xiv RECREATION. 

THE MEDICINE ARROW. 
W. T. JONES. 
About a year ago I visited, with Dr. R. E. 
Stewart and Mr. Charles Newell, of this 
place, an old Indian village at the mouth 
of Rock creek, on the Columbia river, 
where there are yet a few lodges of the 
once great Klickitat tribe. 
Our purpose was to gather relics, arrow- 
heads, spearheads, stone pipes, mortars, 
pestles and other implements for the doc- 
tor’s collection. We reached the village at 
10 a. m. and found the Indians engaged in 
removing the remains of their dead an- 
cestors from the cairns of rock on the 
mountainside, where they had rested for 
generations, to a little cemetery on a slope 
overlooking the broad Columbia. 
The usual row raised by the dogs drew 
their attention and they greeted us .cor- 
dially, for Mr. Newell, who has employed 
many of them on the range, was long since 
made a Tyee, or chief, and is often called 
on to act as judge. His decisions are final 
and always respected; though from some of 
his rulings, as he recounted them to us, I 
should most certainly have appealed. Some 
of the Indians were digging the new graves, 
6 or 8 feet long and 2% to 3 feet wide, 
and nothing to go in them but pitiful little 
bundles of bones, mummified flesh and dust 
done up in rawhide. 
What Tyee Charlie says is law and gos- 
pel with the Klickitats, and after watching 
them a few minutes digging the tough 
gravel soil in the hot sun, he stopped them 
and said in Chinook, 
“This way is good and all right for Bos- 
ton men (Yankees) and King George men 
(English). They travel like the geese, 
ducks and cranes, all over the world. They 
die and one is buried here or there; but 
they are travelers, and when they come 
to Sah-a-le ty-ee ill-a-hee (heaven) they 
find each other easily. Klickatat Siwash 
are not so; they are born together, live to- 
gether, fish, hunt, fight and die together, 
and should be buried together. Then when 
they come to heaven, Sah-a-lee tyee Jesus 
will say, ‘Kla-how-ye Klickatat till-a-cums 
(How are you, my Klickatat people), and 
will give you a good wide range, where 
there is plenty of bunch grass and deep 
streams, and where salmon will run the 
year round.” 
Without a question they selected one of 
the largest graves and widening it into a 
long trench, were soon placing the bundles 
in side by side. In moving one of the bun- 
dles some of the small bones dropped out 
and with them a stone arrowhead of perfect 
shape and peculiar material. I helped re- 
place the bones, which I was told were 
those of Kam-ia-kan, a chief and an old 
time friend of Wa-ki-gas, one of the oldest 
men of the tribe, who was standing near 
I went to Wa-ki-gas and showing him the 
arrowhead asked if it had been buried for 
Kam-i-kan to use in heaven. He shook 
his: head and said: 
“Years ago, when I was a young man, 
Kam-ia-kan, who was much older and a — 
chief, led a band of young warriors to steal 
ponies from the Nez Perces, up on the Walla 
Walla. While hiding in the willows wait- 
ing to run off the pony band, a young Nez 
Perce squaw came to the river to comb her 
hair, using the placid surface of the water 
as a mirror. Before she was half done 
Kam-ia-kan decided that he needed another 
wife. He located the lodge where the 
squaw lived, and when his braves stampeded 
the pony herd that night, he rode to the 
door of the lodge, caught up the woman and 
swung her on his horse.. Then he fled with 
her toward the mountains, but making a 
wide detour came back to the river, where 
he had hidden another pony in the willows. 
He had little fear of being pursued, for 
the Nez Perces were following the pony 
herd, which was being run off by his band. 
“He stopped long enough to tie his cap- * 
tive on the led horse and to pull out the 
shaft of an arrow which had struck him 
in the short ribs as he turned from the 
lodge with his struggling captive. It was a 
medicine arrow, and using the painted and 
decorated shaft to urge on his horse he 
pushed down to the Columbia, which at 
that point is wide, but not rapid. He 
was feeling faint from loss of blood, but 
after untying the hands and feet of the 
squaw he forced his horses into the stream, 
and they swam for the other bank. The 
water, however, softened the blood-clot in 
his wound, and as they landed he fell faint- 
ing from his horse. His captive was a red 
skinned savage, but she was a woman; and 
like all her sisters, no matter of what 
color, she loved boldness in a wooer. Kam- 
ia-kan’s scalp, which her people had many 
times risked their lives trying to get, 
his bow, quiver, ornaments and _ ponies 
would have made her the envied of the 
Nez Perce nation; but she was a woman. 
She bound up his wound and bathed his 
temples until he partly revived. Then help- 
ing him on his pony, she climbed up behind 
and sustained him until they reached his 
village on Rock creek. 
“He is a brave warrior and I am a chief's 
daughter and proud of him,” was all she 
said as she stood there a stranger among a 
strange people. “Yes,” continued Wa-hi- 
gas, “this was the arrow that wounded him. 
It would not have hit him if he had made 
medicine for wife stealing, but he had made 
medicine only for horse stealing, and it was — 
a narrow escape.” 
Now Wa-hi-gas, like Kimiakan and his — 
captive bride, has gone to meet Sahale 
Tyee Jesus, who I sincerely trust has 
judged them mercifully and given them 
the range Tyee Charlie promised them. 




“The window was open, 
The curtain was drawn 
A microbe flew in, 
And our darling is gone.” 
—Chicago Record-Herald. 
IN ANSWERING ADS PLEASE. 
MENTION RECREATION. 

