Read Ebook: Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish Washington Territory 1874-1884 by Eells Myron

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She was a school-girl, about sixteen years of age, and had been in the boarding-school for several years, nearly ever since she had been old enough to attend, but her parents were quite superstitious. One Friday evening she went home to remain until the Sabbath, but on Saturday, the first of January, 1881, she was taken sick, and the nature of her sickness was such that in a few days she became delirious. Her parents and friends made her believe that a bad tamahnous had been put into her, and no one but an Indian doctor could cure her. They tamahnoused over her some. The agency physician, Dr. Givens, was not called until the sixth, when he left some medicine for her, but it is said that it was not given to her. Hence she got no better, and her friends declared that the white doctor was killing her. The agent and teacher did not like the way the affair was being manoeuvered, took charge of her, moved her to a decent house near by, and placed white watchers with her, so that the proper medicine should be given, and no Indian doctor brought in. The Indians were, however, determined, if possible, to tamahnous, and declared that if it were not allowed, she would die at three o'clock A.M. They kept talking to her about it and she apparently believed it, and said she would have tamahnous. But it was prevented, and before the time set for her death, she was cured of her real sickness. But she was not well. Still the next day she was in such a condition that it was thought safe to move her in a boat to the boarding-house, where she could be more easily cared for. The Indians were enraged and said that she would die before landing, but she did not. Watchers were kept by her constantly, but the Indians were allowed to see her. They talked, however, to her so much about her having a bad tamahnous, that all except her parents were forbidden to see her. They also were forbidden to talk on the subject, and evidently obeyed. But the effect on her imagination had been so great that, for a time, she often acted strangely. She seldom said any thing; she would often spurt out the medicine, when given her, as far as she could; said she saw the tamahnous; pulled her mother's hair, bit her mother's finger so that it bled, seemed peculiarly vexed at her; moaned most of the time, but sometimes screamed very loudly, and even bit a spoon off. Sometimes she talked rationally and sometimes she did not. But by the fifteenth she was considerably better, walked around with help, and sat up, when told to do so, but did not seem to take any interest in any thing. Every thing possible was done to interest her and occupy her attention, and she continued to grow better for three or four days more, so that the watchers were dispensed with, except that her parents slept in the room with her. But one night she threw off the clothes, took cold, and would not make any effort to cough and clear her throat; and on the twenty-second, she died, actually choking to death. It was a tolerably clear case of death from imagination, easily accounted for on the principles of mental philosophy, but the Indians had never studied it, and still believe that a bad tamahnous killed her. I was afraid that this death would cause trouble, or, at least, that a strong influence against Christianity would result from it, but the certificates of allotment to their land came just at that time, which pleased them so much that the affair was smoothed over.

These and some other instances somewhat similar, though not quite so marked, have led me to make some allowances for the older Indians, which I would not make for whites. With small children, who were too young to have any such belief in tamahnous, I know of not a single instance like these mentioned. Indeed, the Indian doctors have been among the most unfortunate in losing their children, several of them having lost from five to ten infants each.

Some of the older uneducated Indians with the most advanced ideas have said lately that they were ready to give up all Indian doctors, and all tamahnous for the sick; still they would not acknowledge but that there was some spirit in the affair, but they said it was a bad spirit, of which the devil was the ruler, and they wished to have nothing to do with it.

One woman, as she joined the church, wished to let me have her tamahnous rattles, made of deer hoofs, for she said she was a Christian, had stopped her tamahnous, and would not want them any more. Still she thought that a spirit dwelt in them, only she thought it was a bad spirit. Hence she was afraid to have them remain in her house, for fear the spirit would injure her; for the same reason she was afraid to throw them away; she was for the same reason afraid to give them to any of her friends, even to those far away, and so she thought that the best thing that could be done with them was to let me take them, for she thought I could manage them. I was willing, and prize them highly because of the reason through which I obtained them.

