710 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.aiot.14 



chief, described as a Catholic Indian, in dress, personal appearance, 

 and bearing superior to the average American farmer, said: 



This reservation is marked out fur us. We see it with our eyes and our hearts. 

 We all hold it with our bodies and our souls. Right out here are my father and 

 mother, and brothers and sisters and children, all buried. I am guarding their 

 graves. My friend, this reservation, this small piece of land, we Ionic upon it as 

 our mother, as if she were raising us. You come to ask me lor my land. It is like 

 as if we who are Indians were to be sent away and get lost. . . . What is the 

 reason you white men who live near the reservation like my land and want to 

 get it? You must not think so. My friends, you must not talk too strong about 

 getting my land. I like my land and will not let it go. 



The Wallawalla chief said: 



I have tied all the reservation in my heart and il can not be loosened. It is dear 

 as our bodies to us. 



The Umatilla chief said: 



Our red people were brought up here. . . . When my father and mother died, 

 I was left here. Thej gave mo rules and gave me their land to live upon. They left 

 me to take care of them alter they were buried. I was to watch over their graves. 

 I do not wish to part with my land. I have felt tired working on my land, so tired 

 that the sweat dropped off me on the ground. When' is all that Governor Stevens 

 or ( Jeueral Palmer said [i. e., that it was to be a resen ation for the Indians forever] ? 

 I am very fond of this laud that is marked out tor me. . . . Should I take only 

 a small piece of ground and a white man sit down beside me. I fear there, would be 

 trouble all the time. 



An old man said : 



I am getting old now, and I want to die where my lather and mother and children 

 have died. I do not wish to leave this laud and go off to some other land. . . . 

 I see where I have sweat and worked in trying to get food. 1 love my church, my 

 mills, my farm, the graves of my parents and children. I do not wish to leave 

 my land. That is all my heart, and I show it to you. 



A young chief said : 



I have only one heart, one tongue. Although you say, Go to another country, my 

 heart is not that way. I do not wish for any money for my land. I am here, and 

 here is where I am going to be. . . . I will not part with lands, and if you come 

 again I will say the same thing. I will not part with my lands. 



The commissioner who was conducting the negotiations, after enu- 

 merating the promises made to the Indians in return for the lands which 

 they had surrendered under the original treaty of 1855, tells how some 

 of these promises have been fulfilled: 



. . . A miserably inadequate supply of worn-out agricultural implements. A 

 group of eight or ten dilapidated shanties used for the agency buildings. The 

 physician promised has never resided upon the reservation, but lives and practices 

 his profession at Pendleton. The hospital promised (fifteen years ago) has not yet 

 been erected. 



Of their ever-living grievance Colonel Ross, superintendent of the 



Washington agencies, says: 



Their only troubles arise from the attempts of white men to encroach upon the reser- 

 vations. A mania prevails among a certain class of citizens in this direction. 1 \ erily 



