Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/30

 22 T. W. DAVENPORT. chiefs owned most of the horses, which were their sole ex- changeable wealth, and they looked with an evil eye upon the scheme of cutting up the land, allotting it in severalty and thus destroying their pasture. The social system of the American Indians may be regarded as a modified feudalism, in which the chiefs, coming to their office by dint of personal prowess, take the place of the hered- itary landlord, while all others are mere retainers. So in speaking of an ordinary Indian he was distinguished as one of Howlish Wampo's men, or Tin-tin-metsah's, or Homely 's, or Winam-snoot's, etc. Even as kind and sympathetic a man as Howlish Wampo became indignant that some of his men con- templated going to work independently. One of his men, ob- serving what an opening there was for them, said that Howlish was a lazy old Indian who did nothing for his people. The former was killed shortly afterward by the fall of a limb or stroke of a club. Complaints had come to me by those Indians who took their wheat to the Walla Walla mill, that they did not get fair treatment in the exchange of wheat for flour. The grist mill affords many opportunities for a successful exhibition of greed, and no doubt on this account calling a miller a thief long ago passed into a habit among white men, when likely in a great majority of cases of disagreement between the miller and his customers there was no valid foundation for any harsh /accusations. The best of wheat loses by cleaning and as no two grists are alike, the net results of exchange must differ. And where such exchanges were conducted by individuals of different races and by the use of different languages, imper- fectly understood by each, there was plenty of room for hon- est disagreement. Supposing, however, that there might be some discreditable foundation for the complaint of the Indians, I addressed a letter to Mr. Simms, the manager of the Walla Walla mills. His reply, written on the obverse side of my letter, was a lucid explanation of their rate of exchange and contained one sentence at the close which for piquancy is seldom excelled.