Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/377

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REMINISCENCES OF MARTHA E. GILLIAM COLLINS 369

milk. We would drink from the same cup. She was my only playmate. She was near kin to the head chief. She was taken sick and they called 1 in an Indian medicine man. They let my sister Henrietta and me in the tepee where he was beating sticks and hollering and trying to drive out the evil spirit. She died. The chief came and asked mother if my sister Rettie and I could go to her funeral. Mother let us go. The Indians took a milk pan full of beads and broke them up and scattered all over her. After their ceremonies were over they buried her on the hillside near our house. They shot her horse and placed it near the head of her grave and her favorite dog they killed and put at the foot of her grave. They put poles around her grave on which they fastened all of her buckskin dresses and other treasures. Next year when her mother came back and saw Rettie and me, she cried as if her heart would break. She went out often to Sid-na-yah's grave. People think Indians don't love or have any feelings because they do not wear their hearts on their sleeves; but I believe Indians feel as deeply and love as truly as white folks.

"The emigrants brought the measles to Oregon. The In- dians didn't know how to doctor them. They would go in one of their sweat houses and then jump in a cold stream and it usually killed them. One season we heard frequent wailing from the Indian camp near us. Quatley, the chief, told my mother all their children were dying of the white man's disease. We children got the measles, but mother doctored us suc- cessfully. An Indian medicine man came to our house for protection. He said his patients all died so the Indians were going to kill him for claiming he could cure them and not doing so. When he thought the coast was clear he started off, but just then Quatley rode up. The Indian whipped his horse and started off at a keen run. Quatley took good aim and shot and the medicine man went over his horse headfirst and only lived a little while. When Quatley saw that we children all got well of the measles he came to mother and said. 'Your children get well, all our children die. Your medicine is