Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/868

 SILOE

792

SILVEIRA

eral tribes had already peaceably removed. The Coast Reservation originally extended some ninety miles along the coast, but by the throwing open of the central portion in 1865 was divided into two, the pres- ent Siletz agency in the north, and the Alsea sub- agency in the south. In 1876 the latter was aban- doned, the Indians being concentrated upon Siletz Reservation, to which about the same time were gathered also several vagrant remnant bands farther up the coast.

On 1 Sept., 1857, the Coast Tribe Indians were offi- cially reported to number: Siletz Reservation, 2049; Alsea, 690; refugee hostiles in mountains, about 250; remnant bands north of Siletz, 251; total, about 3240. Degraded, impoverished, and diseased, their condi- tion could not easily be lower, and their superinten- dent states his conviction that any expectation of their ultimate civilization or Christianization was hopeless. "They have acquired all the vices of the white man, without any of his virtues; and while the last fifteen years have witnessed the most frightful diminution in their numbers, their deterioration, morally, physi- cally, and intellectually has been equally rapid. Star- vation, disease, and bad whiskey combined is rapidly decimating their numbers, and will soon relieve the government of their charge."

Up to 1875 governmental provisions for moral or educational betterment was either lacking or entirely inadequate, and the only fight in the darkness was af- forded by the visits at long intervals of the devoted pioneer missionary. Father A. J. Croquette, of the neighbouring Grande Ronde Reservation, who con- tinued his ministry to both reservations for a period of nearlv forty years. Protestant work was begun un- der Methodist auspices about 1872, but no building was erected until about twenty years later. Each is now represented by a regular mission, the Catholic denomination being in charge of the Jesuits. The rna- jority of the Indians are accounted as Christians, having abandoned the old Indian dress and custom, besides almost universally using the English language. There is also a flourishing government school. Notwith- standing that the Indians are reported as "above the average" in civilization and comfortable condition, there is a steady and rapid decrease, due to the old blood taint which manifests itself chiefly in tubercu- losis, and points to their speedj' extinction. The ap- proximate 3240 assigned to the reservation in 1857 had dwindled to approximately 1015 in 1880; 480 in 1900; and 430 in 1910, including mixed bloods. The work of assigning them to individual land allotments, begun in 18S7, was finaUy concluded in 1902.

The various tribes differed but little in habit of life. Their houses were of cedar boards, rectangular and semi-subterranean for greater warmth. Rush mats upon the earth floor served for beds. Fish formed their chief subsistence, supplemented by acorns, camas rwjt, berries, wild game, and grass- hoppers; tobacco was the only plant cultivated. They had dug-out canoes, and were expert basket- makers. Their chief weapon was the bow, and pro- tective body armour of raw hide was sometimes worn. The ordinary dress of the man was of deer skin, and the woman, a short skirt of cedar bark fibre. Hats were worn by both sexes. Head flat- tening was not practised, but tattooing was frequent. The dcntalium shell was their most prized ornament and stanrlard of value. Polygamy was common. The dead were gencirally buried in the ground, and the property distributed among the relatives. The government was sim[)le anri democratic, but captives and their children were held as slaves. There were no clans, and rlescent was paternal. Each linguistic group ha/l its own myths and culture h(!ro, or trans- former, who prepared the worhl for human habita- tion. Among the Alsea these sacred myths could be told during only one month of the year. Among

the principal ceremonies were the acorn festival and the girls' puberty dance.

Bancroft, Hist. Oregon (2 vols., San Francisco, 1856-58); Boas, Traditions of the Tillamook Indians in Jour. .4 m. Folklore, XI (Boston, 1898) ; Bur. Cath. Ind. Missions, annual reports of director (Washington); Commissioner of Indian Affairs, annual reports (Washington) ; Dorsev, Indians of Siletz Reserva- tion in American Anthropologist, II (Washington, 1888); Idem, Gentile System of the Siletz Tribes in Jour. Am. Folklore, III (Boston, 1890); Farrand, Notes on the Alsea Indians in Am. Anthropologist, new series. III (New York, 1901); Hale, Eth- nology and Philology, forming vol. VI of Wilkes Kept. U. S. Exploring Expedition (Philadelphia, 1846); Lewis and Clark Expedition, original journals, ed. Thwaites (8 vols.. New York, 1904-05); Sapir, Notes on the Takelma Indians in Am. Anth., IX (Lancaster, 1907); Idem, Religious Ideas of the Takelma Indians in Jour. Am. Folklore (Boston, 1907) ; Idem, Takelma Texts, Univ. of Penn. Mus. Anthrop. Pubs. (Philadelphia, 1909); Idem, The Takelma Language in Boas, Handbook Am. Ind. Langs., Bull. 40, part 2 (Bur. Am. Ethnology, Washington, 1912).

