Lee H. Whittlesey Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters: What is Known About Their Legends and Stories of Yellowstone National Park and the Complexities of Interpreting Them

The thermal wonders of the Park did not frighten the native peoples of the region. Euro-Americans originated this idea and it must be dispelled before we can understand the true nature of Yellowstone’s human past. —Joseph Weixelman, “The Power to Evoke Wonder” (1992)

hat did the Indians say about Yellowstone? They must have told stories about its strange wonders, but what were those stories? His- torians have long wondered. Answers have been slow to appear. WNative Americans probably had many more tales, legends, and myths about the Yellowstone country than the few we currently know of, but thanks to Peter Nabokov and Larry Loendorf, we now know more than ever before about some of those early Yellowstone stories. Prior to the emergence of their manuscript American Indians and Yellowstone National Park: A Documentary Overview, his- torians trusted only one Indian legend relating to Yellowstone; that is, they knew of only one that appeared to be genuinely Indian rather than “white” (the Ralph Dixey story discussed below). Moreover, before the Nabokov book appeared, only small, unsatisfying tidbits of Yellowstone information were known to us in general about the Sheepeaters, Shoshones, Crows, Bannocks, Blackfeet, Flat- heads, Kiowas, Arapahoes, Nez Perce, Assinboines, Northern Cheyennes, Gros Ventres, Sioux, and other tribes who inhabited the upper Yellowstone country and its edges at various times prior to 1870. But now, because of that book, we know more than ever before about how these tribes related to Yellowstone. There seems to have been an effort attempting to completely segregate the by early whites in Yellowstone Nation- place in culture from its former Indian al Park to make the place “safe” for inhabitants, including their legends park visitors, not only by physically and myths. If historians cannot con- removing Indians from the park and clusively prove that whites conspired circulating the rumor that “Indians to do this, many of us who have spent feared the geyser regions,” but also by years studying Yellowstone’s literature

40 The George Wright FORUM Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters certainly cannot escape the overarch- it in a rare book that came to the park ing feeling that something like that via the massive collections of Jack and happened. Superintendent P.W. Nor- Susan Davis of Bozeman, Montana. ris’s 1870s statements that “these The source is a man named John primitive savages” feared the geyser Hamilcar Hollister who visited Yel- regions are well known. Even as early lowstone in 1883 with the well-known as 1895, historian Hiram Chittenden Rufus Hatch party. Hollister pub- could not find much about what Indi- lished an account of that trip in 1912, ans thought about Yellowstone nor and in it he told the now disreputable about what they told whites of it. “It is story of Indians fearing the park’s a singular fact in the history of the Yel- geyser regions. But following that lowstone National Park,” wrote Chit- story,Hollister stated that his attempts tenden, “that no knowledge of that to find Indian legends about Yellow- country seems to have been derived stone had been unsuccessful. He, like from the Indians.... Their deep silence me many years later, wondered why he concerning it is therefore no less could not find such Indian legends of remarkable than mysterious” (Chitten- Yellowstone. He then made the follow- den 1895: 8, 99). ing statement that appears in no other One wonders whether Chittenden known place in Yellowstone literature: (like so many later writers) simply … there are but few [published] could not find information about Yel- Indian legends which refer to this purposely [!] unknown land. Of lowstone Indians, or whether the Indi- these I have found but one [other ans would not talk to him because of than for the Indians-fearing-the- religion (we know that many tribes geysers story], and that is this—- considered Yellowstone sacred) or that no white man should ever be because of other reasons (see the fol- told of this inferno, lest he should enter that [Yellowstone] region and lowing paragraph), or whether he pur- form a league with the devils, and posely fostered this thinking for by their aid come forth and destroy motives of his own. At this late date it all Indians. Hence the trappers, is difficult to point fingers at our who were the first white men to “white” forebears and accuse them of enter these western lands, learned little or nothing [about Yellow- such conspiracies, but that belief must stone] from that source [Indians] figure at least a modicum into the fact (Hollister 1912: 145). that until American Indians and Yel- This is a fascinating assertion that lowstone was written, we knew less we can prove neither absolutely true about Indians in Yellowstone than nor absolutely false. Hollister does not about Indians anywhere else in the tell us whence he obtained this sup- American West. posed legend of Yellowstone, but the It now turns out that there may be a fact that he apparently heard it in fascinating reason after all for Chitten- 1883, very early in the park’s history den’s comment concerning Indians’ when hundreds of pre-1872 Indians “deep silence” about Yellowstone. I were still living, gives me great pause. I searched for this information for near- believe that we must consider this ly thirty years and only recently found story as possibly true until such time

