Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (5 page)

The Indians had never seen white women before. They seemed as slight as twigs, and their skin was as pale as morning sunlight. They looked unfit for any work and likely to break at the slightest touch of a man's hand.

The Nez Perce women ran and kissed the white women, as the mountain men had instructed them to do. At first they had to contend with these mountain men for the women's attention, but they soon discovered that their real struggle lay with the women of the other tribes. All tribes wanted the prestige of having the spirit law teachers settle among them, and the women of the Cayuse and Nez Perce almost came to blows in their efforts to gain the favors and attention of these two pale-skinned Soyapo.

The Indians soon learned that, despite their frail appearance, these Soyapo women had strong hearts. One, the wife of Dr. Whitman, had long, flowing hair the color of red sunlight and was, to the Indians, beautiful beyond measure. The other, the wife of a hard-eyed man named Reverend Spalding, had a rough voice and hair the color of mud. But she showed deep concern for the Indian wives, even trying from the first day to learn some of their language. The Indians soon opened their hearts to both women.

When the rendezvous was over, the Spaldings and Whitmans and the others in their party set off with the Cayuse and Nez Perce across the plains and mountains back to the Plateau country. It was slow traveling because the ministers insisted on bringing wagons on the small trails, since they did not think it fitting for women to ride on the backs of horses. The Indians found this strange, but they did not wish to question Soyapo ways. So they continued to cut brush and remove rocks so the trail would be wide enough to allow passage of the women's horse-drawn carts.

All through the journey the Nez Perce and Cayuse women continued their bickering about where the missionaries should settle. All knew that any tribe and band that gained their presence would increase greatly in prestige. Eventually, at journey's end, Dr. Whitman announced that he and his wife would settle among the Cayuse instead of the Nez Perce. His examination of the land in Cayuse country had convinced him it would more easily yield to the plow and would more quickly bear fruit than the mountainous ravines and canyons and barren hillsides of the Nez Perce homelands through which they had just traveled.

This saddened the Nez Perce, who had watched him cure the sick at the rendezvous and believed him to be a man of great medicine power. But when the Reverend Spalding announced that he and his wife would settle among them, the Nez Perce were greatly relieved. Since he too knew the Book of Heaven, they would still be able to gain its knowledge. They also would have the favor of his kind and caring wife.

At first the Reverend Spalding could find no place in Nez Perce country that pleased him. The high cliffs and narrow river valleys offered little in the way of tillable land, and where the hills opened, they became bald and treeless—harsh, waterless places that would be almost unlivable under the relentless summer sun.

Finally, after long searching, the Nez Perce found a place on one of their creeks that met with the Reverend's approval. It had good soil, took in enough sun for growing, and had a flowing spring nearby. When he announced that he and his wife would settle there, the Nez Perce were overjoyed.

The Reverend told the Nez Perce that he wished them to build him a lodge made of logs piled on top of each other. They found it strange that a man would want to live in a house that could not be moved. The animals moved, the seasons changed. To follow the animals, people also needed to move. It made no sense to live in a house made of logs when a light, easily dismantled lodge made of poles and skins would do. But because the Nez Perce wanted to please the Reverend and his wife, they acceded to his request.

The logs the Reverend wanted for his lodge were from a river two miles distant. Some were as big around as a man and as long as two men standing on each other's shoulders. The Nez Perce men did not relish the task of carrying tree trunks several miles. Carrying was women's work. But the task was too demanding for the women, so they undertook it themselves, working without complaint.

The Nez Perce women, meanwhile, were enlisted to use the Reverend's ax to shape the trees, since the men were unused to using cutting tools and handled them poorly. Once the logs had been squared, the men hoisted them on their shoulders and carried them to the new location, where the logs were piled on top of each other until they became walls too heavy to be lifted by all the men of the tribe.

