60 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IIO 



In the latter part of May, 1856, Iroquois Peter was killed in a fall 

 from his horse while he and his wife were hunting elk. Major Owen 

 reported his death and stated that he was an old trapper who had 

 been a long time in the country. (Owen, 1927, vol. i, pp. 127, 129.) 

 Father Hoeken stated that the family of Iroquois Peter was settled 

 at St. Ignatius Mission among the Upper Pend d'Oreille in the 

 spring of 1857. ^^ acknowledged that "the death of this venerable 

 old man is a great loss to the mission." (Chittenden and Richardson, 

 1905, vol. 4, p. 1246.) 



Apparently this migrated Mohawk, descendant of a traditionally 

 horticultural people, set an excellent example to the Flathead in 

 agriculture and herding after seeds and livestock were brought to 

 the Bitterroot Valley by Father De Smet in the early forties. His 

 example was not heeded by the majority of the Flathead. Probably 

 much of the agricultural progress attributed to the Flathead by 

 visitors to the Bitterroot Valley in the middle of the nineteenth 

 century was, in fact, the fruit of the individual effort of Iroquois 

 Peter. 



Iroquois Aeneas (Plate 20) 



Iroquois — "Aeneas" — 



Came to this country with Pierre, but has not the industry or forethought of 

 his "comrade" Pierre. He is poor but an honest and reliable man. 



The name "Aeneas" is readily recognized by present-day Indians 

 on the Flathead Reservation as an American attempt to render the 

 Flathead pronunciation of the French name "Ignace." Baptiste Finley, 

 a 76-year-old mixed-blood living on that reservation, said that the 

 Iroquois, Ignace, was his maternal grandfather. Baptiste volunteered 

 the information that this man, known as "Ignace Chapped Lips" to 

 the Flathead, was the Iroquois who went to St. Louis with the party 

 that was successful in obtaining a priest for the tribe, and that he 

 returned with the first priest. Sohon's "Aeneas," therefore, was the 

 "Young Ignace" or "Petit Ignace" who was one of Ignace Lamoose's 

 most influential helpers in giving the Flathead their first knowledge 

 of Christianity ; who accompanied Pierre to St. Louis in 1839 to seek 

 a priest; who spent the winter of 1839-40 in Wesport waiting for 

 the priest ; and who accompanied Father De Smet on his first journey 

 over the Rockies to the country of the Flathead. (Garraghan, 1938, 

 vol. 2, p. 238, footnote; Chittenden and Richardson, 1905, vol. i, 

 pp. 29-30.) 



Young Ignace was one of the party who journeyed to Fort Hall 

 to meet Father De Smet on his return to the West in the spring of 



