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 |  | Saturday November 21, 2009 5:13 AM |
 | | Historical Readings about the Spokane Indians | |
Nancy Wynecoop Remembers
Nancy Wynecoop told her interviewer: "I have to cry now as I recall those old days. I didn't know those common, every-day things would be history." In this remarkable reminiscence, we get a look into the early days of the coming of the Europeans to the Colville valley and the Spokane Indians.
My father was Frederick William Perkins. He was born in
the city of New York in 1826. His father had seven
trading ships as merchantmen on the ocean and owned
a quarter of a mile of wharfage along New York's
waterfront. His nephew became the partner of one
of America's greatest financiers. My father's mother
was a Griswold from one of the New England states.
I mention these things because when my father married my
mother, an Indian girl, descendant of chiefs, his mother
cut him off with out one dollar and never claimed him
again as her son.
My mother was banished from her tribe as punishment for
marrying a white man.
It must, have been in 1850 that my father decided to
come west. There were seven men in his party and they
traveled horseback. They were among the first to cross
the plains by the northern route.
Somewhere along the Missouri river the Indians stole
their horses. They were forced to travel on foot until
they met some friendly Indians who furnished them
canoes. They paddled up the river as far as they could
go, then traded for Indian ponies. There were not
enough ponies to go around, so they took turns riding.
They followed trails through the pass in the Rocky
Mountains and came down through what is now Spokane,
stopping at the falls of the river. The Indians called
the falls, "fast water," or "echo" because the noise
could be heard so far away.
Crossing the river they followed an Indian trail to
Tshimakain, (headwaters), where white men had established
a mission, but it had been closed. They followed the trail
through to Colville valley, and reached the Hudson's Bay
Company fort near Kettle Falls, where Angus McDonald
had a trading post.
My grandfather, Ske-owt-kin, was a trapper for the
Hudson's Bay Company, and brought his furs to Angus
McDonald. Ske-owt-kin means ''Shadow-top'' or tall
man. My grandfather was tall and very strong. He
could kill a deer by taking it in his hands and
breaking its neck. Long before the coming of the
English traders he was a great hunter. He used
snares, reaching for birds with long poles or
used a noose. My grandmother belonged to the
Arrow Lake tribe, and it was the Arrow Lake
country where they loved to wander after he
became a trapper for the Company.
They followed the Columbia to its source, trapping
all the while, living in a teepee of reeds. They had
many of these teepees along the river. Instead of
carrying their teepees as the plains tribes did,
they strung them up in trees so that when they came
that way again, a home was waiting for them.
Their wants were few, they lived off the land; there
was no hurry. Sometimes two or more years would pass
before they came down the Columbia in their birch bark
canoes with bales of pelts and skins to Fort Colville.
While they were there my mother played with the other
children around the fort. Some of these children
belonged to Angus McDonald, who had married an Indian
woman, others to the employees at the fort. There were
no white children there.
On one of these trips to the fort, my mother missed
her playmates. Always before she had been welcomed
by them, but this time she had to hunt for them.
She came to a log building that she had never seen
before. She could look right into the room through
openings in the walls. Her playmates were sitting
on benches and a young man stood before them talking.
They were all interested in what he was saying,
watching him closely. Then he saw her at the window
and motioned for her to come in. She had never seen
glass windows and started to go right through. He went
to the door and called, and led her into the room.
When the children were dismissed the teacher told
her to come with the other children to his school.
Her mother was anxious for her to attend but her
father said, 'No!' The factor pleaded with him to
send her, but he said the tribal system of education
was the best for Indian children.
A few days later she was playing along the Columbia
river in the backwaters of Kettle Falls, in the
Kettles. The children were paddling about on driftwood
and she was thrown from a log under the drift. One of
her playmates finally dragged, her out. She had been
under water long enough, as they supposed, to be
drowned, and all thought she was dead.
The teacher came running with the others and he was
able to bring her back to life. This made a great
impression on the Indians. Both her ear-drums were
broken and from that time on through her life she
never heard a sound.
She never went to school but became a close student
of nature. Her mother was a wonderful woman, and
took unusual pains to impart knowledge to her
unfortunate child.
Time passed; they trapped, hunted and fished. They
roamed the Arrow Lakes country, coming sometimes to
the fort near Kettle Falls. The children grew up --
their teacher returned to his home in the land of
the rising sun.
When my mother was nineteen years of age they met
again. When the Civil War broke out two of his
brothers had gone south, married, and enlisted
there and two of his brothers enlisted in the
North. He said, "I can't fight my own brothers;
I'll go west and fight the Indians." He said that
because word had come back that all the Indians
had to be killed. A famous general had said,
"Kill them all, nits make lice."
