place in a cañon about three acres in extent, between the Frenchman and Republican rivers. The party had much difficulty in getting down into the cañon, but finally found a place where they could drive through. They locked the wheels of the wagons and went down one at a time. They went over the ground carefully. It was strewed with buffalo meat which the Pawnee had dried. They had been camping in the cañon for some time, and according to the story told to Mr. Berger by the agent of the Pawnee there were two white men from the east in the Pawnee camp. They were taken prisoners by the Sioux. Later a detachment of soldiers chased the Sioux, and they released the agent and the two eastern white men. The agent told Mr. Berger that the Pawnee had been upon their hunt and had procured the best meat of about one hundred buffaloes. The Sioux surprised the Pawnee by covering themselves with buffalo robes and marching toward the camp. Although the Pawnee had secured their winter meat, on the morning of August 5 many of their men pursued a herd of buffaloes so as to have fresh meat as they traveled. When they came nearer the Sioux threw off their buffalo robes, jumped to their feet and began shooting. The Pawnee were demoralized, and the entire band dropped everything and fled. The agent said that he tried to get them to stop and make a stand, but they were too frightened. Everyone killed was shot from behind with a forty-five calibre gun. Mr. Berger described an impressive incident of the battle. Rain had washed deep pockets on the west side of the cañon; and in one of them an entire family, consisting of a man, a woman, and five small children, were lying dead. Mr. Berger counted in all the bodies of sixty-five Indians although the agent told him there were over one hundred and twenty-five killed. Some died along the road and some after they returned home. Though the battle occurred on August 5, on November 13 the bodies were still well preserved.

After exploring the battle-ground, Mr. Berger and his

party followed the cañon south to its confluence with the Republican valley and then traveled east to the site now occupied by Culbertson where they camped for the night. The next day, November 14, the party arrived at W. H. Berger's home in Red Willow county. After visiting here for a few days, George L. Berger and Mr. Kilgore returned home and arrived in Cass county about December 1.

Mr. George L. Berger, having been informed that there is reliable evidence that the bodies were buried by a detachment of soldiers from Fort McPherson on August 24, 1873, in a letter written January 26, 1918, again insisted that his party found them unburied on November 13, 1873. It seems probable that the first interment was very shallow, so that after the bodies had become mummified in the dry atmosphere they were exposed by wind and rain. Mr. Berger's letter, in part, follows:

On November the 13th, 1873, when our party were there, the bodies of dead Indians were laying on the ground just as they were killed. They were not decomposed; they were in good state of preservation, considering the heat and the time they had laid on the ground. The flesh had just dried and shrunken. There was no bad stink, just a little musty odor. In walking across the space where the bodies were laying, not to exceed three acres, I counted 65 dead Indians, but there were 125 killed in all.

As to when these bodies were buried, the historian you speak of is absolutely mistaken. I have not got the exact date but positively it was April or May, 1874. They positively laid on the ground where they were killed all fall and winter. When I started on this trip I left my home, section 29, township 12, range 11, Louisville precinct, Cass Co., Nebr., on October the 28th, 1873, and got back just before Christmas.

THE TRUE LOGAN FONTENELLE

BY MELVIN RANDOLPH GILMORE

Curator of the State Historical Society of North Dakota

Not long ago accounts were published of the presentation of a portrait and the placing of a tablet to the memory of Logan Fontenelle in the Fontenelle Hotel, Omaha. The spirit which prompts the commemoration of historic persons and events is commendable; but the exercise of this praiseworthy spirit should, of course, be governed by intelligence and devotion to truth. The posthumous honor of an historical personage is not enhanced but rather suffers detraction by inaccurate or wholly false setting.

Logan Fontenelle is of considerable historical importance by virtue of his position as a go-between for the two races; for in 1854 when seven chiefs of the Omaha tribe went to Washington to make the treaty of cession of their lands to the United States they took him with them as their interpreter. It appears that Louis Sanssouci was the official department interpreter at that time, but the chiefs took Logan Fontenelle with them as their own interpreter.