Volume 19 • Number 3 2002 41 Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters that we get good information debunk- secret on purpose. Considering how ing it. In light of all that we know about we white people have spoken “with how fervently some Indian tribes forked tongue” in the past, I certainly believed in the park as a sacred place, would not blame them if they would the idea of not revealing it to whites not tell us. makes total sense. Of course we have One final point with regard to Hol- no idea exactly which tribes Hollister lister. A critic has suggested that Hol- referred to, and, again, we do not lister’s use of the word “devils” here know whence he obtained the legend. might somehow negate his statement If true, the Hollister rendering of this because it might show that the Indi- Native American story represents a an(s) he talked to were “Christian- very large and possibly final piece of a ized.” Here is why I believe Hollister’s long, incomplete puzzle relating to statement is not negated by that. Yellowstone, i.e., the fact that some Christianization and the accompa- tribes may have kept the place a secret nying linguistic translations about it and why they did it. back and forth from Indians to whites The idea that at least some Indians and vice versa were (and are) very (we do not yet know which tribes complicated things. And white men might have had such a policy or how were notoriously poor at understand- many such tribes there were) might ing Indian religion, whether it had have kept the existence of Yellowstone been “Christianized” or not. Note that a secret for religious reasons squares historian Colin Calloway says many well with both known native proclivi- white men tended to dismiss Indian ties for not telling certain things to religion as “devil worship” (Calloway white men and with Chittenden’s 1997: 68). Thus, just because Hollis- 1895 perception of a deep Indian ter used the term “devil” does not silence about Yellowstone. It also mean we should jump to conclusions begins to explain why historians about what he meant or what the Indi- Nabokov and Loendorf, Aubrey an(s) he spoke to meant. For all we Haines, Joseph Weixelman, I, and oth- know, Hollister simply mistranslated ers have all had a fair amount of diffi- what the Indian(s) told him into culty finding good numbers of litera- “white-man vernacular.” ture connections between Indians and Secondly, Indians did not always Yellowstone. Finally, it explains why “buy into” Christianization. In this we have so few known Indian legends case, if they did not buy into it, then about a place that must have generated their comments to Hollister were dozens or hundreds of such legends probably still based upon their intact among ancient natives. Thus, we now native religion. Even if their buy-in to must, in my opinion, begin asking our Christianity was partly complete, they Native American friends whether still might have been using a religion there is anything in their oral tradi- that involved pieces of their original tions to confirm this, and hope that religion and hence their statement on one or more of them will tell us the taboo might still have made it whether they indeed kept the place through Hollister to us as a true state-

42 The George Wright FORUM Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters ment. Other than for this story, there was, Indians’ buy-in to Christianity ran until the production of American Indi- the gamut from “not at all” to “partly” ans and Yellowstone, little reliable to “completely.” That is a point Cal- information or documentation on leg- loway makes over and over again in his ends, myths, or other folklore that may chapter on religion entitled “A World have been communicated by Indians of Dreams and Bibles.” His chapter about the present Yellowstone Nation- discusses the complex interplay al Park. Even after the emergence of between Indian religion and Christian the Nabokov and Loendorf’s book, religion in the new world. Calloway the “Coyote” Yellowstone stories that mentions instance after instance have been bandied about by both wherein Indians simply played along Indian and popular “white” writers with white Friars and Fathers (merely remain controversial in that historians mouthing their words and phrases in disagree as to which are genuine and order to placate them, or remaining which are made up by whites. silent, which the Fathers often incor- And, too, we now know that there rectly took to mean tacit agreement) are a great number of other so-called before returning to their old ways of Indian stories that can be totally dis- religion. In many other cases, Indians missed as tales made up by whites to simply took pieces of the white man’s explain what Indians “should have religion and incorporated them into thought” about Yellowstone. Again, an already-established native religion. the most common example of such That often meant that the native reli- misinformation is that Indians “feared gion was essentially left intact with the geyser regions as inhabited by evil only a few baubles-and-bangles-and- spirits.” Virtually all of the stories crucifixes thrown into the mix. A few included in Mary Earle Hardy’s Little attempts by whites at Christianization Ta-Wish: Indian Legends from Geyser- undoubtedly worked, wherein Indians land (1913) and La Verne Fitzgerald’s were mostly or totally converted, but Blackfeather: Trapper Jim’s Fables of we cannot assume that this was the Sheepeater Indians in Yellowstone general rule, as many white people (1937) are, in the opinion of this his- have assumed. torian, “white baloney,” that is, faked We now move to other known Indi- Indian tales. At the least, if they are an legends about Yellowstone. For real, there is no documentation to many years, Yellowstone historian prove it. emeritus Aubrey Haines believed that With all of that as background, we only one Indian legend relating to Yel- now begin looking at Indian legends in lowstone was genuine. It is a tale of the the Yellowstone country by examining origin of the Snake and Yellowstone the known Indian names for the place. rivers, apparently truly handed down Nabokov and Loendorf, after years of in Shoshone and Bannock families looking at the ethnological, anthropo- and published in Ella Clark’s Indian logical, archeological, and historical Legends of the Northern Rockies literature and interviewing dozens of (Haines 1982; Clark 1966: 174-177). tribal members, have concluded that

