The Dying Grass, page 150
Jay Cooke—A famously ruthless railroad financier. When his toy, the Northern Pacific Railroad, went suddenly bankrupt, this went far to cause the “Silver Panic” of 1873. Many reviled him; a few zealous “business men” thought the world of him.
General George Crook—An effective and enthusiastic Indian fighter, who subdued Paiutes, Apaches and others. The Crows called him “Three Stars.” Sherman thought very highly of him. Rutherford B. Hayes was with him at the Civil War battle of Cloyd’s Mountain; he considered him the best of generals. Crook was once Perry’s commanding officer. In 1877 he commanded the Department of the Platte. Since he was so close to President Hayes, Howard had reason to fear that Crook might replace him if he continued to be “General Day-After-Tomorrow” in his pursuit of the Nez Perces. The two men were antagonists for much of their careers. Howard thought him bloodthirsty, especially against the Apaches, while he thought Howard an interfering Christian namby-pamby. What was Crook actually? In his autobiography he wrote: “The trouble with the army was that the Indians would confide in us as friends, and we had to witness this unjust treatment of them without the power to help them. Then when they were pushed beyond endurance and would go on the war path we had to fight when our sympathies were with the Indians.”
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer—Our dead-victorious equivalent of the Serbian Prince Lazar (killed by the Turks in 1389). To the Sioux who killed him he was “Yellow Hair.” The Crows called him “Son of the Morning Star.” “He never acquired . . . the reputation either of George Crook or of Nelson Miles, the leading practitioners of plains warfare . . . In a different, truly colonial or imperial society, Custer might have gone on from the Civil War to greater things . . .”—John Keegan.
Richard Dietrich—See Naked-Footed Bull.
Doc—For his genesis, see Blurick. I have entirely invented him, based on that manuscript’s charming one-liner. His presence in every battle, where no one could actually have been, proves him the counterpart of Argall in Dream 3, and his creatures (Blackie, Johnny and Georgie) are pretty d——d interchangeable.
Eagle That Shakes Himself—(Anglicized Crow.) A Crow chief who urged Looking-Glass to join a pan-Indian alliance with the Crows and Sioux against the Americans. The Sioux killed him.
Elder Deer—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Wehmastahtus.] A friend of White Thunder’s whom the latter mentions in connection with the Clearwater fight.
Fair Land—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Aih-its Pal-o-ja-mi.] Alternate meaning: “Of Fair Land.” The elder of Ollokot’s two wives, who was mortally wounded at Big Hole, leaving behind a baby boy whom Joseph probably adopted.. The other wife was Cloudburst.
Feathers Around The Neck—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Wap-tas-wa-hiekt, which possibly means “gives healing.” Later called Frank Thompson.] A shaman involved in the unsuccessful curing ceremony for Springtime’s baby girl in May 1878. The infant died before 21 July.
Captain Stanton G. Fisher—This tall, very competent woodsman and an effective organizer of Indian scouts joined Howard just after Camas Meadows, bringing with him some Bannocks from Crook’s Department. He did not scruple to distract his softhearted commanding officer’s attention when the Bannocks were killing and scalping the Nez Perces they found on the trail. A zealous relic collector.
Fire Body—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Otstotpoo.] A brave warrior and excellent shot who killed Trumpeter Jones at White Bird Canyon and fought at the Clearwater battle.
Five Snows—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Pahka Alyanakt.] After murdering some teamsters in the mountains south of Big Hole, the Nez Perces got drunk on the whiskey found in the wagons. Five Snows then injured Stripes Turned In, who was trying to dump out the whiskey. The latter died of his wounds. Five Snows was killed at Bear’s Paw. His earlier activities at Clearwater are invented.
Five Wounds—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) He and Rainbow were perhaps the most prominent young warriors and buffalo hunters. A war leader at Clearwater, where he was wounded in the hand. Killed in a suicide charge at Big Hole.
First Lieutenant Robert H. Fletcher—Howard’s aide-de-camp. This active member of the Twenty-first Infantry is credited by his general as first spying the Nez Perce village on the Clearwater, although other accounts dispute this. He drafted simple and not unbeautiful sketches of each battlefield for Howard’s final report. His character in this book, his friendship for Wood and his nickname of “Fletch” have been invented.
First Lieutenant A. G. Forse—He supported Colonel Winters of “E” Company at the Clearwater battle, remaining on the skirmish line day and night until the final charge.
