It became almost a legend that wild Indians lived in the Mount Lassen district. From time to time ranchers or sheep herders reported that their flocks had been molested, that signs of Indians had been found or that arrowheads were discovered in their sheep. But little credence was given these rumors until the year 1908, when an electric power company undertook to run a survey line across Deer Creek Canyon with the object of constructing a dam.

As the explorers reached the slide of volcanic boulders where the apparition of the day before had disappeared, two arrows flew past them. They made a run for the top of the slide and reached it just in time to see two Indians vanish in the brush. They left behind them an old white-haired squaw, whom they had been carrying. She was partially paralyzed, and her legs were bound in swaths of willow bark, seemingly in an effort to strengthen them.

A great sense of relief entered the situation. Watterman had discovered one of the lost tribes of California; Ishi had discovered a friend.

From him they learned little of his personal history and less of that of his family, because an Indian considers it unbecoming to speak much of his own life, and it brings ill luck to speak of the dead. He could not pronounce the name of his father without calling him from the land of spirits, and this he could only do for some very important reason. But he knew the full history of his tribe and their destruction.

As an artisan he was very skilful and ingenious. Accustomed to primitive tools of stone and bone.

He knew the history and use of everything in the outdoor world. He spoke the language of the animals. He taught me to make bows and arrows, how to shoot them, and how to hunt, Indian fashion. He was a wonderful companion in the woods, and many days and nights we journeyed together.

 

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COMPILED BY CHARLES A. LEE 1896
Aleutian Indian And English Dictionary Common Words In The Dialects Of The Aleutian Indian Language As Spoken By The Oogashik, Egashik, Egegik, Anangashuk And Misremie Tribes Around Sulima River And Neighboring Parts Of The Alaska Peninsula Compiled By Charles A. Lee Oogashik, 1896

The author, in placing this little book before the public, feels that in so doing he adds his mite to the useful and timely literature of the day.

The ground has not been covered before, and all travelers in the Alaskan Peninsula will appreciate to its fullest extent the purpose of this work. The aborigines of this far away country have no written language, and this work aims to put before the traveler or trader a means of communication with this people which it is hoped will be of mutual benefit to both. Many years of residence in this country and thorough familiarity with its people, have, we believe, well equipped us for the realization of our task.
THE AUTHOR

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by; Andrew J. Blackbird,

The author of this little book, is an educated Indian, son of the Ottawa Chief. His Indian name is Mack-aw-de-be-nessy (Black Hawk), but he generally goes by the name of "Blackbird," taken from the interpretation of the French "L'Oiseau noir." Mr. Blackbird's wife is an educated and intelligent white woman of English descent, and they have four children. He is a friend of the white people, as well as of his own people. Brought up as an Indian, with no opportunity for learning during his boyhood, when he came to think for himself, he started out blindly for an education, without any means but his brains and his hands.

He was loyal to the Government during the rebellion in the United States, for which cause he met much opposition by designing white people, who had full sway among the Indians, and who tried to mislead them and cause them to be disloyal; and he broke up one or two rebellious councils amongst his people during the progress of the rebellion.

When Hon. D. C. Leach, of Traverse City, Mich., was Indian Agent, Mr. Blackbird was appointed United States Interpreter and continued in this office with other subsequent Agents of the Department for many years. Before he was fairly out of this office, he was appointed postmaster of Little Traverse, now Harbor Springs, Mich., and faithfully discharged his duties as such for over eleven years with but very little salary.

He has also for several years looked after the soldiers' claims for widows and orphans, both for the whites as well as for his own people, in many instances without the least compensation, not even his stamps and paper paid. He is now decrepit with old age and failing health, and unable to perform hard manual labor.

We therefore recommend this work of Mr. A. J. Blackbird

as interesting and reliable.

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Grammar Of The Mutsun Language, Spoken At The Mission Of San Juan Bautista, Alta California. The accompanying volume is printed exactly from a manuscript of 76 pages, small quarto, belonging to the College of Santa Inez, by whose president it was, at the suggestion of A.S. Taylor, Esq., forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution.

The Mutsunes were the Indians among whom the mission of San Juan Bautista was planted, June 24, 1799. Their village lay in the centre of a valley, with abundance of rich land, and as late as 1831 numbered 1200 souls. The mission is about 40 miles northwest from Monterey, and they are thus the most northerly tribe, of whose language, to our knowledge, the Spanish missionaries compiled a grammar.

For purposes of comparison this little work, accordingly, possesses great value, as the language was one of considerable extent, covering, according to Mr. Taylor's estimate, a district one hundred and seventy miles long by eighty broad.

