fishing season to get food for winter."

            " This work only lasts for a few weeks. Besides, it is natural work and does them no harm. But the work of the white man hardens soul and body : nor is it right to tear up and mutilate the earth as white men do."

            " But you also dig roots. Even now your people are digging camas roots in the mountains."

            "We simply take the gifts that are freely offered. We no more harm the earth than would an infant's fingers harm its mother's breast. But the white man tears up large tracts of land, runs deep ditches, cuts down forests, and changes the whole face of the earth. You know very well this is not right. Every honest man,'" said he, looking at me searchingly, "knows in his heart that this is all wrong. But the white men are so greedy they do not consider these things."

            "You say that wisdom comes in dreams, and that they who work cannot dream ; yet the white man, who works, knows many things and can do many things of which the Indian is ignorant."

            "His wisdom is that of his own mind and thoughts. Such wisdom is poor and weak."

            "What is the wisdom of which you speak, that comes in dreams ?"

            " Each one must learn for himself the highest wisdom. It cannot be taught in words."

            " Can it only be learned in dreams ?"

            " Much also may be learned by singing and dancing with the dreamer at night. You have the wisdom of your race. Be content."

            " It is said you teach that some great and wonderful deliverance is corning to the Indians, and that they will soon be wealthy and powerful as in the past."

            " Yes, if the Indians will listen to the messages that come to them, they will have help."

            " What will be the nature of this wonderful help ?"

            " It will be sudden and powerful."

            " How do you know that your messages are true, and that help will come ?"

            " How do I know spring will come ? Because it is now fall. We must have help from a stronger power if we are to exist. Without it our case is hopeless. Therefore it is sure to come. Do the white teachers believe what they teach?" he asked, watching me closely.

            " Who can read the heart of another ?" I replied.

            " Some of them admit they

214      Smohalla, the Prophet of Priest Rapids. [Feb.

do not believe what they teach, but say good comes from teaching it. Others say they believe it. They teach many different and contradictory things. But they all teach the doctrine of love and good will to all mankind, and it is said, Smohalla, that you hate all white men."

            " It is not true. But the whites have caused us great suffering. Doctor Whitman many years ago made a long journey to the East to get a bottle of poison for us. He was gone about a year, and after he came back, strong and terrible diseases broke out among us. The Indians killed Doctor Whitman, but it was too late. He had uncorked his bottle, and all the air was poisoned. Before that there was little sickness among us, but since then many of us have died. I have had children and grandchildren, but they are all dead. My last grandchild, a young woman of sixteen, died last month. If only her infant could have lived," -- his voice faltered slightly, but with scarcely a pause, he continued in his former tone, -- " I labored hard to save them, but my medicine would not work as it used to."

            For a few moments nothing more was said, then I resumed : --

            " The white people have given some good gifts to the Indians, -- your ponies for instance ; you could hardly do without them now."

            "What? the white men gave us ponies ! O no, we had ponies long before we ever saw white people. The Great Spirit gave them to us. Our horses were swifter and more enduring, too, in those days, before they were mixed with the white man's horses. The Indian would be rich and happy if he had never seen the white man.

            " But the Indian has given many good gifts to the white man. But for the Indian the white man would be poor and miserable. We have made him what he is. I have heard my father tell about the first white people that came into this country. They were few in number and almost naked and starving. They had guns but no ammunition, no horses, only a few oxen that could hardly walk, they were so weak. If father had killed these whites, and if the Indians had always pursued a similar course it would have been better for us. But they showed them where they could winter the oxen, they fed them and took care of them. The white men were very humble and grateful. Next year more white men came. The Indians guided them into the best valleys, and pointed out to them the best springs. The white men fenced up their springs, and would not let the Indians water their ponies there. But there was plenty of other water and the Indians did not want to quarrel. More white people came. About this time Doctor Whitman opened his bottle, and the white men began to kill all the Indians they could. They would come to a village and profess friendship, and then rise in the night and kill men, women, and children.

            " We are now so few and weak we can offer no resistance, and their preachers have persuaded them to let a few of us live, so as to claim credit with the Great Spirit for being generous and humane. But they begrudge us what little grass our ponies eat."

            He rose and said, "I must go. My people camp at Fox Cañon tonight," (twenty miles distant,) "and I must join them there."

            " Smohalla, you have come far to see me, and must take with you some memento of this visit. Here are a pair of blankets I will give you," said I, opening one of them to show their fineness. He merely glanced at them with lordly indifference, and deigned no word of thanks, as one of his young squires hastily bundled them up. But he shook hands rather more warmly than upon his arrival, and said almost effusively : --

            "If they tell you Smohalla hates all white people, do not believe it. You will find your mules," he added, but in

1891.]              Hopes Deferred. 215

so ordinary a tone and manner that I never thought at the time of its being a prophecy.

            Next day some of the soldiers left the route of march to hunt, and while several miles from the main column saw two mules driven by Indians mounted on ponies. When the soldiers approached them the Indians fled at full speed. The soldiers pursued them for a short distance, but could not overtake them.

            The mules proved to be the ones we had lost. Vale, Smohalla. Not in the least do I blame thee for hating my race, though I sincerely hope thy predictions of evil may not be fulfilled. And if I were an Indian I should be tempted to become thy disciple.

E. L. Huggins.