By midwinter, the strange dwelling was completed, and the Reverend and his wife were able to move into a log home that the Nez Perce felt would have been big enough to house a dozen or more of their own families. However, the following summer, the Reverend Spalding declared that the place he had chosen for his lodge was not to his liking. It was too hot and had too many biting bugs. He told the Nez Perce he wanted to have his house moved back down to the river, right by the spot where they had gathered the logs.

It was a fine piece of land, low and flat and covered with shade trees. The Nez Perce knew it as the Lapwai, or the Place of the Butterflies, because it was here that the butterflies gathered each spring, filling the sky with their color and movement. They only wished that he had chosen that spot for his home in the first place.

The Nez Perce men dismantled the house and carried the logs, one by one, back to the spot they had come from. But this time the men did not work so willingly. If the Reverend had wanted a lodge that could be moved, he should not have built such a log dwelling in the first place.

But the Reverend Spalding overcame their resistance by kicking and whipping them if they worked too slowly. This was a hard insult for the Nez Perce to endure. The whip man was an honored position in the tribe, hired by parents to correct children's bad behavior. But he never whipped adults. By acting as a whip man and whipping the grown men, the Reverend Spalding was treating them like children. It was not an offense easily forgiven or forgotten.

Despite the Reverend's harsh ways, the Nez Perce soon learned to have great respect for him. He worked harder than any man they had ever seen, laboring from first sun until long past dark. He dug the earth and coaxed plants to grow in straight rows; he built fences; with the help of the Nez Perce men he dug a long trench from the river that allowed water to come into his camp. At first the Nez Perce were confused. But when he built a wheel that was turned by the water and attached it to a heavy stone that could grind seeds to powder, they began to understand. The river now became their hands, just as the horse had become their legs. They were learning the secrets of the Soyapo way, just as they had hoped.

He did many other miraculous things as well. He built another wheel that would move a metal blade with fishlike teeth up and down to cut trees into boards. He made a large bag that would blow on fire and make metal so hot that it turned the color of the sun and ran like water. With this he fashioned tools for cutting and digging into the earth.

Though most of the Nez Perce were amazed, a few were uneasy. It was not good to rip the mother's flesh, they said, not good to make the river go where the Creator had not sent it. But the Reverend Spalding told them that this was the Creator's new way, as told in the Book of Heaven. The Creator, he said, wanted them to make the earth work for them, just as their human mothers worked for them.

To prove this, he brought out small brown root bulbs that he called potatoes. Some he gave to people who were open to the Book of Heaven. Some he gave to those who wished to stay with the old ways. He instructed them all to put their bulbs in the ground and cover them with earth.

The next summer, the bulbs planted by the people who had accepted the book had grown into new plants with new bulbs. Those planted by the followers of the old ways had not grown at all. There had been no difference between the two except for white dots on those he had given to the people who had become followers of the book. The Reverend Spalding said that this showed that the Creator gave his favor to people who accepted the Creator's new way. To most of the Nez Perce, this was even more proof of the Soyapo's mysterious powers.

Soon many bands were sending people from their villages to learn the magic of the Soyapo ways. Each day the Reverend Spalding would gather everyone together and speak of the book and its secrets—once just after sunrise and again just before dark. He was not able to speak the people's language, but with hand signs and the help of Nez Perce who had learned some of the Soyapo tongue, he made himself understood.

He told of them more about this Jesus who had the strongest spirit power. He told of how Jesus had died and stayed dead for three days, then had come back with spirit truth. He told how Jesus was the Creator who had assumed human form.

All of these things the Nez Perce could easily understand. Many of their strongest medicine people would fall into death sleeps in which the breath stopped and the body became cold, then would wake after several days with messages from the spirit world. They knew too that those with great medicine power could readily assume many forms. If the Creator himself had taken on the form of Jesus, this Jesus must have the greatest medicine power of all.