Volume 19 • Number 3 2002 43 Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters certain Indian tribes did have names to stop it. He piled up rocks to hold for the upper Yellowstone country. the water back, but the water broke his Most of those names referred to the dam and rushed on. That is where the park’s hot springs and geysers. The Upper Falls is today. The man ran on Crow Indians called Yellowstone ahead of the water and again built a “land of the burning ground” or “land dam of rocks, but it did not hold the of vapors” while the Blackfeet called it water back either. That is where the “many smoke.”The Flatheads called it Lower Falls is today. The water kept “smoke from the ground.” The on rushing and formed the Yellow- Kiowas called it “the place of hot stone River. The man then ran to the water.”Only the Bannocks had a name opposite side of the fish basket and fol- that did not call to mind the park’s lowed its waters downstream, building thermal regions: “buffalo country.” several dams of rocks, but the water Additionally, the Crows specifically would not be stopped. Those broken called the Yellowstone geysers “Bide- dams are the site of American Falls Mahpe,” meaning “sacred or powerful and Shoshone Falls today on the water.” Snake River. The big fish basket that As for the stories themselves that the man tipped over is Yellowstone might have been told about Yellow- Lake while the old woman with the stone by the Indians, the Ralph Dixey fish was Mother Earth. The man him- story is thought to be genuine. It is a self was Ezeppa or Coyote (Clark tale concerning the origin of the Snake 1966: 191-193). and Yellowstone rivers and long Until recently this Dixey story was known to have been handed down in arguably the only known, genuine the Shoshone tribe (both Ralph Dixey (truly known to have been told by and his Bannock wife stated that this Indians) Native American story about story was handed down in both of Yellowstone National Park. But there their families). The story begins with is now new evidence (per Nabokov “long ago there was no river in this and Loendorf) not only as to the fact part of the country. No Snake River that Indians told stories about Yellow- ran through the land.” A man came stone but also as to what some of those from the south who was always stick- stories were. In particular we now ing his nose into everything. He trav- have several “new” (actually old) sto- eled north past the Tetons and went ries known to have been told by the up onto a mountain in what is now Crow tribe. called Yellowstone. There he found an A Crow narrative from a man old lady with a basket of fish. Hungry, named Sharp Horn, who passed it he asked her to boil some fish for him. down to his son who passed it to his She offered to make him food but grandsons, concerns the mythic deeds warned him not to bother her basket. of a character named “Old Woman’s He did not listen, stepped on the edge Grandchild” and how at least two of of the basket, and spilled its water and Yellowstone’s geysers were supposed- fish. The water spread all over. The ly created. This Crow said that in one man ran fast, ahead of the water, trying of the thermal regions of the park, Old

