CHAPTER XXI.
PEC-WAN COLONEL.
PEC-WAN Colonel (his Indian name was Me-quin) had been for the last fifty or sixty years, the richest Indian among the lower Klamaths. When standing erect he was probably a little over six feet, of medium build and was very graceful in his movement. He was a fine looking man, and every inch an aristocrat. He was a descendant of a very wealthy family on both sides of the house, and his mother was born in the Cor-tep village, about one half-mile below Pec-wan village. There was five boys and two girls of his mother’s family, his Uncles, Aunts, and Grandmother on his father’s side, belonged to the upper division of the tribe, and they too were a wealthy family. Pec-wan’s mother was from a family of doctors, his mother and her two sisters being doctors, his mother was without question the most noted and prominent woman doctor that the lower rivers had among them, for the past seventy-five years or more. When she married his father, whom they called Cor-tep-pish, by his being married to a Cor-tep woman, she married a man of a very wealthy family, and when her mother and father died they cut her off, and did not give her any part of the riches of her own family, but divided it among the four sisters and two brothers.
She had five children, three girls and two boys, the Colonel being the third child, and he followed close in his mother’s ways. She would go out and sit on her door-steps of the front porch, stoop over with her elbows on her knees, and comb her hair over her face with her fingers, then rest her chin on her hands, and sit gazing into the distance, and other ways, thereby causing all to be afraid of her except the Talth and their families, overwhom she had no control. All the wealthy and slave classes became sorely afraid of her. Whenever the people would see her sitting thus, they began to murmur among themselves, saying that she was trying to make some one sick, and that some body would be sick. If some one should become sick anywhere within a distance of a number of miles from her, their first thought was that she had made them sick, and she was the one that could cure them. These doctors are paid in advance for their services, and when they came after her, instead of accepting what pay they brought and offered to her, she would talk with the greatest of shrewdness, comment on the case and demand of them the most valuable articles which she knew they had, and would scheme to get all she could. She seemed to have a magic power to cure, and did cure in most cases as she had perfect confidence in herself, and gave perfect confidence to the sick one of her ability to make them well; somewhat on the same principal of the Christian Scientist among the people of today. But for this pay the doctor has to cure the sick person, and if the patient should die within a year from the time the doctor prescribed for them, she is compelled to give back all that was given to her. This doctor seldom had to return her fee and gathered wealth in abundance, and succeeded in her shrewd practice. Taking from her brothers and sisters the entire fortune that her mother and father had left them, she had power and influence among her people. She tried to make doctors of her three daughters, but they became the most commonest kind. She turned nearly all of her fortune wealth over to her son, the Colonel, and while he did not have the shrewdness of his mother, he managed in the long run by deaths and otherwise, to get possession of the greater part of the wealth of so many rich relations, that he too had power and influence above his people. His walk, manner and very actions, were very impressive to any one that met him. He would never eat in a white man’s house, my house was the only white man’s house he was ever known to stop in over night, and eat at the table. He was very liberal in his own house, and the white man has had many meals at his table. Pec-wan Colonel was born at Pec-wan village, where the Talth lodge is located.
A full blooded Klamath Indian, born of wealthy parents but of the middle class, and with all of his wealth and influence could not become a Talth, therefore he could at all times and onall occasions keep his place; he knew where he could come in, and where to keep back with perfect ease. He was closely related to the Talth families, and when it came to festivals, he could and did lead them all with more deer skins, silver grey fox skins and other kinds, with enough strings of turk-tum and cheek to cover the breast of all who danced, besides long and valuable flints, both red and black and all kind of dancing fixtures. He always kept a large camp with plenty of provisions, and plenty of women to cook and wait on the crowds, he was very liberal and fed many.
He was mean to his slaves and cared nothing for visiting Indians of other tribes, only his own Klamath people, and to all of these he was closely related to, far up the river, and he visited them as far up as they lived. In the large festivals he could draw on the Pech-ic-las, his relatives, for whatever he wanted to keep him at all times in the lead. He had but one wife, she was also of a wealthy family, and when he thought at one time to take another wife she told him plainly, that there would be no two wives for her, that she could and would go to her father’s home and not return, so he gave up the notion and remained with her.
She was a good woman, very kind of disposition and pleasant of manner; she never had any children, and has been dead now for about twelve years. There is a nephew of his named Pec-wan Harry, he married a woman who lived close to the mouth of the river at Wah-kell village and he is now called Wah-kell Harry, and they have quite a family of children, and to him went nearly all of the wealth. He too is a fine looking man of the same build as Pec-wan Colonel.