Geese Three Times Alighting On Water—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Lahpeealoot.] The only one of Joseph’s warriors to participate in the Salmon River raids. He also fought the Brave Seventeen [G 2] at Cottonwood [G 3]. His later career is obscure, but I presume he lived out the war and possibly went to Lapwai since he was later called Philip Williams.
Colonel John Gibbon—This Civil War veteran commanded the military District of Montana. His brevet rank [G 2] was general. He was involved in the anti-Sioux operation of 1876, but obviously was not at Little Big Horn. He led the attack on the Nez Perce at Big Hole, where he was badly wounded. The Crows called him “The Limping One.”
Good Woman—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Aye-at-wai-at-naime, or perhaps Heyume-yoyikt, in which case her name would mean “Bear Crossing.”] Conjectural name of Joseph’s elder wife, the mother of Sound Of Running Feet. [For Joseph’s marriages, see the third source-note to “And the World Keeps Getting Wider and Wider.”] She escaped from Bear’s Paw to Sitting Bull’s camp and returned to Lapwai the next summer with Peopeo Tholekt and others. Sent to the Indian Territory, she finally separated from Joseph when he went to Nespelem, evidently preferring to stay at Lapwai with her daughter.
Tracy Gould—A prenuptial love interest of Wood’s first wife Nanny.
Grizzly Bear Youth—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Transliteration not given.] Possibly the same as “Ugly Grizzly Bear Boy,” who might or might not be identical with “Black Hair.” Having scouted for Miles in northern Montana, this brave then returned to the Bitterroot Valley, where he met the fleeing Nez Perces. His counsel to go straight north to Sitting Bull was ignored, but he accompanied the tribe anyway, fighting at Big Hole, where he was wounded, at which juncture “Red Owl’s son” (possibly Over The Point) saved his life. He later dreamed about raiding Howard at Camas Meadows, and this dream was acted on under the half-resurrected leadership of Looking-Glass.
Hair Cut Upward—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Witslahtahpalakin.] A warrior who fought alongside the Three Red Blankets at Clearwater.
Hair Cut Short—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Alikkees, whose Christian name was Alec Hayes.] A well-reputed warrior who defected to the Army at Clearwater.
President Rutherford B. Hayes—The New York Sun, 1876: “He is a candidate whose weakness and unimportance are his principal recommendations to the Republican party.” Mark Twain called his accession “one of the Republican party’s most cold-blooded swindles of the American people . . . I was an ardent Hayes man, but that was natural, for I was pretty young at the time.” While Hayes very likely did steal the election of 1876, he was no worse than his Democratic opponent Tilden, and perhaps a trifle better. He did veto Chinese exclusion, and once remarked in an address to Congress: “Many, if not most of our Indian wars have had their origin in broken promises and acts of injustice upon our part . . .” All the same, he approved the removal of the non-treaty Nez Perces. In my opinion, his worst act as President was to “compromise” by withdrawing Federal troops from the South, thereby permitting racist legislatures to undo most of Emancipation. But before that, when he was Governor of Ohio, Hayes helped pass the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote; so he was not all bad. “In his honesty and high sense of duty Rutherford Birchard Hayes belonged more to the period of his Connecticut and Vermont forebears than to the generation over which he now presided. But in other respects he suited his own times . . .”—Robert V. Bruce.
Heinmot Tooyalakekt—See Chief Joseph.
Helping Another—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Penahwenonmi.] The wife of Wounded Head. She and her young son were both injured at Big Hole, the child fatally.
Horse Rider—(Anglicized Crow.) Thomas Leforge, a Caucasian “squaw man” who came to consider himself a Crow. In his memoirs he claims to be an acquaintance of Looking-Glass’s, so I have imagined that Looking-Glass actually did turn to him among others.
Charles Howard—Called “Charley boy.” Oliver Otis Howard’s brother, and one of his aides-de-camp during the Civil War. Brevetted brigadier general of volunteers. Helped Otis establish Freedmen’s Bureau schools. Later became western secretary of the American Missionary Association, after which edited the Chicago Advance.
