Part 2
Thus we see how Simon Goudy, allottee, has been damaged thousands of dollars, as land values are computed in that section, how he has suffered not only at the hands of an unrestrained water-thief, but also from the very Bureau officials sworn to protect him in his vested rights as a Ward of the Government. He recalls bitterly how he was refused patent for his south forty acres when the White Swan branch of the N. P. Railroad was under construction, when he thought by realizing on it as a town site. Soon after he was waited on by a committee of "business men" who assured him that they could easily obtain the coveted patent for him, provided he first contract the land to them. Now, that there is no longer an opportunity to realize on it as a town site, he is importuned by the Bureau to accept a patent and become a full fledged citizen of--his own native land.
Can the most prejudiced of "Indian haters" find excuse for the treatment accorded Simon Goudy by the Indian Department? And yet there are other potential facts which would lend color to Goudy's contention that he has incurred the divine displeasure of the Bureau officials and has been singled out as an object of dirt and spite. As incredulous as this may seem there are grounds for the conjecture. Petty annoyances and discriminations suffered by Goudy are many and manifold. The Agency thrasher has more than once refused to thrash his crop until all others were attended to. Last year it passed and repassed his stack yard, compelling him at additional cost of time and money to procure another machine lest his grain damage by possible rain as on a former occasion.
But Mr. Goudy is not the only allottee to suffer by this "past-all-understanding" methods of the Indian Service. There are other Yakimas on the Paiute Ditch. Louis Mann has two inherited eighties below the Goudy lateral and this year has experienced unlooked for trouble. The Wapato Canal carries water to the Paiute, and a charge has been levied against the water users. The Agency claims that not more than one fifth of the water used is now supplied by the Paiute source, but a fairer estimate would place it at one half. The Indians contend that they have always had sufficient water from the Paiute alone, that the Indian Service has seized upon their forty-one year-old ditch without their knowledge or consent, and are now charging them for water which they can not get in sufficient quantity for their crops. Personal observation discloses the astounding fact that the head gate of the Mann lateral is under lock and key, that the intake is at a very low pressure, affording a water supply inadequate for the crops planted, and not on par with the money demanded of him by the Departmental authorities; while lower down on the Paiute the lateral head gate in use by whites is without lock and is under an exceedingly high pressure, insuring to the users thereof the full and unlimited control of their own water supply. Can any fair minded citizen blame an Indian for putting up "the same old howl that he has howled for the last ten years?" Apropos to the foregoing facts are the following communications which are self-explanatory. The =Neekass Canal= is the Paiute Ditch. The name used is that pertaining to the surrounding country: "where horses were left."
=INDIAN WATER USERS OF THE PIUTE DITCH IN COUNCIL=
WHITE SWAN, WASH., May 28, 1920.
Mr. DON M. CARR:
At this meeting today, We Protest and Oppose to Reclamation Service to enter their water into Our Neekass Ditch. Let Reclamation keep out from our Neekass Canal. Our Flood Water We have been using this water from the Simcoe Creek for 41 years, And our Prior Riparian Rights was there Before Reclamation Service Came. Indians used this Simcoe Creek Water for 41 years now, We want you to Protect our Rights. We are shamed to see this Reclamation Let our crops go to hell, what kind of people are these Reclamation Service where do they come from, they are all to crush us down and what can we do to save our crops, we are trying our best to do what is right, Our Great Father of Washington D. C. want to see us be a farmers that is us Injuns but not to take away our water with which we been Irrigating our lands for 41 years, and where ever the Reclamation Service constructed the Ditches at their own funds, and we do not kick about it we are willing to pay the assessments to the water charges but here we hate to bring an Injunction Suit to the Reclamation Service. I want you to see and to protect our rights, You do not want to see me and my neighbors be loosing our crops, Because the Reclamation Service are the only persons to live on this Earth they are hungry after the Dollars and their hunger is not filled. We do bitterly here Protest and Oppose to see our ditch be Grabbed away, and let us go to hell and of course where the reclamation service build their own ditches, and it is their own sole rights to collect the assessment from the Lands watered, but not on this Ditch which we have been using for 41 years can you do any Assistance? I am feeling very bad I hate to loose my hard labor and seed, I want you to stop Interfering Our rights let the Reclamation Service leave us all alone.
Sincerely your friend
LOUIS MANN,
=Simon Goudy, George Simon, Shepherd Peter, and Guy Howard= took this letter to Mr. Carr.
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L. M. Holt, Yakima, Wash., July 16, 1920.
Reclamation Service, Yakima, Wash.
