Evening star., 1914-04-18
Pathos and Tragedy in Story
of Spo-pe. Brave of the
BIackfoot Tribe.
WOMAN'S GENTLE VOICE
BROKE DOWN BARRIERS
Killing to Avenge Mothers Muir
der, Had Been Three Decades
Among Criminal Insane.

Rivaiins the story of "A Man without
a Country; containing all the elements
| from which a Hugo might have woven
masterpiece; a tragedy such as may
come to light once In century by suAh
! Is the story which-sheerest accident
became known to the physicians at St
Elizabeth Hospital, and 10 a few Wash
| ingtonians, last Sunday becoming public
! today.
As result of the information gained
! through the feminine intuition and inter
| probation of a shy little half blood Indian
woman, Spo-pe, once a warrior Of the
| Blackfoot tribe, but for years a prisoner
among the criminal insane at the hos
pital, has come back from the tomb of
! self-imposed silence in which he has
dwelt for more than three decades, and
Commissioner Cato Sells of the bureau
of Indian affairs has taken active steps
to procure a pardon and freedom for
the brave who, for an ast of pious atone
ment, as he believed, has been lost to
his people since a time when men and
women of his tribe who are now the
fathers and mothers of families were
papoosos, playing about the wigwams
of the lost hunting grounds in northern
Montana.
PRISONER Ih1rty-TWO ears.
For thirty-two years Spo-pe has been
a prisoner among the criminal insane at
St Elizabeth. During that whole long
span of years no word had passed his
lips until last Sunday, when the grooming,
coaxing syllables of this little woman,
herself half a Blackfoot, reused the
dormant memories and unlocked the
gates of silence. Words such as the
squaws of her people use when they tell
the stories of the old days before the
coming of the paleface; the baby talk of
the wigwams, the folklore OF a vanish
ing race; the language of copper-colored
mothers to their dusky babies at twi-
light; these We're the utterances that re-
vived in Spo-pe, the man who was dead
and who is alive, the memories of the
long ago and brought back to him from
Its sepulchre the mind, the speech, that
the silent years had almost effaced.
1t was through the members of a dele
CATION of Sioux Indians who recently
visited the hospital that this little woman,
her husband and others of Blackfoot
delegation now in Washington. learned
that a member Of their tribe, nameless
and with his identity sunk beneath the
mantle of silence with which he had en-
veloped himself, was an inmate of the
Institution. These Sioux, visiting a MEM
Der of their own tribe at st. Elizabeth,
saw old Spo-pe and asked: Who is that
Indian?"
When they questioned Spo-pe himself
the old warrior opened his lips in the
first semi-intelligible speech to which
he had given utterance, SO far as his
guards know. since he was brought to
the hospital. But long dtsuse had rob-
bed his tongue Of its power to shape
words, and the questioners could only
make out the syllables .Ba-fo"
Understood by Indians.
To the guards and attendants the
sounds meant nothing, save that the
silent Indian had at last tried to speak
But to the Indians the sy1lables meant
"Blackfoot,' and they carried word to
the members of a party of Blackfoot
Indians now in Washington endeavoring
to obtain payment for lands the govern
rnent took from the tribe years ago
In the party are James Perrine Charles
W. Buck, Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Clark
and others. and to Mrs. Clark, half
Rlackfoot of blood. is due the calling
back of Spo-pe from the silence of more
than quarter of Il century.
" hen the members of the party learned
tldt one OF their tribe was an inmate of
the hospital they Immediately decided to
learn, If possible. who he was None of
them had the slightest inkling as to the
identity of the brave; the name of Spo-pe
is not even a memory to any save few
A. r. Server and A. c. J. Farrell, local
attorneys acting for the Blackfoot In
dians in their claim against the govern
ment, accompanied the delegation which
visited the hospital last Sunday to inves-
uSate the story that had been brought to
them by the Sioux.
At the institution first one, then an
other. of the visitors spoke to the old In
dian. In the swinging rolling, sonorous
nf ha frIh hox- Ii,
but his eyes merely showed attention, and
his only replies were broken syllabies and
parts of words. So long had he main
tanned his stole muteness that even the
memory of his own language had van
ished- Then the visitors tried the sign
language. the common medium Of COM
munication between Indians of all tribes;
but this. too, failed to rouse the dormant
faculties of expression and the Indian
merely shook his head
Then the shy little woman, pushing
the men aside, came forward. Dropping
the speech of the men, she began to
speak in the little peoples talk of the
Blaekfoot-the simple little words that
only the mothers know and speak to
the children beside the wigwam fire
Calling Back His Memory.
In the talk of the little people Mrs
Clark told the old man her Indian name
She told him of the villages; she spoke
of the rivers, and of the mountains She
spoke of the buffalo, long vanished from
the plains the Blackfoot used to roam,
and of the deer and the bears in the
hills. Then she asked his own name,
and unhesitatingly he spoke it:
"Spo-pe."
AS the name fell from his lips the
stoical men of the party started and
looked at each other with a murnur of
surprise Their fathers had known Spo-
pc, but to the people of the tribe he had
been reckoned dead years ago.
The little woman. her face close to
that of the aged warrior, continued ask
ing, asking asking; question after ques-
ton came from her lips in the grooming
accents of a mother talking to her babe,
and over and over she repeated his name
"Spo-pe." she crooned; you are Spo-pe,
the warrior, the mighty hunter. You