Lieutenant Guy Howard—Son of Oliver Otis Howard, and his aide-de-camp from Kamiah to the end of the Nez Perce campaign. In Howard’s autobiography I seem to read (as one might expect) a great proud grief behind the soldierly reticence with which he describes Guy’s death in the Philippine campaign (1899 or 1900). From this and other indications (see Chronology entry for 1855), I have imagined their relationship as especially close. Some of Guy’s campaign sketches were published by the army. They are mediocre whereas Wood’s are sensitive. In the Grace Howard scrapbook at the Oregon Historical Society, there is a sketch of Guy’s which depicts Toohhoolhoolzote threatening his father at the fateful council at Lapwai, when of course matters took the opposite turn. Guy (who was not present at the council) portrays Toohhoolhoolzote as a generic Indian. I have envisioned Guy as more tone deaf to the Indians’ grievances than his father. Since both he and Wood were aides-de-camp, and Wood must have had more intellectual and artistic talent—and, moreover, Wood turned against the military, while Guy stayed in it until he was killed—it seems not implausible that those two young men, both competing for the general’s attention, disliked each other.
Brigadier General Oliver Otis Howard—Called “Otis” by his wife and brothers, and by the Nez Perce “Cut Arm” [“A-timkí-wnin,” literally “arm cut”] and “A-tim,” which means “armless.” (Occasionally they also called him “Sleeveless” or “People Herder,” the latter being my hopefully improved version of what has been translated as “the Indian Herder.”) Accounts of the Nez Perce War tend to depict him as (a) a bigoted blusterer who (as he most certainly did) derailed the Lapwai conference by arresting Toohhoolhoolzote, and (b) a semi-relevant buffoon who never could have caught Joseph on his own. Here is one military historian’s assessment of his latter aspect: “Howard was a world-class military incompetent, often inclined to lie or shift blame for his failures . . . He had no head for a war of maneuver. He consistently failed to understand either the terrain or the enemy and drove his long-suffering troops as if they were a pack of mules.” That such dispraise was by no means universally expressed we can see in the following New York Times dispatch relating to the disgrace of his Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville: “General HOWARD, with all his daring and resolution and vigor, could not stem the tide of the retreating and cowardly poltroons.” In 1963 one historian wrote: “Howard’s conduct of the Nez Perce war was probably the best one possible.” As to the former side of Howard, a sympathetic biographer remarks: “His basic thesis that it was possible to maintain peace with the Indians was fundamentally sound” (this I consider absurd), “but even he knew that because of distrust and misunderstanding on both sides and because of the selfishness of some white men, there would continue to be trouble as long as the Indians could carry on a separate, semi-dependent existence. Hence he became an advocate of as rapid assimilation as possible . . .” I myself find much to admire and compassionate in this man, who paid a significant price for his kindness to oppressed people. Many of the blunders laid at his door in the Nez Perce campaign were made by trigger-happy, undisciplined volunteers [G 2], subordinates such as Perry, and panicked civilians who demanded his protection, which he gave, after which they blamed him for not chasing the enemy more effectively. This cannot excuse his part in the unjust war against the Nez Perces, and his vindictiveness toward Joseph after the surrender; nor does the fact that had he recused himself from it, the outcome would have been no better. For discussion of how I constructed his character, see the note “Howard’s personality” in the source-citations to the chapter “Their Hearts Have Changed.” For consideration of his views on African Americans, see the note on the chapter “Washington, D.C.” in the source-citations to the “Edisto” section.
Rowland Bailey Howard—Otis Howard’s brother; a minor character.
Húsus Kute—(Palouse.) [Also: Húsishúsis Kute. Howard called him “Hushush Cute.”] His name means “Bald Head”; he so named himself when a cannonball took off some of his hair in the Cayuse War. He spoke for the Palouse [G 2] [see also Nez Perce, G 2] at the fateful Lapwai council, although the real chief was Hahtalekin. At Bear’s Paw he managed to kill three warriors by mistake, including Lone Bird. He survived the war and was sent to the Indian Territory with Joseph.
In-Who-Lise—See Broken Tooth.
Captain Jack—(Anglicized appellation, obviously.) The Modoc chief Kintpuash, who fought impressively against the U.S. Army in 1872 in vain defense of his people’s homeland, the lava beds around Lost River, California. Having been the victim of American intimidation and dishonesty, he was persuaded to murder General Canby under flag of truce. Among his opponents in the cavalry were Perry, Theller and Mason. He was eventually worn down, captured, sentenced and hanged.
Joakis—See Captain John.
Captain Stephen Jocelyn—He led Company “B,” Twenty-first Infantry, beginning when Howard took the field after the Battle of White Bird Canyon. Although some officers were certainly hostile to this general, I have no evidence that Jocelyn was in fact one of them; in this novel I have made him so. He fought bravely at the Clearwater.