Owindia:

A True Tale Of The Mackenzie River Indians, North-West America.

Michel the Hunter was but an average type of the Indian character; of a fiery, ardent nature, and unschooled affections, he never forgot a wrong done him in early youth by a white man. His sweetheart was taken from him, cruelly, heartlessly, mercilessly, during his absence, without note or sign or warning, while he was working with all energy to make a home for the little black-eyed maiden, who had promised to be his bride. If Michel could but once have seen the betrayer to have given vent to his feelings of scorn, rage, and indignation! To have asked him, as he longed to ask him, if this was his Christian faith, his boasted white man's creed! To have asked if in those thousand miles he had traversed to reach the red man's home, there were no girls suited to his mind, save only the one betrothed to Indian Michel! He would have asked, too, if it were not enough to invade his country, build houses, plant his barley and potatoes, and lay claim to his moose-deer and bear, his furs and peltries, but he must needs touch, with profane hands, his home treasures, and meddle with that which "even an Indian" holds sacred? It might, perchance, have been better for Michel if he could have spoken out and unburdened himself of his deep sense of wrong and injury, which from henceforth lay like a hot iron in his heart. The Italian proverb says, "It is better to swear than to brood;"

The funeral rites of the North American Indian, it need hardly be remarked, are of the very simplest description; indeed, it is only of late years, and since Christianity has spread among them, that they have been persuaded to adopt the rites and ceremonies of Christian burial.

Formerly, in many instances, the body of the deceased would be wrapped in its blanket, and then hoisted up on a wooden stage erected for the purpose; after which the friends of the departed would make off with the utmost speed imaginable. Sometimes even this tribute to a lost friend would not be forthcoming; the Indian has an unspeakable dread of death, and of the dead; from the moment that the heart of his best beloved has ceased to beat, he turns from the lifeless form, nor cares to look upon it again. The new blanket which, perhaps, was only worn a day or two by the departed, will now, with scrupulous care, be wrapped around his dead body; for although he were blanketless himself, no Indian could be persuaded to use that which had once been a dead man's property.

Then, it may be, the corpse would be left lying in the leather lodge or tent, which would afterwards be closely fastened up; and it has sometimes devolved upon the Missionaries to spend the night outside, watching the camp and keeping a fire burning in order to ward off dogs or wolves, which would otherwise undoubtedly have broken into the tent and made short work of the lifeless body deserted by all its friends and neighbours and dearest connexions.
 

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INDIAN STORY AND SONG

FROM NORTH AMERICA

By
ALICE C. FLETCHER

Holder of the Thaw Fellowship Peabody Museum Harvard University

At the Congress of Musicians held in connection with the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha in July, 1898, several essays upon the songs of the North American Indians were read, in illustration of which a number of Omaha Indians, for the first time, sang their native melodies to an audience largely composed of trained musicians.

 This unique presentation not only demonstrated the scientific value of these aboriginal songs in the study of the development of music, but suggested their availability as themes, novel and characteristic, for the American composer. It was felt that this availability would be greater if the story, or the ceremony which gave rise to the song, could be known, so that, in developing the theme, all the movements might be consonant with the circumstances that had inspired the motive. In response to the expressed desire of many musicians, I have here given a number of songs in their matrix of story.

 Material like that brought together in these pages has hitherto appeared only in scientific publications, where it has attracted the lively interest of specialists both in Europe and America. It is now offered in a more popular form, that the general public may share with the student the light shed by these untutored melodies upon the history of music; for these songs take us back to a stage of development antecedent to that in which culture music appeared among the ancients, and reveal to us something of the foundations upon which rests the art of music as we know it to-day.

 Many of the stories and songs in this little book are now for the first time published. All have been gathered directly from the people, in their homes, or as I have listened to the earnest voice of the native priest explaining the ancient ceremonials of his fathers. The stories are close translations, losing only a certain picturesqueness and vigour in their foreign guise; but the melodies are exactly as sung by the Indians.

 Indian myths embodying cosmic ideas have passages told in song, tribal legends have their milestones of song, folk-tales at dramatic points break into song; but into these rich fields I have not here entered. This collection reveals something of the wealth of musical and dramatic material that can be gleaned outside of myth, legend, and folk-lore among the natives of our country.

 Aside from its scientific value, this music possesses a charm of spontaneity that cannot fail to please those who would come near to nature and enjoy the expression of emotion untrammelled by the intellectual control of schools. These songs are like the wild flowers that have not yet come under the transforming hand of the gardener.

ALICE C. FLETCHER.

Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

by; FREDERIC REMINGTON

Author of "Men With the Bark On" "Crooked Trails," &c. Published, February, 1906