Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/310

294 he sprinkle blood on earth, saying, 'Here on this ground I make the Nez Perces, a tribe few in number, but strong and pure. "Here the Nez Perces have lived since that time, and by Kamiah is still the heart of Iltswowich, the monster."

This "Heart," indeed, stands nearly in the center of Kamiah Valley, and is a low, stony hill, elongated a little, and about the shape of a heart.

The above is no doubt essentially the Nez Perces story, being that told by James Grant, and noted by Doctor West, and also told me by Miss Macbeth, who learned it of Indians at Kamiah. Bancroft gives a somewhat different version, making the monster a beaver.

The following has never been published hitherto. It was prepared by Miss Kate C. Macbeth of the Lapwai mission school for the Northern Pacific pamphlet, "Western Wonderland," but owing to some misunderstanding of its purport on the part of O. C. Wheeler, the editor, was not inserted in the publication. It is not intended as a critical study of the Indian story, or comparison with the account of the American explorers, but a simple rendering of the tradition as now held by the Nez Perces. Its value is in the light it throws upon the first bias this tribe received in respect to the Americans. This was favorable. Whether the story upon investigation would prove true to veritable objective fact, in any or all details, is of second importance to the fact that the scribe has ascribed to a definite cause the traditional friendship for Americans, and the Indians themselves refer it to the first meeting with them. It is thus the story of a sentiment—the sentiment being more than the story.

Miss Macbeth has condensed what the Indian nar-