Other points in their religious belief did not stand so much in the way of Christianity. They believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, though very different from that of the whites--so much so, that the latter has not received the name of the former; in a Deity called Do-ki-batl by the Twanas, and Nu-ki-matl by the Clallams, who became incarnate and did many wonderful things; in man's sinfulness and immortality; in the creation, renovation, and government of the world by their great Beings; in a flood, or deluge, the tradition of which has enough similarity to that of the Bible to make me believe that it refers to the same: while it has so much nonsense in it as to show that they did not receive it from the whites; in thanksgiving, prayer, sacrifices, and purification; in a place of happiness for the soul after death, situated somewhere within the earth, and in a place of future punishment, also situated within the earth. The Clallams believed that the Sun was the Supreme Deity, or that he resided in the sun, but I have never been able to discover any such belief among the Twanas. They believe that the spirits dwell in sticks and stones at times, and I have seen one rough idol among the Twanas.

BESETTING SINS.

The more prominent of these are gambling, betting, horse-racing, potlatches, and intemperance.

Gambling is conducted in three different native ways, and many of the Indians have also learned to play cards. The betting connected with horse-racing belongs to the same sin. Horse-racing has not been much of a temptation to the Clallams because they own very few horses, their country being such that they have had but little use for them. Nearly all of their travel is by water. The Twanas have had much more temptation in this respect.

One of the native ways of gambling belongs to the women, the other to the men: but there is far less temptation for the women to gamble than there is for the men, because summer and winter, day-time and evening, there is always something for them to do. But with the men it is different. The rainy season and the long winter evenings hang heavily on their hands, for they have very little indoor work. They can not read, and hence the temptation to gamble is great.

One mode of gambling by the men is with small round wooden disks about two inches in diameter. There are ten in a set, one of which is marked. Under cover they are divided, part of them under one hand and the rest under the other, are shuffled around, concealed under cedar-bark, which is beaten up fine, and the object of the other party is to guess under which hand the marked disk is.

The other game of the men is with small bones, two inches long and a half an inch in diameter, or sometimes they are two and a half inches long and an inch in diameter. Sometimes only one of the small ones is used, and sometimes two, one of which is marked. They are passed very quickly back and forth from one hand to the other, and the object is for the opposite party to guess in which hand the marked one is. An accompaniment is kept up by the side which is playing by singing and pounding on a large stick with smaller ones. With both of these games occasionally the large drum is brought in, and tamahnous songs are sung, so as to invoke the aid of their guardian spirits.

In the women's game usually four beaver's teeth are used, which have peculiar markings. They are rapidly thrown up, and the way in which they fall determines the number of counts belonging to the party playing. The principle is somewhat the same as with a game of dice. Formerly they bet large sums, sometimes every thing they owned, even to all the clothes they had, but it has not been the custom of late years. When Agent Eells first came to Skokomish, under orders from the Superintendent of Indian Affairs he tried to break up the gambling entirely, but there were hardly any Indians to sustain him in the effort. They would conceal themselves and gamble, do so by night, or go off from the reservation where he had no control, and carry on the game--so for a time he had to allow it, with some restrictions; that is, that the bets must be small, the games not often, but generally only on the Fourth of July, at great festivals, and the like. Occasionally they have had a grand time by gathering about all the Indians on the reservation together, both men and women, and perhaps for four days and nights, with very little sleep, have kept up the game.

On account of their want of employment in the winter and their inability to read, probably the sinfulness of this sin is not so great with them as with whites. Some good, prominent Indian workers have thought that it was hardly right to proscribe a Christian Indian from gambling. I learned of one Protestant church which admitted Indians without saying any thing on this subject, but which tried to stop it after they were in the church; but I could never bring myself to think that a church full of gambling Indians was right, and this became one of the test questions with the men in regard to admittance into the church.

When I first saw the infatuation the game possessed for them I felt that nothing but the gospel of Christ would ever stop it. Among the Clallams off of the reservation none except the Christians have given it up. On the reservation within the

last few years so many of the Indians have become Christians that public opinion has frowned on it, and there is very little, if any, of it, though some of the Indians who do not profess to be Christians, when they visit other Indians, will gamble, although they do not when at home.

The mere giving of a present by one person to another, or to several, is not in itself sinful, but this is carried to such an extreme at these times that the morality of that part of them becomes exceedingly questionable. In order to obtain the money to give they deny themselves so much for years, live in old houses and in so poor a way, that the self-denial becomes an enemy to health, comfort, civilization, and Christianity. If they would take the same money, buy and improve land, build good houses, furnish them, and live decently, it would be far better.

But while two or three days of the time spent at them is occupied in making presents, the rest of the time, from three days to two and a half weeks, is spent in gambling, red and black tamahnous, and other wicked practices, and the temptation to do wrong becomes so great that very few Indians can resist it.

When some of the Alaska Indians, coveting the prosperity which the Christian Indians of that region had acquired, asked one of these Christians what they must do in order to become Christians, the reply was: "First give up your potlatches." It was felt that there was so much evil connected with them that they and Christianity could not flourish together. Among the Twanas, while they are not dead, they are largely on the wane. Among a large part of the Clallams they still flourish.

Intemperance is a besetting sin of Indians, and it is about as much a besetting sin of some whites to furnish intoxicating liquors to the Indians. The laws of the United States and of Washington Territory are stringent against any body's furnishing liquor to the Indians, but for a time previous to 1871 they had by no means been strictly enforced. As the intercourse of the Indians with the whites was often with a low class, who were willing to furnish liquor to them, they grew to love it, so that in 1871 the largest part of the Indians had learned to love liquor. Its natural consequences, fighting, cutting, shooting, and accidental deaths, were frequent.

TEMPERANCE.

In 1871 the agent began to enforce the laws against the selling of liquor to the Indians, and, according to a rule of the Indian Department; he also punished the Indians for drinking. Missionary influence went hand in hand with his work, and good results have followed. For years very few Indians on the reservation have been known to be drunk. Punishment upon the liquor-drinker as well as the liquor-seller has had a good effect. Far more of the Clallams drink than of the Twanas. They live so far from the agent that he can not know of all their drinking, and, if he did, he could not go to arrest them all; and many of them live so close to large towns where liquor is very easily obtained, that it has been impossible to stop all of their drinking. Still his occasional visits, the aid of a few white men near them, and of the better Indians, together with what they see of the evil effects of intemperance on themselves, have greatly checked the evil. Very few complete reformations, however, have taken place among those away from the reservation, except those who have become Christians. In addition, a good share of the younger ones have grown up with so much less temptation than their parents had, and so much more influence in favor of temperance, that they have become teetotalers.

For a long time, beginning with 1874, a temperance society flourished, and nearly all the Indians of both tribes joined it. Each member signed the pledge under oath, and took that pledge home to keep, but in time it was found that the society had no penalty with which to punish offenders sufficient to make them fear much to do so again. The agent alone had that power--so the society died. But the law and gospel did not tire in the work and something has been accomplished.

The agent could tell many a story of prosecuting liquor-sellers; sometimes before a packed jury, who, when the proof was positive, declared the prisoner not guilty; of having Indian witnesses tampered with, and bought either by money or threats, so that they would not testify in court, although to him they had previously given direct testimony as to who had furnished them with the liquor; of a time when some of the Clallam Indians became so independent of his authority that they defied him when he went to arrest them, and he was obliged to use the revenue-cutter in order to take them, and when, in consequence, his friends feared that his life was in danger from the white liquor-sellers, because the latter feared the result of their lawlessness; of a judge who, although a Christian man, so allowed his sympathies to go out for the criminal that he would strain the law to let him go; or, on the other hand, of another judge who would strain the law to catch a rascal; of convicting eight white men at one time of selling liquor to Indians, only to have some of them take their revenge by burning the Indians' houses and all of their contents. Still in a few years he made it very unsafe for most permanent residents to sell intoxicating liquors to the Indians, so that but few except transient people, as sailors and travelers, dared to do so.

"For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain" the Indian and the liquor-seller can almost rival the "heathen Chinee." A saloon is on the beach, and so high that it is easy to go under it. A small hole is in the floor under the counter. A hand comes up with some money in it: after dark a bottle goes down, and some Indians are drunk, but nobody can prove any thing wrong.

An Indian takes a bucket of clams into a saloon and asks the bar-tender if he wishes them. "I will see what my wife says," is the reply, and he takes them to a back room. Soon he comes back and says: "Here, take your old clams, they are bad and rotten." The Indian takes them, and soon a company of Indians are "gloriously drunk," a bottle having been put in the bottom of the bucket. Sometimes a part of a sack of flour is made of a bottle of whiskey.

An Indian, having been taken up for drunkenness, was asked in court, in Port Townsend, where he obtained his liquor. "If I tell, I can not get any more," was the blunt reply. Others have found theirs floating in the river or lying by a tree, which may all have been true, yet some man who understood it was the gainer of some money, which perhaps he found. Many an Indian, when asked who let him have the liquor, has said: "I do not know;" or, "I do not know his name."

Yet there are stories on the other side which make a brighter picture. In 1875 the Twana and Nisqually Indians met as they had often done during previous years for feasting, visiting, trading, and horse-racing. The first agreement was to meet on the Skokomish Reservation, but continued rains made the race-track on the reservation almost unfit for use, it being bottom land. There was another track on gravelly land about ten miles from Skokomish. On the Sabbath previous to the races the sermon had reference to the subject, because of the betting and danger of drunkenness connected with it. A Nisqually Indian came then and urged the Skokomish Indians to go to the other race-track at Shelton's Prairie, because the one at Skokomish was so muddy. The Skokomish Indians replied that they did not wish to go to the prairie for fear there would be whiskey there, but that they would go to work and fix their own track as well as they could. One sub-chief, the only one of the chiefs who had a race-horse, said he would not go there. This word was carried to the Nisqually Indians who were camped at the prairie, but they refused to come to Skokomish, and sent their messenger to tell the Skokomish Indians so. Several hours were occupied in discussing the question. In talking with the agent, the head-chief asked him if he would send one of the employees to guard them, should they decide to go to the prairie. The head-chief then went to the prairie and induced the Nisquallys to come to the reservation for the visit, trading, and marriage, which was to take place, and for the races if the track should be suitable. From Wednesday until Saturday was occupied by the Indians as agreed upon, but the weather continued rainy and the track was unfit for use. On Saturday the Nisqually Indians went back to the prairie and invited the Skokomish Indians to go there for the races. On Monday twenty-five or thirty of them went, but this number did not include a chief or many of the better class, the great fear being that they would be tempted to drink. According to the request of the chief, one white man from the reservation went, together with the regular Indian policemen. There were also present ten or twelve other white men from different places, one of whom carried considerable liquor. The Indian policemen on seeing this went to him and told him he must not sell or give any of it to any of the Indians, and he promised that he would not. He was afterward seen offering some to a Nisqually Indian, who refused. When night came it was found that, with three or four exceptions, all of the white men present had drank some, and a few were quite drunk, while it was not known that any of the Indians present had taken any. That the better class of Indians should not go to the races, and that all should earnestly contend against going to that place for fear of temptation; that they asked for a white man to guard them; that an Indian told a white man not to give liquor to his fellow-Indians, and that, while most of the white men drank some, it was not known that any Indian drank at all, although it was not the better class of Indians who were present, were facts which were encouraging.

A sub-chief of the Clallam Indians, at Elkwa, one hundred and twenty miles from the reservation, in 1878, found that an Indian from British Columbia had brought a keg of liquor among his people. He immediately complained before a justice of the peace, who arrested the guilty man, emptied his liquor on the ground, and fined him sixty-four dollars.

The head-chief of the Clallams, Lord James Balch, has for nine years so steadily opposed drinking, and imprisoned and fined the offenders so much, that he excited the enmity of the Indians, and even of their doctors, and also of some white men, much as a good Indian agent does. Although he is not perfect, he still continues the good work. Fifteen years ago he was among the worst Indians about, drinking, cutting, and fighting.

In January, 1878, I was asked to go ninety miles, by both Clallams and Twanas, to a potlatch, to protect them from worthless whites and Indians, who were ready to take liquor to the place. The potlatch was at Dunginess, given by some Clallams. I went, in company with about seventy-five Twanas, and it was not known that more than eight of them had tasted liquor within four years, although none of them professed to be Christians. During that festival, which continued nine days, and where more than five hundred Indians were present, only one Indian was drunk.

More than once a whiskey-bottle has been captured from an Indian, set out in view of all on a stump or box, a temperance speech made and a temperance hymn sung, the bottle broken into many pieces, and the contents spilled on the ground.

The Indians say that the Hudson's Bay Company first brought it to them, but dealt it out very sparingly, but when the Americans came they brought barrels of it. They seem to be proud that it is not the Indians who manufacture it, for if it were they would soon put a stop to it; nor is it the believer in God, but wicked white men who wish to clear them away as trees are cleared from the ground.