Day after day, the Reverend Spalding continued his teachings. Much of it was confusing and difficult for the Nez Perce to understand. But the heart of the message was clear: Jesus was the greatest
wayakin,
greater than all their
wayakin
s, and if people believed in him, their spirits would live forever in the good place. If they did not, after they died their spirits would go to a place where fire burned forever and they would feel the pain of burning for as long as the sun was in the sky.

All had burned their hands in fire, and none wanted to feel such pain forever. If the Book of Heaven said they must choose between living with Jesus in a good spirit place after they died or burning forever in a place with flames as hot as those that melted the Reverend Spalding's metal, it was not a hard decision to make. They would choose to live with Jesus.

Among those most eager to learn these new spirit ways was a man named Tuekakas, head chief of the Wallowa band, who lived in a high mountain valley several days' journey from the Lapwai. In the winters he and his people would move down to the river bottom of the Snake and set up camp a day's ride from where the Reverend Spalding had built his mission.

The Wallowa Valley was among the Nez Perce lands most blessed by the Creator. Its streams were rich in fish, and its grazing meadows were filled with grass that grew as high as a horse's flank. In its center was a great blue lake that reflected the clouds passing in the sky. All around were high, snowcapped mountains and rolling, forested hills.

The Wallowa people were isolated from the other bands by the surrounding mountains and the deep river gorges. To travel to or from their country meant several days' journey along steep mountain trails and across fast-moving, treacherous rivers. In many ways they had more in common with the Cayuse people who lived to the west than with the Nez Perce bands, who lived across the Snake and Salmon and traveled over the mountains to buffalo country. But in language and heart they were Nez Perce, and always they would attend the common Nez Perce feasts and participate in the gatherings where offerings were made to the Creator. And always they took part in the councils where issues that affected the Nez Perce common good were decided.

Tuekakas, their leader, commanded great respect from all the bands. Though a Cayuse, he had become part of the Nez Perce by marrying into the tribe and choosing to live among them. He was a proud man, holding himself and those around him to strict account. It was said that his word was his bond and that he would never be the first to break an agreement.

The arrival of the Reverend Spalding was of great interest to Tuekakas. Years before, when the Nez Perce were just beginning to hear about the Book of Heaven, a strange Soyapo named Bonneville had wandered into the wintering grounds of Tuekakas and his people. This Bonneville had become trapped in the narrow, snow-filled canyons and had tried to make his way to safety by walking along the perilous, thin ice on the edge of the half-frozen, fast-moving Clearwater River. When he had chanced upon Tuekakas's winter camp, the chief had willingly taken him in. Bonneville had quickly shown himself to be a man of great heart. He had torn up his own coat and wound strips of its colored cloth into hats for the women. He laughed easily and respected the Nez Perce ways. He amazed the people because he had no hair on his head, which made him powerful against scalping. He spoke often of the book that contained the Creator's teachings.

When Tuekakas heard that a new Soyapo spirit law teacher had come to the Lapwai with the book, he was intent upon meeting him. He traveled down the mountain passes and through the deep gorges to the Lapwai to take this man's hand in friendship.

Tuekakas and Spalding quickly formed a strong bond. Tuekakas recognized in Spalding a man who shared his own sense of honor and personal rectitude. Spalding saw in Tuekakas a man of piety and strong moral character. It was not long before the chief was bringing his band to winter at the Lapwai mission to learn the ways of the missionary and the teachings of the book.

Tuekakas took to Spalding's teachings almost more readily than any other Nez Perce. With the assistance of Nez Perce who knew a few words of English, he listened with diligence as the Reverend spoke of the book and the miraculous powers of Jesus. Then Tuekakas would speak for hours to his own people in their own language about the great teachings he was learning.

The teachings were hard for the people. They surely did not wish to go to a place to be burned forever in a fire, but many of them became upset when the Reverend said they had to take Jesus as their only spirit guide and speak out against their own spirits, saying aloud, “I believe in you no longer.” It seemed dangerous to dishonor their own spirits, and some privately wondered if perhaps the Creator had given different spirit guides to different people.