William Jones : Indian, cowboy, American scholar, and anthropologist in the field

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I A Memory 1

II Early Years 7

II

William Jones was born March 28, 1871, on the Sauk and Fox Reservation, in what was then Indian Territory. The blood in his veins was a mingling of Welsh and English elements, with a strain from a clan of Indian rulers.

This, briefly, is the story of his forebears. His great-grandfather came from Wales to this country, time enough to serve under General Washington in the Revolution. His grandfather, William Washington Jones, was born in Kentucky, went to the west with Daniel Boone, entered the army, fought in the Black Hawk war, and while in Iowa married the daughter of Wa shi ho wa, a Fox chief.* A white-haired man, skilful as a hunter, William Washington Jones became well known as a scout, in the days when the prairie was still the Far West. By Katiqua,

* The Sauk and Fox Indians, then and later, occupied lands in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. By the Treaty of February 18, 1867, they were assigned a new reservation in Indian Territory, to which the main body of them were removed in and after November, 1870. Katiqua's people moved from Iowa to Kansas, in 1845.

the Fox chief's daughter, he had three children, of whom only one is living, — a son, born in Iowa in 1844. This son — Bald Eagle, as his mother's clan called him — took from his father the name of Henry Clay Jones. He remained in the Indian lodges until he was a youth well grown; and then, wishing to see something of the world, he journeyed out into a white community, went to school, learned the trade of blacksmith, and met a young English girl, Sarah Penny. "He could not gain the consent of her parents to a marriage," writes one of Mr. Jones's friends, "until he had proved himself capable of caring for her, as a white woman, in a good home. He went back to the reservation, opened a blacksmith's shop, prepared a habitation that seemed to meet the requirements, and then returned in less than two years for his reward. For years Mr. Henry Jones has been a leading member of the Indian council, an interpreter, a blacksmith, and a farmer," who has had the respect of his neighbors, both white and Indian. His young bride, when brought to the new-built house, may well have found her life strangely transplanted and transformed, beyond even the lot of brides. "But her years were few," our informant tells us.

"When her first child was a year old, she died, leaving her little son William, or Willie as she called him, to the care of his Indian grandmother."

In a letter written at Harvard College on his birthday, William Jones has recorded the following memory. The passage would seem to have an added meaning, an aftersignificance, from the fact that death came to him also in the spring, though in a country where there is no return of our kindly seasons, nor division of days except by sunlight and darkness, nor any memory of things gone by.

"My dear old grandmother used to tell me that I was born in the springtime, when the bluebirds were coming from the south and were looking about in the dead trees for holes to build their nests in. Grass was just coming up, and with it the flowers. She used to tell me how she would carry me about, and a whole lot more things which I sometimes live over, though more often they seem but a tale. Then the summer went by, and the winter followed, and the next spring they laid my mother to rest. This is the way she recorded time, and that is the way it has always come to me. Others have told me the exact dates, but it has never been so pretty as the way my poor simple-minded, and possibly pagan, grandmother used to tell me. How strange that she too should have died at the same time of the year."

Although on the government rolls his name was "William," and although to some of his friends he was "Wee lee," the child bore by tribal custom the name Megasiawa, Black Eagle. After his mother's death, his grandmother brought him to her lodge. Here, for nine years, she took care of her little charge. Katiqua could understand English, but would have nothing to do with the speaking of it; and so they two used always the Indian tongue. Their wigwam was of bark, with raised platforms along either side, on which were spread gay blankets or bright-colored mats of woven rushes. Outside, all round about, lay the plains with the wind sounding over them. Indoors, "this golden-haired child of a white mother and two white grandfathers, passed the early years of his life, swinging by day in his little hammock cradle, or seeing life over his grandmother's shoulder from his perch on her strong back."

Thus, through all that time of childhood which remains most vitally colored, and which would seem not only to form the basis [10]

of all memories, but to give the imagination its lasting shape and texture, William Jones lived, and saw, and spoke, and thought as an Indian. It was in the ancient order, the prairie faith, and the old vanishing tradition that his grandmother nurtured him. She was an Indian of the highest Fox clan — the Eagle — was a chief's daughter born to lead, and with all the force of a strong character clung to the legends and customs of her tribe. What strange talk passed between her and the little boy, what rude poetic narrative by their evening fire, we can only guess at dimly. Glimpses of their life together appear in retrospect through the following notes, written down long afterward by one who became the first and dearest of the boy's friends when he entered our white man's world.

