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My Opinions :::
TODAY
There is talk of a National mourning Holiday for American Indians being created for Thanksgiving Friday.
Instead of an already busy Holiday time and for other reasons, may I suggest a separate day just for Indians by themselves alone. May I suggest the Friday before the Vernal Equinox, the beginning of the Ancient Indians New Year.
Each year was a new fresh beginning and time for coming together to worship and pray for a bountiful good new year and Mother Earth's many blessings.
An Indian Day for the Indian Peoples of the Americas. The vernal equinox had meaning for all Indians.
The media might tell some Indian stories, Larry King could have Indians and a special learning day for school children and adults. Everything the Indians would like.
May I suggest the Friday before Vernal Equinox March 14, 2008. Anyway, it's a thought, an idea and perhaps a new beginning for all to celebrate. You don't have to have a National Holiday to have a National Holiday, just start one.
NOW
It was American Buffalo, not French Bison.
It was Cayuse ponies, not Spanish mustangs.
Buffalo and cayuses were sacred to the Indians. Now, "they" are getting rid of the Indian, like before. "They" with an agenda is changing America, and without a nay.
What has happened to American pride?
May 21, 2007
Peupeumoxmox was called Pe-u (pew), that was his name and spelled with u or yu by the early writers.
At 1855 council Isaac Stevens wrote Pu and artist Gustav Sohon wrote Pew like it sounded. Stevens 1856 council wrote Peeupeeumoxmox son.
Walla Walla town's name was Peupeumoxmox like the Highway #12 Marker reads.
Little yellowbirds were called peupeu, an accent mark above the first peu.
So where did the Peo with O come from and why was it held so tight?
Is it pronounced pe-oh or pronounced U by the general public if it was spelled with O. Would the public think it was O but pronounced U or does the public or I even know how to pronounce Peo?
Is Peo French Catholic or a foreign language using O for U?
If it was Catholic, Peupeumoxmox would not appreciate the name as the Chief didn't like the priests much, and didn't want his people becoming Catholic as it caused troubles amongst the Indians, Protestants and Whitman. Chief didn't want more troubles amongst the Indians as he had enough troubles between Indians and Whites, much less Protestants.
He wanted his people to learn English, not French and be Protestant, not Catholic.
If Stevens wrote the name pu or peeu where did the Pio, a foreign language, come from on the treaty? Was this the O?
It seems very little consideration has been given the Chief's likes or dislikes. He probably would have preferred his name as he was called when alive, and prefer Peu.
After all, shouldn't that be the way in a man's life, that he knows his own name and he looks like himself?
Peupeumoxmox has the same civil rights as we. He has the right to be who and what he was and he has the right to his own Indian religion beliefs of the Two Sisters rocks and the Wolf god of good and evil, and he also has the right to be buried in his own homeland, the Wallawalla Valley that he fought for and there he would stay forever.
I hope this will always remain true and Walla Walla town would fight for him, for there he belongs, and he was an Indian Chief and Warrior that we can be proud of.
November 6, 2006
So much for those theories that seem to stay around.
The Red People with their Red People language that sounds differently then Russian, Chinese or Japanese have been here longer then 10,000 years, as carbon dating shows. Even though other archaeologists have carbon dated Indian items 13,000, 16,000, and up to 42,000 years ago in South America. However, as I understand, there is one man that will not let the carbon dating go over 10,000 years so history can be kept in the ice age. Imagine, one man is ruling the roost of true history.
Without a map or information of any land, why would Indians walk over thousands of frozen miles to get to where?
The few Spanish horses here in America could not have increased sufficiently to promote reports of ponies already in Texas, Dakotas, Washington, California in the 1600's. Therefore there must have been Indian ponies here also.
1673 --- A Cheyenne Indian told that it took 7 days on a good pony to the land of the setting sun, where he got black rock from smoking mountain and saw great masses of ponies. Snake Indians Cayuse prisoners told Cheyenne of great masses of ponies in their Cayuse homeland.
They say that 60 million buffalo were killed to starve Indians. Now they are killing off the rest of the buffalo with the French word bison, meaning wild oxen. Our buffalo are neither oxen nor European.
It seems silly to say buffalo in one sentence and bison in the next.
Now they have dropped buffalo and use only bison in their documentaries.
"They" just make statements and that's the way it is suppose to be. Like also the cayuses are suppose to be mustangs.
Buffalo are sacred to our American Indians and should be respected as such as the "American Indian Buffalo" and not the French bison.
There's a story about the Maya beheading Maya ball players, but who would want to play the game if they did.
This according to a priest watching the games.
"Maya Ball - - - They play it with dexterity and skill, that during one hour succeeded in not stopping the flight of the ball from one end to the other without missing a single hit with their hips, not being allowed to reach it with hands, feet, calf nor arms. They were so clever not allowing the ball to stop that it was marvelous.
Such players were held in high esteem that rulers gave them gifts, lodged them in palaces, and were honored with special insignia. They play other village teams and have a rivalry.
Ring Ball - - - They used knees, head, shoulders, trunk in ball handling, involved bouncing a small black rubber ball on either a plumb or steep angled apron in such a manner to get it passed thru a vertical ring.
They played ball clad in a breechcloth covered by a stiff leather girdle which supported a deerskin shirt worn to protect hips and thighs, along with a pair of gloves".
September 11, 2006
In watching a program on C-span in June 2006 about the Capitol building, I saw the paintings of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and others by artists who had actually seen them while painting them.