Captain John—(Anglicized appellation.) [Joakis or Tsoka-y, meaning “Relaxed.”] A Christian Nez Perce. He and Old George [Meopokit] served as Howard’s scouts from Kamiah all the way to Bear’s Paw; they may have set out with Howard even earlier. These were the only two Indian scouts to go so far. Since each one “had a daughter with the hostiles,” they were considered good truce intermediaries at the last battle. How their own people perceived them is debatable. The Nez Perces might have pronounced “Captain John” as Kaptin Tsán, and “Old George” as Ol Tsolts.
Bugler Jones—[Jonesey.] A drunk who struck up an unlikely friendship with Toohhoolhoolzote when the latter was confined by Howard at Lapwai. Killed at White Bird Canyon by Fire Body.
Chief Joseph—(Anglicized appellation, obviously.) [Heinmot Tooyalakekt, “Thunder Travelling to Loftier Heights.”] The missionary Kate McBeth translated his name “The Sound Of Thunder Coming Up From Water,” which McWhorter rejects “since no syllable of it appears to denote water.” However, Aoki’s dictionary has “Hinmató-wyalahtq[‘]it” (absolutive case), meaning “As One Travels Out Of The Water.” A contemporary newspaper gave his name as “In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat.”] His boyhood baptismal name was Ephraim. “He has been called the ‘Indian Napoleon.’ . . . Chief Joseph was by nature destined to be the leader of his people in their futile struggle against the encroachments of the whites.” In fact he seems to have been less the general and more the advocate, diplomat and caregiver. For information on Joseph’s wives and children, see the third source-note to “And the World Keeps Getting Wider and Wider.”
Old Joseph—(Anglicized.) Joseph’s father, whose real name was Wellammoutkin—a reference to braided hair tied in a bun at the forehead in testimony of great knowledge. His final name might have been Tuekalas or Tewetekas. [Aoki gives his name as Tiwí-teqis, or Senior Warrior.] For a time he lived near the whites. The missionary Marcus Whitman wrote of him that “Joseph one of the two oldest Members distinguished himself for his discretion & Christian zeal.” He even permitted Young Joseph to be baptized. After the infamous thief treaty of 1863, Old Joseph rejected Christian teachings (some say he tore up both his Bible and his copy of the treaty of 1855), and withdrew to the area by Wallowa. He caused boundary posts to be erected all around the Wallowa territory; these of course were disregarded by the Americans. He was lucky enough to die before the Nez Perce War.
Kate—(American name.) White Bird’s wife. If he had only one (which I don’t know for sure), then she must have been the woman called Hiyom Tiyatecht. She escaped with him to Canada.
Kapoochas—(Nimiputumít.) [Kapochas.] A sick or wounded old shaman left behind by the Nez Perces at what is now accordingly called Dead Indian Campground, Montana, because one of Captain Fisher’s Bannock or Cheyenne scouts shot him. He might or might not have been the shaman Kah-pots who was wounded at Big Hole, then quickly finished off by the Bannocks.
Kaptin Tsán—See Captain John.
Kulkulsuitim—(Nimiputumít.) A peace emissary, possibly duplicitous, from the non-treaty Nez Perces at Kamiah after the Clearwater battle. His parley made poor Howard believe in Joseph’s imminent surrender.
James Lawyer—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Hallalhotsoot or Hahlalhotoost.] This chief signed the treaties of 1855 and 1863. Therefore, according to Alvin Josephy, he “presided over the destruction of the cultural pride, dignity, and heritage of large numbers of Nez Perces, and . . . robbed them of their self-respect as humans.” But his fellow “treaty Nez Perces” tended to opine that he had done the best that he could.
Lean Elk—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Wahwookya Wasanaw (or Wasaäw).] Also known as “Poker Joe” [Hototo] or “Little Tobacco,” this half-breed Nez Perce (he was partly French) lived near Corvallis (to the south of Missoula). Following the Fort Fizzle affair [G 3], he joined his countrymen in their war against the United States, becoming head-chief after Looking-Glass’s disgrace at Big Hole. As the Nez Perce approached Bear’s Paw, he was deposed in favor of his rival. Had the Nez Perce followed his advice over Looking-Glass’s, they might well have reached safety in Canada—not that that would have saved them. He “owned fast race horses and was clever in other sports and games.” Killed at Bear’s Paw.