So the young man came back to the Colville valley
and married the Indian girl whose life he had saved
and was never forgiven by his mother, so I, who am
his daughter, never saw my grandmother Perkins, hut
I loved my Indian grandmother more than my grandmother
was ever loved, and missed her so much when she died.
I was fourteen then, and she had lived with us during
those years.
Before my father came west the second time he went
to Hartford, Connecticut and finished his education.
He was a sailor for a time on one of his uncle's ships,
and sailed around the world three times. During his
last trip he landed in San Francisco where he decided
to practice dentistry. He went from there to Astoria,
then to Portland, but it was Colville valley that
held his heart.
There was a private school which Mrs. L. W. Meyers
had opened in her home near the old Hudson's Bay
Company mill at what is now known as Meyers Falls.
She had paying pupils, some white, mostly mixed; the
mission took in the rest, so my father could do no
teaching, but he never lacked employment. He was the
dentist and doctor for the valley. He was elected
justice of the peace. Some of the boys and girls
he had taught at the old fort were grown up. He
married them, and if there was a death, he was
called to read the burial service. He served on
the grand jury and opened the polls. They called
him "judge"
Then Guy Haines, who had settled on Walker's Prairie,
called him there to teach a school on his place. Phil
Pate, a white man who grew old in this country, built
a log house for him. Phil Pate lived on land in the
swamp. His land was joined by George Waitt's homestead,
where we often went to visit. George Waitt married an
Indian woman. His son lives on the old homestead at
Valley. George and my father were friends. Phil
Fate grew old and feeble, sold out to Weatherwax,
and went east. The Weatherwax family owns the place
yet.
I was born in the log house on Walker's Prairie,
February 5, 1865, and have never been very far away.
My earliest recollections are of teepees all around
our house. In these were my father's patients. It
would be called a sanitarium today. He treated
these sick people and fed them right. We were
poor with the rest of them, but I know my father
got a lot out of life that people never dreamed of.
My first memories are of a houseful of children on
benches, stools, on the floor and beds, studying.
All the furniture was, of course, crude and home
made. It was hard enough to get a few necessities
like needles and pins. I remember how precious
they were to my mother.
Strange to say, I was not put to study. I was
frail, yet I was always busy about the place.
Perhaps they thought those duties more helpful
to me than mental training. I have been asked
if I went to college, hut my school education
consisted of about five months in the public
school, and I never had a lesson in grammar.
My education has come by absorbing what went
on around me. My grandmother was my best
teacher. It was she who taught me the mysteries
of creation and nature's plan for her children,
besides the religion handed down from one
generation to another by word of mouth.
The stars, the mountains, the trees and
rocks all had a meaning.
My grandmother lived with us, clinging always to
Indian customs. Site preferred food cooking in
baskets by placing hot stones among the food.
I can see her yet, lifting the hot stones with
two sticks and dropping them into the baskets.
We might prevail upon her to sleep in the house
during winter, but as soon as spring came me
would miss her. We always knew then that she
had set up her teepee not far away and would
remain there until winter snows drove her in.
I was with my mother's people a great deal. I
call remember lying on the mat after the evening
meal, my feet toward the fire in the center of
the teepee. The only light was from that little
blaze. I shall never forget the feeling of
contentment. The evening meal was the only
meal served, the rest were scraps of dried
fish or camas carried in the belt. Early in
the morning the men went to hunt or fish and
the women to gather camas and berries. The
evening meal depended on their success.
Usually there was a great feast.
There were different ways of weaving the grass
mats. Circular mats were made for the round teepee.
There were three mats for these. The one at the
bottom was about four yards long, the others shorter.
Cat-tail stalks were used. All the small ends
together, making it narrower at one end. Other
mats were woven by alternating the ends, first
a small end, then a large. Pine boughs were
covered with grass for beds. During the day,
grass mats were laid over the beds. At night
they were spread with blankets and skins.
Once or twice a year my mother went up to the old
village near Kettle Falls. Whenever Angus McDonald
saw her he would give her money, because, he said,
my grandfather never got the worth of his furs in
trade. When he took in his bales of rich pelts he
might see a knife or blanket or copper kettle
which took his fancy and he would take that one
thing and walk out, leaving valuable furs worth
many, many times the amount, never stopping to
bargain. Angus McDonald came to visit us at times.
He was fond of my parents.
We always were at the mission during Corpus Christi,
as my mother was a Catholic. The records of their
marriage were probably burned with the old mission.
