I know all kinds of men. First there were my people (the Indians); God made them first. Then he made a Frenchman [referring to the Canadian voyagers of the Hudson Bay company], and then he made a priest [priests accompanied these expeditions of the Hudson Bay company]. A long time after that came Boston men [Americans are thus called in the Chinook jargon, because the first of our nation came into the Columbia river in 1796 in a ship from Boston], and then King George men [the English]. Later came black men, and last God made a Chinaman with a tail. He is of no account and has to work all the time like a woman. All these are new people. Only the Indians are of the old stock. After awhile, when God is ready, he will drive away all the people except those who have obeyed his laws. Those who cut up the lands or sign papers for lands will be defrauded of their rights and will be punished by God’s anger. Moses was bad. God did not love him. He sold his people’s houses and the graves of their dead. It is a bad word that comes from Washington. It is not a good law that would take my people away from me to make them sin against the laws of God. You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I can not enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men! But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair? It is a bad law, and my people can not obey it. I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead men will come to life again. Their spirits will come to their bodies again. We must wait here in the homes of our fathers and be ready to meet them in the bosom of our mother. (_MacMurray MS._) The idea that the earth is the mother of all created things lies at the base, not only of the Smohalla religion, but of the theology of the Indian tribes generally and of primitive races all over the world. This explains Tecumtha’s reply to Harrison: “The sun is my father and the earth is my mother. On her bosom I will rest.” In the Indian mind the corn, fruits, and edible roots are the gifts which the earth-mother gives freely to her children. Lakes and ponds are her eyes, hills are her breasts, and streams are the milk flowing from her breasts. Earthquakes and underground noises are signs of her displeasure at the wrongdoing of her children. Especially are the malarial fevers, which often follow extensive disturbance of the surface by excavation or otherwise, held to be direct punishments for the crime of lacerating her bosom.