LET 'ER BUCK 



tically the same. Or if you speak "chinook" he will 

 understand that too for "chinook" is a universal Indian 

 language — the esperanto of the red man understood by 

 all tribes at least of the Northwest. The word "chi- 

 nook" is also applied to the warm wind from the Japan 

 current which melts the snow even in midwinter. 



Numipu, as the Nez Perce tongue is called, is the 

 mother language of the Palouse, Cayuse, Umatilla, 

 Walla Walla and Yakima languages. Father A. Mor- 

 villo, the Jesuit, or "Talsag" — Curly-hair — as the 

 Indians called him, left a remarkable dictionary and 

 grammar of the Nez Perce tongue, but probably Father 

 Cataldo must be conceded as the greatest authority on 

 Indian language. But more of Sundown later. 



To the initiated, the principal episode of the Indian's 

 life, his times and seasons may be read in the painting 

 of his person. Whether it be learning to hunt and 

 trap; reaching manhood, seeking a creed, or meeting 

 the spirit of his dreams, going to war, seeking a mate, 

 going to battle, coming home as victor, undergoing de- 

 feat, joy and feasting, death and mourning, seeking the 

 priesthood, medicine and burying, becoming a seer and 

 being able to travel far in spirit, of religious character 

 and used especially at the great annual festival of mid- 

 summer, peacemaking, traveling or visiting, — all may 

 be expressed by appropriate symbols. 



In these face and body paintings are symbols that 

 he who runs may read, though few in this white audi- 

 ence know — or care — what those earth and mineral 

 colorings on face and form mean. Many of the Amer- 

 inds themselves know but little of that fast-disappear- 

 ing art of decorative symbolism; only the old people 

 amongst them know. But they use today the same kind 

 of mineral colors they used on the panels of the Buffa- 



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