Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/38



30 O. B. SPERLIN

get up a war party, the individuals put white earth on their heads, and for a few days pretend to be crying for relatives and friends who have fallen in raids by the enemy. If the tribe favors war, others put on white earth and pretend to cry. The movement gets so strong that the chief calls a council. If the council decides adversely, the wearing of white earth probably ceases ; if favorably, two good agents are sent to the next tribe who are friendly. These emissaries go about their work in the new tribe just as the original white-earth wearers in their own tribe ; the same process is carried through. But if the tribe is against, any who please as individuals may join the war party. The tribes or parts of tribes thus confederated for this special war now elect a war chief. If later events show that the party is too weak for war, the end and aim is probably changed to the next most dangerous and therefore most glorious exploit ; namely, horse-stealing. But even in this, to fulfill vows, some blood must be shed, if it is only that the chief cuts his own arm.

A noteworthy feature of Indian government was the scarcity of punishments, especially their aversion to corporal punish- ment. Most tribes never punished their children, for they said that it cowed and broke the spirit of the boy to whip him. They objected strenuously even to flogging of white men by white men under the then current military code. When Jewitt 157 explained to a chief whose brother was insane just how insane people were whipped in England to restore their sanity, the chief reluctantly ordered his brother whipped by Jewitt's brutal companion ; but when the chief saw his brother writhing in pain from the white man's lash, he ordered the proceedings stopped, and said that if there were no other way to cure him but by whipping, he must remain mad. The Indian died, haunted by the spirits of the white men he had slain when the crew of the Boston were massacred. Harmon 158 once had the temerity to flog an Indian; in his own words, he "chas- tised the chief severely with a yardstick." It looked much like

157 Adrentures: p. 177.

1 58 Joormal : p. 207.