44 The George Wright FORUM Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters Woman’s Grandchild fought many teenth-century white guys who first beasts and turned them into moun- discovered dinosaur fossils? Or did tains and hills after he killed them. A Indians themselves find dinosaur fos- large buffalo bull that he killed was sils and generate stories about them turned into a geyser formation that long before the nineteenth-century continued to blow out hot air. Near it white guys found the “terrible he placed a mountain lion, also a lizards”? Did Indians perhaps have geyser formation blowing hot air, in contact with the nineteenth-century order to keep the buffalo bull from white-guy dinosaur hunters and mere- coming back to life (Nabokov and ly generate the story after talking to Loendorf 1999: 107). them? Or is this story just pure Another mythic tale, told by the “Native American baloney,” a faked Crow and associated with the park, Indian tale? There are no easy concerns Yellowstone Lake and what answers to these questions. happened to the dinosaurs. A thun- From Hunts-to-Die, a Crow Indian derbird grabbed a Crow Indian by his born about 1838, we have it that his hair and took him to “Overlook tribe believed there were spirits in Yel- Mountain,” on the southeast side of lowstone geyser areas who were Yellowstone Lake, and placed him in a benevolent and helpful rather than nest there. The thunderbird told the malevolent and dangerous. This tends Crow that he wanted him to help him to correct what is perhaps the worst fight the giant water beast that lived in piece of supposed Indian information Yellowstone Lake and which ate the about Yellowstone—-the long-surviv- thunderbird’s young. The Crow built ing but incorrect notion that Indians a large fire and heated many rocks and feared the geyser regions. Even though boiled much water. When the beast this piece of white baloney has been came out of the lake and climbed up thoroughly discredited by Weixelman, the mountainside, the Indian pitched Haines, and Nabokov and Loendorf, hot rocks and hot water into its we can look for it to continue to mouth. Steam came out of the mon- appear in the shallow, unresearched, ster’s mouth and it tumbled down the and thoughtless writings of popular mountainside and into the lake. Sup- journalists for years to come. It posedly this was the last “dinosaur,” belongs in the same class of malarkey and steam vents around Yellowstone as the notion that “Yellowstone Park Lake may be remnants of this event, a was once called Colter’s Hell” myth from Crow history (Nabokov (Nabokov and Loendorf 1999: 83; and Loendorf 1999: 107-109). Mattes 1949). Of course, as Paul Schullery point- The incorrect notion that Indians ed out to me when we discussed this feared the geyser regions seems to subject, the very idea of dinosaurs and have originated in Euroamerican liter- Indian tales generates numerous ature from a note that William Clark immediate questions. Is this tale per- added to his notes after 1809 when he haps younger than other such Indian returned to St. Louis. It is not known tales? Is it only as aged as the old nine- whence Clark obtained this informa-

Volume 19 • Number 3 2002 45 Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters tion, but here is the relevant quote “was one of the greatest Kiowas who (complete with misspellings and ever lived.” The Kiowa informant incorrect syntax and punctuation): called him “Kahn Hayn” for the pur- At the head of this [Yellow- poses of the story. He said that when stone] river the nativs give an Doh Ki, the Kiowa equivalent of the account that there is frequently herd a loud noise, like Thunder, Great Spirit, put people on earth he which makes the earth Tremble, had no homeland for Kiowas, so he they State that they seldom go promised them a homeland if they there because their children Can- could make the difficult sojourn not sleep—-and Conceive it pos- through a barren and desolate vol- sessed of spirits, who were averse that men Should be near them canic land where clouds of steam shot (Haines, 1974: 4). from holes and fissures in the ground. Unexpectedly, the Kiowa tribe is Doh Ki called all of the Kiowas around now known to have oral traditions one particularly disturbing steaming associated with the upper Yellowstone pool, a deep caldron of boiling water country. The Kiowas, who eventually that surged and smashed against settled in western Oklahoma, were jagged rock walls and made fearsome earlier located in the present Crow sounds as if a great beast were just country near the headwaters of the below the surface. Most of the Kiowas Yellowstone River. Lewis and Clark ran away, but a few remained, includ- found them below there in 1805 “in ing Kahn Hayn. Doh Ki then pointed seventy tents,” somewhat near the Yel- to the fearsome pool and said that the lowstone Valley. One of their descen- land there would belong to the tribe of dants, N. Scott Momaday, has written any man who would dive down into it. that around the time of the Revolu- While some of the Kiowas did not tionary War the Kiowas migrated from want this hot land, Kahn Hayn knew a place near the “headwaters of the that Doh Ki was a benevolent spirit Yellowstone River.” In this earlier his- whose rewards were always good and tory they were friends and trading lasting, so he decided to take Doh Ki’s partners with the Crows, but neverthe- test. He dove into the boiling pool and less it was an unexpected surprise for was immediately panic-stricken. He Nabokov and Loendorf to find that the burned and ached and thrashed and Kiowas had traditions associated with lost consciousness. Suddenly he felt present Yellowstone National Park himself being lifted from the water by (Nabokov and Loendorf 1999: 93- the hands of many Kiowas who were 96). yelling excited, victory cries. As he Nabokov and Loendorf found what looked about he saw that Doh Ki had so far may be the most important piece vanished and that the landscape was of Indian “interpretation” associated no longer barren and desolate. Instead with present Yellowstone National it was covered with rich forests, lush Park. It is the legend told by the meadows, cascading streams, and Kiowas about their origins in the pres- large animals. This spot in the present ent park. It concerns a man whose Yellowstone National Park was now name no Kiowa remembers but who the most beautiful and abundant of all