It is a pity that those who are disposed to commemorate the name of Fontenelle ignore the real service he did perform in the negotiation of the notable treaty of 1854 by which the United States acquired all that part of what is now Nebraska from the Missouri River to the Sand-hills and from the Niobrara to the Platte, while they claim for him a work he did not perform and a place which in fact he did not hold. Members of the Omaha tribe who were contemporaries of Logan Fontenelle and familiarly acquainted with him have told me that he never was a chief, constituted and inducted according to the ancient laws and usages of their nation. They say that they have heard

that it is commonly reported and believed among the white people that he was a chief of the Omaha, but they say it is not true and they cannot account for the story current among the white people. And this assertion by present living persons of the Omaha tribe who knew him all his life is in accordance with other accounts left on record by contemporaries and fellow tribesmen of his who died years

ago.

In Contributions to North American Ethnology (VI, 458), there is a narrative by Two Crows of a war expedi tion in which he took part against the Yankton Dakota in 1854. In this narrative he refers to the departure of the chiefs to Washington "to sell land" and states that Louis Sanssouci and Logan Fontenelle went along as interpre

In the same volume there is a narrative by John Bigelk of an attack by the Dakota on the Omaha near Beaver Creek, north of the Loup River, during the summer buffalo hunt of 1855. This Bigelk was an elder in the Omaha Mission Church and a nephew of the Big Elk mentioned by Long and other explorers. Near the end of the narrative (p. 464) he refers to the killing of Logan Fontenelle thus: "They killed the white man, the interpreter, who was with us." He calls Fontenelle a white man because he had a white father. This was a common designation of half-breeds by full-bloods, just as a mulatto might commonly be called a "nigger" by white people, although as much white as black by race.

In the United States Statutes at Large (X, 1046), the following names appear as signatures of the treaty: Logan Fontenelle, Joseph La Flesche, Standing Hawk, Little Chief, Village Maker, Noise, Yellow Smoke. These seven signatories are designated in the instrument as "Omaha Chiefs". I have asked old men of the Omaha tribe to name for me the chiefs who went to Washington to make the treaty in 1854. In answer they have given me the following names: Two Grizzly Bears, Joseph La Flesche, Stand

ing Hawk, Little Chief, Village Maker, Noise, Yellow Smoke. It will be seen that the name Two Grizzly Bears in this list does not appear in the official list of signers of the treaty. The other six names are the same as those appended to the treaty. Again, in Two Crows' account of his war party of 1854 he mentions Two Grizzly Bears as one of the chiefs about to go to Washington "to sell land." Thus a discrepancy appears between the list of signers of the treaty given in the statutes and the list as always given by Omaha of their chiefs who went to Washington "to sell land." Perhaps that discrepancy is explained by the following statements. It is said that when the delegation appeared in Washington, Logan Fontenelle being with them but not accounted for to Manypenny, commissioner of Indian affairs, he asked who this man was and what he was doing there, and Two Grizzly Bears answered for him and said "I brought him here to interpret for me." So the commissioner was satisfied. This may well be the reason why the name of Logan Fontenelle appears on the treaty instead of that of Chief Two Grizzly Bears. Thus it would seem that Fontenelle in playing Aaron to Two Grizzly Bears Moses has had appropriated to himself whatever fame and honor should properly pertain to the latter, while his own proper place and honor have been entirely neg lected by those who in this day purpose to commemorate his public service.

I have stated before that the living members of the Omaha tribe who by personal knowledge are qualified to answer the question uniformly say that Logan Fontenelle was never a chief. I have also shown that after the death of Fontenelle he was spoken of by Two Crows as "the white man, interpreter", and not as a chief. And if one knows anything about the social, political and governmental organization of the Omaha tribe he will see at once, on exercising the slightest degree of thought, that it must be true that he could not be a chief. The Omaha tribal organization consisted of two half tribes; and each of these half