Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1907-06-20
indians Delight in Inflictin6 Self Torture.
Shohnes Did Not Give Up the Sun Dance and Its Cruees Until the
Government neId-Ceemony Lasts For Three Days and Nights
Participants Go Without Food Or Sleep During the Entire Period

and of holding communion with the
spirits of their dead relatives and
friends, and so delirious do they
finally become from mental excite
ment and physical exhaustion that
they doubtless really imagine they
see and commune with these spirits.
Occasionally an Indian has not the
strength to carry him through the
three days and three nights dance
without food or drink, but in most
instances the savages makeshift to
stay on their feet and keep in motion
to the end of the religious orgy.
When the dance is ended those
who have gone through it, pitifully
weak and shockingly emaciated, are
taken to their tepees or little wooden
shanties on the reservation and
nursed back to strength and health.
Some of them never get well. Many
deaths from consumption and kim
dred diseases have resulted from the
dance.
On the whole the Shoshone Indians,
who for years have lived upon the
reservation in Wyoming, part OF
which was recently ceded to the Gov.
ernment, has just been thrown open
to settlement, are quiet, peaceful
and fairly moral and intelligent tribe
of Indians. There has been no out
break among them of late years, they
are on friendly terms with their white
neighbors, and they get on without
serious trouble with the Arapahoes,
who occupy the diminished reserva-
ton with them.
In the matter of thrift they are In
dians through and through, and from
present indications ever will be. They
have been allotted farms and are
supposed to work them, but they are
too lazy to do SO. In this respect the
Arapahoes are little if any better
than they are
Rev. Coolidge an Arapahoc.
The most interesting character on
the Shoshone reservation is the Rev.
Sherman Coolidge. the full-blooded
Arapahoe. who number of years ago
took to wife Miss Grace Weatherbee.
of New York.
Coolidge has set good example to
the other Indians by pursuing the
arts of peace, assuming the habits
end customs Of the whites, working
his little farm when not working In
the vineyard of the Lord, and leading
sober, godly and righteous life,
For years he has conducted an Epis.
copal mission on the reservation. In
his work of administering to the
spiritual needs of those of his people
who have embraced the Episcopal
faith and of seeking to convert Others
to that faith, he has been actively
and efficiently assisted by his white
wife.
Coolidge is looked upon by the
whites as a rather heavy, easy-going
and not over-ambitious fellow, yet he
has done not little to uplift his peo.
pie morally and spiritually, and to
improve their condition physically
and mentally.
Coolidge was adopted in his child.
hood by Captain Coolidge, of the
regular army, who educated him at
Seabury Theological School at Fari-
bault, Mimi, and sent him down here
to do missionary work among his own
benighted people. He fell in love with
the woman who is now his devoted
wife the first time he saw her, and
she fell in love with him at the same
time.
They first met at the home of an
Indian trader here, and soon there.
after presented themselves at the
home of the Rev. Mr.. Roberts, who
for quarter of century has con.
Quoted an Episcopal mission on the
Shoshone reservation, and requested
him to make them husband and wife.
Her parents were known to have Sc.
rious objections to the marriage, and
the missionary refused to perform the
marriage ceremony, but he afterward
changed his mind and united them.
Ever since they have lived happily
together among the Indians on the
reservation, the husband conducting
his Episcopal mission and working
his little farm, and his wife assisting
him diligently and faithfully in all
his labors. While he has the com.
plexion and the features of an Indian,
he dresses, talks and lives as the
white folk do. Mrs. Coolidge has lit.
tie pride or taste in dress. Her ap.
parel is a composite of that of
white woman and an Indian squaw,
and to see her on the reservation the
stranger would never suspect that she
had been reared and educated in New
York, and was the daughter of a
prominent hotel manager there.