Cogewea, the Half-Blood

To the memory of
my great grand father, See-whelh-ken, venerated chief of the Schu-ayl-p^k; the song of whose good deeds will forever mingle with the mighty roar of the falls of Swa-net^k-qah, and the mournful soughing of the mountain pine: earth’s primitive nobleman who, in peace welcomed the coming of the pale face, only to witness the seeds of destruction scattered wide among his own once strong and contented people. To him and to the crowded death huts and burial cairns of a nation is this volume most endearingly dedicated by one who ever yearns for the uplifting of her most unhappy race.

To the Reader

The author of Cogewea occupies an unique sphere in the literary field. So far as the writer of this sketch is aware, she is the first Indian woman to enter the realms of fiction. Believing that the reader would be interested in a brief portrayal of her life and ancestry, she was at last prevailed upon to let the same here be entered. This was not attained without difficulty. Her racial sensitiveness shrank from what she termed “unwarranted presumption.”

Hum-is’hu-mā: “mourning dove,” was born while her mother and maternal grandmother were crossing the Kootenai River in a canoe near Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, about 1888. Her people at the time were on their way from Fort Steel, British Columbia, traveling by packhorses to the States. She bears a remote strain of good Celtic blood, dating back to the earlier advent of the Hudson Bay Company into the Northwest. This, in a measure, accounts for her deep sympathy so manifest throughout her book for the mixed-blood, the socially ostracized of two races.

Mourning Dove is a maternal great granddaughter of See-whelh-ken, head Chief of the Schu-ayl-p^k, or Schwelpi; Schoyelpi—spelled in various ways—now embodied with the Colvilles, including the Okanogans proper. She is identified with the latter tribe, whose language she speaks.

See-whelh-ken’s tribe resided at the Swa-net^k-qha: “big river falls,” known in history as Les Chaudière, or Kettle Falls, of the Columbia River. The Okanogan appellation, however, applied to the stream in its entirety, so famed in legendary lore. These Falls have ever been renowned for their great fishery, and the Schu-ayl-p^k were generally blessed with an abundance of salmon. The Chief was noted for his generous distribution of fish to the less fortunate bands and tribes remotely situated. Regarding the fishery as a direct provision of a benign Spirit-ruler, he deigned not, at any time, to accept compensation for the food. The beautiful sentiment of ceremonial gift-exchange so universal among all the tribes, should not be confounded with sordid commercial barter. To this day the older Indians—even to the distant surrounding tribesmen—speak of the great See-whelh-ken, of the “big heart,” so strong is the memory of he who, in other snows drove famine from the door. Tall, well proportioned with strong, pleasing features, he ruled with a firm, though just hand. Stressed on communistic ideals, his every action was governed by magnanimous wisdom.

Descended from an ancient line of warrior-chieftains, See-whelh-ken saw the advent of the white man into his domain, and was ever that alien’s most steadfast friend. It was owing greatly, if not wholly to his influence that his own, and neighboring tribes maintained friendly relations with the strange intruders. The rapid decimation in the ranks of See-whelh-ken’s once virile following, is ghastly testimony of the recompense that was meted to him.

Of happy childhood, Mourning Dove recalls none. At the age of seven she was placed in the Sacred Heart Convent, at Ward, Washington, but the following year was brought home to aid in the care of her small brothers and sisters, all younger than herself. When thirteen she was returned to the convent, but her mother dying within the twelve months, was recalled to take charge of the bereaved home. For the next three years she was a mother to the four little ones.

At last there came a period of exhilarating life with her maternal grandmother, Soma-how-atqu. Under the tutelage of this venerable parent, the girl’s impressionable mind became innoculated with the principles of ancestral philosophy. In the fishing village by the streams; in the hill and mountain camps where the women digged and cured the various edible roots; where they harvested and dried the wild berries; gathering basket-weaving materials within the deep forests; did she acquire a lasting knowledge of the customs of her tribe. She learned the magic, invigorating virtue of the native foods, and the religious significance of the “Song of the Mountain Herb.” She was made to understand, and to believe in the mysterious, and sacred power of the sweat-house, as a cleanser for both body and mind.

