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Walla Walla Washington
In Walla Walla, some don't seem to care whether or not their Indian history is true or made up, while to many others it means alot that it should be as authentic as possible.
For Example :::
1. The "Twin Sisters and the Coyote" marker
In fact, it is the story of "Two Sisters and the Wolf" taken from the "Legend of the Cayuse Girls and the Wolf" by Paul Kane of 3 sisters.
This is the story of two of those sisters and the 2 rocks. It has nothing to do with twins or a trickster coyote, it has to do with Indian religion.
The settlers also wrote that the Columbia Basin Indians worshiped a mystical wolf.
Read my webpage "Two Sisters" for the complete story.
2. Statue of Peopeomoxmox
The statue of Peopeomoxmox does not look like nor resemble Peupeumoxmox and should not represent him nor carry his name.
The sculptor Roger McGee had an artistic, creative spirit vision and doing his own thing, made it up. It has nothing to do with Peupeumoxmox and more to do with another family. Jim Irwin should not have okayed it and Roger should have done as he promised.
3. Nez Perce Chief Lawyer marker
It was said that Nez Perce Chief Lawyer moved his tent to protect Isaac Stevens from the Cayuse plot to get Stevens at the 1855 Walla Walla Treaty Council.
When in fact, Peupeumoxmox called Lawyer a liar, that no Chief would have okayed such a plot. Lawrence Kip, Joel Palmer, and Stevens didn't think there was a plot. It was thought at the time, that Lawyer moved his tent beside Stevens to protect himself from the wrath of the Indians, for his selling Nez Perce land, being friends with Stevens and taking the Head Chieftain from LookingGlass.
The Umatilla Reservation Indians protested this marker at the time it was put up.
4. Fort Walla Walla - - - was not up Mill Creek in Sept. 1856. That was Isaac Stevens blockhouse and had nothing to do with Col. Edward Steptoe establishing a post in the Wallawalla Valley to protect Indians from white settlers, as no settlers were to be in the valley.
Old Fort Walla Walla still belonging to Hudson Bay Co. was on the Columbia River.
5. Lewis and Clark - - - Lewis and Clark met Yellept April 27th and continued their march together with Yellept to his village.
April 28, 1806 - - -This morning early, Yellept brought a very elegant white horse to our camp and presented him to Clark, signifying his wish to get a kettle (to trade horse for kettle).
Was there a soldier in an uniform?
6. Contrary to modern belief, life did not center around the Nez Perce in the olden days as they were only one of many tribes.
There was no ancient Nez Perce trail as there were no ancient Nez Perce Indians, as they were the Shahaptins.
When the town of Walla Walla began, the gold miners took the old Indian trail to the Nez Perce Reservation gold mines, it then became the Nez Perce trail originating from Walla Walla. The Mission road from Wallula to Walla Walla was called the Wallula Road. The old Cayuse Indian trail went along the southside of Pa'sha(Mill Creek),along Garrison Creek and crossed at the shallows.
Along the Tu'shay (Touchet)River was not the Nez Perce trail. This Indian trail went not just to the Nez Perce, it went to the Snake River, the Palouse, the Spokanee, the Shahaptins, and buffaloland.
Indians came and went along the trail going to The Dalles, and along the Columbia River.
Indian trails didn't seem to have names, just went to many different places.
7. "Frenchtown" - - - began 1850 after the Cayuse War, along with Donation Claims, when Frenchmen squatted on the Cayuse farms along the Wallawalla River, which greatly angered the Cayuse as the Wallawalla Valley still belonged to them and they wanted no settlers on their farms. However, the Indian were to find, they could not claim their own land.
In 1855, Peupeumoxmox wanted all settlers out of the valley, as the valley had not been sold and he closed all roads in and out of Cayuse land..
Since no one knew there was to be a Battle of Wallawalla, there was no pre-arrangement for stopping at LaRoque(LaRock) cabin. The Indians stopped at the cabin because it was shelter from soldiers guns. The soldiers pushed them out of LaRoque cabin to farther afield where the Indians took shelter in the Tellier(tell-yay) cabin from which they could not be driven out.
8.--- It was not the Cayuse,--- it was not the Umatilla,--- it was not the Wallula(there were no Wallula)--- it was the Wallawallapams. The Wallawalla who Lewis and Clark wrote was the most hospitable, the most honest, the most sincere Indians they had met.
Lewis and Clark - - - The Wallawalla had a pleasing hospitable nature which was very rare in most Indians.
An early writer Ross Cox also wrote that about the Wallawalla.
Sooo, when any historical fact is being presented to the public it should be as authentic as possible. You owe it to history and to the people themselves involved.
Anyway, that is my opinion.
Jean Eggers Fuller