Some years ago,
when life was young and all the world one luring and
beckoning field of adventure, the writer of this modest
history spent five dollars to hear Dan Beard, Ernest
Seton Thompson and others, lecture on "Woodcraft and
Indians." They spoke of the "noble red man," and
pictured a romantic and heroic being of high ideals and
chivalrous life, whose adventures were clean and
admirable, whose domestic life was happy and blameless.
At least one member of the audience went home from those
lectures and shed bitter tears of remorse and shame
because it was his sad lot to be a cowardly paleface.
"We mention the incident because it serves to illustrate
the nonsense that is published broadcast for mercenary
reasons, by people who really know the truth.
This chapter does not pretend to be a scholarly
dissertation on the American Indian, but is rather
intended to preserve the first impressions made by the
Indians on an interested and uninitiated observer. For
the salient and noticeable traits of these people are
more likely to excite the comment of a newcomer than
they are to live in the hard soil of familiarity.
The Arabs of the Sahara desert, like our own Bannock
Indians, wrap themselves closely in camels-hair blankets
during the hottest weather, which as everyone knows, is
extreme in North Africa. They also wrap their heads in
turbans, and explain the custom by saying that it
protects them from the scorching rays of the sun.
Otherwise their skin would blister and dry up with the
reflected heat of the desert. This is probably true, and
it is no doubt for some similar reason that the Indians
wear blankets all through the summer. It has been said
that the Indians use a powder of vegetable or mineral
character with which they rub the inside of their
blankets, thereby rendering them impervious to heat
rays. Certain it is that an Indian, clad in a blanket,
is seldom seen to perspire, even in the hottest weather,
while his civilized brother drips just as profusely as a
white man.
In like manner all strange and seemingly fantastic and
heathen customs have their birth in reason, if we can
only detect it. The Indian, for instance, paints his
face as a protection from the dry and arid western
winds, which make some artificial application of grease
necessary. Let those who doubt this take a glance at the
parched visage of some Arizona rancher.
Some people maintain that the Indian is equal in
intelligence to the white man. Common sense tells us
that this is not true. No race mentally equal to the
Caucasian would remain for centuries in barbarism and
turn from civilization even when it is thrust upon them.
It is sometimes said that an Indian is a white man's
equal because he can pass the intelligence test of a
twelve-year-old white boy, this modicum of intelligence
being scientifically sufficient to rescue a white man
from the ranks of the mentally deficient. A man might
almost as well be insane as to escape insanity by a
hair's breadth. And so, also, of his intellect.
An Episcopalian missionary to the Indians on the Fort
Hall reservation, said in this connection: "I noticed
when I first began to work among these Indians that I
could establish no footing of equality between myself
and the bucks, although the latter seemed to be on the
most familiar terms with my twelve-year-old boy. This
puzzled me for some time, and I began to watch the
intercourse between my boy and the Indians. Then I
discovered the secret. The mentality of my boy and of
the Indians was on a par. The red men, although adults
in years, were twelve-year-olds in mind. From that time
on I talked with them on such terms and my former
trouble was ended."
For this reason and because of the results so far
attained, it seems very questionable whether it is wise
to attempt to civilize these people, in the ordinary
meaning of the term. Christianize them by all means. But
two men practicing the principles of Christianity can
live as happily in a wigwam as in a palace perhaps more
so, and there is no reason why we should want the squaws
to wear split-skirts because our own women wear them.
There is but little choice, and perhaps the squaw has
the best of it at that. The South Sea islander does not
want us to wear rings in our noses because he does, and
it seems hardly fair that we should wish to throttle the
poor Indian with the shackle that civilization calls a
collar, just because we are foolish enough to wear
collars. Christianity alone will bring these people as
much civilization as they need for both their happiness
and salvation, and that is more than many of our own
boastful race possess. For the rest, the Indian, to his
honor, be it said, is a child of nature, who loves his
sagebrush and desert freedom, and it is no kindness to
tear him from the life he loves so well. No wonder he
hates the white man. Most of us would hate people who
insisted upon making canary-birds, guaranteed to sing in
the parlor, out of us, when we wanted to be eagles.
Perhaps it is some such reason as this that leads the
Indians on the reservation to despise those who live
among the whites. The average Indian who hangs around
Pocatello is certainly inferior to his brother in the
sagebrush.
Although the Indian is a lazy man, who makes his squaw
do most of the work, he is not without some strain of
generosity. The squaw usually follows along some ten
paces behind her husband, and it is no uncommon thing to
see the buck eating a bag of apples or other delicacies
and throwing the cores to his faithful squaw, who
devours them with relish.
The Bannocks, in common with all other Indians, have a
decided sense of beauty, a trait that is seldom noticed,
although one of the best possessed by the redmen. This
artistic instinct finds play in the basket and beadwork
done by these people. Many of their designs combine
great beauty with great simplicity, and display a taste
that is far from uncultured. In their names, too, the
Indians show a love of the beautiful. Where in the whole
wide world can more beautiful names be found than
Wyoming and Arizona, Idaho and Oregon, Nevada and
Oklahoma? Resonant and poetical names they are,
suggestive of bigness quite commensurate with the
vastness of the states they name. It has been said that
the west, inspired by the beauty of her Indian names,
will some day produce a new school of poetry, made
possible only by the poetry of the wild, free redmen.
As in all frontier communities, many amusing incidents
have transpired between the Indians and whites. Probably
everyone in Pocatello knows ''Stonewall" Johnson and
probably no one in Pocatello knows horseflesh better
than he. One day Mr. Johnson bought a horse from an
Indian. The animal had seven diseases all-fatal but Mr.
