1907, WA: Among the exchanges
The passing of an important Native leader was reported with some Chinook Jargon.
This was in the early post-frontier era, and the Jargon went untranslated.
Everyone understood.
Chief Sta-hi was a signer of one of the (Gov. Isaac) Stevens Treaties in the mid-1850s.
Old Chief Sta-hi Is Dead.
Information has been received from
Maddock Station, up the Big Klicki-
tat river on the line of the C. R. &
N. railway, that the old Indian chief,
Sta-hi, died at Fort Simcoe while on
a visit to a daughter. Sta-hi was 92
years old. He one time said to the
writer that his father lived to be 120
years of age. He also related that
his father knew King George’s men [British/Canadians]
and used to trade them furs. Sta-hi
owned at the time of his death an
allotment of land on the Big Klicki-
tat.It is said that 50 years ago he pos-
sessed 1000 ponies that roamed over
the bunch grass prairie now known
as the famous Horseshoe Bend wheat
belt, and that he then ruled the op-
ulent Wah-kia-cus tribe of Klickitats.
Some years back he let the mantle
of chief fall to his much younger
half-brother, Skookum [‘Strong’] Walihee, now
the “Apple King” of Big Klickitat
valley. The old chief was noted for
promoting peace among the whites
and Indians. In the Cayuse war of
1878 he was one of the very few In-
dians who were friendly to the set-
tlers. He aided the late “Father”
Wilbur in his capture of that arrant
chief, Sha-mt-ah, and braves at Tum–
water [‘the waterfall’] in the war of 1878. — The Dalles
Chronicle (Lyle, Wash., Corres).
— from the Pendleton (OR) East Oregonian of April 6, 1907, page 7, column 1
