Part 35 (1/2)

”During a long illness she came to my house quite often, but was sent away by those in charge; when I was at last able to sit up, I saw her approaching the house and went down to the kitchen to be ready to receive her. As usual I inquired after her wants, when she somewhat indignantly asked, 'Don't you suppose I can come to see you without wanting something?'

”One day as she sat in my kitchen a young white girl asked before her, in English, of course, 'Does Angeline know anything about G.o.d?' She said quickly in Chinook, 'You tell that girl that I know G.o.d sees me all the time; I might lie or steal and you would never find it out, but G.o.d would see me do it.'”

In her old age she exerted herself, even when feeble from sickness, to walk long distances in quest of food and other necessities, stumping along with her cane and sitting down now and then on a door-step to rest.

All the trades-people knew her and were generally kind to her.

At last she succ.u.mbed to an attack of lung trouble and pa.s.sed away.

Having declared herself a Roman Catholic, she was honorably buried from the church in Seattle, Rev. F. X. Prefontaine officiating, while several of the old pioneers were pallbearers.

A canoe-shaped coffin had been prepared on which lay a cross of native rhododendrons and a cl.u.s.ter of s...o...b..a.l.l.s, likely from an old garden. A great concourse of people were present, many out of curiosity, no doubt, while some were there with real feeling and solemn thought. Her old friend, Mrs. Maynard, stood at the head of the grave and dropped in a sprig of cedar. She spoke some encouraging words to Joe Foster, Betsy's son, and Angeline's sole mourner, advising him to live a good life.

And so Angeline was buried according to her wish, in the burying ground of the old pioneers.

YUTESTID.

After extending numerous invitations, I was pleasantly surprised upon my return to my home one day to find Mr. and Mrs. Yutestid awaiting an interview.

In the first place this Indian name is p.r.o.nounced _Yute-stid_ and he is the only survivor (in 1898) of Chief Sealth's once numerous household.

His mother was doubtless a captive, a Cowichan of British Columbia; his father, a Puget Sound Indian from the vicinity of Olympia. He was quite old, he does not know how old, but not decrepit; Angeline said they grew up together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAST VOYAGE OF THE LUMEI]

He is thin and wiry looking, with some straggling bristles for a beard and thick short hair, still quite black, covering a head which looks as if it had been flattened directly on top as well as back and front as they were wont to do. This peculiar cranial development does not affect his intelligence, however, as we have before observed in others; he is quick-witted and knows a great many things. Yutestid says he can speak all the leading dialects of the Upper Sound, Soljampsh, Nesqually, Puyallup, Snoqualmie, Duwampsh, Snohomish, but not the Sklallam and others north toward Vancouver.

Several incidents related in this volume were mentioned and he remembered them perfectly, referred to the naming of ”New York” on Alki Point and the earliest settlement, repeating the names of the pioneers.

The murder at Bean's Point was committed by two Soljampsh Indians, he said, and they were tried and punished by an Indian court.

He remembers the hanging of Pat Kanem's brothers, Kussa.s.s and Quallawowit.

”Long ago, the Indians fight, fight, fight,” he said, but he declared he had never heard of the Duwampsh campaign attributed to Sealth.

Yutestid was not at the battle of Seattle but at Oleman House with Sealth's tribe and others whom Gov. Stevens had ordered there. He chuckled as he said ”The bad Indians came into the woods near town and the man-of-war (Decatur) mamoked pooh (shot) at them and they were frightened and ran away.”

Lachuse, the Indian who was shot near Seneca Street, Seattle, he remembered, and when I told him how the Indian doctor extracted the buckshot from the wounds he sententiously remarked, ”Well, sometimes the Indian doctors did very well, sometimes they were old humbugs, just the same as white people.”

Oleman House was built long before he was born, according to his testimony, and was adorned by a carved wooden figure, over the entrance, of the great thunder bird, which performed the office of a lightning rod or at least prevented thunder bolts from striking the building.

When asked what the medium of exchange was ”ankuti” (long ago), he measured on the index finger the length of pieces of abalone sh.e.l.l formerly used for money.

In those days he saw the old women make feather robes of duck-skins, also of deer-skins and dog-skins with the hair on; they made bead work, too; beaded moccasins called ”_Yachit_.”

The old time ways were very slow; he described the cutting of a huge cedar for a canoe as taking a long time to do, by hacking around it with a stone hammer and ”chisel.”

Before the advent of the whites, mats served as sails.

I told him of having seen the public part of Black Tama.n.u.se and they both laughed at the heathenism of long ago and said, ”We don't have that now.”