Chapter V

WERE INDIANS AFRAID OF YELLOWSTONE?

Beginning with the origin of Yellowstone as a National Park the idea became current that Indians were afraid of the area. The opinion is still widely held that they considered it a cursed domain, unfit for habitation. While it is true that superstition and taboo loomed large in primitive experience, there is no reason to suppose that Indians gave Wonderland a wide berth.[87] Rather, there is an abundance of material evidence that controverts this view. Furthermore, the proposition is at once illogical and untrue historically.

How, then, did this fiction originate? Probably the major reason is found in the fact that, with the exception of a small band of recluse-like Tukuarikas, or Sheepeaters, Indians did not live permanently in Yellowstone. This fact alone suggests that the region was not regarded as an appropriate abode. Only a pygmy tribe of about four hundred timid souls deemed it a suitable homeland.

These people were the weakest of all mountain clans. They did not possess horses. Their tools were of the crudest type; they lived in caves and nearly inaccessible niches in cliffs along the Gardner River, especially in wintertime. These more permanent camps were carefully chosen in the interest of security against other Indians. Superintendent Norris discovered one of them by accident:

In trailing a wounded bighorn I descended a rocky dangerous pathway. In rapt astonishment I found I had thus unbidden entered an ancient but recently deserted, secluded, unknown haunt of the Sheepeater aborigines of the Park.[88]

This campground was a half mile in length and four hundred feet at its widest point, with a similar depth, "and hemmed in and hidden by rugged timber-fringed basaltic cliffs...."

In summer, the Sheepeater Indians ventured further into the interior, following the game upon the higher plateaus. There they erected:

skin-covered lodges, or circular upright brush-heaps called wickiups, decaying evidences of which are abundant near Mammoth Hot Springs, the various firehole basins, the shores of Yellowstone Lake, the newly explored Hoodoo regions, and in nearly all of the sheltered glens and valleys of the Park.[89]

In 1874, the Earl of Dunraven discovered such a camp just west of Mary Mountain on the head of Nez Percé Creek.

Superintendent Norris and his associates focused their eyes particularly upon evidences of Indian occupancy. In a dozen places they observed rude but extensive pole and brush fences used for wild animal driveways.[90] An especially strategic camp was discovered near the summit of a grassy pass between Hoodoo and Miller creeks. From this skyline perch, marked by forty decaying lodges, an entire tribe could command a view of all possible approaches for many miles. Fragments of white men's chinaware, blankets, bed clothing, and male and female wearing apparel bore mute but mournful witness of border raids and massacres. This was an Absaroka summer retreat.

However, there are few such evidences discernible today because snows are heavy and wind fallen trees profuse, while the character of Indian structures was flimsy. In fact, these Indians, on the whole, left fewer enduring signs of their dwelling places than beaver. Several log wickiups still stand in a pleasant fir grove in the triangle formed by Lava Creek and Gardner River above their point of union. These wickiups are readily accessible from the Tower Falls highway one half mile east of the Gardner River bridge.

What happened to the timid Tukuarikas? They simply vanished from the scene as the white men invaded their refuge. They left without a contest for ownership or treaty of cession. That is the way most Americans would have had all Indian tribes behave!

All mountain Indian tribes visited Yellowstone. We-Saw, Shoshoni guide for Captain W. A. Jones in 1873, said his people and also the Bannocks and Crows occasionally visited the Yellowstone River and Lake.

For one thing, Obsidian Cliff had the effect of a magnet upon them. It was their arsenal, a lance and arrowhead quarry. Arrowheads and spears originating here have been found in an area extending many miles in every direction. The obsidian chips, from which implements were assiduously shaped by the Indians, still litter the side hills and ravines in chosen areas all over the Park. Many fine specimens of arrowheads, knives, scrapers, and spears have been found at various places. The most notable finds have been around the base of Mt. Holmes, along Indian Creek, at Fishing Bridge, near West Thumb, in the Norris and Lower Geyser basins, and about the Lamar Valley. Actually, these artifacts have generally turned up wherever excavation for modern camps has been made.

In P. W. Norris' _Fifth Annual Report, 1881_, there is a comprehensive analysis of the problem of Indian occupancy. Diagrams of four steatite vessels found in widely separated places are represented. Drawings of arrowheads and sinkers also occur, and figures 10 to 24, inclusive, depict the natural sizes of scrapers, knives, lance, spearheads, and perforators, mostly chipped from Park obsidian.[91] These artifacts were found in various places, such as caverns, driveways, at the foot of cliffs, and along creeks. Said Norris: "Over two hundred such specimens were collected this season."[92]

In his report of 1878, Mr. Norris states: "Chips, flakes, arrowheads and other Indian tools and weapons have been found by all recent tourists in burial cairns and also scattered broadcast in all these mountain valleys."[93]

Is it any wonder Indian artifacts are scarce in Yellowstone today? Still, they are frequently found when excavations are made. Winter snows, animal trampings, land slides, and floods have covered them. A few isolated items of discovery should be noted: arrowheads have recently been found on Stevenson Island, in lake gravel pits, about Buffalo Ranch, in the sewer line, near South Entrance, on the Game Ranch, around Norris, Lower, and Midway geyser basins, and at Fishing Bridge.[94]

Another evidence of Indian visitation was evinced by a network of trails. One of these followed the Yellowstone Valley across the Park from north to south. It divided at Yellowstone Lake, the principal branch adhering to the east shore and leading to Two Ocean Pass where it intersected the great Snake and Wind River trail. Since Indian trails multisected the Yellowstone area it is obvious that the region was a sort of no-man's land. Undesirable as a homeland, it was used as a summer retreat by many Rocky Mountain tribes. From this circumstance it may be assumed that an autumn seldom passed without a clash between the Bannocks and the Crows or the Shoshonis. Surely, the shrill notes of Blackfeet warwhoops have echoed in these vales. Campsites were well chosen both from the viewpoint of preserving secrecy and desirability as watchtower sites.