James Mooney.

Siloe (SiLOAH, Siloam;

.U ..w

•2 from

to conduct or send, connected with nbt" a canal; hence the interpretation, ttji/ KoXvixprjdpav tov rSiXaxi/i [8 ipfxriveveTai.' Air€(7Ta\fj-ei>os], John, ix, 7; also in Sept., Josephus, and Tacitus SiXwd/x, n being changed to ji* for euphony sake or under the influence of '"n*.*), a pool in the TjTopocan Valley, just outside the south wall of Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ gave sight to the man born blind (John, ix, 1-7). Thanks to the excavations of Mr. Bliss and others, the identi- fication of the present pool with the Siloe of Isaias (viii, 6) and John (ix, 7) is bej'ond all doubt. Near the traditional pool (birket Silwan), Mr. Bliss found in 1896 the ruins of an ancient basin, 75 ft. north and south by 78 ft. east and west and 18 ft. deep, on the north side of which was a church with a nave. The pool connects with "the upper source of the waters of Gihon" (II Par., xxxii, 30) by a subterranean conduit (IV Kings, xviii, 17), called "the king's aqueduct" (i"?"^" ,"^-"1-, II Esd., ii, 14), 600 yards long, the fall of which is so slight that the water runs very gently; hence Isaias (viii, 6) compares the House of David to "the waters of Siloe, that go with silence". In 1880 the excavations of the German Palestinian Society uncovered in the Siloe pool near the outflow of the canal an inscription, which is, excepting the Mesa stone, the oldest specimen of Hebrew writing, probably of the seventh century B.C. The tower "in Siloe" (Luke, xiii, 4) was probably a part of the near-by city wall, as Mr. Bliss's excavations show that the pool had given its name to the whole vicinity; hence "the gate of the fountain" (II Esd., ii, 14).

Bliss, Excavations of Jerusalem, 1804-7 (London, 1898), 1.32-210; Zeitschr. des deulschen Paldstina-vereins (Leipzig), XXII, 61 sqq.; IV, 102 sqq., 250 sqq.; V, 725; Pal. Exptor. Fund, Quarterly Statement (London, 1S82), 122 sq., 16 sq., 178 sq.; (ibid., 1883), 210 .sqq.; Revue biblique (Paris, 1897), 299- 306; HEiDETinVioovnovx, Did. de la Bible, a. V. Siloi: MoM- mert, Siloah, etc. (Leipzig, 1908); Warren and Conder, Survey of Western Palestine, II (London, 1884), 343-71.

Nicholas Reagan.

Silveira, GoNgALO Da, Venerable, pioneer missionary of South Africa, b. 23 Feb., 1526, at Almeirim, about forty miles from Lisbon; martyred 16 March, 1561. He was the tenth child of Dom Luis da Silveira, first count of Sortelha, and Dona Beatrice Coutinho, daughter of Dom Fernando Coutinho, Marshal of the Kingdom of Portugal. Losing his parents in infancy, he was brought up by his sister Philippa de Vilheiia and her husband the Marquis of Tavora. He was educated by the Franciscans of the monastery of Santa Margarida until 1542 when he went to finish his studies in the University of Coimbra, but he had been there little more than a year when he was received into the Society of Jesus by Fr. Miron, rector of the Jesuit college at Coimbra. At the dawn of the Christian Renaissance, when St. Ignatiu.s, St. Philip, and St. Teresa were founding their institutes, even then Gongalo was recognize*! jis a youth of more than or- dinajy promise. . Fr. Gon9aJq. was appointed pro-