I had recently read in the UB Opinions, that paintings are only the interpretations of the subject by the artist. Therefore are these Capitol paintings only interpretations of the person or the way they really looked or were they done in a more creative artistic spirit vision.
After many years of indepth and continual research of Peupeumoxmox, one of the first things I asked Carl Sampson was he related to Peupeumoxmox and he told me, no he wasn't, and his title of Chief was by honor, not by descendant. He thought he might be related to Homily, the next Walla Walla Chief.
Then I read in the newspaper that Carl was the great, great grandson of Peupeu and that there was a family resemblance to the statue. What does that have to do with The Chief? I do not think Peupeumoxmox looked like his son or that his son looks like Peupeumoxmox.
There is a difference between the Peupeumoxmox face by the artists Gustav Sohon 1855 and Paul Kane 1847. Perhaps the difference of 8 years of an older man. Basically the facial points are similar, other then the mouth, though filled out might, and the nose may have been more like Sohon's then Kane's. At the 1855 Walla Walla Indian Council Sohon had an audience while doing his portraits and would give a copy. Would the recipient not have seen how Peupeumoxmox looked? Kane took sketches and painted them later.
Oliver Jennings, 1851 daguerreo photographer, having made arrangements at Fort Vancouver to take pictures of the Cayuse Indians, had his picture taking apparatus, that had been locked up, stolen and later found broken into pieces. Camera was never found. Jennings wrote, "The ranks of the Mounted Riflemen Regiments were made up of the meanest and most unprincipled bunch of fellows that ever disgraced the army. They would steal anything that wasn't nailed down, even if they had no use of it".
Had the apparatus not been destroyed, we may have had not only photos of Peupeumoxmox, but many other Indians of that time.
Sadly, another painting of the Chief was lost in a fire.
So, unless or until something else of that period turns up, Sohon and Kane is where it is.
It has to do with the fact that Sohon and Kane would have known how the Chief looked in real life and that's all we have to go by.
Sohon/Kane Adaptation
December 20, 2002
Was Tilaukaikt a bad man or do desperate people do desperate things at desperate times and these certainly were desperate times.
In November 1847 Tilaukaikt could see his sick and dying people were dwindling away. They were watching their people die before their very eyes and were becoming extremely alarmed and concerned that their Red Race was getting smaller while their enemy was growing larger.
Once they had been a very large strong population of many thousands, with many warriors, hunters and fishers. Now they had dwindled into mere hundreds and it was the Indians who had paid the price for their own land.
The deadly measles had hit the area with a vengeance. Not only were the Cayuse and Wallawalla dying, with one to five Indians a day, or even whole families, but also the Yakama, Spokanee, Nez Perce and other Columbia River Indians were also dying.
A pioneer lady at old Fort Walla Walla wrote how grief-stricken an Indian father was at the death of his little papoose.
The Indians were agonized and stricken with anger and grief at all the deaths. They and Tilaukaikt felt helpless, something had to be done to save their people from more dying. The situation was serious and must be dealt with or no Indian would be left alive.
The Cayuse felt that since Whitman had brought the settlers, he must be held responsible.
The morning of the massacre did not just happen that morning, it had been happening for a long time in many different ways.
I can not imagine how horrible it was to watch your parents, your children, your babies die from a disease brought into your land by those taking it and there was no medicine to help and nothing could be done, but just to watch your people die.
Today we talk about what other countries do to their people, but maybe we should also remember, what has happened to our own and would we have felt any different in their place?
November 14, 2002
Cayuse Chief Tauwatway, brother to 5 Crows and Old Joseph of the Wallowas, was the only Catholic family in the midst of Protestant Indians.
Because Tauwatway was catholic he stepped down and the Cayuse people gave head chieftain to protestant 5 crows.
In September 1847, Tauwatway told Chief Tilaukaikt/Telowkite to give land to Catholic priest near Whitman Mission, as the priest told him that his misguided Cayuse people were all going to hell if they were not catholic.
Tilaukaikt didn't want a Catholic priest in the Walla Walla Valley as two opposite religions would tear Indian families apart.
He went to Peupeumoxmox for help. Peupeumoxmox a strong protestant, didn't want his Walla Walla Tribe to become catholic either, as it would destroy peace and harmony, causing troubles in and between families, which he didn't want to create.
The Priest told the Chief he was also going to hell if he didn't become Catholic. To which Peupeu replied, "Protestant bad, I bad, then it best we bad all go together".
Marcus Whitman asked the Chief to influence his people to keep Catholics out.
The Priest told Indians they were not going to work for Indians like Whitman, but Indians were to take care of Priest. The Indians didn't want to care for a priest. Why should they change, when they had Whitman working and taking care of them.
Reluctantly, Peupeumoxmox was finally persuaded and gave some of his land at Chimna, mouth of the Yakama River, where his ponies (cayuses and others) and cattle ranged.
He gave Priests a large piece of his own land for a mission, which the Priests named "St. Rose of Chimna". However, there was no timber there to build a mission, no year round Indians to teach, and land not conducive to farm production.
The Priest closed the mission and the Chief took back his unproductive land. Some Indians told Priests they could have Whitman Mission as come spring Whitman would be leaving.
In late October 1847, a frenchman told people at mission to leave as the sick and dying, dwindling Cayuse, had become extremely angry and concerned.
Then came the Whitman massacre and missionaries and priests were told to leave the area.
The Indians were not given the freedom of choice of religion, and reservation had a French Catholic mission. For many years after, the Protestant Indians continued asking the U S Government to send them English speaking
Protestant missionaries. They did not want their people to learn French and become Catholics.