"Among other accomplishments this grandmother had the gift of healing, was what is known as a 'medicine woman,' an office that does not necessarily encroach upon that of the more priestly 'medicine man.' She knew the medicinal values of many roots and herbs, and could brew from them remedies for various disorders external and internal. These things the child sought in the woods and on the prairies by his grandmother's side, at-

in]

tended her while they and queerer potions were being compounded at home, heard and remembered much of the lore connected with them, and saw them applied at the sick bed or administered at the dance.

"Preparations for the feasts and various tribal functions became a matter of familiarity to him, and as he followed his grandmother about the homes and in the sacred lodge, he saw and heard many things never intended for his child's eyes and ears, but which coming as they did so naturally, made little impression at the time, though in later years they became of great value in his scientific work.

"Recalling these days in later life, he felt that he had been blessed in having had what he regarded as an ideal childhood. When with one who could understand his point of view, he loved to recall the happy days spent with his 'dear nokomis, 9 — the evenings round the fire, and the nights snuggled beneath her blanket on the long hard platform. ' Though,' he would add, 'it never seemed hard to me.'

"Unusually intelligent and quick to imitate, the child learned without conscious effort, during these early years, the songs and dances of his tribe, and so thoroughly that scarcely a phrase of them was forgotten. He could seldom be persuaded to exhibit either accomplishment, but when he did overcome his diffidence and forgot himself, he showed not only a rare grace of movement in the dance, but those little spontaneous variations that one sees enacted only by the older Indian people.

"He always insisted that he could not sing, and would seldom join even in a large chorus. In his first school some one had laughed at his singing and so disheartened him that he never regained confidence in himself. But sometimes out in the woods ' where no one but you and the trees can hear,' he would lose his restraint, and when once under the influence of the Indian music, sing song after song with absolute fidelity to the Indian phraseology, marking time with anything at hand that suggested the sound of the Indian drum.

"It was always a regret to him as well as to his friends, that he had not been able to conquer his shyness and learn enough of music to write out the songs he knew so well. A friend to whom he was willing to sing them tried to take down some of the simpler songs, but never succeeded in getting them quite as he knew they ought to be. One only — a simple little one — remains to bear the stamp of his approval — the song he as a little boy sang to the snake, begging him to find the arrow he has lost in the grass.

"As a little child he learned to imitate the call of the birds and squirrels, the wild prairie animals and the horses, and often amused himself, even in the East, by, as he said, 'talking to them.' Any horse was of interest, and sometimes on the crowded streets he would stop to 'say just a word to that tired old horse.' Whatever it was, the horse would prick up his ears and seem to understand.

"He also had a trick of patting on his knees the different gaits of a horse — trotting, cantering, loping, galloping or running — so accurately that one could almost see the action. Imitating the reports of different firearms was another form of amusement. 'Hark,' he would exclaim, under his breath, 'do you hear that Winchester way over yonder?' And sure enough from 'way over yonder 5 would come the sound that one could hardly believe was made by a human throat.

"He could not remember when he had learned to ride, probably like other little Indians, as soon as he was graduated from his grandmother's back; but he did have very vivid recollections of the pony that shared his childhood and next to his grandmother was the dearest thing on earth, and never to be forgotten.

"When the child was about nine years old the happy days with his pony on the prairies, and the wonderful tales told by his dear nokomis round the wigwam fire, came to a sudden end. The blow was a sharp one, the first, and as he used to affirm, the only real grief of his life, — the first sorrow (so far as he could remember) to bring a tear. Without warning — to him at least — the beloved companion of his days and nights lay dead in the wigwam. All was confusion and woe. The father whom he scarcely knew had come to take him away. He could not be comforted. New plans and new experiences had no interest for him. For weeks and months he sorrowed; and for years yearned for the love and companionship that had so enriched his early life. A staunch loyalty and tenderness toward those he loved was a very marked characteristic. Though he could have had no memory of his mother, he treasured a little picture his father had given him, always remembered her birthday, and would often say — 'I wonder if my mother knows this?' " [15]

His own birthday letter, already quoted, shows with what affection he dwelt upon the thought of his mother, and of the one who had taken his mother's place.

His grief might have been mixed with wonder could he then have foreseen in what manner and after what strange transformation of self, he should revisit the country of his childhood. That childhood was to become, as he said, "but a tale." He was to return as a white man, to find many things obliterated from the aspect of the prairies and their people; to learn that the old familiar smoke inside the lodges could seem unfriendly, smarting in the eyes of a foreigner; indoors or out, to hunt with scholarly painstaking after glimpses of all that life which the little Indian boy had seen flowing past him so vivid and copious.

