Various - Indian Stories Retold From St. Nicholas

The next day I went fishing in the morning, and in the afternoon I went up the creek again, fishing with Doctor Latham. He was doctor at the Indian agency. The next day I went down to Joseph's camp, where I stayed the rest of the time – about five months – alone with the Indians. The doctor and the teamster returned to the agency. During my first day in the camp, I wrote a letter to my mother, and bought a beaded leather belt from one of the squaws. I stayed about camp most of the first day; but in the afternoon I went fishing, and caught a nice string of trout.

The Indian camp is usually in two or more long rows of tepees. Sometimes two or three families occupy one lodge. When they are hunting and drying meat for their winter supply, several lodges are put together, making one big lodge about thirty feet long, in which are two or three fires instead of one. They say that it dries the meat better.

When game gets scarce, camp is broken and moved to a different place. The men and boys catch the horses, and then the squaws have to put on the pack-saddles (made of bone and covered with untanned deer-hide) and pack them. The men sit around smoking and talking. When all is ready, the different families set out, driving their spare horses and pack-horses in front of them. The men generally hunt in the early morning; they get up at about two o'clock, take a vapor bath, get breakfast, and start to hunt at about three. Sometimes they hunt on horseback, and sometimes on foot. They come back at about ten or eleven o'clock, and if they have been on foot and have been successful they take a horse and go and bring in the game. The meat is always divided. If Chief Joseph is there, he divides it; and if he is not there, somebody is chosen to fill his place. They believe that if the heads or horns of the slain deer are left on the ground, the other deer feel insulted and will go away, and that would spoil the hunting in that neighborhood. So the heads and horns are hung up in trees. They think, too, that when anybody dies, his spirit hovers around the spot for several days afterward, and so they always move the lodge. I was sitting with Joseph in the tepee once, when a lizard crawled in. I discovered it, and showed it to Joseph. He was very solemn, and I asked him what was the matter. "A medicine-man sent it here to do me harm. You have very good eyes to discover the tricks of the medicine-men." I was going to throw it into the fire, but he stopped me, saying: "If you burn it, it will make the medicine-men angry. You must kill it some other way."

The Indians' calendars are little square sticks of wood about eight inches long. Every day they file a little notch, and on Sunday a little hole is made. When any one dies, the notch is painted red or black. When they are home at Nespilem, they all meet out on the prairie on certain days, and have horse-racing. They run for about two miles. When they are on the home-stretch, about half a mile from the goal, a lot of men get behind them and fire pistols and whip the horses.

I was out grouse-hunting with Niky Mowitz, my Indian companion, and we started a deer. We were near the camp, and he proposed to run around in front of the deer and head it for camp. So we started, and the way he got over those rocks was a wonder! If we had not had the dogs, we might have succeeded; but as soon as they caught sight of the deer, they went after it like mad, and we did not see it again. Niky Mowitz is a nephew and adopted son of Chief Joseph; his father was killed in the Nez Percé war of 1877. In the fall hunt the boys are not allowed to go grouse- or pheasant-hunting without first getting permission of the chief in command. And it is never granted to them until the boys have driven the horses to water and counted them to see if any are missing.

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