CHAPTER FOURTEENOLD MOROGONAI

“I used to like to watch him make arrows.”CHAPTER FOURTEENOLD MOROGONAI

“I used to like to watch him make arrows.”

During the time that I was disabled and had to stay in the tepee, my old friend, Morogonai, would come and talk to me for hours. He told me all about the first white men he ever saw. It was Lewis and Clark. When they made their trip across the continent, this old Indian had sold them some horses, and had traveled with them for about ten days, catching fish and trading them to the whites for shirts and other articles.

Old Morogonai was respected by all the tribe. He had once been a chief among the Shoshones, but now that he was too old to lead the Indians, he became anarrow makerfor them.

I used to like to watch him make arrows. It takes skill to make a good one. Our Indians generally used the limbs of service-berry bushes for this purpose. They would cut a great many of these and leave them for a year to dry thoroughly. Old Morogonai would take a bundle of these seasoned limbs and draw each one through a hole in an antelope horn to make it perfectly straight.Then he would crease each shaft, and after this he would feather them and put on the steel spikes. In earlier times they used flint heads, which they had chipped into shape. If the arrow was for long-distance shooting, the feathers were made heavier than the spike; if for short distances, the spike was made heavier so that it would bring the arrow down more quickly.

The bows were sometimes made of mountain sheep horns, which were thrown into some hot spring and left there until they were pliable. Then they were shaped, and a strip of sinew was stuck on the back with some kind of balsam gum that was about as good as glue. This made a powerful bow. Not many Indians had this kind; most of our Indians used bows made from white cedar strung with sinew along the back.

For other weapons, the Indians had spears made of small pine-tree shafts about twelve feet long and a steel spike about four inches in length. When they were not using their spears, they would take the spike off the shaft, sharpen it, and keep it in a little buckskin scabbard. They traded with the whites for knives and tomahawks and guns.

Old Morogonai told me many things about his experiences with the white man. He was not unfriendly towards them, but he felt that they had often mistreated the Indians, and caused a good deal of unnecessary suffering and trouble for both the red men and the whites.

“At one time,” he said, “an emigrant train, on its way to Oregon, camped at Humboldt Springs. Some of Pocatello’s Indians went to the camp to swap buckskins for flour. The white men took three of their squaws and drove the rest of the Indians away. That made the Indians mad. They gathered a large band of Indians, followed the train, and killed every one of the white menin it. Then they took all their stock and clothing and food and weapons, and afterwards set fire to the wagons.”

“At another time,” he said, “some mail carriers drove a band of fine big horses up to my camp of Indians and asked me to take care of the animals for them for two moons, then they would come and give us fifteen red blankets. They had stolen the horses from an emigrant train. We did not know this, however, so we agreed to take care of the animals for them.

“In a few days the emigrants found the tracks of their horses around our camp and thinking we had stolen them, they began to shoot before they gave my Indians a chance to explain. After shooting seven of my braves, they rode off, driving with them not only their own horses but some of ours.

“I was away at the time with most of my men. When I returned, I found my oldest boy and five other Indians dead and another dying. I gathered what was left of my band and that night we set out in hot pursuit of the whites; but it was eight days before I got a chance to get even. There were a good many men in the camp and they kept a strong guard at night. On the eighth night it grew very stormy, we skipped in through the darkness, stampeded their horses, and got away with twenty-two of them. The whites followed us, and they would have overtaken us, if we had not run into a large camp of Pocatello’s Indians. We did not stop, but kept right on going.

“When the emigrants came up to Pocatello’s band, they pitched into these Indians without waiting for explanations. A big fight followed and men were killed on both sides, but the Indians finally got the worst of it. The best of it was that we got away with the horses.

“After we got back to the main tribe, Washakie happened to hear about the trouble and he sent for me. Itold him the full story. He said that he did not blame me; but it was a bad scrape and he did not want any trouble with the whites.

“He advised me to keep away from the road where the white men travel, and have nothing to do with them; ‘for,’ said he, ‘they have crooked tongues; no one can believe what they have to say.’”

Dr. T. M. Bridges“Old Ocean” (at right), one of the Lewis and Clark Shoshone guides. This picture was taken about 1885, when the noted Indian guide was more than one hundred years old.

Dr. T. M. Bridges

“Old Ocean” (at right), one of the Lewis and Clark Shoshone guides. This picture was taken about 1885, when the noted Indian guide was more than one hundred years old.

“We did not know,” said the oldarrow maker, “what whooping cough, measles, and smallpox were until the whites brought these diseases among us. A train of emigrantsonce camped near us; some of their white papooses had the whooping cough; our papooses caught it from them. Our medicine man tried to cure it as he would a bad cold, and more than half of our papooses died from the disease and the treatment. Hundreds of our people have been killed with the smallpox brought to us by the white man.

“The white men keep crowding the Indians that are east of here out west, and they keep crowding us farther west. Very soon they will have us away out in Nevada where there is nothing but lizards and snakes and horned toads to live on. If they crowd us farther than that, we shall have to jump off into the Great Water.”

Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian InstitutionFamily of Bannock Indians of Pocatello’s tribe, about 1860.

Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution

Family of Bannock Indians of Pocatello’s tribe, about 1860.

When Old Morogonai was telling me these and other tales about the cruel wrongs the Indians have suffered from the whites, I was not prepared to sympathize with him as I can now. But I have seen so much since on both sides that I am sure he told me the truth. Most of thetrouble between the whites and the Indians has been caused by the white men, who had not white hearts; they did not treat the Indian fairly.

Shoshone and Bannock Indian relics collected by Dr. T. M. Bridges.

I know that the Indians were a treacherous and revengeful people. They always demanded a life to pay for a life, and they would often do bloodthirsty things. But the whites were mostly to blame. If they had been fair with the Indians, and treated them kindly, instead of taking mean advantages of them, the Indians would have been kind and friendly. I cannot blame the Indians as much as some do. They were good friends to me, and most of them have peaceful hearts.

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