well occupied. Captain Russell
assigned to me the special work of keeping up the police control, and
as I had learned at an early day to speak Chinook (the "court
language" among the coast tribes) almost as well as the Indians
themselves, I was thereby enabled to steer my way successfully on
many critical occasions.

For some time the most disturbing and most troublesome element we had
was the Rogue River band. For three or four years they had fought
our troops obstinately, and surrendered at the bitter end in the
belief that they were merely overpowered, not conquered. They openly
boasted to the other Indians that they could whip the soldiers, and
that they did not wish to follow the white man's ways, continuing
consistently their wild habits, unmindful of all admonitions.
Indeed, they often destroyed their household utensils, tepees and
clothing, and killed their horses on the graves of the dead, in the
fulfillment of a superstitious custom, which demanded that they
should undergo, while mourning for their kindred, the deepest
privation in a property sense. Everything the loss of which would
make them poor was sacrificed on the graves of their relatives or
distinguished warriors, and as melancholy because of removal from
their old homes caused frequent deaths, there was no lack of occasion
for the sacrifices. The widows and orphans of the dead warriors were
of course the chief mourners, and exhibited their grief in many
peculiar ways. I remember one in particular which was universally
practiced by the near kinsfolk. They would crop their hair very
close, and then cover the head with a sort of hood or plaster of
black pitch, the composition being clay, pulverized charcoal, and the
resinous gum which exudes from the pine-tree. The hood, nearly an
inch in thickness, was worn during a period of mourning that lasted
through the time it would take nature, by the growth of the hair,
actually to lift from the head the heavy covering of pitch after it
had become solidified and hard as stone. It must be admitted that
they underwent considerable discomfort in memory of their relatives.
It took all the influence we could bring to bear to break up these
absurdly superstitious practices, and it looked as if no permanent
improvement could be effected, for as soon as we got them to discard
one, another would be invented. When not allowed to burn down their
tepees or houses, those poor souls who were in a dying condition