Thus, when we take into consideration the condition of these Indians fifteen years ago, and the present condition of some other Indians in the region who lie beastly drunk in open sight, and compare it with the present status of those now here, there is reason for continued faith in the God of the law and gospel of temperance.

INDUSTRIES.

Logging, farming in a small way, and work as day-laborers, have been the chief means of civilized labor among the men on the reservation. A large share of their land is first-class, rich bottom land, though all was covered originally with timber. It had been surveyed, assigned to the different heads of families, and certificates of allotment from the government issued to them. Nearly all of them have from one to ten acres cleared, most of which is in hay.

Still when there has been a market for logs at the neighboring saw-mills, they have preferred that work, not because there is more money in it, for actually there is less, but because they get the money quicker. It comes when the logs are sold, generally within three months after they begin a boom. But in regard to their land, they must work some time after they begin to clear it, before it is done; then a year or two longer, before they can obtain much of a crop of hay from it. Hence it has been up-hill work to induce most of them to do much work at clearing land. For several years before their annuities ceased, in 1881, the government made a rule that no able-bodied man should receive any annuities until he had performed labor on his land equal in value to the amount he should receive. From the example of the few adjoining settlers, some are beginning to see that farming is more profitable than logging. The largest share of good timber on the reservation has been taken off during the past twenty years, so that now a number have bought timber off the reservation for logging. They own their own teams, keep their own time-books, and at present attend to all their own business in connection with these camps. In one respect they differ from white folks--in their mode of conducting the business. Instead of one or two men owning every thing, hiring the men, paying all expenses, and taking all the profits, they combine together and unitedly share the profits or losses. When the boom is sold, and all necessary expenses which have been incurred are paid, they divide the money among themselves according to the amount of work each has done. A few have tried to carry on camps as white people do, but have always failed.

Very few now pursue the old avocations of fishing and hunting, except the old ones. Nearly all the able-bodied men work at some civilized pursuit. Take a ride over the reservation on almost any pleasant day, and nearly all the men will be found to be busy at something.

In the winter, however, it is different. They have very little work for rainy days, and so there is more temptation to gamble and tamahnous. "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."

The women have less temptation than the men in winter. When they have no outdoor work, or it is stormy, they can sew, do housework, make mats and baskets, and all, even the very old ones, are commonly busy at some of these things. Some of them are good washerwomen and some are cooks in the logging-camps. They are by no means so near in a state of slavery as some Indian women in the interior, but are treated with considerable propriety by their husbands.

A few of the young men, after having been in school for a time, have been apprenticed to the trades of carpenter, blacksmith, and farmer, and have done so fairly, that they were employed by the government after the white employees were discharged.

The Clallams have done very little logging or farming. A number have obtained land at Port Discovery, Jamestown, Elkwa, and Clallam Bay, but only a little of it is first-class land, and they have used it for gardens and as a place for a permanent home, so that they should not be driven from one place to another, more than for farming. At Seabeck, Port Gamble, Port Townsend, and Port Discovery, they work quite constantly in the saw-mills; at Jamestown, for the surrounding farmers; at Port Angeles, Elkwa, and Clallam Bay, more of them hunt and fish than elsewhere. A number earn considerable money taking freight and passengers in their canoes. The obtaining of dog-fish oil is something of a business, as logging-camps use a large amount of it. In September there is employment at the Puyallup and surrounding region, about ninety miles from Skokomish, in picking hops. Hop-raising has grown to be a large business among the whites, and Indians have been preferred for picking the hops, thousands of whom flock there every year for the purpose, from every part of the Sound, and even from British Columbia and the Yakama country. Old people, women, and children do as well at this as able-bodied men. It has not, however, always been a healthy place for their morals, as on Sundays and evenings gambling, betting, and horse-racing have been largely carried on. At one time "The Devil's Playground," in the Puyallup Valley was noted as the place where Indians and low whites gathered on the Sabbath for horse-racing and gambling, but it became such a nuisance to the hop-growers, as well as to the agents, that they combined and closed it.

A part of the Clallams earn considerable money by sealing, off the north-west coast of the Territory, a very profitable business generally from January to May. In 1883 the taxes of those Clallams who live in Clallam County were 8.30.

TITLES TO THEIR LAND.

"The plow and the Bible go together in civilizing Indians," is the remark of Rev. J. H. Wilbur, who for more than twenty years was one of the most successful workers among them: but neither Indians nor whites feel much like clearing land and plowing it unless they feel sure that the land is theirs.

