Old Missoula

 

Missions / Indian Legends / Bad Spirts & Submarine Assemblage of a Very Large Beaver

 

The story below appeared in the Pioneer Day bulletin, issued by the State of Montana – Department of Public Instruction, November 3, 1911. The first Friday of November each year shall be designated and known as Pioneer Day in the State of Montana by an act approved in February of 1909. The author, Charles Schafft, was a little known Missoula pioneer who entered what is now Montana while participating with the Mullan road building expedition.

 

 

Establishing Missions – 1867

 

In 1840 Father De Smet, a missionary of the Society of Jesus, made his first appearance in the Rocky Mountains to convert to the faith of the Cross the Red Men who heretofore had only seen small rays from the great lights of Christianity reflected from a few Canadian voyagers or Iroquois Indians that frequented the country for the purposes of trapping and trading for furs.

 

The Flatheads inhabiting the Bitter Root valley, were anxious to try the new trail, which promised immortality to all who followed its windings, and repeated messages were sent by them to St. Louis for a priest, or as they term it, a “Blackgown.” One of these convoys consisted of five or six Indians and a Protestant clergyman (who accompanied them to go on some distant mission of his own) were all murdered (except the clergyman) on their return from St. Louis by a party of Sioux who mistook their nationality and believed them enemies.

 

Catholic priests were not very plenty in those days, and it was only upon a final effort on the part of the Flatheads, that the Superior of the Jesuits in St. Louis, felt himself called upon to send a teacher.

 

Father De Smet was chosen for the perilous task of carrying the cross to an unknown wilderness and teaching its symbolical meanings an efficacy to the nations of red men dwelling in the mountains. With the true spirit of the Jesuits of old, who enriched the soil of Canada with their blood, the young father started to his new field alone. The principal part of his journey lay along the great Missouri, but the Flatheads knew of his coming, and at a considerable distance from their village he was received by a delegation of the tribe, who escorted him in triumph to the Bitter Root Valley.

 

The Father found here in the elevated regions of the mountains a fine country with soil sufficiently rich to produce all that a husbandman need require; timber, grass, and water were abundant, and could not be excelled anywhere. The people whom he came to instruct looked as yet kindly upon the faces of white men, with whose vices they were unacquainted. He found them ready and willing to be taught, and after the principal features of the Catholic religion had by means of an interpreter, been impressed upon their minds, the chiefs and head men came forward to be baptized. These Indians as well as the neighboring tribes had always practiced polygamy, and the sincerity of their conversion was proven by their readily resigning all extra wives and becoming united to only one, in accordance with the articles of their adopted faith.

 

Like all other Indians they had heretofore believed in the Happy Hunting Grounds, and in a Great Spirit, who, assisted by a lesser one, governed and ruled the universe, and from whom came all good. They also believed in the existence of bad spirits, who ruled over disease and destruction, and in order to propitiate these latter in cases of sickness or impending evil, the usual “Medicine” grounds abandoned throughout the country and propitiatory offerings, consisting of beads, tobacco, etc., were hung on peculiar trees or laid on certain rocks, to incline the spirit (who it was supposed held in such places their residence), to give them success on the warpath, hunting excursions, or any other important undertaking.

 

Even at this day, some of the most prominent Indians, among whom is Victor, head of the Flathead nation, believe in the existence of a Lake, said to be located somewhere between the country of the Upper Pend ‘Oreilles and Kootenais, which Lake they maintain is inhabited by all kinds of animals, such as buffalo, elk, deer, etc., that live and thrive under the waters of the Lake, and a very large beaver is the presiding genius over the submarine assemblage. Victor, the above mentioned chief, says that he has seen the lake with his own eyes, and offered last fall to take one of our distinguished officials to the spot. However, the season was too far advanced, and the project of visiting this Barnumian spot was deferred until next spring. A tradition is current among these Indians of a great flood that at one time covered all the earth; but that a very large beaver was saved from the general destruction. The beaver was always looked upon by them as an intelligent and superior animal. They used to say, “We are like the beaver, but a little above him; for he builds houses as we do, but unlike us he cannot pull them down again.”

 

Father De Smet on his first visit tarried only long enough in the mountains to see that the seeds by him were not cast upon a barren soil, and then returned to St. Louis to report progress an obtain assistance. He returned in 1842, accompanied by Fathers Point and Mengarini, together with several lay brothers and a regular missionary establishment was begun in the Bitter Root valley under the name and title of St. Mary’s Mission.

 

Agriculture at this time was yet unknown in the Rocky Mountains. The Indians, indeed, were accustomed to rip open the soil, but it was in search of camas and other esculent roots. The missionaries, provided with an assortment of seeds, and the most indispensable agricultural implements, opened now the “first farm in Montana” and began to test to the Indians and half-breeds the benefits to be derived from the culture of the soil. That their time and labors were not lost, is well proven by the fine farms which the Flatheads possess in the Bitter Root valley at the present time.

 

Steps were now taken to multiply the missions in order to facilitate the spreading of the faith among the neighboring tribes. That of the Couer d’Alenes was established under Fathers Point and Hoeken in 1844. (This year brought also a reinforcement with the return of Father De Smet and several other Fathers and lay-brothers; among the number were the well-known Father Louis Vercruyssen and that noted physician Father Ravalli). The same year under the care and superintendence of Father Ravalli, a chapel was built at Colville. The old St. Ignatius Mission, among the Kalispells, about thirty miles from Colville was established in 1845, and was transferred in 1859 by Father Hoeken to the Sonielem valley, now a part of the general Flathead Reserve, among the upper Pen d’Oreilles, and a site was here chosen which cannot be excelled either in a practical view or for scenic beauty in Montana.

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