Lucy Thompson

“ Love for the adult race saddened with regrets hanging heavy and the stain of blood on their hands from the infant tears for the superior race, for who can tell what this child-race might have been when they were full grown and educated. Tears and love, love and tears, sweetly mingled when infant and adult meet in one great brotherhood of forgiveness. Always thus, since time began, someone must die a martyr for the beginning of every cause, and it has ever been thus, since the dawn of history, among all races and nations, the heathen, the barbarian and the civilized nations of the world. ”

“ THE WANDERING TRIBE. FROM the land of Cheek-cheek-alth, the mystic Eden of long ago, came our wandering tribe of people who long since inhabited North and South America; for we are all one people. Among them were our leaders, the men who possessed in their secret breasts the true name of God. These men and women in our language we call Talth, and were the High Priests, and great rulers who ruled our people. Therefore, we were one of the tribes that was never ruled by a single chief, but by our Talth, or High Priests. ”

“ Safe in her cave and lonely, with nothing but nature and a wild man to comfort her, she had grown more lonely as the years crept by in her desire to see her people once more. How they had traveled on their journey back along the creek beds for a long distance, over high mountains and around sheer walls of great bluffs, and through the awful calm of dense forests171 and overhanging thickets, she had at last reached the home of her birth. ”

“ Che-na-wah Weitch-ah-wah.
I can pass and have passed many times and have the training to know which can, and those that are not allowed, and the powerful in riches have to stop and take the upper trail, such as Pec-wan Colonel and Captain Sur-e-goine Jim and others whose wealth and influence that the white man thought would allow him to any part or place. I am one that knows that the birth is the one great event that gave to my people more honor, more power and more of everything in this life than all the riches in the whole world could buy. ”

“ When an Indian dies, if he has led a dishonorable and wicked life, a broad path leads his soul down to the banks of the river to the very door where the old woman lives in her house. When the wandering soul reaches her door, the Chish-yah tries to drive it back to the dead body, but the old woman fights the dog off and if she is successful in her efforts she takes charge of the miserable soul and sends it on to the opposite side of the river, in the shadowy land of endless anguish. ”

“ Sometimes the women would be captivated by the Indian devils and would be gone away from their tribe for years, when they would return and tell of their wild life and experiences. They would become the mother of children and the children would inherit the wild habits of their father, as they would always be whistling, making strange noises, romping wildly about and always on the go, roaming everywhere in the wilds. ”

“ Ah, ’tis sweet to yield to woman’s wiles, though she leads you to the grave, yawning with the grim jaws of death. In this woman’s feeble arms, this powerful man revealed his secret, that his mighty strength was in his long and flowing hair, the beauty of night and the strength of nations. ”

“ THE DELUGE OF THE KLAMATH INDIANS. IT has been handed down from long ago that the people became so wicked, no good was found in anything, and human progress retrograded into destruction. Unwedded women became the mothers of a host of bastard children as the men led a life of debauchery, and the women a life of shame. Crimes and murders lurked in every corner, plunder and the greed for riches followed each other in a terrible way. Men sought not honest lives, but sought the greed and plunder of riches. ”

“ I have never known an Indian of the old tribe to be ruptured and yet they do not know anything about surgery. If anything of a serious nature happens to a woman during child-birth they are at a loss to know what to do to save her. If the woman gives birth to twins and they are a boy and girl, they try to raise them both, but if it be two boys or girls they pick one of them and raise it while the other one is neglected and starved to death, and when it died they went through all the forms of sorrow by crying and mourning over the loss of the child just the same as if they tried to raise it. ”

“ The High Priests, who had turned her away from the scared lodge, together with the other people, would all have to die and the earth would give them a grave. Their hands would never touch her body, the earth would give her no grave, but instead, her body would be carried through the winds and storms until she reached that Infinite Shore where she would dwell in the flowery meadows of Heaven. ”

“ Exterminated rather than educated until the noblest of our race are gone, and out of the miserable remnant comes a feeble cry today, that for nearly four centuries the redman has merely existed without a country. Love for the child-race of a bygone age, tears for the infant race, in all its infancy a type of primitive manhood, reserved and poised, courageous, enduring, master of self and above all self controlled, a proud vanishing figure in a nation of unrest. ”

“ Praying in the great solitudes of a vast creation she never faltered, but prayed on to the Heavenly Father that he might give her strength and courage to become far more pure than any that had ever lived on earth before her, that she might rise as a virgin of purity above her people, leaving in her footsteps the holy halo when she had passed from the earth away to the realms of Heaven above. ”

“ False woman came to dwell in his life as she gained the secrets of his mighty powers; siren like was the touch of her fingers upon his troubled forehead. Fascinated in the comfort of one he loved so passionately he fell asleep, and one fatal day with his head laid lovingly upon her lap, the cruel woman of destiny arose stealthily and stole from the fire embers a flaming torch and burnt the raven locks off closely to his head, as he slept soundly on. ”

“ I trust the day is not far distant when the degenerate white man will no longer be tolerated to camp on the reservations and leave in his path the ruination of human lives.
Before the appearance of the white man, the marriage of the middle and wealthy classes were considered sacred, the most sacred ties that could bind a human being for the cause of the future generation. ”