Mourning Dove took long horseback rides into remote sections of the neighboring mountains, bivouacing alone and wherever overtaken by night. Fond of hunting—but not in the sense of sport—a good shot and wholly self-reliant, these excursions through wilderness mazes grew with the years. This wild girl was endowed with a primitive sense of security not born to her civilized-reared sister. A daring and graceful rider, she often figured in the dashing relay, and “squaw” races, and other equestrian sports peculiar to the Western range.

In 1908, Mourning Dove became more closely connected with the cattle range. She witnessed the last grand roundup of buffaloes on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana; when the famous Pablo herd was disposed of to the Canadian Government. She saw the scattering of this remnant of the plains monarch, and the reservation thrown open to settlement. Her sympathies were with the buffaloes—the one remaining link with an era forever past. The animals fought desperately before at last driven from their native haunts. Some burst from the railway cars in the process of loading; one being dashed to the ground with a broken neck. This scene brought tears to the eyes of some of the aged Indian bystanders, a race renowned for unemotional stocism.

A sensate longing by Mourning Dove for an education was never realized. Her people, as an integral, contended that her convent schooling, where she reached the third grade, would suffice for all practical purposes. But from seventeen to twenty-one, through her own efforts, she attended Government Indian schools. During this time she was acting matron for sixty to seventy girls. Although this service occupied half of her time, barring her from study, it carried with it no salary—no compensation whatever—apparently a feature of Departmental economy. While strict with her charges, the young matron was markedly kind. Loved by them all, they confided to her their many little troubles and childish grievances. Zealous of duty and responsibility, she had no hesitancy in crossing swords with her superiors for what she deemed to be justly right.

The winter of 1912–13 found Mourning Dove enrolled in a Calgary, British Columbia, business college. Engish, and typing were her principal studies. The humiliation from wanton contumely because of her Indian blood, were multitudinous, but, using her own phraseoiogy, she “stuck” through the term, not missing a class.

Mourning Dove is endeared to her people. A warm personality, and sound judgment has enabled her—despite her tinge of Caucasian blood—to render signal and telling service to the dependent tribesmen. The grafting land-grabber, arbitrary and unjust Departmental rulings, and the unnecessary harshness of U.S. guardians of the Canadian border line, have all felt her corrective influences. Seldom, if ever, has she failed in commanding the admiration, if not respect, of those opposed. A single instance:

An aged Indian couple unacquainted with English, were arrested near the Canadian boundary for some infringement of intricate international law. Infirm with years they were being driven afoot along the hot, dusty road by the two arresting officers in a buggy. Observing this from her own camp the intrepid girl mounted her horse and overtaking the procession, shamed the younger man into alighting, and permitting the woman to ride. Not satisfied with this she secured the release of the old prisoners, in defiance of usual red-tape procedure.

It was amid such scenes that the idea of writing Cogewea was conceived. Years of tutelage in the teepee of the primitive minded Soma-how-atqu on the wild Kootenai, with a later village residence by the scenic Flathead Lake under entirely different environment, tended to qualify the author most admirably for her task. How well she has succeeded, the impartial reader must determine. Her characters are all from actual life, and throughout the narrative, she has endeavored to picture the period as she actually saw it—an Indian—in the closing days of the great cattle range, and the decadence of its King, the cowpuncher.

It was sunset on the river Pend d’Oreille. The last rays of the day-God, glinting through the tangled vines screening the great porch of the homestead of the Horseshoe Bend Ranch, fell upon a face of rare type. The features were rather prominent and well defined. The rich olive complexion, the grave, pensive countenance, proclaimed a proud descent from the only true American—the Indian. Of mixed blood, was Cogewea; a “breed”!—the socially ostracized of two races. Her eyes of the deepest jet, sparkled, when under excitement, like the ruby’s fire. Hair of the same hue was as lustrous as the raven’s wing, falling when loose, in great billowy folds, enveloping her entire form. Her voice was low and musical, with a laugh to madden the gods.