The most important trail, however, was that known as the Great Bannock Trail. The Bannocks of southeastern Idaho made an annual trek to the Bighorn Basin for buffalo. Their trail followed Henrys Fork of Snake River to Henrys Lake, an ancient Bannock rendezvous. From this notable camp the trail went up Howard Creek and crossed the Continental Divide at Targhee Pass. Upon reaching the Upper Madison Valley, the route passed Horse Butte and angled north of West Yellowstone townsite. A camp at Great Springs (now Cory Springs) was situated near the Park boundary.

In Yellowstone National Park, the Bannock Trail winds its devious way across the northern part. There are a half-dozen deviations from the main artery. Wayne Replogle suggests that weather conditions determined these alternations. High ground would be chosen enroute to the plains, but the return trip could be made along the streams. Other considerations might include security, grazing, and game. Entering the Park upon Duck Creek the Trail swung northward across Campanula Creek, paralleled Gneiss Creek to the point of crossing, then quartered southward, crossing Maple Creek and Duck Creek, on toward the head of Cougar Creek and its ample pasture lands.

From this area the Trail goes almost due north to White Peaks, which are skirted on the West. The Gallatin Range was crossed via a saddle north of White Peaks. The Trail then dropped upon the headwaters of Indian Creek and followed down to Gardner River. The route then looped to the left, across Swan Lake flats, on through Snow Pass, down the decline to Mammoth Hot Springs. From Mammoth the Indian thoroughfare struck right, recrossed Gardner River, and followed Lava Creek toward Tower Fall.

The Yellowstone River ford was located just above Tower Fall, near the mouth of Tower Creek. Vestiges of the trail may still be discerned along both banks of Yellowstone River. Other evidences, such as deep grass-sodded furrows, may be seen in the vicinity of junction of the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek. One branch paralleled Soda Butte Creek to the divide and then descended Clarks Fork to the bison range. The alternate route continued along the Lamar to a secondary divide between Cache and Calfee creeks. This hog's back was then followed to the summit, and the descent was down Timber Creek to its confluence with Clarks Fork. The deep ruts worn by travois in these pilgrimages are still obvious in many places, although unused for three quarters of a century.

Can anyone doubt that the Bannocks made frequent and extensive excursions beyond this thoroughfare? Surely their young men ranged far and wide, prying into every nook and cranny of Wonderland. They undoubtedly fished in the great lake and river, hunted elk and bighorn, bathed in warm springs, and reveled in the beauties of the landscape. Any other view of the evidence would impute undue naïveté to human nature. After all, Indians were children of nature; the earth was their mother. In Yellowstone Mother Earth was especially intriguing. They might not understand her; they might entertain great respect for her strange manifestations, but cringing trepidation? Hardly! But weren't they afraid of the geysers? In 1935, White Hawk and Many Wounds visited the Park. They were members of Chief Joseph's band when it crossed the Park in 1877. When asked if the Nez Percé Indians were afraid of the geysers and hot springs they said no and implied that they used them in cooking.[95] Still the critic objects, saying the geyser and spring formations were all intact when the first white men came. Primitive people were seldom guilty of wanton spoliation. Hence, missing incrustations were not essential evidence of Indian visitation. They left nature's beauty as they found it, a proper example for all who might follow after.

Did Indians ever hear the legendary overhead sounds in the vicinity of Shoshone and Yellowstone lakes--those strange half-minute tunes like the humming of bees or echo of bells?[96] Perhaps they did. Any phenomenon audible to white men with the naked ear would be discernible to them because they were sensitive to nature and her communion was always welcomed. However, since Indians were without records and formal procedures for obtaining and preserving scientific knowledge they were tremendously limited in understanding. They operated upon a single dimension of experience. For instance, they could never realize that the fish they took from Lake Yellowstone was a Pacific Ocean species which could only have reached these inland lakes via the Snake River system, signifying that, in ages past, the great lake must have possessed an outlet in that direction. All such problems awaited the scientists, but red men still knew much in their own right.

Surely then, Indians were summertime visitors in Yellowstone. They literally swarmed around the lakes. The most unimpeachable testimony on this point comes from trapper accounts of actual encounters. This phase of the case is discussed in the following chapter. Their known presence in the wooded area was the greatest deterrent to the white man's interest. Few men voluntarily risk their lives for a view of nature's wonders. It is a historical fact that the Washburn-Langford-Doane party saw Crow Indians along the north environs of the Park and actually followed a fresh line of tracks into the Yellowstone area. Thus the scenic exploitation of Wonderland was not feasible until the Indians were rounded up and confined to the reservations. This program was accomplished in the states surrounding Yellowstone between 1860 and 1877.

This process of racial adjustment was not accomplished without minor repercussions upon Yellowstone. The exciting Nez Percé flight of 1877 is considered separately in Chapter XI. However, the very next year the Bannocks conducted an impressive horse-stealing foray against the property of laborers and tourists. These episodes resulted in unfavorable publicity from the standpoint of tourist interest in visiting Wonderland. In consequence two important steps were taken by the officials. In 1880 Superintendent Norris made a tour of all the Rocky Mountain Indian reservations. His mission was to secure solemn promises from the tribes to abide by the terms of their Washington treaties and in particular to stay away from the Park.[97]

These agreements were widely advertised, and in order to further neutralize any fear of Indian trouble a policy of minimizing past incidents was evolved. The recent invasions were represented as unprecedented, actually anomalous. Indians had never lived in Yellowstone, were infrequent visitors because they were afraid of the thermal activity! It was not a conspiracy against truth, just an adaptation of business psychology to a promising national resort.