Meanwhile, he knew only his present loss. The chief's daughter was dead, the medicine woman gone beyond reach of magic. She had taught her young Black Eagle all that she would ever teach him. And now his father had come, to carry him from her wigwam.

Ill

COWBOY

In his new home, the boy found many strange faees. His father had taken a second wife, a woman from among the Cherokees. There were new half-brothers and half-sisters to be his playmates. The change, however, was not enough to make him forget his loneliness; so that presently, as this fact became evident, his father very wisely sent him to a school where he might live at a greater distance from old associations.

At about the age of ten, accordingly, William Jones began to learn the white man's lessons, and to see the white man's world which he could claim, by proportion of blood and predominance of character, as his birthright. After a few months at Newton, Kansas, where his mother's people lived, he took the next step of his eastward journey, and entered an Indian boarding-school at Wabash, Indiana. This school, maintained by the Society of Friends, was kept by an elderly couple, known as "maw" and "paw" to their large family of boys and girls from various [17]

tribes. Here the little Fox boy met his hereditary foe, the Sioux, with whom he learned to live amicably; although, as we shall see, he never quite uprooted the stirp and stock of tribal antipathy, even in later years. And here at Wabash, under the gentle rule of his teachers, he began conning our stubborn primer of civilized life, and picking up his lost connections. The education given him was of a sensible, efficient kind, — part study, part farming. There were animals and poultry to care for, milk, vegetables, and eggs to look after, beds to make, food to cook, dishes to wash, and clothes to mend, as well as lessons to learn from books. These things the family of Indian boys and girls performed according to their best ability. Good-will was a working principle in the school, and cheerfulness, and mutual respect. "A certain cherry tree," wrote a visitor, "illustrates the spirit of the place. In spring it would be loaded with large perfect fruit, and so low that any child could pick his fill; yet though thirty children passed within reach of it scores of times every day, not one cherry was ever touched." The pupils were honest, the farmer-teachers kind. In this environment the new boy, William Jones, made rapid headway, learning the Eng-

COWBOY lish that was literally his mother tongue, and doing well in all his study and work.

After a three years' course, he returned to the Indian Territory and his father's house. Born out of doors, and bred in the saddle, he now discovered that his schooling had become the means of still greater freedom. It had given him "the key of the fields." Like many Indian boys of his age and horsemanship, Jones found that the ability to speak English admitted him to the free company of cowboys, and all that a cowboy's life still meant, some twenty years ago. It was a rough life, in more senses than one; it was a good life, as he used long afterward to say, with emphasis. He saw, of course, the real thing, all in the way of livelihood; and as Jones was never a man to view real things in falsely-romantic colors (but spoke with scorn of persons who were "romance-mad" and "tearful" over the Indians), he came to know much about cattlemen and their ways, knew intimately the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the wholesome and the debasing. For three years he was a cowboy, and a cowboy of the old school. He loved to recall that period. "I wish," he wrote, shortly before his death, "I wish the Plains could have remained as [19]

they were when I was a 'kid.' ... I went down into Oklahoma before leaving the States to take a last look. I cannot put into words the feeling of remorse that rose within me at the things I saw. The whole region was disfigured with a most repelling ugliness — windmills, oil wells, wire fences, go to so and so for drugs, go to another for groceries and so on. The cowboy and the frontiersman were gone. The Indians were in overalls and looked like 'bums.' The picturesque costumes, the wigwams, horsemen, were things of the past. The virgin prairies were no more. And now they say that the place is a State ! Nevertheless you saw the stars that I used to see. Did you ever behold clearer moonlight nights anywhere else? Did you hear the lone cry of the wolf and the yelp of the coyote? I wish you could have seen the long horn and the old-time punchers. The present would-be punchers are of a different build."

