The Price of Disappointment
Retribution against Indigenous medicine men persists in Yakima and Klickitat counties over failed spiritual interventions.
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.
It is now pretty well understood that old Chief Hiheny, whose body was found on Rock creek, Klickitat county, was murdered by the same four Indians who were arrested two years ago for the murder of Chief Yellowash. Old Hiheny was a medicine man, and was threatened last winter with death if he did not make the snow go off; but his cantations were without avail and the Indians suffered great loss of stock. This evidently rankled in their breasts, and when the opportunity came they disposed of him in conformity with their sense of duty. At least a dozen medicine men have been murdered in Yakima and Klickitat counties during the past five years. It is almost impossible to make a conviction, as Indian testimony is an uncertain quantity, the mouth of a witness being easily sealed by the gift of a cayuse or two and the grief and demands for justice of the stricken relatives can be appeased in a similar way.
“They believe a medicine man has the power to heal the sick, to drive away the snow... If they fail in these respects, they are in league with the bad one and have no right to live.”
This report reflects the era's severe colonial bias and misunderstanding of Indigenous social and spiritual structures. The framing of these internal justice systems as mere 'murders' highlights the friction between Western legal standards and traditional governance during this period of forced assimilation.
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