Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/134

 116 T. C. Elliott. cause of his knowledge of the Nez Perces dialect and his per- sonal relations with that tribe. As such commissioner, he was present at WaiiJatpu on March 7, 1848, and delivered one of the principal speeches at the council held on that day with the Nez Perces ; and that speech so well reveals the finer senti- ments of the man that we may well insert it here. He spoke as follows (See Brown's Polit. History of Oregon, pp. 394-6) : "Brothers: I have a few words to say, call together all your men, old and young, women and children. This day I am glad to see you here, we have come to talk with you and to tell you the duty we owe to our God and all good people. I have not come here to make peace with you; we never have been at war, but always friendly. This I know; this all our people know. I have fought with the Nez Perces, some of them I see here, but we were on the same side; we have lost friends on the same day and at the same battle together. But we did not lose those friends in trying to kill innocent people, but by trying to save our own lives. This I have told our people, our people believe it. I have told them you are honest and good people, they believed it. Your hands are not red with blood. I am glad, my children are glad. And now brothers hear me ; never go to war with the Americans ; if you do, it will be your own fault and you are done. I have come here to see you. the Nez Perces and other good people, no one else. I am not here to fight, but to separate the good from the bad, and to tell you that it is your duty to help make this ground clean. Thank God you have not helped to make it bloody. I was glad to hear the Nez Perces had no hand in killing Dr. Whitman, his wife and others. What have the Cayuses made, what have they lost ! Everything, nothing left but a name. All the property they have taken in a short time will be gone, only one thing left, that is a name, *the bloody Cayuses. ' They never will lose that, only in this way, obey the great God and keep his laws. And, my friends, this must be done, if you will obey God and do what is right, we must. This is what our war chief has come for. What is our duty to the great God ? This is his law. He who kills man, by man shall his blood be spilt. This is his law. This is what God says, and he must be obeyed, or we have no peace in the land. There are good people enough here among the murderers to have peace again in the land should they try. In a few days we could go about here as we have done, all friendly, all