A Medicine Man's Death, and a Debt Demanded in Blood
A Nisqually medicine man was killed after failing to cure children. Now his cousin says forty tribesmen will march on the Muckleshoot reservation for customary indemnity — or the killer and his kin may be killed.
Tacoma, April 1.—George Leschi, cousin of Jim Bouchett, the Nisqually Indian medicine man who was murdered three weeks ago, has been haranguing the Nisqually tribe and says that forty of them will march this week to the Muckleshoot reservation and demand a big indemnity of the relatives and tribesmen of Jerry Dominie, who killed Bouchett because he failed to cure Dominie's children. If the indemnity is not paid, Dominie and his relatives will be liable, according to Indian custom, to be killed at any time.
“If the indemnity is not paid, Dominie and his relatives will be liable, according to Indian custom, to be killed at any time.”
The item filters a Native dispute through the racist vocabulary of 1895, but it also records a real collision between customary law and the settler state. The Nisqually and Muckleshoot tribes are still here, and questions of jurisdiction, accountability and justice for Native people remain unresolved.
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