Spring round-up in 1889 was probably the last at which William Jones appeared as active member of a cattle "outfit." He was then eighteen years old, had seen a great deal of hard work and lively adventure. Had he been less modest, in after years, his talk on these matters might have filled a book, as the [W]

COWBOY

saying goes; and even his reminiscences, rare and diffident though they were, disclosed to his friends a wealth of prairie knowledge, a vigorous abundant experience, beside which any book ever written about the West would appear but the thinnest kind of secondhand fiction. He distrusted what he called "stiff incidents," and shied at the telling of them; although once to a friend, he unfolded the Homeric story of a "bad man" whom he had known, — a fair-haired desperado, twenty years old, with blue eyes and the face of an innocent boy, who showed unearthly skill at murdering deputies with his pistol, carried a price on his head, and was killed only by a posse, with buckshot, through a hole in a ranchhouse door at nightfall. Such narratives, however, Jones regarded as rather loud bits of by -play; the main scenes in his memory were as quiet as they were full of space, vista, and color. He told of daily happenings on the range, by the river-bottoms; the ways of cows and their calves; of ponies at work, of famous pony races — in more than one of which he had been chosen to ride; of curious debates among old frontiersmen, and quarrels which they sometimes averted by appealing to him as to one who could read and write. He knew the [21]

little prairie towns, and how his friends the " cow-punchers " took their pleasure there; the talk, devices and philosophy of gamblers in "back rooms"; the death-in-life gaiety of dance-halls. Through the whole miscellany of the plains our young cowboy rode care-free, seeing it all with his bright brow T n eyes, learning both the worse and the better side of mankind, getting much permanent good from his experiences, and singularly little harm. His own part in the doings of this period, he seldom talked about; but not because there was anything to conceal. His friends recall one story of how, on a round-up, the men had all risen and gone to work at dawn; how the camp cook, in tidying up, shook out of Billy's blankets a live rattle-snake, killed it, and when the men returned for breakfast, called out — "Look here, what this kid was sleeping with!" The episode might almost serve as a fable.

"The most beautiful adventures," according to some writer, "are not those we go to seek." And now to Billy the great adventure of his life came of its own accord. He would have preferred, at that age, to go on riding the plains. His father, however, was a wise man who saw beyond the horizon of youth. In the [22]

COWBOY autumn of 1889, Miss Folsom came from Virginia to visit the Sauk and Fox reservation, and find pupils for the Hampton Institute. The father recognized this opportunity for his son, took a hurried journey of twenty miles to find him, and next day brought him into the Agency. It was the turning-point of the boy's life; for by sunset of the next day, along with ten other Indian youths, William Jones was reluctantly speeding East to begin his career.

IV

Jones arrived at Hampton Institute on October 1st, 1889. He was a slender but manly youth, in cowboy clothes, high-heeled boots, and broad felt hat, with a silk handkerchief hung around his throat. From a picture taken at this time, his features would seem to have been touched with something of unyouthful firmness, as though rough weather and rough fare had matured them before their time. The eyes appear wistful, but (even by the photograph) uncommonly fine, and deeply alive with thought. There were sparks of hidden light in them, so that they reminded one of the clear brown water in a brook, with sunshine at the bottom. His hair had precisely the same color: it was brown and somewhat wavy, tinged with dusky but living gleams like bits of outdoor brightness blown into it and caught there.

Malaria, the chills and fever of the plains, made him appear less rugged than he was. Besides malaria in his blood, William Jones found more subtle ingredients to contend [U]

with, — youthful unrest, the roving habits of camp life, and the inherited love of action under the open sky. Indian and cowboy liberty maintained their spell over him. It was hard to be caged in a classroom, hard to bear anything so artificial as routine. At the Wabash school, he had been younger and more docile; now he had reached that age where the will is "the wind's will"; and at Hampton every hour was ordered and appointed: from the rising bell in the morning until taps at night, task followed task, study and work and drill, in a precise rotation that was sadly different from the old by-and-large methods of the Territory. His harness must have chafed him sore.

Meanwhile, to fit the new life, young Jones had a new code of morals to formulate. This pagan boy, of mingled blood and mingled experience, had to feel and think his way toward spiritual manhood. A dawn of knowledge among prairie myths, three years in the devout Quaker family, three more with the cattlemen, left his mind so constituted that, on arriving at Hampton, he courteously but firmly refused the gift of a Bible, saying that he did not believe in it and would rather not take it. Gradually, he found that the whole [25]

question of belief could not so easily be set aside. The Reverend J. J. Gravatt, rector of St. John's in Hampton, won the boy's respect and confidence. At last, in his third year at the school, William decided to unite with the Episcopal church. What that decision meant, to a shy boy who shrank in agony from any kind of public notice, and who had always eagerly hoped to regain his old freedom on the plains, appears in one notable declaration. "I understand myself," said he, "and I know that I cannot live a Christian life out there. I will not call myself a Christian and disgrace the name." The rite of confirmation was to him, in prospect, an act as irrevocable as that of any saint, — a renunciation of the world, the only world he knew and cared about. The bishop who confirmed him was a stranger, and after the service inquired about the 'youth with the spiritual face,' saying that he had 'never seen a more glorified expression on a human face' than the one this boy raised to him as he placed his hand on his head in benediction. No one, according to the old and hard saying, can save his brother's soul; no one, at all events, may hope to portray it; and it is enough to say that the boy had turned the [26]

main corner safely. Succeeding years, further study, and intimate contact with many forms of belief and disbelief undoubtedly modified the man's convictions. We shall not spy after his creed, the path by which our friend went apart, like the old Indian at prayer, to "remain silent before the Great Mystery."

