Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (4 page)

Some bands even made forays over the mountains into the buffalo country, following animal trails that had, over the centuries, become well known and established routes of human transit. But even when they joined together for common causes such as buffalo hunts, each band was its own master with its own leadership, and each was free to make its own choices in matters affecting the welfare of its own people.

This same fierce independence was bred into their personal character. No one would presume to tell another how to believe or live, and none could speak for another unless appointed to do so. Women were free to leave their husbands if they so desired and were able to own their own property and have their own wealth. Children were taught the traditional skills attendant upon the responsibilities of their sex, but each child was encouraged to go out at a young age to fast and pray in order to find a personal guardian spirit, or
wayakin,
which would provide them with powers and abilities that were theirs alone. This
wayakin
could then be called upon for assistance throughout the person's life, so long as the
wayakin
was treated with honor and respect. The only great collective responsibility was to use whatever skills or talents a person developed for the good of the tribe in situations of need.

As a people, the Nez Perce were clean, fastidious, upright, and moral. They were impeccable in their personal behavior and generous to those who came among them, but uncompromising in their conviction that their place on the earth had been given to them by the Creator. Yet they were also extremely adaptable and open to the ways of others. They took great pride in the way they had received the horse from the Shoshone and had quickly learned how to breed their stock into the best of any horses owned by any people. From the plains Indians across the mountains they had learned of the use of the teepee and the rich gift of the buffalo. From the tribes to the west they had taken much of their personal decoration and adornment. It was their belief that the Creator had given each people special skills and gifts, and it was their right and privilege to acquire the skills and gifts possessed by others and adapt them to their own needs.

With the departure of Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery, the Nez Perce quickly returned to their normal ways. But the strange, gift-giving dog-men who had come among them with such miraculous powers had opened them to the possibility that there was another way to live, well favored by the Creator and far different from the ways of any other tribe they had met. In these passing strangers they had seen a people with a power that exceeded even their own. They were determined to get that power for themselves.

Their first opportunity came several years later, with the arrival of the people called the “mountain men.” Before departing, Lewis and Clark had promised to send other Soyapo to set up places where tribes could meet and trade in peace, both with each other and with the Soyapo. This seemed good to the Nez Perce. They were not inclined toward conflict and took no real pleasure in fighting with other tribes. A place of peaceful trading would provide the opportunity to exchange their various goods without long, exhausting travel and the difficulties of passing through lands of hostile bands. It would also allow them to gain the goods, and maybe the secrets, that had made the Soyapo so powerful.

But when new Soyapo arrived several years later, they were very different from Lewis and Clark and the men of the Corps of Discovery. Lewis and Clark had been respectful and interested and generous with gifts. These new Soyapo men showed no interest in the Nez Perce beyond their women and a desire for the fur of the beaver.

The Nez Perce had no interest in trapping the beaver. Its tail was a great delicacy, but the beaver also had strong spirit power. It did not seem wise to kill them only to gain their skins. Besides, the Nez Perce had always been a riding and hunting and fishing people, accustomed to running down large game on horseback and bringing back food enough for many people to eat. They had no desire to spend their time squatting in cold streams waiting to trap small animals. Such things were for young children playing at the game of the hunt.

Nonetheless, the Nez Perce reached out their hands in friendship to these new Soyapo, as they had promised they would. But when the mountain men discovered that the Nez Perce would not trap beaver, the relationship cooled. Occasionally, a Soyapo trader would show up trying to purchase beaver pelts, and the Nez Perce would offer him a bearskin or the pelt of a rat. This simply angered the mountain men and made them keep a farther distance from this tribe that seemed so arrogantly indifferent to the realities of profitable exchange.

But the Nez Perce desperately wanted the goods these Soyapo had to trade. These men had guns and kettles and arrowheads made of steel, and cloth that could be made into clothes that dried quickly and weighed almost nothing. The neighboring tribes, those willing to trap the beaver, were beginning to gain these things, and with their new guns they were beginning to threaten the power and dominance of the Nez Perce. The Nez Perce needed to find a way to gain the Soyapo guns and goods that were falling into the other tribes' hands. And that way had to be something other than trapping the beaver.

What the Nez Perce had to offer were their horses. They had seen the mountain men's horses—a slow and plodding lot, good for carrying loads but not for swift travel and long riding. Long ago, with their skills of gelding and breeding, they had bred speed and stamina into their stock. Their herds were abundant, some of the largest on the continent. Many of the richer Nez Perce had herds numbering in the thousands. They knew that a man without a good horse in their country was doomed to live a small life. If they were patient, they reasoned, the trappers would have to come to them for mounts. Then they could make hard bargains and gain the goods they desired.