46 The George Wright FORUM Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters— places on the earth, and it became the anyone who has spent a small amount homeland of the Kiowas. of time reading Indian legends and The Kiowas today have a name for myths can easily make up new ones in the place where these mythic events the same vein as the genuine ones that supposedly occurred. It is at the Drag- they have just read. I could certainly on’s Mouth Spring near Mud Volcano do it easily, and, in my opinion, this in the park, and the Kiowas call it would be the very type of thing an “Tung Sa’u Dah” which means “the English teacher or journalist might be place of hot water” (Nabokov and tempted to do in “doctoring” Indian Loendorf 1999: 97-100). stories that did not otherwise quite Historians have long argued about “work” for them. Because Clark talked whether Ella Clark’s tales of Yellow- to a lot of Indians and produced three stone in her book Indian Legends of books on Indian legends in the North- the Northern Rockies (1966) are gen- west, I have no doubt that some if not uine tales passed down by Native many of her stories are indeed gen- Americans or whether Clark made uine. But she did such a poor job of them up herself, either partially or telling us where they came from that I fully, by being careless in how she remain suspicious of some of them. translated the stories, by failing to tell As it turns out, however, probably us enough about who her Indian the best known of Clark’s Yellowstone sources were, or both. Haines and I legends may well be a genuine Flat- take the side that we should not always head tale. It is the one that she calls trust Clark, an English teacher with lit- “Coyote’s prophesy concerning Yel- tle or no training in history or anthro- lowstone Park,” and according to her, pology.We believe that she was prima- it goes like this: rily interested in the stories themselves In generations to come this and not in whether they were truly place around here will be a treas- Indian rather than made up by whites, ure of the people. They will be in whether they had been genuinely proud of it and of all the curious things in it—-flint rocks, hot passed down orally through Indian springs, and cold springs. People history, or in how carefully she trans- will be proud of this spot. Springs lated them. will bubble out, and steam will On the other hand, Nabokov and shoot out. Hot springs and cold Loendorf take a more charitable view springs will be side by side. Hot water will fly into the air, in this of Clark’s book. As anthropologists, place and that place. No one they see in her stories a thread of con- knows how long this will continue. sistency to other parts of Native Amer- And voices will be heard here, in ican folklore (especially, they say, that different languages, in the genera- of the Blackfeet and Flathead) and tions to come (Clark 1966: 103). they tout that connection as evidence As one might expect, less-discern- that Clark’s stories may be genuine ing writers, especially journalists, have Indian tales (Nabokov and Loendorf glommed onto this story like flies to a 1999: 129-132). carcass. They have not been able to But of course one can argue that resist it, in the apparent belief that

