Old Missoula

Bitter Root Folk Honor Chief Charlo

Medicine Tree Is Scene of Big Reception

Darby, Oct. 4. – Special – Last Sunday the residents of the upper Bitter Root valley assembled in a large group to show respect and pay honor to Chief Martin Charlo, who, for the first time in 30 years, visited the scenes of his childhood, and lived 31 years of his life.

The government made a treaty with the Indians of the Bitter Root about 1885, gaining possession of all their lands, except that of Chief Charlo, who refused to sign the treaty. He and his family were given an allotment near Stevensville, where they resided until 1889, when the government sent Major Carrington, who persuaded Chief Charlo to sign a treaty giving the government possession of his land by purchase. The family was removed to the Flathead, and given $25 a month.

This noted chief with 25 of his descendants came to the valley this summer to pick strawberries for Sid Ward, and it was through Mr. Ward’s efforts that the citizens rallied to pay honor to the old chief.

Martin Charlo was born near Stevensville 66 years ago. With a few of his descendants, dressed in their Indian garb, their faces painted, he amused the people by giving war dances, in real old Indian manner.

Through his interpreter, he gave a short talk in which he traced some facts of the tribe’s history, and the Indian superstition concerning Medicine Tree.

He said, in part:

“We are not Flatheads. We never did wear the board on our heads, but we were named Flatheads by Lewis and Clark, who thought us Flatheads because we resembled some they had seen in other places.

“Our real name is Selish. We were always friends to the white, and I joined them in their trouble with the Nez Perces when they came over the Lolo pass and on into the Big Hole, where that great battle was fought. My grandfather, Three Eagle, who was a friend of Lewis and Clark, was the first to settle in Ross Hole.

“The story of Medicine Tree reads like this:

“There roamed in the forests a bad animal possessed with an evil spirit, bringing bad luck to the Indian. One day this bad animal met a coyote near this tree, and after the coyote listened to him boast of his strength, dared him to butt the tree, which he did, burying his horns so deeply, that he could not remove them, so the coyote killed him. Soon afterward there appeared the face of the medicine man facing the south on a rock near the tree, and the face of a little medicine man facing the north.”

The Indians used this tree when on the warpath and in getting plunder.

To the Indian this tree is sacred. He never passes it by without decorating it, and from the respect paid the tree by them last Sunday, they have lost none of their interest in it. At some time in the long ago a horn has been driven into the tree, part of it being there yet, and the outline of those faces can be plainly seen.

“Every year until I go to the boneyard,” said Chief Charlo, “I shall visit this place.”

It is to be hoped that the citizens throughout the valley will always find it a pleasure to assemble in a body to pay respect to this being, who so willingly and peacefully gave for their benefit, the home he loved and cherished, for one in another place and the sum of $25 a month.

The article above appeared in The Daily Missoulian on October 5, 1922.

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