Image provided by: Library of Congress; Washington, DC
About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 1927)
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN PAGE 4 WAPECKMAW (Continued from page 1) The crow grabbed the little sapsucker and in his anger shoved his pretty hend in the ashes and to this day the sapsucker has an ash-colored head sprinkled with red. Wapeckmaw was now free from the birds and the three women and he took the acorns from his pocket and broke the shell into many fragments and then blew them in all directions. From each fragment grew an acorn tree. Wapeckmaw said, “I want the Indians to have acorns to eat instead of pitch.” Today the Indians grind the acorns into flour when they are dried. This is made into porridge. For this food, and for these oak trees, we owe our thanks to Wapeckmaw. finally came he directed his braves to take him to these waters and allow him to die in them so his spirit would be blessed by the Great Spirit. Ishawooa’s only son, Wapiti, was a weakling who apparently would never be able to assume his father’s leadership. But as he died Ishawooa confided to Wapiti the secret of finding the Great Spirit’s favor by bathing in the hot springs. It was thus that Wapiti became stronger and eventually even a greater man than his father. Generations later the great Shoshone chief, Wash akie, in submitting to the advance of the palefaces, ceded the Big Horn hot springs to the United States and the State of Wyoming on condition that a portion of their waters be reserved for free use by the weak and sick of both peoples. DECLAMATION CONTEST GREAT INDIAN SPRINGS For untold centuries the various peoples of the earth have been accustomed to repairing to certain springs for the beneficial results from bathing in them, or drinking their medicinal waters. The curative properties of certain springs are too well known to mention. It now appears that the health-preserving qualities of many springs were well known to the Indians; perhaps long before the coming of the white man. A dispatch sent abroad not long ago from Thermopolis, Wyo., gives some interesting data on this subject, and is as follows: The Big Horn hot springs, among the largest in the world, are a favored haunt of the Great Spirit and possessed of miraculous powers, if old Indian myths are to be believed. Today large numbers of Shoshones, Arapahoes and Crows camp in numbers near the springs, invoking the aid of the Great Spirit in ridding them of their ailments. They also believed these waters will bring them protection against evil. Harry Lange, an old Indian scout, recently visited the springs and recalled that 50 years before, he, as a member of a scouting party with a cavalry detachment guided by Arapahoes, had crossed the Big Horn, at the present site of Thermopolis. Before the Indians would proceed, Lange said, they threw themselves into the pools below the big spring and went through religious rituals. They urged the soldiers to do like wise, declaring the waters were blessed with the Great Spirit and that bathing in them would ward off evil. A legend almost as old as the Shoshone tribe itself says that back in the beginning of things Ishawooa, a chief who ruled all the Indians of this section, alone knew of the springs and visited them annually, thus keeping his power and health. But when old age The vocational declamation contest was held in our auditorium last Friday evening. On another page will be found a mention of the winners. The program of the contest was as follows: Processional - Billy’s Rose - - - Band ..... Grace Johnson Twelfth Grade The Reading Lesson The Unknown Hero The Chase - - - Rose Smith Eleventh Grade - - - Bernice Blakeslee Tenth Grade - ------ Flora Harper Ninth Grade Mrs. Perkins’ Close Call - - Myrtle Rinehart Seventh Grade The Childhood of Hiawatha - Rowland Webber Seventh Grade The Best Thing That Struck School War - Frank Baga Eighth Grade ------- Twenty Years After - - - Rienzi’s Address to the Romans - Not Guilty ----- joe Matte Ninth Grade Fred Rickard Tenth Grade - George Flack Eleventh Grade Louis Dupuis Twelfth Grade ------- Judges’ Decision Recessional ------- Music Subscribe for The American—50 cents a year. Band Band