Dear Sir:
I have received a notice (bill for money due) No. 1762 W1/2 SW1/4 and SE1/4 SW1/4 and SW1/4 SE1/4 35-11-17 and I was investigating the number of my allotments and I have found. Well my friend now my mistake (understanding) is this way. I am water user on this Piute Ditch for 41 solid years before you enter your water into this ditch without my consent and your ditch tenders bother me from my own water, and I am wondering who must be too damn white on your office, and he do not understand what is on this earth Prior Riparian Rights to water. I am a man want to do what is right, I am not waiting to beat some one in my ranching business. That Mr. Holt you consider my talking to you in this writing I am not crazy when I am writing this to you today. I want to know who did put this assessment to me and charging me $80.00. That ditch was constructed before the first allotment was made to the Indians, and am I mistaken in my mind to be a man holder of that water as a man to have a Prior Riparian Rights to my water on these two allotments, which your employees has a charge to me. Do you think you will make me to pay you for my own water? Do you think you have a right to grabble my Prior Riparian Rights? Now here is the question, is your power right to crush me down as you see fit? I do not want to be too damn smart, I know where you build or constructed ditches with government funds, you have sole rights to put the assessment charges to lands and I am willing to pay, but where I am using this water for 41 years do not think you have founded the Indian ditch that is owned by the dead Indians. Look out man! The earth and water are all time here but me I am not all time here. Like my little son which you have seen time you was to my house. The little boy was buried yesterday at 1 o'clock P. M. and every one of us to die, and we of course every one of us want is money. But let us see where we are at, some times yet I will call to your office when I am in town. Well the earth and water before I was born, and next is me before your Reclamation Service came. Do not be too white and too Damn Smart. Recognize my being first water user along this Piute Ditch. When James H. Wilbur being Agent and when he left he was shaking my hands and he was talking to me good bye and he told me at that time "take care the Ditch it is yours my boy, he said to me this that Ditch was built for the Piutes, but the Piutes ran away, and now is yours, that water will give you money and support for your living," and so from that time we use that Ditch and water, and do you rather let us have the litigation of the Injunction Suit? I am no Renter of them two Allotments, I am the owner of the land and the water for 41 years. I am not writing a foolish talk. I mean business, I am of course a Red man and by being is Same and the Rest have and I will die same. No difference I am talking about my Rights.
Very truly your friend,
LOUIS MANN, R. 4, Box 233.
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Yakima, Wash., July 22, 1920.
Dear McWhorter My white Brother: I am not feeling good yet. I cannot forget my Dearest Child in my poor Family, one that was loved by all in my family, and it will take some time to get over this Lamentations over the loss of the beloved Dearest Son. I know that I am to Die yet myself but I cannot help this my dearest white brother. We all of course have to Die on this Earth, and if honest on this earth we may meet our loved one gone before us. well brother I was over to see F. J. MAPES to my old ranch yesterday, and I have seen my Irrigation water none on my head gate, and I am wondering could any man on this face of the Earth Irrigate 80 acres with one inch by 18 inches of water, now they have Done me Dirtiest Trick them Reclamation Service outfit. I Don't give A Damn who ever is in this Service all of course they come from the old world where white people are Starving, this is my understanding from the papers I read. Now If I was Sleeping Indian I would Loose all my crops over there all of it, but as my Neighbors carry water through my Premises and if my hired man maybe to steal water this our own water, and this awful shame way of using Reclamation Service Tricks, To CIVILIZE me. Oh What A white mans Rulings. Very soon he will run me Down, and what is the Right way to bringing me to Citizenship? learn me First To steal? which I never like it in my life, well brother No man can Civilize me this way, bad whites are combined to run Down Indians like a Wolf Runs Down deer when wolf is awful hungry, I have been Studying these things, and one of my Neighbor crops went to hell there adjoining my place, that is Mr GUY HOWARD he is an Injun man. I wish you would make a trip with me there and see that GUY HOWARDS Crops, and have it taken a Picture, what a Damn Nice piece of the work the Reclamation Service done with this Injun, Starve the mans crops because no money in advance, while the Reclamation Service Committed a crime enter their water into our Ditch without our Consent. Piute Ditch was build with Indian money for the Piute Indians who were brought here from Malhiuer from Oregon by the Agent JAMES H. WILBUR, and with help by some of our Yakima Indians with Teams and wagons. I have forgotten now, may be old man Peter Klickitat was in that trip, well brother may be to Damn white Rullers in this Reclamation Service, and to Dirty heart Tricks with this Service, this Government is Polished with Black when Such Water Lords are in this Service, now brother If you had time to go with me over this coming Sunday, you would come to my place in the first car that comes out in the morning, and we would start out from my place with a hack drive over there and back in the evening.
I am yours very Truly Brother
LOUIS MANN.
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=Howlin' Wolf=: "What is this 'Lo Business' engaged in by Recbe-Brown of the Forked Tongue? he whose 'medicine' started with a sudden blaze; he who can rob the 'Nation's Wards' without hindrance; he who takes from the widow and orphan their last wampum bead, their last bite of grub; he who clouds the head of the Injun with fire water and then steals his only blanket and shirt, leaving him naked before his tribe.
"Who is this Miller of the Wampum Lodge? this Miller who grinds the ignorant Injun instead of grain for bread; he who once tallied at the Agency but now counts wampum for a Banker of his own kind.
"Who is this Ain't Worthy, the Oily? he who sells his chu-chu wagon, Double Price to the foolish Yakimas. Who are these men without shame or honor?"
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=Growlin' Bear=: "This Lo(est) Business engaged in by he of the Forked Tongue and he of the Wampum Lodge, is cheatin' the Injun, stealin' his land and water. They are the =Lal-a-wish=: the wolves tearin' and rendin', robbin' and thievin' despoilin' unhindered alike the ignorant, drunken brave and the toil-worn widow, takin' the last piece of jerk from the orphaned papoose. Want and misery! hunger and nakedness stalks the trail of their making.
"Ain't-Worth-a-Dam, the Oily, is a coyote from the trap-pen sneakin' in the wake of Forked Tongue and Grindin' Miller, watchin' their signalin' to jump the last bone left their victim Lo.
"How this done? Growlin' Bear don't know; Injun don't know. Maybe Injun Bureau know, Maybe Agency know! Maybe Deacon Lawyer the Dirty of Yakima can tell. Blind talk-wire from Washington, D. C.--Yakima--Toppenish--everywhere. =Christian Shooyahpo= too crooked-smart for Pagan Injun. Ugh! the smell is bad."
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A certain Deacon Attorney who is making it possible for an unscrupulous sales agent to collect from the ignorant, childish minded Yakimas the robber commission of $500 above the regular set price of an automobile, should have been a chemist. He is such a good "mixer;" prayin' and thievin', thievin' and prayin'; stirrin' all in the same bowl. Thankful to Providence for providin' this easy channel of wealth wherein the shekels may be garnered, this forked tongued double talented Deacon, who like a buckwheat grain presents a face from whatever angle viewed, pays to the Lord a regular tithe. Doubtless this is perfectly legitimate and right, else it would not be tolerated by the Church, but it occurs to some of the worldly minded that it is not accordin' to the traditional narrow and straight path. "Growlin' Bear" is of the opinion that if the white man's God is partner to such a deal, He had better keep His own books and be on the lookout in the final roundup, or the Deacon Lawyer will sure "slick ear" on Him. But then "Growlin' Bear," primitive and uneducated, still sticks to his breech clout and moccasins. He is not supposed to understand the higher civilization. What is an Injun for if not to be skinned by the "superior" race?
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Last winter three young girls deserted from the Yakima Agency school. Two of them reached home, the other one, whose parents resided in a distant part of the Reservation, died near White Swan from cold and exposure. No adequate attempt, it is alleged, was made by the Agency to locate the runaways, and the parents of the missing child supposed her to be at the school. Two weeks later her body was found with eyes picked out by the magpies. Was there an investigation?--an inquest? If so who ever heard of it? The story leaked out through Indian channels alone. Indian Agency efficiency and care! Indian Bureauism! One dead Injun child and the carrion birds the fatter for their feast.
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If the "incompetent" Indian has it tough in this life where he is so well cared (?) for by the Bureau, can his condition be imagined in the Happy Beyond?--a land void of both Injun Agents and fleas.
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An interesting, though pathetic scene was enacted in the Superior Court in Yakima recently. Sahpamequick Twatentush, a young Indian was on trial for his life for killing Sheowit a "bad" medicine man who had cast a death spell over his infant boy. Advised by two medicine women, who had been summoned to treat the child, that they could render no aid unless the man remove his evil spell, the distressed father rode twenty miles horseback to entreat Sheowit to come to the rescue. The medicine man refused, and according to the testimony of an eye witness, and that of the accused himself, he mocked at the sorrow of the father, stating that he had sent an evil spirit into his child's body and that it would die. He angrily exclaimed: "I am a strong man! I want to kill somebody all the time! I have killed your child and I will kill you!" With this he drew a hatchet from beneath his blanket and made an attempt to strike the young man; who dodged and backed away. The enraged medicine man followed him, striking once or twice with the hatchet. It was then that the Indian drew his pistol and killed his assailant. The medicine man was of bad repute, having killed two or more men. For one of the crimes he had served a term in the penitentiary. During the trial, many interesting points concerning the philosophy of the Yakimas were brought to light. It is needless to say that the sympathy of the public was with the defendant, who sat stoical during the trial in full tribal costume. It took the jury but ten minutes to bring in a verdict of not guilty. Barring self defense, the young man in taking the life of Sheowit, had but followed an ancient law of his tribe. It was suggested, by one who attended the trial, that it might serve a good purpose could this unwritten Yakima tamanwit be enforced against some of the quack M. D.s among the whites.