Volume 19 • Number 3 2002 47 Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters surely the story contains some kind of self, “How Coyote Became a Sachem,” ancient Indian wisdom about Yellow- as the source. Worse, the story does stone that accords with the later not appear in a pamphlet by Pichette “good” judgments of whites about the found and cited by Nabokov and place, and which must thus somehow Loendorf. Thus, while I am suspi- give dramatic credence to those judg- cious of this Yellowstone legend, if it ments. I remain suspicious of the truly came from Pichette or Wheal- story, because it sounds fake and don, it must be a genuine Flathead because Clark did such a poor job of story rather than a piece of white documenting it. It is exactly the type of baloney. contrived-sounding piece that white Another of Clark’s stories, “Defi- writers would make up as a faked Indi- ance at Yellowstone Falls” (1966: 361- an legend. It is written too slickly and 362), is a fascinating mystery. It is the has too much perfectly balanced supposed Crow legend of thirteen drama in it to ring true as a real Indian Crow braves and five Crow women legend (which generally are neither taking a raft over Lower Falls to their slick nor perfectly balanced). The pre- deaths in a suicide story that Clark diction about the pride of future gen- says originated because the Crows erations sounds European. The busi- wanted to escape the U.S. Army. She ness about future voices in different attributes it to Charles M. Skinner’s languages seems beyond the reach of Myths and Legends of Our Lands the normal Indian legend. (1896), and indeed a look at that book But, again, the story may well be reveals that Clark merely rewrote genuine. Clark claims (1966: 79) that Skinner’s “A Yellowstone Tragedy” most of her Flathead stories came from (Skinner 1903: 204-206). Pierre Pichette or Bon Whealdon. We do not know whence Skinner Pichette was a completely trustworthy got the story,but he may have gotten it source, because he was a blind Indian from Charles Sunderlee. Sunderlee’s who spent at least fifty years of his life version appeared many years earlier in becoming an authority on the tradi- a purported news story in a Helena, tions and culture of his people. Clark Montana, newspaper (Helena Daily would have us believe either that Herald,May 18, 1870) under the Pichette told this story to her from one headline “A Thrilling Event on the handed down to him by elders in the Yellowstone” (Kearns 1940). There, summer of 1953 (the year before he Sunderlee listed the five members of died), or else that Bon Whealdon told his party and claims that they wit- it to her. Whealdon came to Montana’s nessed the event above Lower Falls on Flathead reservation in 1907, and he April 2, 1870. Suspiciously, none of too spent many years gathering infor- the five men he mentioned appeared mation on the Flathead culture. in the 1870 Montana census. Haines Unfortunately,Clark not only does not dismissed the Sunderlee story as fic- tell us exactly from where she got the tion inspired by Clark’s Crow Indian story or when, but her citation (1966: legend (Haines 1974: 40-41; 1977: 366, 376) lists only an article by her- 339n49).

48 The George Wright FORUM Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters At first I thought that Sunderlee’s never heard it in any other form newspaper story might have inspired a (meaning from Crow elders or other- fake (white) Indian legend that Skin- wise in Crow oral history). He agreed ner and Clark passed on. After all, with Pretty-on-Top’s assessment of there is no hint of U.S. Army soldiers Crows generally not committing sui- chasing Crows in the upper Yellow- cide, and expanded on that, saying stone country in 1870, as Skinner and that those beliefs were based in Crow Clark say, and in fact Sunderlee says religion. McCleary says that the Crow nothing about soldiers being present. belief was and is that if one commits And, too, Sunderlee’s story is 26 years suicide, one’s spirit will remain on older than the first known appearance earth rather than ascending to some of the legend (some of its details seem promised land, so they do not general- at least partially convincing as a news ly commit suicide. McCleary was also story). But later I found that it was not suspicious of the idea of Crow Indians that simple. being on rafts or boats, because “they Two present-day Crow experts tend to avoid boats and water and get- know nothing about this supposed ting onto water” (Pretty-on-Top 2000; legend. When I ran the story past Bur- McCleary 2000) ton Pretty-on-Top, the current chair- But even with all of this evidence person for the Crow Tribal Cultural for the proposition that Clark’s “Defi- Committee at Hardin, Montana, he ance” legend is false, Haines points told me that it sounded like “hog- out that Clark got a number of her wash” to him. “Crow people do not Indian stories from military man Lt. kill themselves,” he said to me. He also James A. Bradley. A look at Bradley’s stated that he knew of no Crow histo- long Crow discussions makes it clear rians nor “tribal elders” that had ever that Bradley did get a lot of stories, leg- passed this story on in oral history as a ends, and general information during Crow legend, at least to him. While he the period 1871-1877 from Little Face was not familiar with Clark’s book, he and numerous other Crows (Haines stated that he had read numerous 2000; Bradley 1917: 197-250). If comparable works by white authors, Clark truly got the story from Bradley and he stated that all too often he (and one of his stories bears some would have to “put these books down resemblance to it) rather than pirating without finishing them” because they it strictly from Skinner, then perhaps were filled with so much bad informa- the Crows do (or did) have such a sui- tion. I also spoke to Tim McCleary, cide legend even though certain Crow head of General Studies at Little experts have never heard it. All in all, I Bighorn College, Hardin, Montana, do not know what to think about this and a Crow expert. He too was suspi- convoluted mess. cious of the Clark “legend,” but cau- These problems with both Clark’s tioned me about how easy it was to be “Defiance at Yellowstone Falls” and wrong about such things, regardless of her “Coyote’s prophesy concerning which side one is on. He had read the Yellowstone Park” point up the diffi- Clark version of the legend but had culty of determining whether or not

