Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884Eells, Myron
Religion
Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884
Eells, Myron
Clallam Indians -- Missions; Missions -- Washington (State); Skokomish Indian Reservation (Wash.); Twana Indians -- Missions
Intemperance is a besetting sin of Indians, and it is about as much a
besetting sin of some whites to furnish intoxicating liquors to the
Indians. The laws of the United States and of Washington Territory are
stringent against any body’s furnishing liquor to the Indians, but for a
time previous to 1871 they had by no means been strictly enforced. As
the intercourse of the Indians with the whites was often with a low
class, who were willing to furnish liquor to them, they grew to love it,
so that in 1871 the largest part of the Indians had learned to love
liquor. Its natural consequences, fighting, cutting, shooting, and
accidental deaths, were frequent.
VII.
TEMPERANCE.
In 1871 the agent began to enforce the laws against the selling of
liquor to the Indians, and, according to a rule of the Indian
Department; he also punished the Indians for drinking. Missionary
influence went hand in hand with his work, and good results have
followed. For years very few Indians on the reservation have been known
to be drunk. Punishment upon the liquor-drinker as well as the
liquor-seller has had a good effect. Far more of the Clallams drink than
of the Twanas. They live so far from the agent that he can not know of
all their drinking, and, if he did, he could not go to arrest them all;
and many of them live so close to large towns where liquor is very
easily obtained, that it has been impossible to stop all of their
drinking. Still his occasional visits, the aid of a few white men near
them, and of the better Indians, together with what they see of the evil
effects of intemperance on themselves, have greatly checked the evil.
Very few complete reformations, however, have taken place among those
away from the reservation, except those who have become Christians. In
addition, a good share of the younger ones have grown up with so much
less temptation than their parents had, and so much more influence in
favor of temperance, that they have become teetotalers.
For a long time, beginning with 1874, a temperance society flourished,
and nearly all the Indians of both tribes joined it. Each member signed
the pledge under oath, and took that pledge home to keep, but in time it
was found that the society had no penalty with which to punish offenders
sufficient to make them fear much to do so again. The agent alone had
that power--so the society died. But the law and gospel did not tire in
the work and something has been accomplished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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