Eventually, this attitude created bad feelings. In one instance the Nez Perce refused to assist a huge mountain man named MacKenzie when he came into their country seeking beaver. They offered horses for his goods, but he wanted only pelts. So he made camp nearby and put his own men to work setting traps. Lacking knowledge of the streams and animals, the men spent an entire summer trapping without success. The Nez Perce mocked them, saying that Brother Beaver saw the stinginess of the Soyapo trappers and decided to be stingy with his skin.

By autumn, with winter coming and the streams starting to freeze, MacKenzie and his men were almost out of supplies. They approached the Nez Perce, offering finally to trade goods for horses so they could use them for food. The Nez Perce agreed to trade, but only at exorbitant rates. This so irritated MacKenzie that he decided to leave for the winter rather than meet the Nez Perce demands. He placed his trade goods under a tarp and announced that he would return for them the following spring.

When spring came and he made his way back into Nez Perce country, he found his tarp almost empty. He became enraged and went to the nearest village and began tearing apart every lodge. Among the Nez Perce, a hungry person could always go into another's lodge in search of food, but it was a grave insult to enter someone's lodge without respect. MacKenzie was not only showing no respect, he was ripping up tents and packs with daggers.

When he had finished his ransacking and regained his goods, he announced he was now ready to trade for horses. But the Nez Perce wished nothing more to do with him and turned away. So he began shooting horses, one by one, and leaving a pile of goods equal to the value of the horse next to the severed head of each animal he killed. In this way he procured the horsemeat he needed, then left.

Such situations were common, and many were far worse. One Nez Perce man was bound hand and foot and hanged in front of his people because the trappers were convinced he had been stealing their goods. Many others were shot. And though the Nez Perce developed warm friendships with many of the mountain men, even to the point of letting them live among them and marry Nez Perce women, this did not gain them access to the trade goods they so desperately desired.

Meanwhile, more places were being set up for the trading of goods—the kinds of places promised by Lewis and Clark—and they were all being built along rivers in the lands of the tribes that were willing to trap the beaver. By refusing to change their lives to meet the demands of the trappers, the Nez Perce were falling far behind the other tribes in their quest to gain Soyapo goods and power. They needed to find another way to bring the Soyapo and their power among their people.

That way came in the form of a small black book that the Soyapo called the “Book of Heaven.”

W
HILE LEWIS AND CLARK
had lived among them, some of the Nez Perce had seen the men of the Corps of Discovery staring at a small black book. This book contained many pages covered with strange markings that the men said were the same as words that came out of a man's mouth. The Nez Perce could not make sense of these markings because they were not in the shape of anything they recognized. But the men said they were the words of the Creator and told the Creator's secrets. They called this book the “Book of Heaven.”

The Nez Perce had always understood that the Creator put his teachings in the animals and the earth. They could see the arch of stone where Coyote had frozen Ant and Yellow Jacket into rock as eternal punishment for their endless arguing with each other. They could see the sacred hill down by the homeland of the Kamiah band, where the monster's heart lay after having been ripped out by Coyote as he formed all the peoples of the earth from different parts of the monster's body. They could look at the animals and know the stories from before the time of people when the Creator gave each animal its skills and power. But they had never imagined that the Creator would put the secrets of his power in a book that he would give to these strange, bearded men from the east.

They had asked the mountain men about this book. Some of them had heard of it, though few seemed to care much about it. Some of the Indian scouts who traveled with the trappers—people called the Iroquois from far in the direction of the sunrise—had also heard of it. They had seen Soyapo spirit law teachers in their own country and had heard them tell of the secrets in the book.

The Iroquois told the Nez Perce what they remembered—something about a strong spirit power named Jesus and a place of fire where bad people went when they died. They showed the Nez Perce special ways to make signs by touching their head and shoulders and heart to give themselves spirit power. They even hinted that the Nez Perce might be failing in hunts and warfare because of their failure to possess the white man's spirit power. If this book truly held the secrets of Soyapo power, the Nez Perce needed to get it.

This feeling was only increased by events taking place among their sister tribes of the Spokan and Flathead. The Spokan lived just north of the Nez Perce in rolling, open hill country. The Flathead, or Salish, lived just to the east of the Spokan. Both of them were friendly with the Nez Perce, and both had more contact with the Soyapo because both were more willing to hunt the beaver, and both lived in country where it was easier for Soyapo traders to travel. It was through these sister tribes that the Nez Perce learned much of what they knew about Soyapo ways.

Twenty winters after the coming of Lewis and Clark, some British Soyapo came among the Spokan and Flathead talking about the Book of Heaven. As all the Indians in the area had learned, there were two great tribes of white men in the East who competed with each other for furs. One was called the British, and the other was called the Bostons, or the Americans. The mountain men would work for either of them, but each of them set up their own trading forts where the mountain men and Indians went to exchange their furs for goods.

The Bostons were more easygoing and easy to trade with, while the British were more formal and less willing to bargain. But beyond that there was little difference until one of the British Soyapo had begun to speak about things of the spirit. He said he wanted to take a young boy from the Spokan and one from the Flathead and bring them east to teach them about Soyapo ways.

At first the Spokan chiefs had become angry, saying they were not like dogs who willingly gave up their children whenever anyone wanted to take them. But when these men said the boys would be taught the Book of Heaven and the secrets of the Creator's power, the chiefs not only were happy to let them go, they insisted the men take the chiefs' own sons.

The boys were gone for three winters. When they returned, they wore clothes in the white man's manner, their hair was cut short, and each had a Book of Heaven. They had learned the Soyapo tongue and in many ways seemed to be more like Soyapo than like their own people.

The boys, who were now in their middle teens and able to speak with the authority of men, gave many talks about the white man spirit laws they had learned and about a spirit power named Jesus, who was stronger than all other spirit powers. They told about a place where people who followed the spirit laws went after they died, and another place of endless fire, where those who did not follow the spirit laws were sent when they died. All of this, they said, was written in this Book of Heaven.

Many Nez Perce who were in the area went to hear the boys talk and came away amazed. This confirmed all they had been hearing from the trappers and the Iroquois. The Soyapo truly did have special knowledge from the Creator, and that knowledge was all contained in the secrets of the Book of Heaven. If the Nez Perce could get that book, perhaps they could get that knowledge for themselves and would not have to hunt beaver to trade for Soyapo power and goods.

The Nez Perce met in council and decided to send some men in search of the book. With their Flathead friends they created a hunting party of seven men and sent them off to Soyapo country. They decided to go to the place where Captain Clark was now the head chief, a place the trappers called St. Louis. It was in American country, many weeks' journey far over the mountains on the other side of the buffalo plains, in a place where the Nez Perce had never been. They had considered going north to the British Soyapo country where the two boys had received their books, but that would have meant traveling through the country of the murderous Blackfeet, and none wished to take this risk. Besides, Captain Clark had been generous to them before. If he had one of these Books of Heaven, he would surely give it to them.

The seven men set off with a group of mountain men who were returning to the land of the white man to trade for goods. Their journey took them over the mountains and across the great rolling buffalo country farther toward the east than any of them had ever traveled. Three of the men became afraid and turned back before reaching St. Louis. But the others made it safely and found themselves in an encampment unlike any they had ever seen.

There were lodges made of wood and stone that stood as high as trees. These lodges had walls made of something as thin and clear as river ice so a man could see out and the light of day could come in. There were horses pulling boxes that moved on rolling circles, and in the rivers were boats as long as the great lodges the Nez Perce lived in during the winter. All the buildings had doors made of flattened trees that would not open unless you put a piece of metal in a small hole and turned it around and around. Everywhere you looked were tools and weapons made of steel. It was truly a place of power and magic.

The men found Mr. Clark, who greeted them warmly. Though they could not speak each other's languages, they could make themselves understood through signs and gestures. They were taken to a great stone building filled with candles and wooden figures of bearded men. There they met spirit law teachers and were given crosses and the Book of Heaven. They had succeeded in their mission.

But two of the men soon became sick and died. Something in the white man's world was not good for their health. They were buried in that place, far from their land and their people. Then the others took the book and began the journey home.

Sadly, they too died before returning, and the book they carried with them was lost. So the Nez Perce remained without the Book of Heaven and the power it possessed.

But their hunger for it did not decrease.

While in St. Louis, the Nez Perce messengers had created a great stir. Walking the streets in their tribal dress, in an apparent quest for the Christian gospel, they represented everything the American people wanted to believe about the hunger of the Indian people for deliverance from their savage ways.

The year was 1831, and the young American nation was in the throes of a great religious revival. The conviction that a person could be saved from hellfire only by God's whim was being replaced by a belief that God's touch, earnestly sought, could change a person's heart and place that person among the saved. Faith in this power of conversion was sweeping the land.

To those who felt they had already been saved, no task was more important than bringing the word of God to others who were still living in darkness. Missionaries were setting sail for Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and anywhere else that the gospel had not yet been preached.