When the treaty was made in 1855 it was the understanding that whenever the Indians should settle down on the reservation, adopt civilized habits, and clear a few acres of land, good titles would be given to them by the government. With this understanding, not long after Agent Eells took charge, he had the reservation surveyed and divided, so that each head of a family whose home was on the reservation should have a fair portion. He gave them papers, signed by himself, in 1874, describing the land, with the expectation that the government in a short time would give them good titles, he having been thus assured by his superiors in office. Other agents did the same. But new movements by the government with reference to the Indians are usually very slow, as they have no votes, and this was no exception. Agent Eells, as well as others, plead and plead time and again, to have this stipulation in the treaty fulfilled, but for a long time to no purpose. Often he had no reply to his letters. People of both political parties put this as a plank into their platform; those of all religions and no religion; those who opposed the peace policy as well as those who favored it, signed petitions to this effect, but in vain. This delay was the source of much uneasiness to the Indians, more, I think, than any other cause, for men were not wanting who told them that they would be moved away; there were plenty of people who coveted their land, and examples were not wanting of Indians who had been moved from place to place by the government. It has been the only thing which has ever caused them to talk about war. Some Indians left the reservation because they feared they would be moved away. "I am not going to clear land and fence it for the whites to use," was what one said and others felt.

When the treaty was made it was believed by the Indians that they possessed all the land, and that they sold all except the reservation, to which they supposed they had a good title, at least as good as the United States had, and white people believed the same; but a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1873 reversed this idea, and they learned that they had sold all the land, and that government graciously allowed them to stay on the reservation according to its will. In the spring of 1875 they were forbidden to cut a log and sell it off of the reservation, and found that they had no rights to the land which the government was bound to respect, but if she wished to remove them at any time she could do so.

The question came up early in missionary work. The Indians said: "You profess to be Christians, and you have promised us titles to our land. If these titles come we will believe your religion to be true, but if not it will be evidence that you are deceiving us."

The agent worked nobly for the object, but receiving no reply for a long time he grew almost discouraged. He could work in only one way, by writing to his first superior officer, hoping that he would successfully press the subject upon those more influential.

About this time, in 1878, I determined to see what I could do through another channel: through the Board of Indian Commissioners, where missionaries would naturally look. Accordingly, in May, a long letter was written to the secretary of the American Missionary Association, and his influence was invoked to work upon the Board. He gladly did so. At the annual meeting of the Congregational Association of Oregon and Washington, in June of the same year, I plead strongly for the same object, whereupon a committee of five of the influential men of the denomination was appointed, who drafted strong resolutions, which were passed and sent to the Board of Commissioners. The fact that the Bannack Indians of Eastern Oregon were then engaged in a war with the whites, and that they had attempted to induce the Indians of Puget Sound to assist in it, was an argument used, and of no small weight. I intended to urge the passage of similar resolutions through the Presbytery of Puget Sound, and the Methodist Episcopal Conference of Oregon, both of whom had missions among the Indians, and were asking for similar favors from the government; but before those bodies met I received a letter from Hon. D. H. Jerome, of the Board of Commissioners, who had been appointed a committee by that Board in regard to titles of Indians to their lands, promising to press the matter upon the department until titles should be issued, or a good reason given for not doing so, and requesting a description of the lands for which titles were asked. I gave the letter to the agent, who had the desired information, and who quickly gave it. The Board nobly fulfilled its promise, and in March, 1881, certificates of allotment were sent to the Indians. They were not wholly satisfactory. The title to the land still remained in the United States. They said that each Indian is entitled to take possession of his land, "and the United States guarantees such possession, and will hold the title thereto in trust for the exclusive use and benefit of himself and his heirs so long as such occupancy shall continue." It prohibited them from selling the land to any one except other members of the same tribe.

These certificates, however, proved to be better than was at first feared. It was decided that under them the Indians had a right to sell the timber from the land. The Indians were satisfied that they would not be removed, and were quieted.

Efforts are still being made to obtain the patents, and with considerable hope of success, as they have been granted to Indians on three other reservations on Puget Sound through the efforts of Agent Eells, but owing to various causes they have not been obtained as yet for the Skokomish Indians.

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