Volume 19 • Number 3 2002 49 Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters some reputed Indian legends are truly heard it but only that he remembers Indian. They also point up how easy it hearing it. And, too, I am a lot more is for any of us to get confused when willing to believe that the story is truly white baloney, known or suspected, established within the tribe if I also enters the picture. For those of us who hear from several other tribal members do not always trust the vagaries of oral that they heard it from their forebears. tradition (was the story passed down Finally, we should end by making correctly by one person and was it one thing perfectly clear even if some remembered/retrieved correctly by of this is murky. While Indians appear another, especially over many genera- not to have feared the Yellowstone tions?), having to worry about white geyser regions, we know that many baloney adds one more complex and tribes revered them. Revere and fear troubling wrinkle to the equation. are two different things, reverence And these problems also point up referring to beliefs in something the reasons why all researchers, sacred. There is much evidence put including those who talk to Indians forth by Weixelman, Haines, and simply to write down their stories, Nabokov and Loendorf that a number must be meticulous in documenting of tribes considered the Yellowstone their sources. We must be certain that country sacred and used it as a vision- we ask the tribal person conveying the questing, prayer-making, and gift- story to us (1) from whom he heard bequeathing place, and there is much the story and (2) whether others in his other material in their writings that tribe have also heard it. These two disproves the theory that Indians questions are important because they feared Yellowstone. give us clues as to both the antiquity of These few known Indian stories the story and how widespread it is (or then, and probably dozens or even was) within the tribe. For example, I hundreds of others that are now lost to am a lot more willing to believe Joe us or perhaps still in the oral tradi- Medicine Crow’s story if he tells me tions, were among the first known that he heard it from his 100-year-old attempts to interpret the strange Won- grandmother than if he tells me he derland country at the head of the Yel- isn’t quite certain from whom he lowstone River.

[Ed. note: This paper represents the first chapter, with title and text somewhat modi- fied, from the author’s upcoming book Yellowstone’s Horse-and-Buggy Tour Guides: Interpreting the Grand Old Park, 1872-1920, which is as yet unpublished. The paper will also appear in the forthcoming proceedings of the 6th Yellowstone Science Conference, to be published later this year by the Yellowstone Center for Resources and the GWS.] References Allen, C., and A. Pinkham. 2001. Personal communication to author from Allen and Pinkham, Nez Perce elders, 27-28 August, at Nez Perce symposium in Yellowstone. Bradley, Lt. J. 1917. Bradley Manuscript F. Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana 8, 197-250. Calloway, C.G. 1997. New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

50 The George Wright FORUM Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters Chittenden, H. 1895. The Yellowstone National Park. Cincinnati, Oh.: Robert Clarke Company. Clark, E. 1966. Indian Legends of the Northern Rockies. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press. Fitzgerald, L.V. 1937. Blackfeather: Trapper Jim’s Fables of Sheepeater Indians in Yellowstone. Caldwell, Id.: Caxton Printers. Haines, A.L. 1974. Yellowstone National Park: Its Exploration and Establishment.Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. ———. 1977 [1996]. The Yellowstone Story. Boulder, Colo.: University of Colorado Press. ———. 1982. Letter to author, 9 July. (In author’s files.) ———. 2000. Letter to author, 14 March. (In Yellowstone National Park history files.) Hardy, M.E. 1913. Little Ta-Wish: Indian Legends from Geyserland. Chicago: Rand McNally. Hollister, J.H. 1912. Memories of Eighty Years: Autosketches, Random Notes, and Reminiscences. Chicago: N.p. Kearns, W.E.1940. Historical items on Yellowstone from earliest Helena Heralds. Yellowstone Nature Notes 17:3/4 (March-April). Mattes, M. 1949. Behind the legend of Colter’s Hell. Mississippi Valley Historical Review 36 (September), 251-282. McCleary, T.2000. Personal communication to author, February. Nabokov, P., and L. Loendorf. 1999. American Indians and Yellowstone National Park: A Documentary Overview as “Restoring a Presence.” Unpublished draft manuscript. Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.: Yellowstone National Park Research Library. Pretty-on-Top, B. 2000. Personal communication to author, February. Skinner, C.M. 1896. Myths and Legends of Our Lands. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. Weixelman, J. 1992. The power to evoke wonder: Native Americans and the geysers of Yellowstone National Park. Master’s thesis, Montana State University, Bozeman. Lee H. Whittlesey, Yellowstone Center for Resources, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming 82190; [email protected] F

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