My father was a Presbyterian. It was from him I
absorbed Presbyterian doctrines, aided by the
missionary work carried on by Rev. Walker's and
Rev. Eells' converts. We lived on the old mission
ground not far from where the monument is now, near
the town of Ford. These Indians had escorted the
missionaries and their families out of the country
after the Whitman massacre, but they carried on the
religious teachings of these two men, going from
teepee to teepee, singing, praying, and reading
the Scriptures as well as they could. The missionaries
had been with them ten years. My mother went with us
to these meetings. Sometimes Nez Perce ministers came.
It would be the time that salmon were running that
my mother would take us to Kettle Falls. She took a
couple of barrels and filled them with salted salmon,
then she dried large quantities. All year we had
salmon to eat.
When I was five years old I was at Kettle Falls with
my grandmother and watched the Indians spear salmon.
There seemed to be a sort of shelf of rock on which
the Indians stood. I could see the salmon leaping,
but the spearsmen struck only at the ones which fell
back. I asked my grandmother why that was, and she
said, "The salmon are the weak ones--they have no
strength left to fight. they speared the strong ones
they might be pulled from the rocks into the foaming
water below."
Several men stood on the rocks and the salmon were
taken from hooks and passed along up the banks to
women, old men and child who carried them away to
be prepared for salting and drying.
The settlers in those days were like one big family.
Haller's and Waitt's and Flett's would come to Walker's
Prairie and we would I go from one place to another,
have games and feasts. Father was natural teacher.
He taught the men to box and wrestle. I remember
hearing him say that at Angus McDonald's school he
taught the children table manners as he helped
serve their meals.
One place in Colville valley was called
Che-we-lah (water snake country). Thomas
Brown lived there. He is part Indian but his
wife was a Scotch woman named Mowatt. His
descendants are there yet.
We moved farther away, to a hill which people
called Happy Hill, because my father was always
happy and cheerful, although he had much to
discourage him. He was still looking after the
Indians when he was sent for one stormy day in
the winter to come to an Indian who was thought
to be dying. His name was Cornelius, afterwards
chief of the Spokanes. Father packed his bedding,
food and medicine on his pack-horse, and riding
another, went out into the storm. He rode 25
miles and stayed three days, saving the Indian's
life. The blizzard was not over when he started
back and he got lost, He wandered about in the
hills for hours and became snowblind. His horse
took him home, finally, but he never recovered
his eyesight entirely. He was forced to give up
his work, so it was left to mother to make a
living. She tanned hides and made buckskin jackets,
vests, moccasins, gloves and purses. She had
customers from here to New York. Maybe some
of my father's relatives were Ellen Perkins'
customers.
Father's later years must have been very
sorrowful! He could barely see and one day
he was splitting wood and injured his arm.
The result was blood-poisoning, which he was
not able to check until he had lost his arm.
My mother died of pneumonia. Father went to live
with my brother on Kelly Hill. There he died and
was buried on one of the hilltops in the valley
he loved. I don't suppose his grave is even marked.
As long as he lived, he was a friend of the Indians.
I have to cry now as I recall those old days.
I didn't know those common, every-day things
would be history.
In 1877-78 when eight chiefs went back to Washington,
D. C., they were asked what they wanted for their
people. Their answer was: "We want religious
education."
In answer to this call, Miss Helen Clark came to the
Spokane Indians. She worked eight years with them,
learning the Spokane language so well that she could
correct the interpreter. A log schoolhouse was built
for her by the Indians. She taught all week and
preached on Sundays. She taught them cooking, sewing,
knitting and mending.
When the agency was established at Wellpinit, the
schoolhouse was used for a blacksmith shop and burned
down. The church was torn down and the lumber used in
the church we have here today. I donated an acre of
my allotment for the school we have now.
from Told by the Pioneers - Volume 1:
Tales of Frontier Life as told by those who Remember the Days of the Territory and Early Statehood of Washington
published by Washington State in 1937 - public domain, 114-119
[NOTE from the WebMaster: "In the original sourcebook, the authors name was spelled "Nancy Winecoop." I received an e-mail from a descendent of Nancy Winecoop who assured me the name should have been spelled "Wynecoop" and not "Winecoop". The name is commonly spelled Wynecoop today. In deference to her wishes, I have changed the spelling from "Winecoop" to "Wynecoop".]
[SECOND NOTE: "Recently I have been told that the name "George Waite" should be spelled "Robert Waitt."
I have changed that spelling as well.]
Last Updated
December 21, 2004
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