The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-03-26
GOOD INDIANS NOW.
Remarkable Transformation Of the
PuyaIlups of Puget Sonnd.

A Native Prophet Has Risen and Con
verified the People-An Alleged Miracle
Which Has Worked a Real Miracle
Strange Religious Ideas.
Especial Corr. of the St. Louis Globe Demo-
.crat.)
Tacoma, Wash, March 15.-Perhaps no
better material exists for the Smelioration
generally supposed to be effected through
the application of the tenets Of Christianity
than the aborigines who live in that portion
of the Mort Invest known as the Puget Sound
Basin. As examples of the 'snatural man.
they shine pre-emin ent, possessing in tropi-
cal luxuriance those qualities which exist in
humanity whel, unrestrained by social OF
liglous restrictions Since the earliest days
of the occupation OF this section by the
whites, missionaries and religious reformers
of all sects have applied themselves with I'm
varying lack of success to the regeneration
of the Indian. They freely acknowledge
their total failure, and are more or less in
clined to attribute it to existene of innate
depravity inherent in these children of the
soil.
The inevitable inberitances of vice have
not spared thePuget Sound Indian. Contact
with civilization has, following its inyaria-
Bile custom, still further deteriorated the
aborigine, and decade or so ago he seemed
to reach the limit of degradation. De-
hatchery and unthrifG had superinduced dis
ease and squalor, and 1t seemed to the white
man who looked on with dispassionate in
terest that the country would soon be no
more troubled by what was, to some extent,
a bar in the path of triumphant progress
toward the high civilization of the eau
cass Ian.
a miracle interviewed The native races
of Puget Sound were preserved from extin c.
ton by the intervention of prophet who
appeared in the person of John Slocum.
Sixteen years since small colony of MIS-
auallys and PuyaIlups had their no mes on
Mud Bay, about twenty-five miles from
Olympia, the capital of the state of Wash
ington Their habitations were lairs NOR e fit
for beasts than human beings, and there
was probably not one among them who had
the faintest desire, or made the slightest eff
ort, TO rise above his condition John Slo-
cum, so far as can be learned was pre-emi-
nent in this colony, by right of being worse
than his companions.
Now comes the sensation. Without parti-
Gle of preparation for it, with no circum-
stances, apparently, leading up to it, The
revolution came with the sudde mess of
thunderbolt. Slocum became ill, probably
through disease, consequent upon his vices.
He died. The remnant of the tribe pre-
pared him for burial in their Siwash custom,
wailing with the passionate lamentations
peculiar to untutored natures. But, 10
when he was about to be deposited in his
last resting place he arose in his cerements
and addressed the awe-strick en- Indians
gathered about. He told them the tale of
Tschadam; how his spirit had been freed
from the bonds to mortality and scared into
the presence OF the living God; of the mes
sage he had received in those supernal re-
gions to carry back to suffering Indian hui
mainly, through which to degenerate them
and lead them through fowery paths of vir-
tue and prosperity to their eternal home
The simplicity OF the Indian character was
exactly lifted to feel the full significance of
John Slocum's revelation. The earnestness
with which they had, in the first place,
pursued vice was temperamental attribute,
equally vigorous and forcible when turned
into new channel, and these simple
Siwashes trod the new path indicated by the
prophet with characteristic fervor and sim
gle-mindedness.
Religious zeal existing in an ardent souI
readily gains proselytes among those of SIM
liar character. The fact that John Slocum's
return from the dead was witnessed by most
of the denizens of the Mud Bay colony gave
1t a significance and led to its unhesitating
acceptance by those who had not actually
witnessed the miracle. The tenets of the
ri nnlx Cd. i
especially adapted to the condition and
neeGs of the Indians of the Puget Sound Ba-
sin that their very suitability seemed evil
dence of their supernatural origin. new
era opened for the Mud Bay Indians. They
became vfrtuous and industrious they fore
swore drunkenness, gambling and stealing
In word, from being types of depravity
they became shining lights of the new cult
Such transformation could not take place
without attracting attention. Other III
dlans from nelghboring reservations came
listened TO the principles of the new faith
saw the results in the lives of Slocum's dis
ciples and accepted the doctrine as divine
in origin. In This way, within a few years
every Indian village of Importance in The
Puget Sound region had its resident
Tschadam community.
Religious persecution, the one thing need
ed to ground the new faith firmly in the
heart of its adherents, came at this time
Indian Agent Eels, of the Puyallup reserya-
ton, Presbyterian minister, whose wor-
ship ragged as tumultuously in its marrow
channels as ever during the palmy DAYS of
zealotry, undertook at this period to stamp
out the new faith. He COMPOUNDED it with
the wilder aboriginal superstition which led
to such dangerous manifestations as ghost
dances, Indian messiahs and mediterranean
practices. Holding these opinions, the as
cefic Mr.. Eels set his face like a flint, when
he turned it toward the Indian Shakers who
were striving to attain deal virtue by fol-
lowing the teachings of their prophet, John
Slocum. The religion OF Tschadam was still
inchoate. only having its isolated followers