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As a side light on the prevailing belief in the powers of the medicine man, the following communication is given.
Mr. L. V. McWhorter, July 10, 1920.
My White Brother:
In God's will I was to live on this earth for a short time and I am about to lose my nice little son, Senator Leo. He is having awful time talking, repeating the words of the Indian Doctors and this matter nearly set me crazy, and if it was not for my religion I would take my gun and kill the bad Indian Doctors, but my Great God is on my side and he shall save my little boy's soul, but of course, the body will be buried to rot and decay and that my religion tell me this: Thou shall not kill, and I tried my best to save him, but white man doctor can not cure the boy because the boy had Indian doctor sick to which white man has no belief, but this is true as you understand Indian ways. Old Man Tom is a bad one. He killed my mother-in-law and one little child for me. I can not do no further to reach a cure for my little dear son. I had Priest there yesterday giving the little boy blessing and extreme unctions so the boy will die holy. The Indian doctors are killing us right and left this day. This is no lie and I do not know how long the little son live and he will go. He get some times unconscious and this is all my brother.
The sick child died four days later.
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The curse of =Shakerism= on the Yakima Reservation is well illustrated in the following. A young married woman stricken in confinement, was, for three days and nights "doctored" by one of the "priests", or "preachers" by noisy incantations and ringing of bells, assisted by many "helpers". At the end of that period the poor sufferer was released by death. Think of this and lend your moral and financial aid to the Mission now being established at White Swan.
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The Tepee Association is a body of its own, entirely distinct and separate from the =Mission= being established on the Yakima Reservation. The =Tepee= will work in unison with the Mission and kindred organizations for the uplift of the Indian and for a more liberal recognition of his rights. Not only must the coming Indian be prepared by education for a higher plane in life, but the public must also be enlightened to his needs and to the fact that the Indian can =never be= a man until delivered from the unreasonable trammelings of the Indian Bureau. That body must be reformed or dethroned.
NOTE--Will the =Tepee= return to its original declared principal of battling for a better recognition of the rights of its people?; or is it to follow the less rugged trail of mediocre so recently determined on? The true warrior never shows his heels at the first sound of the enemy guns.
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The Tipi Order of America opened a new Council in Tacoma (Tahoma) during the Planting Moon. It started with 30 charter members, many of them identified with the I. O. R. M.
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"LET MY PEOPLE GO!" Wassaja.
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The Yakima Council of Tipi Order is planning for a big pow-wow and shoot. Buffalo Ben is Chief of the Council's Gun-warriors, and has scored some high marks in clay pigeon shooting. From a humane point of view, it is regrettable that the clay bird is not substituted for the living victim in all sports.
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What is the TIPI ORDER OF AMERICA?
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The American Commercial Bank of Wapato, Wash., is a red hot nail in the oft repeated assertion that the Indian is void of business qualities.
Humane work for the first time in history, has reached the Yakimas through the efforts of the Yakima County Humane Society. Recently two of its officers attended a round-up of wild range horses at the "Ten Cent Corral" near the Agency where they found some of the animals being "broke" by the usual method of keeping them tethered for three or four days without food or water. It was explained to the Indians that this could not be allowed, that under no circumstances must an animal be so confined for more than 24 hours. With but one or two exceptions the warning was received kindly, many of the Indians expressing their approbation. The brutality of the branding corral, where the young colts are trampled and maimed, ofttimes killed outright, was also supervised. This part of the work fell to Mr. Simon Goudy, a half-blood Volunteer Officer. Here there was some friction, and it is said, a delegation of Indians laid complaint before their Superintendent, with what result is not known further than that the Humane Society received no official notice of action by the Agency. Later, in reply to a communication from the society setting forth its desire to promote humane education among the Yakimas, Supt. Carr expressed his unqualified approval and pledged to lend his support to the movement within the resources at his command. Thus the way is paved and if properly handled, many of the ghastly features of the Yakima roundup will be eliminated.
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The Yakima Humane Society has in its ranks two Indian Volunteer Officers helping to enforce humane laws on the Yakima Reservation, and instructing their people in the ways of kindness to animals. The first of their race to enter this field in the northwest, their action is bound to have a salutary influence among their own tribesmen. Look elsewhere for the "savage" than the Yakima.
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