Cogewea’s mother had died when she was but a small child, and her father, Bertram McDonnald, had followed the gold rush to Alaska, leaving her and two sisters to be cared for by the old Indian grandmother. Through the aid of friends—an inherent principle in Indian life—the wolf was kept from the teepee door. During all the long years no word had come from the silent North, and it was supposed that this father had succumbed to death in the realms of storms and ghastly whiteness.

Ofttimes the camas and salmon were not plentiful in the smoky lodge, and the little orphans were no strangers to hunger. But despite this, the children were endowed with good health and vigorous constitutions, due to the devoted care of the primitive-minded grandmother. Life in the open, the sweat house and cold river baths, had stamped their every fiber with bounding vitality.

Cogewea, more than her two sisters, was own-headed and at times wilful. She could ride well and made long strolls into the bordering mountains. These runaway-trips were not unattended with danger and consequently were a source of considerable solicitude on the part of the old grandparent. Unlike other children, the repeated warnings that Sne-nah1 would catch her, had no effect. Contrary to all precedent, the little “breed” defied this dreaded devourer of children by extending her rambles farther and still farther into the luring wilderness. Like some creature born of the wild, neither fancied nor actual dangers deterred her from her set course.

At last, notwithstanding her antipathy to the culture of the pale face, the aged squaw was constrained to listen to the pleadings of the good Sisters, and at the age of twelve the little “woods-savage” and her two sisters were placed in the convent school. This measure was resorted to only after Cogewea returned one evening, her horse bearing an ugly cut on its hip, received from the claws of a cougar. The fierce animal had leaped from a tree and the child escaped only through the agility of her mount. With a mighty bound the horse had thwarted the hungry cat of its prey, with no other injury than the knife-like wound, neither deep nor serious.

The weaning process from the old life was slow, but in time Cogewea adapted herself to the new conditions and was an apt student. She seemed to imbibe knowledge, and not content with the scant learning there afforded, and looking to the future, she crossed the Continent and entered the Carlisle Indian School, from which she graduated with high honors at the age of twenty-one.

Such was Cogewea: “Chipmunk,” of the Okanogans; the “breed” girl with the hypnotic eyes, who stood dreaming on the vine-clad porch of the H-B Ranch, the home of her oldest sister, Julia Carter. An ambitious girl, and, although having passed through the mill of social refinement, she was still—thanks to early training—whole hearted and a lover of nature. The wild appealed to her. Since her return from school her every day companions had been the cowboys of the range. With them or alone, she took many a thrilling dash on the back of a Wanawish,2 across the low swelling plains or among the buttes and coulees of the broken uplands. Fond of books, the best authors claimed her attention when she was not riding or helping with the routine work of the house.

Cogewea was liked by all the rangers. She was close to their rough natures, for had she not been nurtured by the same elements? She commanded their respect as but few women of her blood could command it. While ready to die for her, they knew the demarcation between harmless friendship and gross familiarity. She understood the “beast” in man and how to subdue it with the same daring confidence which had characterized her younger days of mountain riding.

The sun dipped lower, as Cogewea, gazing out over the undulating hills to the west, dreamed on. What had the future in store for her? What would it bring? Would it, through her, illuminate the pathway of others? Could she fill any sphere of usefulness; or would she, like the race whose hue she had inherited, be brushed aside, crushed and defeated by the cold dictates of the “superior” earth-lords? She had struggled hard to equip herself for a useful career, but seemingly there was but one trail for her—that of mediocrity and obscurity. Regarded with suspicion by the Indian; shunned by the Caucasian; where was there any place for the despised breed!

The girl’s reveries were broken as the range riders burst into view over a distant swell. She saw them thrown into sharp silhouette against the sun, leaving its last crimson touch to plain and the beautiful Pend d’Oreille, as its blue waters swept southward around the Horseshoe, from which the ranch derived its name. She thought of the canoe which ruffled its bosom no more.

It was the first of June, and the great horse roundup was under way. More than a dozen cowboys were engaged by the H-B for the occasion and many of the ranchers joined since among the wild bands in the hills were numerous strays belonging to the scattered homesteaders. Every day they came until a score or more riders were congregated and fed at the Carter ranch. No wonder that Cogewea had but little time to read or dream, for she helped her sister with the housework and the care of the two little boys, Denny and Percy, tots of two and four years.