A Frontier Vendetta Spills onto the Beach
An Indigenous man is shot in a dispute over a death attributed to 'bad Tamanas' or spiritual curses.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Some time since the death of Charley, the young Chief of the 'Old Man House' Indians, was announced. At the same time it was reported that the Indians had attributed his death to the bad Tamanas of an old Indian medicine man named Howard, and predicted that serious trouble would ensue. However, nothing more came of it until Friday last, when Howard was shot at on the beach between this city and Tacoma while engaged in fishing with some other Indians. Upon looking around, the Indians noted Charley George, father of the defunct Chief, hid in the brush just up the bank, preparing to draw another bead on Howard. Howard immediately repaired to this city and swore out a warrant for Charley George's arrest. From testimony in a preliminary examination, it appears that Howard visited the reservation last April, and desired to stay there, shook hands with Chief Charley; that just subsequent to his departure, Charley sickened and died and the Indians claimed that the bad 'Tamanas' of Howard killed him. The ball which the Chief's father shot at Howard, passed through his hat, barely grazing his skull. Howard is an intelligent, civilized old Indian, who some eight years ago severed his tribal relations, denounced the charm of the Tamanas and settled down as a farmer on a homestead claim at Port Orchard, and has not practiced as a medicine man since.
“The Indians had attributed his death to the bad Tamanas of an old Indian medicine man... and predicted that serious trouble would ensue.”
This story highlights the intense cultural friction of the 1880s, where the colonial legal system began to supersede traditional Indigenous social structures. The 'Old Man House'—the site of Chief Seattle's longhouse—was being dismantled as the U.S. government pushed assimilation, leading to exactly the kind of fractured community tensions described here.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.