“ At the mouth of the Klamath the old lodge has tumbled down, but not one of the Talth is left. At Pec-wan, twenty-five miles from the mouth of the river is the Talth house, where all of their working tools are kept, and it is yet in a good state of preservation, the lodge is left but it is old the dilapidated.
We have in our breast the feeling of love for the present white race, which love was instilled in us by the cherished remembrance of our Wa-gas. We loved this race and this is the reason our women are so willing to marry the white man, and so easy to be deceived by them. ”

“ This true name is only used by the Talth with profound reverence to the Great Creator, in the sacred lodge and in the hallowed lonely places far back on the high mountains where they go to worship in the profound solitudes, away from the gaze of curious people. Our religion has been too sacred, too sublime an ideal to quarrel over, hence we have remained silent through the gloom of so many years and borne patiently the insults on royal society as being heathens. ”

“ They are here allowed, both men and women, to put in whatever they may possess that is of value, that is used to dance with. The wealthy ones that own lands, hunting territory, fishing places, slaves, flints, white deer-skins, fisher skins, otter skins, silver gray fox skins and fine dresses made of dressed deer skins, with fringes or shells knotted and worked in the most beautiful styles, that clink and jingle as they walk and makes one have a feeling of respect and admiration for them. ”

“ Now another race is struggling on where our reign has ended. Already our great rulers are at rest, and forever; laureled with the glories of the primeval ages that have passed away in silence. As a nation, like the ancient Egyptians, we have grown old and passed away; we have seen a great civilization rise to the highest of its splendors and pass away to another land beyond recall. ”

“ THE WARS OF KLAMATH INDIANS. THE Klamath Indians as a tribe, are like all other people that have a history dating back long before the great flood as their legends plainly tell. They have had wars and plenty of them, through all the ages, and never have laid down their bows and spears at any time to any other tribe or tribes, and have at different times had to fight every tribe, and sometimes combinations of tribes. They have many times been nearly exterminated at different places of habitation. ”

“ He must divide a portion of the wealth that he gave to his wife’s people on his wedding day, to each child, the remaining portion is given back to him. If all the valuables of exchange between the contracting parties are returned to him or his people, this leaves the children as bastards, without a law to protect them from slanderous tongues and no rights to a legitimate birth. These children are forever looked down upon by the Indian society, as bastards without a marriage to legalize them as the off-spring of respectable parents. ”

“ Swift as the lightning from Heaven she mounted the rock, bowing to the great creation of the world with her arms outstretched and her beautiful hair flowing, she stood erect with her face to Heaven in the north with her eyes closed. ”

“ Suddenly he felt himself rising from the earth as if he had been transformed into an Angel with wings, and he rose far away to the Kingdom of Heaven. Up he soared, ever up, until he was at last flying among the seven stars and when he reached them, he began to dance and sing, as they were all girls and also sisters. ”

“ In our mountain home we subsisted on wild game, berries, pine nuts, roots and herbs. Some of our people would have such a terror of the fatal diseases that they would refuse to return to their homes and would brave the fierce storms of the cold winter until they were convinced that all dangers had ceased. In our traditions of the passing centuries many of these epidemics have almost devastated the land of human life. ”

“ Somewhere in the depths of a dark canyon among the redwoods, the wild Indians had carried Os-slock-o-may. When they reached their hiding place, one of the Indians made her his wife, after the fashion of a primeval wedding. The wild Indians are always very rich in all kinds of Indian wealth, and this wild Indian dressed his bride in the most beautiful of Indian dresses, made of buck skin and ornamented with shells, and lavished wealth upon her. ”

“ The greed for riches by trickery and deception in general leads the Talth to believe very strongly, that ere long God will send the great conflagration that will consume all the world in flames, and that its people will pass away. Over their ashes God will create another people, where they will build their stately mansions, of the soul unto God. Over the ashes of the obliterated ages, will prosper a new people with new governments, and new laws, and the ages of peace and happiness will dawn again, shedding its radiance of glory over the entire world. ”

“ Oh, how little we know of the depths of the ages gone, how wide, how profound and deep is the knowledge we seek; a monument of stone, a stone bowl, a broken symbol, a hallowed unknown spot, a lodge of ruins, all this makes a golden page glittering with diamonds that trills the emotions with mysterious longings for truth and light in the depths unknown. ”

“ The Talth are waiting ever, for no more will answer their piteous pleadings, to save and cherish a sublime religion. A precious few of the middle aged have the birth, but their morals in a larger sense, have been corrupted, their integrity has been undermined until they think a promise broken is better than a promise kept, therefore, while the world lasts they can never be admitted to this sacred lodge. Some of the ken-ne-ah men have been honest enough to wed our women under their laws, and some of them have married under both the white man’s and the Indian’s marriage laws. ”

“ On the shore of this mysterious River of Death awaits a young man, Pa-ga-rick, in his canoe; he is always ready to receive the soul from the old woman as she hands it into his care. His canoe is similar in shape and size to the earthly Indian canoes, with the exception that if one may note carefully that all the canoes contain in the bow a knob in the center, some three feet back from the bow, which is the heart, and they say it is the life of the boat. Also the canoe the Indians use is burned inside and out, and polished smooth. ”

“ All the world knows that France had its monarch, his name is writ on Fame’s record as the mighty conqueror of Europe. The winding rivers of Europe were once red with the blood it shed, there were gory battle fields left in his wake, to say nothing of broken hearted mothers and children who went weeping under cheerless skies without a home to shelter them. ”