Johnson, with infinite skill and patience, gradually
cured him of them all. He nursed the dying beast back to
health and made a valuable horse of him. Prom time to
time the Indian dropped around to inspect the animal.
One fine day, when the cure was fully effected, the
Indian deliberately entered the field where the horse
was grazing in care of Mr. Johnson's little boy, mounted
and rode away, leaving the youngster to carry the news
home. Mr. Johnson has never seen either horse or Indian
since. It is said that the only way to bind a bargain
with the Indians is by a deed of sale. On the other
hand, the missionary previously mentioned, says that he
would rather lend money to an Indian than to a white
man, as the former never fails to repay the loan.
We have spoken of the Indian's sense of beauty. He is
also cruel, and his cruelty is written on his face.
Imagine, then, the dismay and terror of a missionary's
wife, who, with her husband, alighted one dark night at
a little way station just north of Pocatello. the depot
was locked, and while the missionary went to look for a
night's lodging, his wife disposed herself comfortably
on a soft and well-filled gunnysack lying or" the
station platform. Presently the gunnysack moved,
stretched a pair of moccasined legs, and said "Woof!"
The lady eventually recovered, but whether the Indian
did, the story does not tell.
While possessing much innate nobility, the Indian
sometimes appears in a ridiculous light. It is said that
when a part of the reservation was thrown open a few
years ago, and the redmen reimbursed in cash, many of
them invested their money in vehicles. They bought every
old wagon for miles around, and when the supply ran low,
took what they could get. So it happened that one buck
bought an old hearse. In the body of this he was wont to
carry his numerous papooses, who gazed at the passing
throng with their squat faces pressed flat against the
windows, while the proud parents occupied the driver's
box.
These people have a strange aversion to the camera,
probably as to something uncanny and not understood.
They believe that to be photographed saps the strength.
At the last sun dance held in the Bottoms near
Pocatello, it was necessary to pay one old centenarian
five dollars to induce him to pose for one snapshot.
Among the commonplaces of former days that are fast
passing away are the wild horses. These animals still
roam the plains of Bannock County, but they are becoming
scarcer every year. They travel in bands of fifteen or
twenty and are very bold. They will approach within
close range of a human being and feed unconcernedly
under his gaze, but at the sound of the human voice they
become terror stricken and stampede away in great
confusion. Some daring men rope these animals during the
summer months and break them in for saddle use, but
their wild blood is never really tamed. It is necessary
to break their spirit with cruelty before they are of
any use, and then they are apt to relapse at any time.
When one escapes from captivity it is said that he will
travel hundreds of miles with unerring instinct back to
the plains whence he was taken.
The fact that a large portion of the land included in
Bannock County was set apart for and inhabited by
Indians retarded its settlement for many years. The
Indians were hostile to the white men, few of whom
settled in the vicinity, except employees of the stage
lines running from Salt Lake to Butte, government
agents, etc.
The Shoshone in the Report of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs for 1913, this name is spelt Shoshoni and
Bannock Indians now living on the Fort Hall reservation
are types of the great Lemhi family. The Shoshone, or
Snake Indians, are fairly honest, intelligent and
peaceable, although all the Indians west of the Rocky
Mountains are inferior to those living to the east. The
Bannocks are more cunning, sly, and restless than the
Shoshones. The Shoshone family, of which the Bannock is
a branch, are thought to have come originally from
California. While the name Shoshone is commonly supposed
to mean, "snake," some authorities hold that it means
"inland." These Indians are more pretentious in dress
and ornamentation than those living farther south, and
possess no mean skill in the art of pottery. Ross, an
authority on Indian affairs, says: "The Snakes have been
considered as a rather dull and degraded people, weak in
intellect and wanting in courage. And this opinion is
very probable to casual observer, at first sight or when
they are seen in small numbers, for their apparent
timidity, grave and reserved habits, give them an air of
stupidity. An intimate knowledge of the Snake character
will, however, place them on an equal footing with that
of other kindred nations, both in respect to their
mental faculties and moral attributes."
The different tribes or families of these Indians speak
different dialects, but have a sign language that is
understood by all. Although stolid and silent in their
intercourse with white men, they are vivacious and even
garrulous among themselves. The play of their hands when
they talk with signs resembles the conversation of deaf
mutes.
Another writer says: "The Bannocks of Idaho are highly
intelligent and lively, the most virtuous and
unsophisticated of all the Indians in the United
States."
These Indians were at least intelligent enough to devise
a system of hieroglyphics, examples of which are still
to be seen on the lava rocks to the west and south of
Pocatello, although the Indians of today seem to have
lost the art of reading them, and their contents remain
a mystery. They are recent enough in execution to have
survived the wear of wind and weather, but how
interesting it would be if we could read the crude
romance they tell some memorable page of barbarous
history or some forgotten tragedy of desert life!
There are in the neighborhood of Pocatello also some old
Indian forts crude constructions of dugouts and mountain
boulders, interesting only on account of their origin.
The curious may find one about two miles out of
Pocatello, to the left of the road that winds back from
West Sublette street. It probably differs in no way from
those built by the Indians of this vicinity two thousand
years ago, and were they to construct another today it
would be impossible except by age, to tell the new from
the old. Civilization rolls on apace, and today's
triumph of mechanism is the scrap heap of tomorrow, but
the stolid Indian, imperturbable and un-interested,
remains much the same, yesterday, today and apparently
forever.
The History of Bannock County
Idaho, By Arthur C. Saunders, Pocatello, Idaho. U. S.
A., The Tribune Company. Limited, 1915
History of
Bannock County, Idaho
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