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Show historical i ighlights If Ctma Scott IVaUo j (Released by Western Newspaper Union. Yellow Wolf, Indian Patriot CIX years ago there died on the I Colville Indian reservation in Washington a patriot of a lost cause. You may never have heard of him, j for his name was Hemene Moxmox which, translated into the white man's language, means "Yellow Wolf." An Indian "a patriot of a lost cause"? Yes! For Yellow Wolf was as truly a patriot as was any ragged Continental who plodded through the snows of Valley Forge, and the "lost cause" in which he served was that of his people, the Nez Perces, who, some 60 years ago, were fighting against injustice in the face of overwhelming over-whelming odds. The story of that struggle is not an unfamiliar one, and there is no brighter page in military annals than that which tells of the masterly skill with which Chief Joseph led his people on their retreat from the banks of the Clearwater river in Idaho to the Bear Paw mountains in Montana between June and Octo. bcr of 1877. Yellow Wolf shares in the glory of that achievement, for he was a cousin of Chief Joseph and one of his chief lieutenants in that epic march. But interesting though Yellow Wolf may be, as the "last great Nez Perce warrior," he is a more important figure in history than that characterization Indicates. He not only helped make history but he helped write about it later. Thirty- ImiiT, , awn.. MVmtA.iML:aJL'A Taking down Yellow Wolf's Story (Left to right) Thomas Hart, Interpreter; In-terpreter; Yellow Wolf; L. Mc-Whorter. Mc-Whorter. three years ago he began telling the story of his life to a frontier historian, his-torian, L. McWhorter, of Yakima, Yaki-ma, Wash. The tale was complete before his life ended and recently it was published in book form by the Caxton Printers of Caldwell, Idaho. There have been many accounts of the Nez Perce war but virtually all of them have been written from the viewpoint of the white man. "Yellow Wolf: His Own Story" gives, for the first time, a complete account of that tragedy as seen by one of its victims. It tells how the Nez Perces were defrauded of their ancestral homes by land-hungry white settlers and how Gen. 0. O. Howard, acting upon orders from Washington, "showed the rifle" and precipitated the crisis which Chief Joseph had tried to avert. Then the Nez Perce chief, burdened bur-dened with the women and children of his tribe, began his flight over some of the roughest country on the North American continent Repeatedly Repeat-edly attacked, he either beat off his assailants or outmaneuvered them in a way which won the admiration of the army officers sent against him. Then with his haven of refuge across the Canadian border almost in sight, he paused to let his weary people rest. Attacked in the Bear Paw mountains by Col. Nelson A. Miles, who was later joined by Howard's pursuing column, the fugitives fugi-tives were forced to surrender. In the light of Yellow Wolfs story the history of that campaign must be rewritten. For instance, it shows that Chief Joseph's fighting force was only a fraction of the number of warriors which his opponents said he had, and that fact adds to the glory of his achievement. It shows that, on the whole, the Nez Perces were more humane toward non-combatants than some of their white opponents op-ponents were. For Chief Joseph's treatment of the tourists whom he captured while passing through the Yellowstone park region is in marked contrast to the unnecessary killing of Indian women and children chil-dren in several of the attacks on Chief Joseph's camps. And there are other examples which show that a victor's version of his conquest is not necessarily the true one. Has this warrior, speaking for the vanquished, "talked with a straight tongue"? Any impartial student of Indian history, after reading his book, can not help believing that he has. And that is why the publication pub-lication of "Yellow Wolf: His Own Story" is an "historical highlight" of the past year! a a Some of Chief Joseph's warriors escaped to Canada, among them Yellow Wolf, who lived for nearly a year among Sitting Bull's Sioux before be-fore returning to the United States. Then he was taken to Indian Territory Terri-tory where Chief Joseph and his people, in violation of the terms of their surrender, had been sent. In 1885 they were settled on the Colville reservation in Washington and there Chief Joseph died in 1904. Thirty, one years later, on August 21, 19:15, Yellow Wolf joined his chief in Ahkunkenekoo (Land Above). |