For three years Jones worked hard at his books, at the carpenter's bench, and on the school farm, showing with both head and hands that he possessed more than average ability. Each year saw him steadily advancing. In the spring of 1892, he won the two senior prizes for scholarship, and was entitled to deliver the valedictory, — an honor which he declined, because, he said, he was more white than Indian, had at best only a fourth title to any such distinction, and would not claim that. Schoolboy honors seldom count for much; but seldom does a prize pupil wave them aside with so generous a motive. Jones was not a mere clever boy, the "head of the class" whose hand is always in the air signalling "I know" to his teacher. Three years at Hampton, under good discipline, had given him the makings of a man.

And now he had to form a man's decision, and choose a forward course. At graduation — when he received one of the last diplomas ever signed by General Armstrong — William saw clearly that he must make himself an exception to Hampton's rule of going back to his own people. All his inclinations pulled him to go back. His heart was with the plains. His judgment lay uncertainly in the opposite quarter. It was a choice between the easiest way and the hardest. Our young graduate proved resolute in facing the hardest, and following it. He went north for the summer, to work on a farm where, at odd moments, he could study a little Latin and make himself ready to enter Phillips Andover. He had put behind him all chance of the old free life, and gathered his energy toward that hard-scrabble road, full of doubtful turnings, which we call the higher education.

Andover he entered in the autumn of 1892. The school seemed at first to offer the wildest kind of liberty, after the strictly ordered life at Hampton. This liberty proved only apparent, for William soon found that his working day was, in reality, more crowded even than before. His studies, also, were new and strange. The teachers conducted their classes on a different plan. "With study and tutoring," he wrote, "I do not get time for much [28]

outside reading. Polycon [Political Economy] is mighty interesting, but it requires a lot of time. . . . Geometry is giving me all kinds of tired feelings." Out of school hours, he had a cottage to care for, as a means toward the earning of his expenses. He found time for a little football — enough to get one leg slightly injured — but on the whole was too busy to take much play or exercise.

"The journal letters begun at Andover," says the friend to whom he wrote them, "were his first attempt at any expression of himself. They began in homesickness and discouragement, were badly constructed and poorly expressed; but as the days went on, new experiences and new ideas crowded in, and in his intense desire to make another see and understand, he gradually formed a style of his own which developed into one of considerable merit." His English had always been full of curious idioms and the colloquialisms of the West, and he was often much discouraged over it. "I shall always say — 'I have went,' " he would moan; "nothing else will ever sound right." His own little turns of speech were often quaint, as when once he wrote, being perplexed: "I don't know what to do! I'm all wrapped up in a [29]

fix." And when walking with a lady whose sash had become unfastened, the young scholar addressed her, with more knowledge of grammar than of furbelows: " Excuse me, but your — one of your personal endings is dragging on the ground."

After his difficulties with the English language, William rejoiced to find that Latin could be "very interesting" and Greek still more so. In his first year at Andover, he was able to help other boys with their Latin; in his second year, and throughout the rest of his course, he earned part of his expenses by tutoring in both the classical tongues. This was not bad for "a little prep at Andover," as he afterward called himself. All four years were full of hard work. Now and then a letter gives a picture of schoolboy fun. "The dancing teacher had some girls for us yesterday. Oh, no, I didn't get rattled! But it was so much joy, though! Tell Billy [the friend who had given him admission to the dancing class, as a Christmas present] that he is the means of my having a mighty good time." Yet these light-footed interludes appear none too often; the boy's progress through Andover, though pleasant, was a steady march toward a serious purpose. In a brief summer visit to [30]

his old home on the prairie, William had begun to see his Indian people more clearly, to understand their part in the general human situation, and to feel strongly that he must do something for them. Just what, he could not tell; but the question filled his mind, as when he wrote from Andover to his former schoolmates at Hampton: