White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1935-07-11

Things look good" said Will Hoag
1t is line land down here, by the wa
ter" He spoke now with greater ami
nation, and permitted himself slight
encircling gesture, one that did not
take the hand more than three inches
from the steering wheel.
1T is good here in the spring. This
is our small country We are free. A
nation within nation, separate.
"The Six Nations of the Iroquois, of
whom my people, the Senecas make
half still hold about three times as
much land as you see here. We hold
this land by treaty with George Wash
ington. 1t was called the Treaty OF
Peace and Friendship. The year Of ii
was 1895. It gave us the right to have
our own government and to take taxes
from the white men who come to live
here
He pointed out different places
along the way: "There people raise
| vegetables and sell them in Salaman-
ca. They do well. This man follows
the old ideas of farming, the Indian
way. He has better early vegetables,
so they say, than anybody else. He
plants man herbs, too, that he cannot
sell to the white people; they are used
| among our people as medicine.
THAT house also Git was fairly mod
ern and we'll kept, with large gar
den), it belongs to an Indian who fol-
lows the old religion. About half of
our people still do.
They know some things, the people
,, who do things the old way, that your
college of agriculture cannot explain.
The men who come here from the COL
lege at Ithaca have told me that in
some ways the old Indian corn beats
the white mans varieties, and that
Indian tobacco is in some ways bes.
1t is for one thing, less likely to take
| disease.
"But think that the old way cam
not last. 1t was good for our fathers
long ago; very good, for them. Then
there was plenty of land. They lived in
villages, fenced in against enemies, and
went out in the day to farm. When
the land gave out, they moved their
villages ad their farms some place else
They did not know anything about
livestock
"That is the great thing that my
people have had to learn, that there
are not now any new farms to go to;
that they must feed from animals the
farms they have now, and keep them
rich
II had to learn that, myself. grew
early potatoes and my crops kept get
ting less. Then I got some COWS, then
more. am through farming now, my
son has the place, but before stopped
had thirty cows and sold my milk
from a wagon in Salamanca. 1t paid
very we'll. The farm is as good now
as it ever was. We will go there"
After while, we rounded turn
and came upon board shanty, de-
Serted with haring advertisement
for chewing tobacco on it's fence.
"That is how my people lived twen-
ty years ago. was born in the kind
of house that came even before, log
cabin. I was born in 1861.
when I was born there were nine
! hundred of us on this reservation
There are little more than that
now. We moved over into the valley
and took up farming. Later, I bought
out my brothers and sisters After a
while, I was able to build one of the
first modern frame houses on the res
ervation. This is the place."
We drove in and saw Arthur, Wills
son, graduate, as is his wife, of Al
fred University. They are leaders of
the tribes temperance society, and
have little to say to white men. "This
is very busy time in farming" muir
INJURED Will. We saw his grandchildren
and took them with us to the White
House, their grandfather's small new
bungalow. There we left them fishing
with bent pins for carp in newly
made presidential fish pond
The farmer we visited next, S. A
4 OASSsSSt
interior to the head of the Republic
He lacked, it seemed to me, only the
proper robes over his stained overalls
to make of him the perfect Chinese
mandarin. He and the president put
their feet on the hub of an old wheel
and conferred. Treaty matters of mo-
ment were before congress. They ar
ranged to run down to Washington in
Wills car.
At Tunassa, the Quaker mission
school where Will Hoag learned Eng
lish, we had lunch. Tunassa is Iro-
quois for Stream of the Shining Peb-
bles. The school has been there since
1916. 1t is boarding school. For more
than a hundred years it has given
fifty or SO Iroquois boys and girls the
equivalent of ten-year grade and
high school education "They do not
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