When word reached the churches back East that a group of Indians from deep in the uncharted West had been seen wandering the streets of St. Louis in search of the word of the Lord, the effect was instantaneous. A call was put out for men who would endure the hardships of the unknown mountains and deserts and forests of the West to bring Christian teachings to these untutored children of the wild.

Among the men who answered that call was the Reverend Marcus Whitman, a Presbyterian minister and physician from Ithaca, New York. Along with another intrepid missionary, Samuel Parker, he came west to St. Louis in the summer of 1835, four years after the Nez Perce had made their journey in search of the book, and declared his intention to travel across the plains to the annual gathering where trappers from the western interior rendezvoused with traders from the east to exchange furs for goods. From there, he announced, he and the Reverend Parker would continue across the mountains to the unknown interior to seek out the tribes that had shown such an earnest hunger for the word of the Lord.

The rendezvous were great, raucous gatherings held each year at a predetermined site on the eastern edge of the Rockies after the snows had melted and the passes had cleared. The trappers came with furs they had harvested or purchased from the Indians to exchange for goods and supplies brought in on wagons from St. Louis and cities in the East. Many Indian tribes—some hoping to make deals directly with the traders, others simply wishing to partake in the camaraderie and revelry—came with their own goods for bartering. A general armistice was put in effect, and smoke from a thousand fires filled the sky while Indians and whites alike fought, gambled, traded, and drank far into the night.

The Nez Perce often participated in these events. Many of them spent long periods—sometimes years at a time—living in buffalo country hundreds of miles across the great mountains from their ancestral homelands, and the horses they owned and the buffalo skins they gathered were valuable objects of trade. It was the one time when their failure to trap the beaver did not put them at a disadvantage in gaining the white man's goods.

The debauched nature of the rendezvous was legendary, and it did not make missionaries welcome guests. But the Reverend Parker and Dr. Whitman knew that this was the one place where they could make the connection that would get them to the tribes who had come to St. Louis seeking the light of Christian truth. So they joined with a trading caravan and made the long journey across the plains to the broad valley where the drinking and gambling and horse racing were already fully under way.

Their arrival was met with something less than enthusiasm by the reveling mountain men. But the Nez Perce in attendance were overjoyed to see these Soyapo teachers of spirit law. More than white man's goods, the Nez Perce desired the secrets of the white man's power. And here at the rendezvous were men who knew that power.

When the Reverend Parker and Dr. Whitman realized that there were men at the rendezvous from the tribes that had sent their messengers to St. Louis, they too were overjoyed. They willingly agreed to travel back with them to their country to begin establishing mission sites and teaching the ways of the Christian faith.

The Nez Perce watched the men closely. It was important that they be men of strong power who could assist the people in gaining Soyapo secrets. Dr. Whitman soon showed that he was such a man. He cured many of the mountain men of a violent stomach sickness and removed an arrowhead from deep in the back of one of the trappers. He reminded the Nez Perce of Captain Clark with his miraculous powers of healing.

But Dr. Whitman disappointed them by announcing that he had to return to the settlements of the whites to gather more goods and people. The Reverend Parker, however, agreed to travel back with the Nez Perce to their homeland.

The Nez Perce did all within their power to show Parker the highest respect during the journey. The women brought him fresh strawberries and placed fragrant leaves on the ground beneath his bedding, and the chiefs let him ride in the place of honor at the front of the travelers so he and his horse would always be walking on fresh ground.

Parker rewarded the Nez Perce kindness by giving instruction in spirit law during the travels, teaching each of the various chiefs one of the ten commandments so he could memorize it and pass it on. With the assistance of Indians who knew a few words of English, he also gave sermons to the people in long lodges that the Nez Perce constructed for the purpose, placing their finest animal skins on the ground for the Reverend and waiting patiently on their knees for his teaching to begin.

Parker intended to stay with the Nez Perce and continue his ministry. Unfortunately, he developed severe headaches and chest pains during the journey, and after a short stay, was forced to leave. But before he departed he promised that Dr. Whitman and other spirit law teachers would soon follow to continue instructing the people in the Soyapo Book of Heaven and the secrets it contained.

The following summer, in 1836, the Nez Perce traveled back to the rendezvous in the hope that they might meet Dr. Whitman there. It was a source of great joy when they first heard the creaking of wagon wheels and saw the carts emerging in the distance carrying men with huge beards and shirts as white as fresh mountain snow. But the joy turned to amazement when they saw these carts also carried two Soyapo women.